New logo, Marshall Android phone, App install interstitials + more – Latest From Google #8

A crazy amount of exciting things are happening in the Google world and communities, so I’m excited to share the latest!

This is part 8 in the Latest from Google series.

New Google logo

As well, almost everyone, knows by now Google has changed its logo. It’s been very interesting to hearing and reading about the process behind this, the reasoning and what it means on so many levels.

We’ve taken the Google logo and branding, which were originally built for a single desktop browser page, and updated them for a world of seamless computing across an endless number of devices and different kinds of inputs (such as tap, type and talk).

You can also see more in this video of how the logo has evolved over the years:

Marshall Android phone

Marshall phone release party

Zound Industries, who works with Marshall, the legendary amplifier maker, have created headphones and more products with the classic Marshall branding. End of August they released the Marshall London phone, which is strongly targeted at people interested in music and sound. It has two front-facing speakers, two stereo jacks, physical scroll wheel for volume and a dedicated button to get to all your music one click away, no matter which service you are using – local files, Spotify, etc.

What I really like here is two things:

  • The phone runs Android
  • The phone has a clear target user group and need

In this time where, honestly, most mobile phones look the same I really welcome companies and brands building more clear and unique products with a very distinct style. Also happy to see that Android can accommodate that, the pairing of the Marhsall brand and and an adaptable operating system.

Marshall phone release party

Google Photos: Rediscover this Day

Google Photos has become a really popular service for people, with great apps across mobile platforms paired with a full web experience. My personal favorite features are free unlimited storage, for pictures up to 16 MP, and the machine-learned automatic grouping of pictures. Fantastic time saver to not have to tag every picture manually.

Now the Rediscover this Day feature has launched, which you can opt-in to in the Assistant, where it will help you to reminisce about events on that date in the past.

App install interstitials

The mobile web has been plagued with ads for installing apps, delivered in an interstitial fashion hindering the user from seeing the content and leading a far-less-than-optimal user experience. Basically, the new version of pop-up windows.

Google has now taken the stance that web pages that deliver these app-install ads hiding a significant amount of the content will no longer be regarded as mobile-friendly in search results. Instead, we suggest that you instead rely on built-in web browser behavior for web app installs, such as Smart Banners in Safari and Native App Install Banners in Chrome to allow more control over the experience to the user.

I also recommend using the Mobile-Friendly Test to check your web site.

Mobile-Friendly Test

Life Sciences becomes new Alphabet company

The Life Sciences team, aiming at developing new technologies to make healthcare more proactive, is now graduating from the X lab and becomes its own separate company under Alphabet.

They’ll continue to work with other life sciences companies to move new technologies from early stage R&D to clinical testing—and, hopefully—transform the way we detect, prevent, and manage disease.

Tweets in Google Search results

Back in May we launched Tweets in Google Search results on mobile devices, and this has now been launched on Desktop as well.

Twitter results in Google Search

Autopopulate Calendar with travel info & more from Gmail

To make your lives easier and automate the workflow, if you use Gmail and Google Calendar and you get e-mails with information about travel, hotel stays, restaurant bookings or similar, they will automatically be added to your calendar.

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