Google is making a keyboard for the iPhone

Gesture-based typing, GIF searches, and more

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Google has been developing a third-party keyboard for iOS that would put the company’s search engine in a highly used part of the interface, The Verge has learned. The keyboard, which incorporates a variety of search options, has been in development for months, according to people familiar with the matter. It’s unclear whether or when Google plans to release it. The company declined to comment.

The Google keyboard incorporates a number of features meant to distinguish it from the stock iOS keyboard. Like its Android counterpart, the Google keyboard for iOS employs gesture-based typing, so you can slide your finger from one letter to the next and let Google guess your intended word. Tap the Google logo and you can access traditional web search. It also appears to have distinct buttons for pictures and GIF searches, both presumably powered by Google image search. The keyboard is visually distinct from the standard Android keyboard, which incorporates voice search but no text or image-based searching.

Google Keyboard for Android

The keyboard, which has been in circulation among employees for months, is designed to boost the number of Google searches on iOS. While the company all but holds a monopoly on the global search market, there’s evidence that mobile search is proving much less lucrative for Google than the desktop. Using publicly available numbers, journalist Charles Arthur argued in October that half of smartphone users perform zero searches per day. (Using the same math, Arthur said desktop users perform an average of 1.23 searches per day.)

Even if the math is inexact, the trend is inarguable. A high percentage of desktop searches are for keywords like "Facebook" or "Gmail" — searches that are unnecessary on mobile phones, where users can simply tap on the relevant app to launch it. The problem for Google — and for Alphabet, its parent company — is that search is where Google shows users its most expensive ads. Any sign of decline in search would be an existential threat to the company.

All of which makes an iOS keyboard feel inevitable. But it remains to be seen whether iOS users have an appetite for Google’s approach to typing. Third-party keyboards have been generally been a disappointment on iPhones and iPads. When users have more than one installed, they must constantly cycle through them. Many third-party keyboards have also suffered from sluggishness and other performance issues.

But Google’s brand is strong, and for users who perform many searches per day — or simply want a solid gesture-based system for text entry — the Google keyboard could be appealing. The only question now is whether, or when, the company plans to release it.

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How to work offline with Google Drive files

The mystery of how to work offline with Google Drive files is revealed in this tutorial for desktop, laptop, and mobile users.

If you're a Google Drive fan, you will be interested to know that you don't have to be online to work with the cloud-based tool. Since this trips up some users, I will explain how to work offline with Google Drive files.

The platform you use will dictate the steps to take for working offline. To keep things simple, I show how to work offline in Google Chrome (which works the same way on Linux, Windows, Mac, and Chrome OS) and on the Android platform.

Working offline via Chrome

I assume you are using Chrome on a desktop or a laptop. Although a desktop would rarely go offline, there are occasions that it could, and you certainly don't want to lose work or lose the ability to work.

In order to work offline with Google Drive files via Chrome, you must set up Google Drive to sync. Unlike on the mobile platform, you must turn on offline access to the entire drive and not just specific files. (You need to be connected to the internet in order to set this up.)

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To enable offline access to Google Drive, follow these steps.

1. Open Chrome.
2. Make sure you are signed into your Google account.
3. Go to Google Drive Settings.
4. From the popup, check the box for Offline.

You should receive a warning that Google is syncing your work to the computer — allow this to happen. Once the offline sync has finished, you can edit Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Drawings files.

Working offline via Android

The mobile version of the Google Drive app works quite differently. If you open Google Drive on your mobile device and swipe right (from the left edge of the screen), you will see the Google Drive sidebar. From within the Google Drive sidebar (Figure A), tap Offline.

Figure A

Image: Jack Wallen

A Verizon-branded Nexus 6 showing the Google Drive sidebar.

Within the Offline section of Google Drive, tap the + button and select the type of file you want to create (the options are folders, scans, Docs, Sheets, or Slides) and do your work. Once your device returns to online status, that file will sync with your account and appear in the root of your Google Drive account.

If you need to enable a specific file (i.e., a file that is already within your Google Drive account) to be available offline, follow these steps.

1. Open Google Drive on your mobile device.
2. Navigate to the folder that contains that file.
3. Tap the info button associated with the file (a small "i" in the bottom left corner of the file icon).
4. Tap the Available Offline switch to enable (Figure B).
5. Allow the file to download.

The file should appear in the Google Drive Offline folder on your mobile device.

Figure B

Image: Jack Wallen

Enabling offline access to a file from within Google Drive.

Now you get it

You see how easy it is to use Google Drive files while working offline on your desktop/laptop or your mobile device. Now...get back to work!

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Google Photos now supports Live Photos on iOS

It may be time to make the switch to Google Photos

Google Photos will now allow users to back up and view Live Photos taken with the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, the company announced in a tweet. The latest version of the iOS app has finally received support for the format, nearly six months after Apple introduced Live Photos in the latest iPhone.

The numbers have already shown that Google knows what its doing with photo storage, as the app racked up over 100 million users in less than a year. For many users, this will mean you can turn Live Photos back on without fear of destroying the paltry 5GB of iCloud storage Apple gives out for free. If you were holding out on making the switch due to the lack of Live Photo support, this may be the time to give Google's offering a chance.

Here's how Google Photos solved our photo storage nightmare

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Google is letting celebrities and businesses post directly to search results

(Google)

Google has begun experimenting with an entirely new format for search results, which could eventually let any brand, celebrity, or organization have a dedicated Twitter-like feed built right into the company's search engine. Google first started employing it last month by letting presidential campaigns post lengthy debate rebuttals — and later by curating candidates' stances on key issues like gun control and immigration. The design of these search results is similar to Google's mobile "cards," which can be swiped as well as clicked or tapped on to expand for more information.

Now the same tools are being extended to small businesses and could potentially be offered to celebrities and bigger-name brands. The change, which Google confirmed toThe Verge was a test, was noticed first by search expert Mike Blumenthal, who was searching for engagement ring stores in Buffalo, New York and came across a specially designed advertisement for local seller Andrew Jewelers. Clicking on one of Andrew Jewelers' posts, which are curated into a Twitter feed-like stream of ads, opens up a dedicated full-screen webpage with text and photos. You can also share the individual posts from the search results page, but you can't like or comment on any of them. You could imagine this feature working for, say, Kanye West and his clothing line.

A NEW TYPE OF SEARCH RESULT DESIGNED FOR SELF-PROMOTION

The initiative looks similar to a new product called Google Posts, which now has its own dedicated website. (A Google representative told The Verge that the initiative is not called Google Posts, and does not have a name.) The company calls Posts an "experimental new podium on Google" where you can "now communicate with text, images and videos directly" on the search engine. The page says it's limited to the 2016 US presidential campaign. "In the future, we plan to make it available to other prominent figures and organizations. If you're interested, please join the waitlist," the website reads. It looks like the expansion has already started.

Google's push to create new and more dynamic search results could help it establish both a social presence and a new advertising product within its most used piece of software. Google's oft-forgotten social network, Google+, remains woefully out of the picture, and the company has increasingly been looking for new methods to keep the web relevant in the age of the mobile app. So it would make sense for Google to extend the same powerful search and social features it's given to presidential candidates to brands and other high-profile people. Google says it does not plan on charging for this feature.

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You Can Now Edit And Format Your Google Docs By Voice

About six months ago, Google introduced voice typing for Google Docs on the web to allow you to dictate your text into a document. Today it’s taking this feature a step further by also allowing you to edit and format your text by voice, too.

This means you can now say things like “select all,” “align center,” “bold,” “got to end of line,” or “increase font size” and Google Docs will (hopefully) understand and follow your commands. You can find a full list of available commands here (and you can also just say “voice commands help” in Docs and it will pop up all of these commands, too).

If you’ve ever used desktop software like Dragon NaturallySpeaking then you are probably already familiar with how these commands work. Using voice commands for editing text never struck me as all that convenient (using the keyboard is simply faster for issuing these commands), but if you have an impairment that keeps you from using the keyboard, these new commands may now make using Google Docs an option for you.

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Google releases Resizer web tool to test Material Design at various resolutions

The Material Design Guidelines are considered a living document by Google’s designers and receive constant updates and new additions. To help with their recent guidelines on responsive UI, Google has released a web-based tool to see what a website looks like on various devices and at different resolutions.

While the responsive UI guidelines are geared at apps, they can also apply to design on the web, particularly web apps. Users can enter a URL into the Resizer tool or select from a list of pre-selected sites that have good implementations of responsive design. Next to the URL bar, users can select different device views. The default view displays a webpage on laptop, tablet, and smartphone screen side-by-side.

Going into a specific view, users can select a specific width to view the webpage, with various pre-selected resolutions. The website views are fully interactive and can be scrolled. The specific pages loaded up keeps users logged into whatever sites they may already be in. Developers who are working on password protected sites will find this feature particularly useful.

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Google says it tracks personal student data, but not for advertising

The new Google logo on display at Google headquarters in September 2015 in Mountain View, Calif. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

What does Google do with the personal information it collects from children who use Google products at school? That has become a pressing question for privacy advocates as Google has quickly grown into one of the nation’s largest providers of educational technology in K-12 schools.

Now Google has provided some answers to that question in a seven-page letter to Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), the ranking member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law.

Google does not use K-12 students’ personal information to serve targeted advertisements, the company says in the letter, which was signed by Sue Molinari, Google’s vice president for public policy and government relations.

But Google does track data from students for other reasons, including developing and improving Google products, the company wrote. Such tracking happens when students are signed into their Google Apps for Education account but are using certain Google services — such as Search, YouTube, Blogger and Maps — that are considered outside Google’s core educational offerings.

Thousands of K-12 schools and universities — and more than 30 million students and teachers — use Google’s Apps for Education, which the company provides to schools free of charge.

Franken said that Google’s response was “thorough,” but said he will seek further clarification from Google about some of its privacy policies regarding student data.

“Google’s response to my questioning was thorough, and I appreciate its engagement on this topic,” Franken said in a statement. “But I’m still concerned about what exactly Google does with the information it collects and processes from students who are browsing outside websites—like YouTube—while logged in to Google’s education services. I’m also still interested in whether or not Google can provide parents and students with stronger privacy protections—for example, by allowing students to ‘opt-in’ to data collection. I plan to continue working with Google to clarify some of its policies, because it’s important for the privacy of our students.”

The company also said that it does not sell student data to third parties and does not share students’ personal information except in a few circumstances outlined in its public privacy policies — such as when schools ask the company to share the data, or the law requires it.

The letter came in response to a request from Franken last month that Google provide detailed information about its student privacy policies, voicing concern that children’s personal information was being collected and used without parents’ knowledge or consent.

“I believe Americans have a fundamental right to privacy, and that right includes a student or parent’s access to information about what data are being collected about them and how the data are being used,” Franken wrote in hisJan. 13 letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

Franken asked Google to explain not only whether it is targeting ads to students now, but whether it has ever done so. The company answered that question obliquely, writing that while ads in its educational services have “always been off by default,” in 2014 the company took the “additional step” of removing administrators’ ability to turn on ads.

The “additional step” refers to a blog post that Google published in April 2014 after facing a lawsuit alleging that Google had illegally scanned student emails for commercial gain. The blog post said that the company had “permanently removed all ads scanning” in its email service for schools. Privacy advocates saw it as a tacit admission that the company had indeed been scanning student emails in order to target ads.

The lawsuit, which was framed as a class-action case on behalf of virtually all users of Google’s education apps, ended in 2014 after a federal judge declined to certify the class. The company is now facing similar allegations in a case filed last month by four students and alumni from the University of California-Berkeley.

Nate Cardozo, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based privacy group, said that the letter is the first time that Google has made an unqualified statement that it does not target ads to K-12 students. That could mean that the company did target ads until recently, but its practices have now changed, Cardozo said.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation alleged in a December 2015 filing with the Federal Trade Commission that Google is gathering information about nearly everything that students are doing while signed into their school-based Google accounts.

Cardozo said he believes that Google’s tracking of data when students use Maps, Search and other such applications amounts to collection of student data without parental knowledge or consent, which he said he believes is a violation of the voluntary Student Privacy Pledge that Google signed.

In its letter to Franken, Google says that administrators have the authority to decide which apps students may use, and can only allow access if parents consent.

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So Long Google Search Appliance

It’s the end of an era for the tech giant’s earliest business-focused product.

Google’s Search Appliance, the company’s first business-focused product introduced in 2002, is being put out to pasture.

The tech giant told its reseller and consulting partners the news via email on Thursday, noting that they can continue to sell one-year license renewals for existing hardware customers through 2017, but that they will be unable to sell new hardware. Renewals will end in 2018, according to a copy of the email viewed by Fortune.

Google will continue to issue bug fixes, security updates, and technical support as long as license agreements are valid, which could be through 2019 in some cases.

According to a post by Perficient, a Google partner:

Google has decided to sunset the hardware-based Google Search Appliance (GSA) and focus their engineering efforts on cloud-based solutions. The GSA will remain supported for the next three years, giving you plenty of time to evaluate the future of your enterprise search investment and continue to deliver value to your business

Fortune contacted Google for comment and will update this story if a response is provided.

Google means business when it comes to cloud

Google’s  GOOG -2.61%  appliance was intended for companies that want to use Google technology to search internal documents by author name, prices, dates, and other data. Google’s partners made money by integrating the appliance’s search with customer document archives, applications, and websites.

Another long-time Google Enterprise partner that got the notice said the writing may have been on the wall: Google already phased out one model of the appliance three years ago.

This move could be a sign that Diane Greene, who was named senior vice president of Google’s enterprise unit in November, is setting priorities as the company prepares to push Google cloud more aggressively, as company CEO Sundar Pichai indicated on the company’s fourth quarter earnings call this week.

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter about the business of technology.

Per the Google notification, the company said it is working on a new cloud-based product which is now in limited beta.

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Google Wants To Text Message You With Holiday Shopping Deals

A number of startups emerged this year to offer consumers an easier way to shop: instead of immersive, e-commerce experiences, companies like Magic, Operator, Fetch, GoButler, and others, including Facebook, are testing out messaging-based virtual assistants that help you buy nearly anything from airline tickets to dinner reservations, to great gifts, and more. Now Google is getting in on that action, too. The company is currently trialing its own SMS-based alerting service, this time focused on helping holiday shoppers find the best deals.

The service was spotted in the wild earlier today by the unofficial Google-watching blog,Google Operating System, which saw the option to “subscribe” to Black Friday phone deals pop up on their mobile phone after a related search query.

However, the new deals service was quietly announced by Google earlier this month, by way of a Google+ post. It received a little press coverage at the time, but largely on blogs that only cover Google, search engines or SEO, as opposed to more mainstream attention. That may change as consumers turn to their phones to find Black Friday deals in the days ahead.

While framed as something Google is testing during the “holidays,” the move indicates that even the search giant acknowledges that the way consumers will shop, browse, and transact on mobile devices in the future may end up being radically different from on the desktop web.

With our phones, (and now our watches, too), our devices are turning into alerting platforms that deliver us the information we need, when we need it. And instead of searching and comparing dozens of options, we may simply communicate with an assistant – part human, part AI – who helps narrow down our options, present us with the best choices, then fulfill the request. This is what’s called the “invisible app” market, as we’ve referred to it here on TechCrunch, and it makes sense given the rise of mobile messaging, combined with the ability to integrate a virtual assistant-powered experience over familiar communication channels like SMS.

Google’s service today falls far short of a personalized assistant, but the company has already proven with its virtual assistant Google Now that it could expand in this direction, if it choose.

But for now, the idea behind the new deal alerting service is to translate the shift in how consumers shop into a new ad format. These “deal alerts” are actually an AdWords option that’s being trialed with a limited number of advertisers, the company explains.

Google declined to provide information related to ad pricing, or a list of participating advertisers, given the service is considered to be only a “test” at this time.

However, what we do know is that the alerts are  only available on mobile, only in the U.S., and the text messages returned are powered by Google. In fact, Google is creating customized text for those who sign up directly, the company says.

Here’s how it works:

If you search for a general term like “black friday deals” from your mobile phone, you may see an option that prompts you to subscribe to alerts from a Google ad at the top of your search results. If you choose to do so, your phone number will be kept private, says Google, and you’ll be able to opt out of the text messages at any time.

However, while choosing to use the new alerts service, you’ll be sent relevant offers from participating retailers across a number of popular holiday shopping categories, like computers, phones, and gaming consoles.

The Google Operating System blog happened to spot the text-messaging deal subscription service when they searched for “moto x play” – indicating that the ads aren’t only tied to “black friday” or “cyber monday” search queries, but to any matching products from participating advertisers.

You don’t have to wait to see an ad to try out the new service. Google says you can text the word “JOIN” to the following numbers, depending on what deals you want to see:

For Black Friday – 847-904-0608
For Cyber Monday – 847-906-8958
For Holiday deals – 847-904-0596

We did experience a few bugs when doing so, though. For example, a link to “learn more” that’s texted back after sign-up redirects you to a broken web page.

Google says the ads began rolling out earlier this month, following the initial AdWords announcement, but it’s likely that they were still few and far between until Black Friday neared.

If the test is successful, there’s potential for Google to expand this service beyond just tracking holiday deals. If consumers opted in, the service could serve as an app-less counterpart to the “Google Now” virtual assistant, pinging you about other relevant e-commerce opportunities based on search history (if you could get past the creepy factor of something like that), or you could track product categories or brand names, then be alerted to sales.

But it’s unclear at this time what Google will consider a successful test, or if it has any further plans, if that’s the case. It’s also unclear if consumers are even interested in a this sort of deals alerting service.

After all, the benefit to the other messaging-based commerce startups is that human touch. Even when primarily automated, there’s a conversational aspect to using the rival services, and most will also adapt to your preferences over time. Google’s service, for now at least, feels more like opting in to advertisements – as it is – and less like personal assistance.

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Google's Lollipop now lives on one in four Android devices

The process for updating Android remains a slow and frustrating one for users who want the latest version.

Android Lollipop is flavoring more devices but still lags behind the older KitKat and Jelly Bean versions.Nicole Cozma/CNET

It's taken a while, but the Lollipop version of Google's Android mobile software has reached one-quarter of all Android devices.

Lollipop's exact share now stands at 25.6 percent, according to an update to Google's Android Developers Dashboard page on Wednesday, up marginally from early October. The number includes all devices recorded at the Google Play store over the seven-day period ended November 2.

Lollipop launched one full year ago.

The slow adoption rate is a symptom of the Android upgrade process in which both smartphone makers and wireless carriers must test each new version from Google for each device before a rollout can commence. That process frustrates Android users who must wait weeks or months for the latest version and challenges developers who must design apps for the various versions of Android.

By contrast, updates to the iOS software on Apple's iPhones involve just Apple itself, which controls the entire process of creating and testing a new version and then getting it out to all users at the same time.

The latest version, iOS 9, launched in September of this year. It already has arrived on66 percent of all iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches.

This month marks the first appearance of Android 6.0 Marshmallow in the Developers Dashboard, debuting with a 0.3 percent share. Launched on October 5, Marshmallow is actually rolling out to devices faster than Lollipop, which didn't hit the dashboard until February 2015, according to blog site Android Police.

Marshmallow comes preinstalled on Google's new Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P. At the start of October, Google began pushing Marshmallow to several existing devices, including the Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 7 (2013 edition), Nexus 9 and Nexus Player. Later in October, Korean mobile phone maker LG kicked off the Marshmallow upgrade to its flagship G4 smartphone in Poland.

Android 4.4 KitKat remains the most prevalent version with a 38 percent slice of the market, followed by Jelly Bean with a 29 percent share. KitKat was released in November 2013, while Jelly Bean debuted in June 2012.

Google and LG did not immediately respond to CNET's request for comment.

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Google Play Games update for Android lets users record and share gameplay

And wait, you can also append a video of yourself – displayed upon the top right corner of the actual gameplay video – commenting upon the gameplay, pulling faces, illustrating walk-through or cheats, anything really, using your smartphone’s front camera.

To start recording a game, just find it in the Play Games app and press the record button. The video recorded this way is either in 480p or 720p resolution, depending what kind of file size you want. He went on to further state that there are massive YouTube channels dedicated strictly to video game related content such as VanossGaming, which generates millions of views per video.

The Google Play Games app for Android is gaining a new feature that’ll let you record your gameplay and then upload it to YouTube. When you’re done recording, the app also has a basic video editing interface that lets you upload to YouTube.

The new, game-recording addition is now available for users across the U.S. and the United Kingdom – no surprises there – while the ‘rest of the world’should get it soon as well.

Google recently rolled out an updated version of the YouTube Gaming app for Android, allowing users to record and/or stream live video of their gaming session over YouTube.

The Google Play update will begin rolling out to U.S. and United Kingdom users in the next few days, with more countries expected to receive the update shortly after. If so, you can now easily share your gaming experiences with others online.

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