Mobile tips

Each and every day, we are humbled by the trajectory of Android and our partners. With a year-on-year growth rate of more than 250%, 850,000 new Android devices are activated each day, jetting the total number of Android devices around the world past 300 million. These numbers are a testament to the break-neck speed of innovation that defines the Android ecosystem. Last year at Mobile World Congress (MWC), we announced that there were more than 150,000 apps in Android Market. That number tripled to more than 450,000 apps today, with over one billion app downloads happening every month. Think about the astonishing number of songs Shazam�ed, places Qype�ed and foursquare mayorships! To celebrate the hard work and success of our developer community, we�ve built special �app pods� into our Android stand at MWC. Many of these featured apps demonstrate the latest Android innovations, such as Android Beam, which lets you share content like web pages, videos, directions, and apps�just by touch...

As I was sitting on the ferry commuting to Google�s Sydney office this morning, two thoughts occurred to me. First, Australia is beautiful. If you�ve never been here, you really should visit. And second, it�s amazing how productive I can be with just my Android phone and an Internet connection. I was responding to email, reading news articles, and editing documents�just like I do at the office. Only the view was better! We want to give everyone the chance to be productive no matter where they are, so today we�re releasing a new update to the Google Docs app for Android . We've brought the collaborative experience from Google Docs on the desktop to your Android device. You'll see updates in real time as others type on their computers, tablets and phones, and you can just tap the document to join in. We also updated the interface to make it easier to work with your documents on the go. For example, you can pinch to zoom and focus on a specific paragraph or see the whole document ...

In 2008, we launched Google Chrome to help make the web better. We�re excited that millions of people around the world use Chrome as their primary browser and we want to keep improving that experience. Today, we're introducing Chrome for Android Beta, which brings many of the things you�ve come to love about Chrome to your Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone or tablet. Like the desktop version, Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity, but it also features seamless sign-in and sync so you can take your personalized web browsing experience with you wherever you go, across devices. Speed With Chrome for Android, you can search, navigate and browse fast� Chrome fast . You can scroll through web pages as quickly as you can flick your finger. When searching, your top search results are loaded in the background as you type so pages appear instantly. And of course, both search and navigation can all be done quickly from the Chrome omnibox . Simplicity Chrome for Andro...

By Hiroshi Lockheimer, VP of Engineering, Android The last year has been a phenomenal one for the Android ecosystem. Device activations grew 250% year-on-year, and the total number of app downloads from Android Market topped 11 billion. As the platform continues to grow, we�re focused on bringing you the best new features and innovations - including in security. Adding a new layer to Android security Today we�re revealing a service we�ve developed, codenamed Bouncer, which provides automated scanning of Android Market for potentially malicious software without disrupting the user experience of Android Market or requiring developers to go through an application approval process. The service performs a set of analyses on new applications, applications already in Android Market, and developer accounts. Here�s how it works: once an application is uploaded, the service immediately starts analyzing it for known malware, spyware and trojans. It also looks for behaviors that indicate an applic...

(Cross posted on the Google Docs Blog & Google Enterprise Blog ) There may be times when you don�t have an Internet connection on your Android device, but you still want access to a file you�ve saved in Google Docs. Now you can select any file in Google Docs to make it available offline. So regardless of whether you�re connected to the internet, you�re always connected to those files. Even better, Google Docs automatically updates your offline files when you�re on Wi-Fi. You can also manually update files anytime you have a data connection by opening the file or tapping �Update� from the Offline section of the app. Make file available offline Update online file Make file available offline Update offline file For those of you with Android tablets, we�ve also improved the Google Docs reading experience. Now, when you open a Google document on your tablet while online, you�ll get a high-resolution version of the document. Swipe left and right to flip between pages, or use the slider...