Snapchat Gets an Update with Video Calls and Text Chats

So Snapchat got an update this last week that adds video calls and text chatting. Okay so Snapchat now supports video and text chats, it still keeps that vanilla Snapchat experience but if you always wanted a little more out of Snapchat then this update is a pretty big deal. The text chat is pretty bland right now but we assume it'll get improved over time. The video part is actually way more interesting. Snapchat will notify you when both you and the other person are viewing a conversation by showing a blue pulsing button when you press it, it'll connect to a video chat and you can continue from there. Since you can only video chat when everyone is paying attention, there is no missed video calls. According to reports, the videos connect instantaneously now with more mainstream features. It'll be interesting to see if people start taking Snapchat more seriously.

In other news, LastPass got an update that integrates it with the Galaxy S5 fingerprint scanner. This makes the fingerprint scanner actually useful. Okay so here's how it works lastpass lets you store passwords for apps and websites and then automatically logs you into those apps and sites. Typically, you only need to remember your last pass password and then everything else is handled by last pass. It's worth mentioning that it's actually on our list of the best password manager apps for Android with the Galaxy S5 integration. It allows you to log into lastpass with the fingerprint scanner instead of the password. This means you can ostensibly log in into applications and websites directly through the fingerprint scanner, which is infinitely useful and cool. The only downside is that last pass requires a $1 per month subscription, but it's always been that way for mobile users so that's not really that new.

Trending Applications

If you want to check out any of these applications, you can find the links in the written companion which is in the video description below. First up this week is Faces. This unique application lets you sign into a bunch of social networks and when your friends check in nearby, it'll show you a notification letting you know that they're around. This is great for social lights who enjoy impromptu meetups. The app features a clean and sleek interface, it's totally free to use, and supports a range of social networks. They're working on adding more. It's also free, so why not right? Next up is a brand new application called Slide. Slide is a fairly simple application that gives you shortcuts to your five favorite applications in the form of floating icons. It works pretty much like it looks. There's a little dock on the side of your device that you tap once, and your five favorite applications pop up. You can easily switch between them. This is a nifty application that can be really useful for people who use the same apps all the time, and it gets out of your way when you don't need it. It's $0.99 in the Google Play Store.

Another popular and unique application that just passed the 7 million download mark is Buzz Launcher. Using this app, you can theme and organize your home screen in a number of unique ways. They have over 300,000 home screens to choose from, they've also updated their application recently to include a few new features. It's free to download in the Google Play Store.

We also have Clumsy Ninja, a newly popular game that is kind of cute and also enjoyable. You play as a Clumsy Ninja as you complete various tasks like jumping on a trampoline or catching chickens. It's a silly time waster, so there's no real gaming value but admittedly it was fun to just play around with it from time to time. Also, it's free.

Finally, last up this week is the venerable HD widgets. They're releasing version 4.0 to the Google Play Store and a stage roll out, so some people may have it while others may not have it yet. The update includes a completely overhauled interface as well as completely overhauled widgets. There are also new themes included, including a more modern flat theme as well as upcoming updates to their theme add-on app called Color Form.

HD Widgets Update

Once again, I'm Joe Hindy the Android Authority App Guide. Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and if you want to follow Android Authority myself or the rest of our Awesome YouTube Team, you can find our social media links in the video description below. If you're hanging out for a minute, we have a couple of Awesome videos for you to watch right over there, including Josh Varar's hands-on with the fingerprint scanner on the Galaxy S5 as well as the best Android apps from April 2014.

Finally, don't forget to check out the written companion in the video description below for all of the download links as always. Thanks for watching everybody and have a wonderful day.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello again ladies and gentlemen I'm Joe hindy the Android authority App Guy happy Friday everybody this week we're going to talk about some awesome updates to Google search a questionable move regarding Google Drive and of course more awesome app news so let's go first up this week is a new update to Google search that brought a whole bunch of features the first one we'll talk about is the new parking feature you can now ask Google Now to keep track of where you're parked and it'll let you know where it is when you need to know our own Andrew grush took a look at it and found that the results can be occasionally spotty but we expect Google to improve this feature over time apparently Google now also includes more detailed restaurant information you can filter restaurants by Cuisine type cost rating and other variables so you can plan your dinner outing accordingly there are also screenshots floating around the web of Google now being able to do more with places like malls where you can search stores within the mall which is also really cool while we're on the topic of Google how about all those Standalone applications that got released this last week when I reviewed the Microsoft Office applic a while back one thing a lot of my comments were saying is how Google Drive is better because it bundles the cloud storage and the office apps into a single bundle unfortunately folks they won't be able to say that anymore because Google is unbundling Google Drive from Google Docs and now we'll see separate applications opening a file in Google Drive will now prompt you to use one of Google's office apps it actually gets just a little bit worse instead of having a single Office application and a single cloud storage app Google is releasing docs sheets and slides all as separate applications this means that the functionality you had with only one application before will now require four apps to have currently only docs and sheets are available in the Google Play Store and slides is coming soon it's questionable and I look forward to seeing how people will receive this move especially after the visceral reception Microsoft got for doing essentially the same thing with office and one drive so Snapchat got an update this last week that adds video calls and text chatting okay so Snapchat now supports video and text chats it still keeps that vanilla Snapchat experience but if you always wanted a little more out of Snapchat then this update is a pretty big deal the text chat is pretty bland right now but we assume it'll get improved over time the video part is actually way more interesting Snapchat will notify you when both you and the other person are viewing a conversation by showing a blue pulsing button when you press it it'll connect to a video chat and you can continue from there since you can only video chat when everyone is paying attention there is no missed video calls and according to reports the videos connect instantaneously now with more mainstream features it'll be interesting to see if people start taking Snapchat more seriously and our last bit of news this week last pass got an update that integrates it with the Galaxy S5 fingerprint scanner and that makes the fingerprint scanner actually useful okay so here's how it works last pass lets you store passwords for apps and websites and then automatically logs you into those apps and sites typically you only need to remember your last pass password and then everything else is handled by last pass it's worth mentioning that it's actually on our list of the best password manager apps for Android with the Galaxy S5 integration it allows you to log into last pass with the fingerprint scanner instead of the password this means you can ostensibly loog log into applications and websites directly through the fingerprint scanner and let's face facts that's infinitely useful and cool the only downside is last pass requires a $1 per month subscription but it's always been that way for mobile users so that's not really that new so who wants to check out some trending applications as usual if you want to check any of these applications out you can find the links in the written companion which is in the video description below first up this week is faces in this unique application let you sign into a bunch of social networks and when your friends check in nearby it'll show you a notification letting you know that they're around this is great for social lights who enjoy impromptu meetups and the app features a clean and Sleek interface it's totally free to use and supports a range of social networks and they're working on adding more it's also free so why not right next up is a brand new application called slide slide is a fairly simple application that gives you shortcuts to your five favorite applications in the form of floating icons it works pretty much like it looks there's a little dock on the side of your device that you tap once you do your five favorite applications pop up and you can easily switch between them this is a Nifty applic that can be really useful for people who use the same apps all the time and it gets out of your way when you don't need it it's 99 cents in the Google Play Store and you should give it a look Buzz Launcher is a popular and unique application that just passed the 7 million download Mark using this app you can theme and organize your home screen in a number of unique ways and has over 300,000 home screens to choose from they've also updated their application recently to include a few new features it's free to download in the Google Play Store Clumsy Ninja is a newly popular game that is kind of cute and also enjoyable you play as a Clumsy Ninja as you complete various tasks like jumping on a trampoline or catching chickens it's a silly time waster so there's no real gaming value but admittedly it was fun to just play around with it from time to time also it's free last up this week is the venerable HD widgets they're releasing version 4.0 to the Google Play Store and a stage roll out so some people may have it While others may not have it yet the update includes a completely overhauled interface as well as completely overhauled widgets there are also new themes included including a more modern flat theme as well as upcoming upat upates to their theme add-on app called color form if you haven't checked out HD widgets yet now is a great time to do so once again I'm Joe hindy the Android authority app guide don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and if you want to follow Android authority myself or the rest of our Awesome YouTube Team you can find our social media links in the video description below if you're hanging out for a minute we have a couple of Awesome videos for you to watch right over there including Josh varar hands on with the fingerprint scanner on the Galaxy S5 as well as the best Android apps from April 2014 finally don't forget to check out the written companion in the video description below for all of the download links as always thanks for watching everybody and have a wonderful dayhello again ladies and gentlemen I'm Joe hindy the Android authority App Guy happy Friday everybody this week we're going to talk about some awesome updates to Google search a questionable move regarding Google Drive and of course more awesome app news so let's go first up this week is a new update to Google search that brought a whole bunch of features the first one we'll talk about is the new parking feature you can now ask Google Now to keep track of where you're parked and it'll let you know where it is when you need to know our own Andrew grush took a look at it and found that the results can be occasionally spotty but we expect Google to improve this feature over time apparently Google now also includes more detailed restaurant information you can filter restaurants by Cuisine type cost rating and other variables so you can plan your dinner outing accordingly there are also screenshots floating around the web of Google now being able to do more with places like malls where you can search stores within the mall which is also really cool while we're on the topic of Google how about all those Standalone applications that got released this last week when I reviewed the Microsoft Office applic a while back one thing a lot of my comments were saying is how Google Drive is better because it bundles the cloud storage and the office apps into a single bundle unfortunately folks they won't be able to say that anymore because Google is unbundling Google Drive from Google Docs and now we'll see separate applications opening a file in Google Drive will now prompt you to use one of Google's office apps it actually gets just a little bit worse instead of having a single Office application and a single cloud storage app Google is releasing docs sheets and slides all as separate applications this means that the functionality you had with only one application before will now require four apps to have currently only docs and sheets are available in the Google Play Store and slides is coming soon it's questionable and I look forward to seeing how people will receive this move especially after the visceral reception Microsoft got for doing essentially the same thing with office and one drive so Snapchat got an update this last week that adds video calls and text chatting okay so Snapchat now supports video and text chats it still keeps that vanilla Snapchat experience but if you always wanted a little more out of Snapchat then this update is a pretty big deal the text chat is pretty bland right now but we assume it'll get improved over time the video part is actually way more interesting Snapchat will notify you when both you and the other person are viewing a conversation by showing a blue pulsing button when you press it it'll connect to a video chat and you can continue from there since you can only video chat when everyone is paying attention there is no missed video calls and according to reports the videos connect instantaneously now with more mainstream features it'll be interesting to see if people start taking Snapchat more seriously and our last bit of news this week last pass got an update that integrates it with the Galaxy S5 fingerprint scanner and that makes the fingerprint scanner actually useful okay so here's how it works last pass lets you store passwords for apps and websites and then automatically logs you into those apps and sites typically you only need to remember your last pass password and then everything else is handled by last pass it's worth mentioning that it's actually on our list of the best password manager apps for Android with the Galaxy S5 integration it allows you to log into last pass with the fingerprint scanner instead of the password this means you can ostensibly loog log into applications and websites directly through the fingerprint scanner and let's face facts that's infinitely useful and cool the only downside is last pass requires a $1 per month subscription but it's always been that way for mobile users so that's not really that new so who wants to check out some trending applications as usual if you want to check any of these applications out you can find the links in the written companion which is in the video description below first up this week is faces in this unique application let you sign into a bunch of social networks and when your friends check in nearby it'll show you a notification letting you know that they're around this is great for social lights who enjoy impromptu meetups and the app features a clean and Sleek interface it's totally free to use and supports a range of social networks and they're working on adding more it's also free so why not right next up is a brand new application called slide slide is a fairly simple application that gives you shortcuts to your five favorite applications in the form of floating icons it works pretty much like it looks there's a little dock on the side of your device that you tap once you do your five favorite applications pop up and you can easily switch between them this is a Nifty applic that can be really useful for people who use the same apps all the time and it gets out of your way when you don't need it it's 99 cents in the Google Play Store and you should give it a look Buzz Launcher is a popular and unique application that just passed the 7 million download Mark using this app you can theme and organize your home screen in a number of unique ways and has over 300,000 home screens to choose from they've also updated their application recently to include a few new features it's free to download in the Google Play Store Clumsy Ninja is a newly popular game that is kind of cute and also enjoyable you play as a Clumsy Ninja as you complete various tasks like jumping on a trampoline or catching chickens it's a silly time waster so there's no real gaming value but admittedly it was fun to just play around with it from time to time also it's free last up this week is the venerable HD widgets they're releasing version 4.0 to the Google Play Store and a stage roll out so some people may have it While others may not have it yet the update includes a completely overhauled interface as well as completely overhauled widgets there are also new themes included including a more modern flat theme as well as upcoming upat upates to their theme add-on app called color form if you haven't checked out HD widgets yet now is a great time to do so once again I'm Joe hindy the Android authority app guide don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and if you want to follow Android authority myself or the rest of our Awesome YouTube Team you can find our social media links in the video description below if you're hanging out for a minute we have a couple of Awesome videos for you to watch right over there including Josh varar hands on with the fingerprint scanner on the Galaxy S5 as well as the best Android apps from April 2014 finally don't forget to check out the written companion in the video description below for all of the download links as always thanks for watching everybody and have a wonderful day\n"