Now a days a smartphone is offering almost everything and with this, it is very easy to overlook the basic voice calls and Google’s Phone app rarely see the limelight. Google is updating the Phone aap consistently and it is not often that we hear about picking up major new features or undergoing the visual changes. That is because it works pretty fine already and does not need much of the maintenance. But at the moment we are seeing one change that catches our eyes, as the recent beta build of the app tweaks user interface for when you are on a call.

The Phone app has placed in-call action buttons in two rows of three. These control lets you access the keypad, add participants to the call, mute yourself, pace the call on hold, record the interactions and many more. Sometimes, you may have to swipe through two pages in horizontal direction in order to see all the available options. With the latest version of the Phone app public beta, Google’s in-call screen features one row of four buttons, including an overflow that reveals additional in-call options a row above when ever tapped. The new layout has placed the buttons closer together that older UI and arranges then against a card-like backdrop that contrasts against rest of the screen. On the taller phones, the buttons are huddled closer to the bottom, making them very simple to reach with either thumb. Additional call options in the upper row are right-aligned, making the app easier for one-handed use.

WhatsApp is adding new features for enhancing the user experience over past few years. Over the past few months, WhatsApp has come up with many new features and is working on plenty of handy features as well. Among many new features, one of them is the use of personalized avatars as stickers.

Previously there were reports that WhatsApp is allowing the users to put on the avatars for video calls, but now it is reported that the user will be able to turn an avatar into a sticker. This feature was discovered in WhatsApp for Android beta version 2.22.21.3, though is still not widely accessible. The avatar-based stickers will be available as a single set with avatars in different poses. Apart from sending the stickers within individual or group chats, users will also be able to set their avatars as their default profile picture.

Google Drive is the de facto app for the Android users for cloud storage. After Google locking out the people from their accounts and the company making most of its money based on personalized ads, you would think of switching to another service which is more privacy-minding. Now people are looking towards an open-source alternative Proton Drive which is the latest service launched by privacy company Proton which is famous for Proton VPN and Proton Mail.
Proton Drive was in the arena in beta since 2020 and it has amassed half a million testers in this timeframe, with upload volume going up ten times in last quarter. This service is part of Proton’s suit of apps, which include Proton Mail, Proton Calendar and Proton VPN. Apart from launching the Proton Drive web app in stable, the company is bringing native app to Android in beta. Proton does not offer any of the built-in tools for Office documents or images, so you will find yourself uploading as well as downloading files repeatedly. Proton Drive and other services of Proton are available for free in basic version with 1GB of total storage across Calendar and Mail.

YouTube is the most famous video-streaming platform where a community of creators make up majority of the content. YouTube pays creators for the views on their videos because every free-tier viewer sees ads, which earn YouTube money. Viewers like you and me could purchase Premium membership to get rid of the ads and now it might be a good time to do it.
After the complaints from viewers all around the world, YouTube is ending the experiment that saw up to 11 unskippable ads played before you selected video begins. Ads on YouTube have been short and the ones which are longer are skippable after five seconds and limited in number. YouTube has also got mid-video ads for longer content if creators give permission. Some of the breaks last few seconds only but various other skippable ads can go on for minutes. Since year 2022 has begun, YouTube has been showing increasing number of ads before videos even begin.

The Discover feed of Google is a big part of how most of us keep up with different things, almost spending few minutes scrolling through each day. There are loads of content with not just the articles that match your interests but also YouTube video in the mix. But if Google has been getting a bit broad with its curation and you have seen seeing videos from specific YouTube channels with few taps.
Blocking the articles that you don’t like from your feed is very easy and all you have to do is to just tap the overflow menu beside card title and select most appropriate option expressing your disinterest, be it with publication, specific article or the topic. However, you have only had one option if you disliked a YouTube video recommendation in your Discover feed. Google has updated its Search app, so you have a new option for blocking specific YouTube creator’s videos from messing up the Discover feed. Other options for expressing your disinterest in YouTube video on Discover include hiding content about that topic or hiding a video.

WhatsApp has been improving its functionality and coming up with loads of features especially in group chats, giving the group administrators more control and making the chat more interactive. The CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced three specific privacy-centric WhatsApp features last month, blocking screenshots of view -once media, quiet exits from group chats and hiding your online status.

In the latest version, the settings provide you the granular control over who can see when you are online and when you last checked WhatsApp. Under WhatsApp Settings > Account > Privacy > Last seen and online, you can pick from four options for who can see your Last seen status which are everyone, my contacts, my contacts (except selected ones), and nobody. For the online status visibility on the app, you can mirror setting for your Last seen status above or just use Everyone option, so anyone in chat will see when you are online.

Repost feature was always there in Instagram but till this date there was no official way of reposting something. Earlier you can take a screenshot of someone else’s post, crop it and then post it on your timeline or you need to use a 3rd party application for reposting. But now Instagram is going to change it and come up with its own official repost feature.
Instagram has confirmed that the reposting feature will be tested very soon. A Meta spokesperson said that they are exploring the ability to reshare posts in Feed which is similar to how you can reshare in Stories so that people can share what they like plus original creators also get credit for their work. Initially it will be tested with small number of people. With the official repost feature the need for the third party apps will be eliminated. The third party apps have been there for many years and they are full of ads. TikTok has recently come up with a repost feature that lets you re-share the videos with your followers but they don’t show up in your profile. Instagram is also likely to come up with similar sort of feature.