Welcome to our latest edition of Digital Digest. We strive to bring you the most current news and tips from the digital world with a click of a button. Stories this week include updates from Google, news from Apple and Twitter and the staggering number of voice first devices within the US.
Rumours rife regarding Google Update
The webmaster world is (link: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-update-brewing-23301.html text: rumoured )to have seen an impact of an unknown potential Google update. Various tools are showing uplifts of data causing chatter of an impending update from the search engine giant. No further news as of yet but we will keep you updated on news and reports.
Google Maps to tell you parking difficulty
Google have (link: http://searchengineland.com/google-maps-will-tell-hard-will-find-parking-268213 text: announced) a new feature on their updated version of Google Maps on Android which will let users know how difficult it is to find parking when they set out on a journey. This new feature is expected to make it easier for users to plan out journeys better and give themselves enough time to find parking at their end destination. Currently the feature is only available on Android phones and only in the US. We’ll be sure to let you know when the feature moves to iPhone and when it is available within the UK.
30 million ‘voice-first’ devices are to be in US home
Amazon Echo and Alexa are now in 8.2 million US homes it has been reported. (link: http://marketingland.com/voice-assistants-204313 text: Reports also say) Google have sold between 400,000 and 500,000 of its home devices since they have launched. Together they are both approaching 9 million voice first devices within the US. This is expected to grow to 30 million throughout the United States by the end of the year.
Fake bot accounts found on Twitter
Research has found massive collections of (link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38724082 text: fake accounts) lying dormant on Twitter. These accounts are reported to have been used to fake follower numbers, boost interest in trending topics and send spam.
Apple to respond to reviews on App Store
Writing a review on an app can sometimes be annoying when you write a review and you can’t get a response or a fix. That will now be a thing of the past, with Apple creating a way for its app developers to (link: https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/24/apple-will-finally-let-developers-respond-to-app-store-reviews/ text: respond to customer review). This is a feature which has been long available on Android and Google Play which makes it important that Apple are now utilising this and can respond to reviews customers leave.
Apple AirPods to add ‘Find My AirPod’ feature
With the release of Apple’s eagerly awaited AirPods for the iPhone, questions were asked regarding the loss of an AirPod. Those questions have now been answered with (link: http://www.macworld.com/article/3162087/ios/ios-103-with-find-my-airpods-enters-public-beta.html text: Apple reporting) to introducea feature within the Find My iPhone app which can find missing AirPods by having them play a sound if they are in range of Bluetooth. If in any case your AirPods are out of Bluetooth range, the feature allows you to see where they were last ‘seen’ by Bluetooth.
Apple to bring Night Shift to Macs
Apple’s Night Shift, which is primarily used on iPhones to help reduce eye strain and helps sleeping habits when a device is used at night is now (link: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/140096-apple-is-bringing-ios-night-shift-mode-to-macs-with-sierra-update text: coming to macOS). The night mode feature is essentially used to reduce blue light which can negatively impact sleep will help Mac users at night. The feature is now available to public beta testers, followed by an official launch.
That’s it for this weeks Digital Digest! Join us again in a couple of weeks for our update on all things digital, tech, SEO and PPC and how new changes can help you.