Google rolled out a few updates to its Android apps this week, some for the better and some for the… well, it depends.

The latest version of the Google Search app adds support for viewing Google Now cards even if you lose your internet connection. Meanwhile, the Google Drive app for Android no longer lets you edit documents or spreadsheets… unless you have the standalone Docs or Sheets apps installed.

google now without internet

Google Search

Google Now cards can show you nearby attractions, upcoming appointments, news items on topics you’ve recently searched for, flight status, and much more. But walk into a subway station and it all goes away… or at least it used to.

Now if you have Google Now enabled, the latest cards will still show up even if you lose or turn off your internet connection. You’ll see a note at the top letting you know how long it’s been since they were last updated.

Google Drive

You can still open documents and spreadsheets uploaded to your Google Drive account for viewing, but if you want to edit them you’ll need to install the recently-launched Docs and Spreadsheet appps from the Google Play Store.

The good news is that you can still do everything you could before… opening a document in Drive will let you edit it in Docs. The bad news is you now need three apps to do it instead of just one.

via xda-developers

 

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7 replies on “Android: Google Now cards work offline, Google Drive loses doc editing”

  1. “Google Now cards can show you nearby attractions, upcoming appointments, news items on topics you’ve recently searched for, flight status, and much more. But walk into a subway station and it all goes away… or at least it used to.”

    What cities don’t have internet access on the subway? People take the subway for more than an hour per day, so that sounds unfortunate. In Seoul I’ve always had access on the subway, and they also have wifi in every subway car and terminal for those without data plans. The only time I might lose a connection is in *some* elevators.

    1. New York City. It’s in some subway stations with ATT and Verizon, but not in most. And not in subway cars. Could take years before all cell phone carriers offer it everywhere.

      1. Yes, NYC is just beginning to install WiFi in subways stations. Of course there is no comparison to Seoul. It might be the most well connected city in the world. I hear they have advanced LTE?

  2. Didn’t Google recently buy up one of the 3rd party Android productivity suite outfits? Maybe this is a stopgap, a way of weaning users off the old tools and toward the new unbundled suite once it becomes ready.

    1. You are correct. Google bought QuickOffice. It is still on the Play Store, though.

  3. It’s called “separation of interests”. Now people who don’t need all of the features can just load the apps they need, instead of one big bloated app that does more than it should.

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