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The advantage of having keys on the screen is that you have some feedback when pressing them does make something happen. While you can actually feel physical button presses, they don't always come with that assurance. There might be times when you want to have the same vibration feedback on your hardware keys. There might also be times you want them to give an even stronger feedback. For those times, the VibeOnKey app delivers such functionality with minimum fuss and cost on your phone's hardware.

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As they say, sharing is caring. But when you're running a family, sharing is really the only way to stay sane and keep on top of things. In this highly digital and mobile age, family members amass tons of information and are themselves bombarded with data. Corralling all these into one place accessible to each and every member of the family is sometimes more work than it's worth. Thankfully, Google has introduced new sharing features to its apps and services, making YouTube TV, Google Calendar, Google Keep, and Google Photos a family affair as well as a personal one.

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Amazon's launch of the screen-toting Echo Show may have made people forget the fact that it launched a different Echo model just two weeks prior. And for good reason too. The camera-enabled Echo Look, after all, seemed to cater to a very niche market. Some might even look at it, pun totally intended, like a month-late April Fools or an SNL skit. But to show it really means business, it has just released the Android and iOS apps to help users fend off the fashion police.

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If you were up in arms over Netflix's latest move that put itself against the Android enthusiast and modding community, you might want to borrow a few more arms to raise. Netflix might actually just be the first of a new breed of Android apps, a breed that shuns rooted devices or even those whose bootloaders have been unlocked. And before you point your fingers at developers, do know that it is Google that is actually making this an official feature.

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Google is launching a new Android Assistant App Directory, aiming to make Google Assistant-compatible apps easier to find as well as allow users to more seamlessly integrate their favorite apps with the AI. The new directory will serve as a highlight to the conversational services which use chat rather than traditional UIs, with Google telling I/O 2017 attendees that it believes this will significantly boost discoverability. However, it'll also allow those already taking advantage of the Assistant to streamline interactions with their most commonly-used services.

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ROLI's touch-sensitive BLOCKS have quietly added Android support today, with the portable modular music-makers showing up at Google's I/O 2017 keynote. The BLOCKS were launched last year, though initially only as an iPhone accessory; indeed, Apple sold them through its own stores. The rubbery top on each block acts as a pressure- and gesture-sensitive controller.

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VR is the new hot thing but creating 360-degree content is still not as easy as it can be. Sure, there are now cheaper 360-degree cameras, but that still requires an investment. If you're out cash, however, you're also out of luck. Luckily, the Google folks over at Android Experiments thought up Camarada, the camera armada app. It basically enlists the help of nearby Android phones in order to form an army of cameras that can record a single footage of either stereoscopic 3D or full 360-degree videos. And all you need are friends. Or multiple Android phones.

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Just live streaming these days is no longer enough. People seem to be hyping up 360-degree live streaming, whether or not there are enough people with the devices to properly enjoy them. Of course, that's no reason not to let social media broadcasters do what they want or need to do, which is why Periscope introduced Live 360 video late last year. Now after months of limited testing, Twitter has opened the floodgates to iOS and Android users at long last.

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As much as Google, and users, probably want it, Internet connection still isn't as ubiquitous or stable everywhere. At one point or another, Wi-Fi or data will break, leaving you with an inaccessible web page when you might need it the most. That is unless you're on Android and are using Chrome's offline feature. Already a year old, Google is taking offline web pages a step further by making it easier to download web pages even without opening them.

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Almost all smartphones these days that have a fingerprint sensor hides it under the home button. In other words, in most cases the home button and fingerprint sensor are in a single spot. The Galaxy S8, however, doesn't have the convenience, which made it rather awkward, if not annoying for some users. Fortunately, Android's openness and developer community have yielded Fingertouch, an open source utility that turns the rear fingerprint scanner into a capacitive home button, but with a catch.

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Yik Yak is shutting down, with the location-based social network confirming today that it's game over for the anonymous messaging board system. The app was launched as a way for people in close proximity - often students on the same campus, much like where Yik Yak creators Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington worked on the first version - to communicate. However, as greater attention was paid to cyber-bullying and online harassment, Yik Yak's potential role in that ended up getting more attention than its other features.

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It's going to get easier to delete your Uber account and all the data associated with it, as the ride-sharing firm finally updates one of its more controversial aspects. The service repeatedly made headlines over the past few months, in no small part down to the behavior - and political side-projects - of Uber founder Travis Kalanick. It even spawned a campaign of account deletions, at which point users realized that, while it was easy to get started with Uber, extricating yourself from their databases was a whole lot trickier.

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