At the beginning of last month, Google started releasing new iOS versions of the YouTube family of applications after a long, unspecified break. Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, and other apps have been updated today in an apparent return to normal for iPhone and iPad owners.
Updated 3/14: Google’s updates have continued since the beginning of March. Notable releases in the last two weeks include Google Duo, Meet – new tile version, voice and ads.
The latest update is on the Google app. This application was released on Sunday evening (PT). It is home to Search, the Discover feed and visual Google Lens Search. Release notes for version 149.0 (from 137.2 on 5 December 2020) are fairly generic:
Bug fixes and performance improvements.
We’ve fixed user-reported issues and added new features to provide a better search experience.
Original 3/1: YouTube and YouTube Music have seen a handful of spots over the past few weeks. Last Friday, Google Podcast got a new version and on Monday there are a trio of major iPhone updates: Google Calendar, Gmail and Docs / Sheets / Slides.
For the email program, this is the first new update since December 1st. In the release notes for version 6.0.210124 only ‘bug fixes and performance improvements’ are specified. This follows an error in which iPhone owners encountered the message ‘This app is out of date’ while trying to sign in with a new Google Account.
The change blocks for these other productivity customers are equally vague. All of the updates today contain information about the privacy of the app, although it was added somewhere before these new versions. Some initially speculated that the lack of updates was due to Apple’s nutrition labels, but that was, for whatever reason, not a normal winter holiday, as the app’s development continued on the Android side.
Drive was last updated in December with Google Search, Photos and Maps. These programs still do not have privacy labels. Meanwhile, Chrome remains on version 87, even though 88 was launched on all other platforms 41 days ago. The next browser update will be launched later this week.
That said, the lack of new app versions has not affected the rollout of features, as Google regularly uses updates to the server.
| Desktop release | iOS update | Difference | |
| 78 | 22 Oct 2019 | 22 Oct 2019 | No |
| 79 | December 10, 2019 | December 10, 2019 | No |
| 80 | February 4, 2020 | 5 February 2020 | +1 |
| 81 | March 17, 2020 | 7 April 2020 | COVID + delay |
| 82 | Skip | ~ | ~ |
| 83 | 19 May 2020 | 21 May 2020 | +2 |
| 84 | 14 July 2020 | 14 July 2020 | No |
| 85 | 25 August 2020 | 25 August 2020 | No |
| 86 | 6 Oct 2020 | 30 Sep 2020 | -7 |
| 87 | 17 November 2020 | 18 November 2020 | +1 |
| 88 | 19 January 2021 | +41 |
FTC: We use revenue to earn automatically affiliate links. More.
Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news: