The newest Google update brings better Google Plus integration, more cards and an easier way to find out the name of the song you are listening to. You can simply swipe up for Google Now and ask “Google, What’s this song?” Google will listen for a few seconds and then a card will pop up with the artist, song name and an option to purchase the song through the Google Play store. Very subtle advertising by Google. I spent some time playing around with the feature and it is fairly awesome. The only issue is the first time I asked, Google Now decided to inform me of the time instead. It worked better the second try and was able to identify a range of songs.
This is great for anyone not using a HTC phone as some users have run into an error message using HTC Sense and Droid DNA. At first the bug resulted in a force close which will take you back to your home screen. Now though, an error message shows up letting the user know that “This Action is not supported on this device.” This is not an improvement but at least it shows that Google is aware of the issue and hopefully a solution will be available soon.
The problem is the original Google Song widget was not included in the HTC Sense version of Android 4.1. When the Android 4.2 update was released, Google included Song Search as a feature in Google Now using the same tools that made Google Song Search widget work. You can make do with a similar song search app like Shazam from the Google Play store, but that still doesn’t fix the issue. If the problem is Google Song search wasn’t included in HTC Sense then the solution should be to manually install the Android Application Package file or APK file.
Installing APK Files on Android Phones
- Copy the APK file you want to install to your phone’s memory card and insert the card into your Android phone. In this case you would download GoogleEars_tranp.apk
- Go to Google Play and install AppsInstaller.
- Open it after it is done installing. It will show all the APK stored in the root directory of you memory card.
- Find the application you want and click on it to install it.
It is unfortunate that users must resort to manual fixes when the phone manufacturer should be the one to fix any issues.