You’ve likely heard of Pushbullet before. If not, it’s a great little app which makes it super easy for anyone with a smartphone to send files from their PC or Mac to their mobile device. It’s also a really easy way to share files, links, videos, and pictures with friends without having to pick up your phone, and it’s this ease of use with meaningful productivity/efficiency which has gained it such a large group of users. Pushbullet has already solidified itself a place in the stratosphere among other top-tier applications across multiple platforms with the features it’s had since launch, but it has also just gone through a major update which seeks to add in even more useful functionality, and it just might gain them some new users too.
While not the only new feature, Pushbullet is now bringing messaging into the mix. To be clear, Pushbullet already allowed you to send SMS back and forth to your contacts using the PC client if you used SMS apps like Evolve. This new messaging focus is completely different. It’s more akin to the messaging functionality you’d find with Google’s Hangouts or the ever popular WhatsApp, and it’s been baked into both the desktop interface as well as the Android and iOS apps. Along with this new messaging feature, the UI has been completely overhauled, and that includes a fresh coat of material design paint, at least on Android devices. The material design look is also not new itself as this has been available since October of last year.
Menus are also now a lot more organized than before to make things simpler to find, so if you’re certain what you’re looking for is something you’ve sent between your collection of devices which have Pushbullet installed on them, the main page is going to be your “Me” page. This holds everything sent between your devices. There is also a page for all your friends, and this is where the messaging magic happens. You can use this as a simple messaging app and a means for communication, but it also works as a great way to send files , links or pictures back and forth here to your contacts, which is initially what Pushbullet was used for. The mobile apps aren’t the only portion getting a rework, the desktop version is getting some touchups too, with the Chrome and Firefox versions as well as others getting a UI redesign and the ability to drag and drop files, links etc. into chats. Pushbullet has also employed the chat heads style bubbles to the desktop app similar to what we’ve recently seen from Hangouts for Chrome and Facebook’s Messenger app, and as you’d expect the chat heads float over other open windows for easy access and can be closed just as easily when done to go back to whatever it is you’re doing. Overall, everything feels much more streamlined and with the focus on messaging now in place, Pushbullet has more of a reason to find itself installed on people’s library of devices than before.
