Many of Google’s applications are receiving major updates starting today. Maps now has the ability to store offline data, which means no more worrying about having to rely on a steady data connection to have in-depth and highly detailed maps wherever you are. Chrome, as we suspected earlier last week, has officially dropped its Beta tag. Google+ was a main point in their I/O presentation, with its new “Party Mode” and the ability to view feeds all from your notification bar in Jelly Bean. They also released the special tablet UI.

YouTube has received a complete UI overhaul, with navigation now happening on the left side of the screen and the ability to download videos over WiFi in the background for smooth playback while you’re on the go. Google’s Books app has received a few new features and you can now tap the top corner of a page to set a bookmark, along with video and audio playback when they’re embedded in the books.

Maps | Books | YouTube | Movies | Chrome | Google+

The switch from the Android Market to Google Play was received with mixed reviews, but the one thing it did do, is give Google a place to sell multimedia under one unified brand. While “Google Play” still feels a little bit awkward to say out loud, Google is sticking to it and these new videos on YouTube show how Google plans to market their one-stop-shop for everything down the road.

Over the weekend, the Google TV team mentioned via Facebook (of all places) that there were “big” announcements coming today. And then last night, they posted to their blog that a decent-sized Youtube update was in the works, which we are all assuming is the “big” announcement. And not that we are disappointed by this because the screenshots of it look fantastic, but “big” just seemed like it would be more. Anyways, jump past the break to see what you will soon enjoy. 

Since Google TV was updated to Honeycomb a couple of weeks back, their team promised to continue to produce updates that would enhance the experience. They appear to be living up to that promise as an update popped onto my Sony GTV box last night, bringing with it new YouTube and Photos apps. If the GTV team can produce new and useful features like this on a monthly basis, they’ll have at least one happy customer.  

A new version for the YouTube app has just been released, bringing Google’s “+1″ button to videos.  Editing video information while uploading is also going to save you some time if you are constantly uploading videos of your precious kitty.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Droid Life channel while you are there.

What’s in this version:

1. +1 button and annotations
2. ‘Watch later’ queue
3. Uploading while editing video info

Market Link

You may have already noticed, but updates for both Flash 10.3 and Youtube went live over the last 24 hours.  Neither include anything major and are instead just meant to fix bugs and security issues.  There is a chance that the last Youtube update caused some problems with many of you; this new update should make your tummy feel much better.  Flash on the other hand is a typical “security” thing, meaning you won’t notice it at all.

Market Links:  Flash | Youtube

Cheers to everyone who sent these in!

Youtubers, get over to the Android Market and update your favorite app.  If you wanted more control of your previously uploaded videos, you will be pleased to know that you can now edit titles, descriptions and privacy of them.  You can also create and edit playlists as well as enjoy a new UI for recently recorded videos that need publishing.  Seems like fairly minor stuff that simply added more polish to an already solid app, but we always love to see these once-native apps continue to get better.

Market Link

Cheers Joey!

VEVO released their app to Android yesterday, but they’ve taken things a step further by partnering up with YouTube to help spread their music video collection.  If you search for specific artists, you will now see channels listed with a “VEVO” tag at the end (pictured above), plus you’ll be able to pick out videos quicker with a new music note icon.  Talk about music overload that we won’t be complaining about.

Here are a few additional features:

• While enjoying the video you can read ‘artist bio’
• It’s easy to discover more tracks from the same artist using ‘artist tracks’ tab
• You’ll find similar cool bands on the ‘related artists’ tab

Yay for Android and music!

Via:  Phandroid, YouTube Blog