Google LLC today introduced new features for several of its core Android apps aimed at improving the user experience across areas such as messaging, accessibility and password security.

The updates come less than a week after the search giant debuted the first developer preview of Android 12, the next release of the operating system. 

The headline enhancement announced today is rolling out for Messages by Google, the search giant’s flagship mobile chat app. The more than 500 million people who use the app worldwide are receiving the ability to write messages and schedule them to send later, a feature similar to the email scheduling feature option available in Gmail.

“Just write your message as you normally would, then hold and press the send button to select a date and time to deliver your message,” Android product manager Hideaki Oshima explained in a blog post today. 

The scheduling feature is not the first capability Google has brought over from Gmail. Previously, the company added controls to Messages that allows users to organize their messages into folders for easier browsing.

Alongside Messages, Google is updating its TalkBack accessibility service for people who are blind or low vision. TalkBack is a screen reader that enables users to navigate Android without needing to look at the display. “We worked closely with the blind and low vision communities on this revamp of TalkBack to incorporate the most popularly requested features including: more intuitive gestures, a unified menu, a new reading control menu and more,” Oshima detailed.

Google Assistant and Google Maps are the two next apps that are receiving new capabilities. Assistant is getting a setting that allows users to interact with the service and instruct it to perform tasks such as setting an alarm even when their phone is locked. And Maps will soon be upgraded with the addition of a dark theme that Google says can reduce eye strain while saving battery life.

The final app on the list of freshly updated services is Android Auto, which enables users to mirror their Android apps onto in-car displays. Included in the latest release announced today: support for custom wallpapers, voice-activated games like trivia and shortcuts designed to speed up tasks like checking the weather. 

Google is topping off the improvements to its existing Android apps by bringing a new service to the operating system that wasn’t available to users before: its Password Checkup tool. The tool can determine if one of a user’s passwords has fallen into the hands of hackers and notify the user to refresh login credentials. 

“Now when you enter a password into an app on your phone using Autofill with Google, we’ll check those credentials against a list of known compromised passwords — that is, passwords that have potentially already been stolen and posted on the web,” Oshima wrote. “If your credentials show up on one of these lists, we’ll alert you and guide you to check your password and change it.”

Image: Google