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Google has added so-called Navigation Drawers to all of it’s mobile applications throughout the last year. And they are not finished with them yet: the first apps do already start to receive new updates going even further by placing also “Help” and “Settings” into the drawer, thus replacing the Action Overflow Button completely.

There's no doubt that Navigation Drawers are the new way to get around on Android. And it’s also a really great, intuitive and innovative way. So - why shouldn't Google Chrome get such a drawer too? It sounds totally insane at first, but it actually makes much more sense than you might think.

The idea is - as shown above - that your browser tabs are no longer listed in Chrome’s iconic 3D card interface, but in a new Navigation Drawer on the left. Everything else, as for example tab-switching by swiping left or right, would stay the same. The great advantage of such an implementation would be that more tabs could be shown at once.

Nintendo should take over the music player business from Apple and build the next iPod. The sales of the iPod may be already declining, but I think Nintendo has the creative power and abilities to build a music player still worth buying today in midst of the 10s where every phone can do the same.

Nintendo is already strongly involved in some highly competitive markets, but I believe they might succeed against Apple following two easy steps:

STEP 1: I’ve already pointed out that I don’t think Apple is going to end the iPod business immediately, but that they probably will still release one to two hardware updates before the final end. However with Nintendo entering the market, Apple would probably react very offensive and release more and faster hardware updates than currently planned.

Because Apple’s devices would probably easily kill Nintendo’s, Nintendo should try to calm Apple down, emphasizing that they don’t want to steal their iTunes income. Of course a music player by Nintendo would have to feature an in-house music store, but this store should not be put in focus too much, but instead the possibility to get music elsewhere (for example from iTunes) should be highlighted strongly. Thus, Apple might care less about losing the iPod business, whereas the iTunes sales wouldn’t be affected.

With the release of Google Maps for iOS, Google decided more than one year ago to take iOS really seriously and to create really gorgeous apps for the system. The latest applications to join this list of great Google apps on iOS were Google Play Music and Google Play Movies & TV. The main reason for the adaption was probably Google’s new music streaming service Google Play Music All-Access. Nevertheless, I personally began purchasing songs from Google Play now, because all my songs are now synced across my Windows PCs, my Android Smartphones and Tablets, as well as on my old iPod Touch. And because of this I noted at the end of my article about a possible web adaption of Google Play Newsstand that “being extremely limited and short-sighted, Apple cannot even offer me half of what Google already does”. But why not?

Why shouldn't Apple release a version of iTunes for Android?

I really thought very much about this idea and came to the of course already expected conclusion that such an adaption would make absolutely no sense for Apple, which I'm also going to point out in just a minute. But I really like the idea of iTunes for Android and so I created some mockups (4) imagining what such an app might look and feel like.

The new and just released Google Play Newsstand application combines former Google Currents and Google Play Magazines, offering the user both, paid subscriptions to newspapers and magazines, as well as free web articles, RSS feeds and blog posts. It’s currently an Android exclusive, but the company already confirmed the work on an iOS version, which is scheduled to be released next year.

But what about a web version? The ‘magazines’-section with all the subscriptions is of course already built into the Play Store. But why not replace this section with a new Newsstand section, too, thus also adding the (free) web stuff? What such an implementation might look like is shown in the concept pictures above (in full-size and uncropped: Concept1 and Concept2).

There are a lot of things that point against such an implementation.

Google is, for instance, already in charge of a news service on the web - Google News. Why shall they work on two very similar, competing services? Google News’ design might not be as up-to-date and beautiful as the new Newsstand app, but with an update it might easily become that nice looking, too. And maintaining two services seems even less likely when thinking of the ‘death’ of the Google Reader and Google’s intent to keep their product lineup as clean as possible. - Or might Google News be the next service Google wants to get rid of?

Within Android 4.4 KitKat, widgets may have lost their very prominent positioning directly next to the app list, but while adding them to the same place like wallpapers sounded strange at first, Google - in contrast to many manufacturers - found a really great solution with this 'homescreen-editor'. It’s not just a new option there, but the overall interface just makes more sense.

Nevertheless the user experience and management of widgets hasn't changed much and is still very poor. As is also the quality of widgets. Some applications include tons of widgets all being basically the same, but in different sizes. Some may make them resizable, but all in all also only include 1-2. And the majority still does not even include any widgets at all. Additionally also the look of widgets is mostly more than outdated and their functionality is limited, too.

The concept shown here tries to find a way widgets can become an as powerful form factor for Android, as they once were. The general idea is that applications should include much much more widgets (being different in functionality, not only in size). And to prevent the list of widgets from looking cluttered, all these different widgets should not be simply listed anymore, but shown in an app-specific interface.

Google Now is a great and unique service. Not only because of the predictive cards, but also because of the voice control.

Nevertheless many people see Apple’s Siri more as a virtual assistant than Google Now (probably because it’s much more voice-centered and many Android manufacturers use their own assistants). But the Hummingbird update shows, for instance, that Google Now is not only on one level with Siri now, but that it also has much more capabilities.

Siri and Google Now, however, are both only good virtual assistants for the real life anyway. I mean you always have to switch into a completely different application when starting them. And when you got your answer you first have to find your way back to where you came from.

In many situations it would be a lot more if Google Now would not always open as a full application, but - as shown in this concept - in kind like a window over other applications. Kind like Facebook’s chat heads work. The user may ask his question and while Google is looking up the answer you can simply continue with whatever you were doing. It would also make it more attractive for longer “conversations” and give voice control finally a real advantage over simply writing what you want.