6 great lesser known Google apps

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If you’re like most people, you probably use at least a handful of Google services every day, perhaps without even thinking about it. But while the company has a ton of high-profile offerings, there are even more Google goodies that are unknown, under-marketed, or underrated. Here are a few to check out.

Family connection

If you have kids in the house, sometimes it’s nice to lay down some ground rules. Google’s Family Link app lets you do just that by providing reports on the apps they’ve used. It also gives you the ability to approve or deny new apps that attempt to download or completely hide certain apps.

There are also teacher-curated and approved apps that you can add to their devices remotely, features to limit screen time, and location tracking so you can keep an eye on your kiddos from afar. The app is for kids using Android devices and Chromebooks, but parents can also manage everything from an iPhone.

Tasks

There’s a fine line between overly simple and overly complicated to-do lists, and it’s one that Google can walk quite well. Google Tasks for iOS and Android is a more than useful to-do list manager on its own, but it’s the integration with Gmail and Calendar that makes it a breeze if you use these services as well.

You use it as a standard to-do list for capturing, updating, and ticking tasks, but the integration means you can also refine your lists right from Gmail and create and view tasks from Calendar as well. Everything is always in sync, no matter how you like to manage your activities.

Art and culture

Traveling has been tough lately, but you can almost feel like you’re there with online tours of famous museums thanks to Google’s Arts & Culture. It features more than 2,000 museums to explore, more than 100,000 works of art and daily rotating art topics to learn about. There is also a games section with virtual coloring books, crosswords and other puzzles if you are looking for some fun.

Also be sure to check out the very interesting Shipping section, which seems like a service in its own right. It is filled with virtual tours that span a ton of different interesting topics.

YouTube Kids

With all the streaming services we pay for in the Aamoth household, my kids invariably spend most of their time searching for stuff on YouTube.

But guess what? Not all YouTube is child-friendly. Thankfully, there’s Youtube Kids, which is pretty much what it sounds like: a kid-friendly version of YouTube for kids up to 12 years old.

When you first log in as a parent, you are taken on a small tour and then you will create profiles for each of your children, at which point you can choose to grant them access to videos in the 0-to-4 age range. 5 to 8 or 9 to 12 years.

Then, on your children’s devices, download the YouTube Kids apps (iOS here, Android here) or simply access the site from a web browser. You will choose who is watching, and the content you deem appropriate for them will be all they can watch.

FotoScan

Let me guess: You were going to scan that old shoebox full of photos, right? You’ll get there overnight (you’ve been saying that for years).

With Google’s excellent PhotoScan app, a) you don’t have too many excuses and b) you don’t need complicated or expensive scanning equipment.

Just use your phone to take a photo of a picture – what a time to be alive! and PhotoScan will intelligently detect the edges of the original photo, straighten it, retouch it, and upload it to your Google Photos account for safekeeping.

Check out my editor Harry’s practice tests with PhotoScan to get a better idea of ​​how it works.

Chrome Remote Desktop

If you need to quickly and easily control a computer from another computer, again – what a time to be alive !, then look no further than Chrome Remote Desktop, a free tool that’s a godsend if you have distant family members who have created you. their personal IT guru.

If anyone needs help, you can send them to the Remote Desktop site, where they can click the “Share my screen” button. They will then receive a code that they can share with you; enter the code on your side and, after a quick puff of ozone, you’re remotely controlling their car.

You can also leave it running full time on your numerous machines, allowing you to manage each one remotely from your main computer without breaking a sweat.

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