Author: Clinton

Thanks to a lot of happenings all at once, it is pretty much a lock that we are going to see Google’s new Pixel lineup on October 4th.  That will put the launch of the new Pixel 2 and Pixel XL 2 almost a year out from the current Pixel phones.

To start, there is now a new, albeit empty, website for the phones.  Literally, it’s empty.  It only asks the question “Thinking of changing phones?” and you can register your email address.  This is is very similar to what they did with the original Pixels last year.

Second, there were FCC approvals made for what is presumed to be the XL 2.  It is an LG build device and you can read all the gory details at the FCC site.  It’s not overly exciting but it confirms some of the rumors known about the phone.

Microsoft’s Arrow Launcher for Android has slowly but surely becoming a solid launcher for Android devices.  The company, through the Microsoft Garage project team, has continually been adding features, improving the stability, and the performance of the launcher.

If you are a heavy Microsoft user, you should consider Arrow Launcher for your launcher.  You can read my review of it here.

Back in June, in the 3.5 update to Arrow Launcher, the introduced a new feature, Arrow Hub.  Arrow Hub allows you to easily sync photos, documents, videos and anything you have in your Android device’s clipboard to the cloud which you can then get to via the web or OneDrive.  It is brilliantly simple and is an effective way to get files from your phone to your PC, Mac or Chromebook.

So how does it work and how do you get to your files?  In this How To I will outline how the feature works on your Android device and how to get to those files.

Prerequisite:  This How To assumes that you are running Arrow Launcher on your Android phone.  If you are not, you can download it free from the Play Store.  It also assumes that you have a Microsoft account that you can use with Arrow Launcher, OneDrive, etc.

Google Photos continues to be one of the fastest growing app & services from the Mountain View company.  With over a billion active users each month, Photos is the go-to place to store your photos online safe and sound.

But as a Google Top Contributor for Google Photos, there is one concept with the app that is a mystery to many:  Albums.  In the Product Forums for Photos and contacts here at the site, the idea behind Albums in Photos is one of the more confusing elements.  Hopefully this little tutorial will help explain things a bit.

First, let’s talk about the underlying structure of Google Photos itself.  The service leverages your Google Drive storage to store your photos.  If you store them in High Quality (you let Google compress your photos under 16MP in size), they don’t count against your Drive quota.  If you keep them in Original Quality, regardless of size, the count against your quota.

Second, there is no folder hierarchy concept in Google Photos.  Everything is in one folder which you view when you are viewing your library.  So what about albums?  Think of them as labels.

Late yesterday, Google released the latest Android Distribution Report and it is one of the more positive reports in a while.  While Android Oreo did not make its debut in the report, Android Nougat gained 2.3% in overall install base for this month’s report and was the only version of Android that saw gains.

The distribution report looked at devices coming to the Google Play Store for the 7-day period ending September 11, 2017.  For that time, Android Nougat was seen on 15.8% of devices, an increase of 2.3% over the August report.  That makes Nougat third most installed of Android flavors, behind Marshmallow (32.2%) and Lollipop (28.8%).  Nougat jumped ahead of the long loved KitKat version which now sits at 15.1%.  Jelly Bean continues to hang on at 6.9% while Ice Cream Sandwich and Gingerbread continue to fall, both down to just .6% of devices.

Well done Project Fi.  Well Done.

Google’s MVNO service has been notifying their customers that were impacted by Hurricane Irma this weekend that they will be receiving a $20 credit on their account to assure they can stay connected and not worry about overages for this trying month.

The actions by Fi follows on a similar action they took with victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas at the end of August.

Project Fi is known for their customer support and this is another example of it for customers who, right now, need to make their mobile bill the last thing they are worried about today.

The Google+ app for Android has an update rolling out in the Play Store that brings support for Android Oreo’s new Notification Channels feature.  The update is version 9.20 for those keeping score.  It was released yesterday and should come to everyone who has the app installed over the course of the next few days.

For those who aren’t familiar, Notification Channels are built into apps by developers as a way to allow you greater control over the notifications you see and how you are notified.  They bring granularity to notifications and not just a general “on or off” type functionality.  That’s an over simplification but you get the idea.

With this update to Google+, you have three channels now available:  App Status Updates, New Activity, and Content.  You can now customize the notifications for the app to different levels depending on how you set it up.  To setup the channels, go to Settings>Notifications then select the Google+ app.  There you will see your stock notification settings which you can tap to adjust.