Author: Clinton

OnePlus has released OxygenOS 4.1.3 this morning for the OnePlus 3 and 3T.  The update brings a host of improvements to the flagship devices along with upgrading the platform to Android Nougat 7.1.1.  For those who aren’t OnePlus users, OxygenOS is the company’s version of Android.  It is actually a very-near stock Android experience with a few tweaks and is a solid performing platform that OnePlus has been continually updating these past few months.

As has been the case in the past, OnePlus is slow rolling the OTA update out to users.  Therefore, it could be a few days before everyone sees the update hit their devices.

After being on the market these past four months, the Huawei Mate 9 is doing well for the Chinese company.  In a report from China based MyDrivers.com, the company reports that some 5 million units of the 5.9″ phablet have been sold globally.  That is up 36% over the same period for its predecessor, the Mate 8.  Generally, the Mate 9 has been met with solid reviews for its design and performance.  I reviewed it a few weeks back and it, along with its smaller sibling the P10, are impressive devices.

Huawei isn’t resting however.  They have already issued updates for the phablet that brings Daydream support, one of the few non-Google devices with the VR support, and have brought Amazon’s Alexa to the phone too.  The latter has been less-than-stellar on performance but Huawei, for their part, fulfilled the promise to bring the Amazon assistant to the phone at MWC back in February.

Good news this morning for those of you who have the HTC One M9 on the Sprint network.  HTC has confirmed that the Android Nougat 7.0 update has been released by Sprint with updates starting today.  The updated build is 4.27.651.4 and weighs in at a hefty 2.25GB.  HTC is suggesting that the update will take about 20 minutes to complete and will reboot your One M9 several times during the process.  It is recommended that you have at least 35% remaining battery or, better, having your phone plugged in to AC (but don’t unplug it during the upgrade process) to upgrade.  Given the size of the update, Wi-Fi is the best option to download.

Once you have it downloaded to your phone and installed, you will have all of the benefits of Nougat including multi-window support, improved Doze and improved notification shade amongst many other refinements.  You can read my overview of Nougat 7.0 for more details.

Microsoft has rolled out an update for their search app Bing for Android today.  The update is versions 6.7.25183495 for those keeping score at home and on the surface, you won’t find much different from the previous version.  There have been a few UX design improvements but overall, not much to see here.  The big news is deeper however in the improved support for accessibility.  Bing supported accessibility features in Android previously but they were limited.  With this update, accessibility support can be found throughout the app, not just searching.

If you are one who has various accessibility features enabled on your phone, this update to Bing will support many of the settings including TalkBack and Magnification gesture.

Google Assistant continues to gain power and knowledge, especially when it comes to integrating with other Google services.  The latest example has rolled out today and was announced on the Made by Google Twitter feed.  Now you can track flight costs from one point to another by simply giving a command.

Someone’s wedding became your mini vacay. You say the place, we’ll track the price. #GoogleAssistant #GoogleHome https://t.co/f1ZGW4MI6j pic.twitter.com/MuoUBDK8kD

— Made by Google (@madebygoogle) April 12, 2017

How it works is straightforward.  Simply ask Google Assistant, “What is the cost from (A) to (B)” with A & B replaced with locations.  Assistant will then process the information and present you with all of your flight options.  By default it will give you flight information two weeks out but you can change this by including a specific date.  It will also give you the shortest flight time for the trip you have asked information on from Assistant.

Google has announced that they have teamed up with several large banks globally to allow for adding your bank or credit card to Android Pay directly from your bank’s app.  Today, if you want to add your card to Android Pay, you have to add it to the app, then go through an approval process of some type (typically a SMS to your mobile) to actually add the card to Pay.  With this new way, while you are in your banking app, you can just tap a button to add the card to Android Pay.  It cuts down on the number of taps you have to make and certainly simplifies the process.

Today there are just a handful of banks that are supported:  Bank of America, Bank of New Zealand, Discover, mBank and USAA.  Google indicates in the announcement on this new collaboration with banks that more will be added in the future.