Author: Clinton

App Shortcuts, the ability to tap-and-hold to get to specific parts of an app in Android Nougat 7.1, continues to grow and Google is catching up too.  The latest update to Google Play Newsstand now supports the shortcuts, allowing you to quickly get to your curated news, digest of news, Magazines and items you have marked for reading later.  Newsstand undergone a lot of changes in the past six months, most of which have been pretty good.  The big knock I had on the app was that in the redesign, getting to your magazine subscriptions became confusing and not-so-easy to figure out at first.  It’s still that way but with the shortcut now available, it makes it easier to get to them.

As readers probably know, in order for app shortcuts to work, you must be running Android Nougat 7.1 or higher.  That means it is almost completely for Pixel and Nexus devices as very few other devices from other manufactures have 7.1 as of yet.

The latest Android Distribution report has been released by Google and it shows that Android Nougat made a healthy 1.5% increase in install base over the February report.  The bump means that the latest version of Android is now on 2.8% of devices that high the Play Store for the week ending March 6, 2017 but by comparison, it is still well behind the likes of Marshmallow and Lollipop.  The increase represents the largest growth version for the report period and is reflective of the significant number of devices that have had their Nougat update come to them over the course of the past few weeks.

Android Lollipop remains the leader as far as install base is concerned, coming in at 34.5% which is a drop of .4% over the February report.  Marshmallow is second at 31.3%.  That is an increase of .6% for the 6.0 build of Android.  Android KitKat saw the largest drop at 1.1% but remains on some 20.8% of devices that came to the Play Store.

LineageOS is making up for lost time and doing it fast.  The rise of the platform out of the CyanogenMod project has been very impressive and got even more so today.  Multiple Samsung devices, both phones and tablets, have been added to the supported devices for the platform.  The new build is in the 14.1 train of the platform which is based on Android Nougat.

As for which Samsung devices were added, the list is pretty comprehensive.  The Galaxy S7 (G930F), S7 Edge (G935F) are probably the banner models that will catch everyones attention.  But the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 9.7″ was also added, both the Wi-FI and the LTE variants.  The Note 7 Tablet was updated to the 14.1 train too.

The continued advancement of Android Pay support in Europe took another step today, adding support for Belgium.  Belgians become the 10th country to have the tap-to-pay service available, with it being a pay option in some 85,000 retail locations throughout the country.  It is also backed by key banks within the country with support for MasterCard and Visa.

As readers probably know by now, using Android Pay requires that you have a phone running Android KitKat or later and have a phone with NFC support.  Once you arrive at a retailer who accepts the service, just tap your phone to the pay terminal to complete your transaction.

Today’s Deal is on the Anker 5-Port USB Wall Charger.  This 63W unit has two ports that support Quick Charge 3.0 technology for rapid charging of compatible devices.  Today you can pick it up for $26.99, a saving of 63% off the regular $57 price.  Anker is one of the long time manufacture of accessories for Android and iOS and I never hesitate in recommending their products.  This particular accessory I have (albeit the Quick Charge 2.0 model from last year) and it is rock solid and used every day for the myriad of devices I have plugged into it at any given point in time.  You see me point out Today’s Deals on Anker products a lot.  I do because I know the quality and know that readers will be happen with their purchase.

Good news for those of you who have older Chromebooks.  Google has updated their auto-update policy and have added a full 18 months of support for devices.  The change comes as part of a general overhaul of what use to be called the End of Life policy on Chrome OS.  Along with the name change, and given the significant number of Chrome OS devices in the education sector, Google has extended the time in which a device will receive updates.  Up until this change over the weekend, devices would receive updates for five years.  Now that has been extended another 18 months to 6-and-a-half-years.  Given the lightweight design and somewhat “cookie cutter” layout of Chrome OS, this makes a lot of sense and, frankly, is easier for Google do with this platform than it is for Microsoft with Windows as a comparative example.

In real terms, this is a big deal.  If you have an Acer Chromebook 14 like me, support for that Chromebook now extends to March 2021.  While as a tech user I will undoubtedly update my Chromebook to something else before 2021, it is good news for organizations who have a lot of a particular device.  They can now plan on when they need to start doing technology refreshes.