Author: Clinton

If you have manually flashed an Android phone before or have unlocked your bootloader, then you are familiar with the ADB and Fastboot commands that you use to make those changes to your Android devices.  The challenge, till now, is that you either had to download the entire Android Developer Studio, all 1.6GB of it, just to get the official ADB or you had to go off piste and get it from a 3rd party.  That, of course, opens you up to all kinds of fun like malware.  Now you have a third option:  Download these platform tools directly from Google.

Google has finally made it where you can download just these tools along with a few others without having to bother with the developer tools.  Frankly, unless you are a developer, those tools eat up a huge amount of storage on your PC or Mac and are somewhat dead to you.

One of the biggest benefits to Android as a platform is its flexibility.  Google, much to their credit, has made it very easy for developers – including companies that compete with them – to produce apps for Android to sell or give away.  Microsoft, much to their credit too, has taken advantage of this openness.  The Redmond, Washington company as certainly competed with Google and more directly Android but equally, have produced great apps that allow you to stay within the Microsoft ecosystem without too much pain.  In fact, really no pain.

If you are new to Android but your personal and/or work life is surrounded by Microsoft applications, take heart.  You will find that Android is more than capable of giving you a rich, powerful Microsoft experience without the sacrifices in other areas.  I’m of course referring to Windows Phone.  Clearly the Microsoft experience on Windows Phone was outstanding but even the apps on that now all-but-dead platform lacked when you compared them to those for Android or even iOS.

In this How To I’m going to highlight some of the key apps from Microsoft that will make your Android phone (and in most cases tablets) a solid performing and excellent user experience for those who have their digital work or personal lives in Office 365, OneDrive and other apps.  While those apps are expected, it is the other apps that Microsoft offers that may be a surprise to you.

To help you keep track of your exercise goals, Google has announced a new integration between Google Calendar and Google Fit.  The change is behind the scenes and once it rolls out to everyone, you can track your exercising in Google Fit and it will automatically mark your time slot for exercising in Google Calendar as “done”.  It is a nice and easy way to keep track of your exercise routine while making sure it is built into your daily schedule.

Goal tracking in Google Calendar is not new.  It has been there since April of last year and allows you to track anything from exercise to reading time to learning a new language.  The goals are quite handy actually and the app is smart enough to look at what is on your calendar and schedule that goal in a time period where you don’t have other activities.  You can also tell it to set a time for the goal in the morning, afternoon or evening for even more refinement.  Now, on your exercise goals, you can tie them in with Google Fit so when you complete an exercise there, it update Calendar automatically as the goal being complete.

Nexus 6 owners, rejoice!  Google has just released Android Nougat 7.1.1 for the phone, bringing it line with other Nexus and Pixel phones.  The update, build N6F26Q, comes a few weeks after the initial release of 7.1.1 with a few remaining bug issues preventing it from being released on the 2014 flagship Nexus device.  Google had committed to having the update out this week and, true to their word, it has happened.

Full factory images and OTA images are now available on the Android Developer site for those who want to manually flash your devices.  For those of you who want to wait, the OTA is rolling out now and should be hitting devices over the course of the next few days.  Keep in mind however it can take a week or two before it hit everyone.

After being released in Europe in November, the Huawei Mate 9 is finally coming to the United States.  This 5.9″ phablet will be available at a wide range of online retailers, including Amazon, at the impressive price of $599.  So what does that get you?  a 5.9″ phone running Android Nougat, an octa-core processor running at 2.4GHz and Leica optics dual-camera setup shooting at 20MP and 12MP respectively with OIS.  The front facing selfie camera is 8MP shooter.  You also have 64GB of built-in storage that can be expanded up to an additional  256GB thanks to the MicroSD slot.  Not bad at all for $599.

The Mate 9 is being sold unlocked so the question is always carrier compatibility.  For those of you on GSM carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile, you are good-to-go.  For those on Sprint and Verizon, the phone is CDMA compatible too. Here are the range of frequencies supported:

• GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
• CDMA 800 / 1900
• HSDPA 800 / 850 / 900 / 1700(AWS) / 1900 / 2100
• CDMA2000 1xEV-DO & TD-SCDMA
• LTE band 1(2100), 2(1900), 3(1800), 4(1700/2100), 5(850), 7(2600), 8(900), 9(1800), 12(700), 17(700), 18(800), 19(800), 20(800), 26(850), 28(700), 29(700), 38(2600), 39(1900), 40(2300), 41(2500)

Those frequencies are going to cover every carrier here in the United States but as always, double-check with your carrier before ordering.

Google is expanding the reach of Google Assistant and it is coming to a television near you.  At CES 2017 yesterday, the company announced that the AI-driven personal assistant would be coming to Android TV and a wide range of other Smart TVs on the market.

In the coming months, the Google Assistant on Android TV will come to the NVIDIA SHIELD, along with all Android TVs in the US running Android 6.0 Marshmallow or Android 7.0 Nougat, such as the AirTV Player, Sharp Aquos, Sony Bravia, Xiaomi Mi Box, and more. And once available, the NVIDIA SHIELD will be the first TV device to offer a hands-free Assistant experience — so “Dim the lights” will only be an “Ok Google” away!

The news means that Google Assistant will start moving beyond Google Home or the Google Pixel phone line up, expanding further into the home as they try to compete with Amazon’s Echo and Alexa technology.