Author: Clinton

Android Marshmallow continues to grow in adoption as its install base has now reached 7.5% of devices coming to the Google Play Store over the course of the week ending May 2nd.  That figure represents a 2.9% increase over the same report last month or a growth of 72% over the course of the month.  With the number of devices that have received the Marshmallow update over the course of the last 4 weeks, the news is hardly a surprise but it is great to see nevertheless.  Perhaps equally as important, Marshmallow is the only flavor of Android that is gaining in install base.

Amazon has teamed up with Nextbit to offer a great deal on the Nextbit Robin over the course of the next week.  Starting at midnight Pacific time tonight (May 4th) through the 10th of May, you can pick up either the Mint version or the Midnight version of the unique cloud storage Android phone for just $299.  That is $100 off the regular price and it is the same price that the company offered early adopters back when it was a Kickstarter project.  Regardless of which color you select, they are eligible from Prime shipping so that 2-day shipping cost?  That’s free.

Uber is sending out notifications to customers who use Google Wallet in their app that as of May 9th, it will no longer be available.  Instead, the app has been updated with the ability to for customers to add Android Pay for easy payment of your rides around town.  While we often think of Android Pay as a touch-to-pay solution, it can also be embedded into apps for payments.  OpenTable has the ability to use Android Pay and has for several months.  Uber is following suit as Google Wallet is set to go away as a payment option this summer.

Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge owners on T-Mobile who have had an issue with the volume button on their devices, there is an update out for you that should resolve the problem from the carrier.  The update is coming to both devices as an OTA and you are looking for build G930TUVU2APD7 if you have a S7 and build G935TUVU2APD7 if you have a S7 Edge.  For those who haven’t run into the issues, you should still get this update on your device as soon as you can as it also contains security updates which will benefit all users.

Over at Amazon, you can pick up a great deal on Office 365 Home Edition from Microsoft.  Right now if you order the card version (meaning they ship you a card with your access codes), you can get it for just $76.09.  That’s a savings of $24 over the regular $99 price tag.  Keep in mind too that this is the Home edition so you can install Office on up to 5 PCs or Macs (or any combination) with this one purchase.  The license gives you access to download both the offline versions (the Office apps you are familiar with like Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, Excel & Access) as well as the online versions of these apps plus a few more, like Sway, online.  Across 5 PCs or Macs, this breaks down to just $15 a year for each computer to have Office.  Yep, it’s a pretty good deal.  From an Android perspective, if you have Office 365, you get access to all of the mobile versions of Microsoft’s apps for free too.  These will be completely unlocked when you sign in with your Office 365 account.

Galaxy S6 users on AT&T, your day should be a little better now.  After months of delays and every carrier in the US other than AT&T releasing the update, you can now get the Android Marshmallow update for your device.  The update came from Samsung, not AT&T, as they updated their support page for the device.  The new build you are looking for on your device is G920AUCU3CPC2 and it is a healthy 1+GB download so you will need to get it while you are on Wi-Fi and expect a 20-30 minute update process once you do have it.  Once you get it installed, you will have Marshmallow 6.0.1 and the March security update on your device.