Author: Clinton

The world that is Google is expansive.  With dozens of services and solutions, getting your hands (and head) around all that they have to offer and use those services and solutions can be daunting.  Even the most powerful of power users can get lost in the maze so the company has launched Google Tips.  Google Tips is a website that has over 150 tips, tricks and how to’s to make your experience and use of their services and solutions easier.  The tips range from doing like using an app to order groceries to finding your Android phone if you left it somewhere.  There are tips that cover using Google Sheets, privacy settings and how to text hands free.  It’s a pretty impressive start and something that I applaud Google for developing as more people turn to their services and solutions every day.

Noreve, the French manufacture of great looking and well designed cases for mobile devices, has a great offer for ClintonFitch.com readers.  Now through January 17th you can save 10% off any case for any mobile device with the coupon code NEWYEAR16.  All you need to do is put the code in during the purchase process and you will get the discount.  I have been using Noreve cases for years and have reviewed them many times for a wide range of devices.  I currently use a Noreve case on both my Nexus 6 and my Nexus 7, both of which are just outstanding both in function and look.

The discount is available on any case regardless of platform.  They have cases for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S, The Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X, the Samsung Galaxy S6 lineup and the Huawei Honor 7 just to name a few.  They also carry a wide range of cases for tablet too which are also included in the discount promotion.

Just visit the Noreve site and you can search for your device and see the wide array of leather options and colors that they offer.  Many of them are in stock and ship within a day (shipping is free) but if you want something custom made, it could be a week or two before it ships.  If you are looking for a luxury case that looks the part, now is your chance to get one with a nice discount.

In that moment of horror, you drop your phone.  It’s all in slow motion as you see your beloved device fly from your hands…

In a puddle…

Of water….

You see a bright rainbow of colors and then darkness on the screen. Your phone, your beloved extension of your physical body, is dead.

Fortunately for you however you purchased Nexus Protect on your new Nexus 6P, or Amazon protect on that phone you bought on Amazon so you breath a sigh of relief knowing that beyond a minimal deductible, you won’t have to shell out much for a new phone.  So you go through the process of filing a claim and then you are asked for your phone’s IMEI number.  Then that sinking feeling in your stomach hits again.  You know how to get to your IMEI number on your device but it’s dead.  How do you get it without the device being alive?

Fortunately Google has made it pretty easy through your Google Dashboard that is tied to your account.

The Google Dashboard provides you a wealth of information and the best way to think of it is how you interact with Google services and how Google sees you.  The dashboard is were you will find your privacy settings, your security settings, the number of apps you have installed (and purchased) and information about your devices.  Any device you have ever tied to your Google account will be in the dashboard and in the scenario above, that is golden information.

After months of delays, AT&T has finally approved and with the help of Google is rolling out the Android Marshmallow update to Nexus 6 devices locked to the carrier.  In a support post, AT&T stated that the Marshmallow 6.0.1 update MMB29K is rolling out to a small group of devices but will be ramping up to 100% over the course of the next week.  The news is most certainly welcome to those Nexus 6 owners tied to the carrier as they are seemingly the last group with these devices to get the update.

The good news in all of this is that AT&T has opted to go to the December 2015 build of Marshmallow and not just to the original 6.0 release.  That means AT&T Nexus 6 owners will be more current on their security patches and other improvements that came in 6.0.1.  You can read about the improvements in the .1 release here as well as my review of Android Marshmallow

Google has started rolling out an update to Android Pay that should hit your device in the next day or two.  The update, version 1.2 for those keeping score at home, is a minor update but it does have one significant feature that you will want to have available to you.  If you recall, back in December I told you about apps you may have on your phone being able to leverage Android Pay for payments.  That list of apps was pretty long and included apps like Lyft, OpenTable and ParkMe Parking.  The update today to Android Pay is important because now you will get receipts in the app for those in-app purchases.

Essentially the receipts act like the do if you use Android Pay at a physical store.  When you make a purchase using it within an app, a receipt for that transaction is associated with the credit or debit card that you used to pay for it.  The idea of course is you have one place to go to see a history of all your transactions.  There is nothing you as a user need to do other than update to this latest version to enable this feature.  It is a back end change along with the app.

Android Pay – Free – Download Now

There are a lot of cool changes coming to the next update of Google Plus for Android which should be rolling out this week.  Google’s Luke Wroblewski posted on his Google+ profile some of the changes that are coming in version 7.0.0 of the app.  As he put in his post, this includes two of the most requested Android fixes so he and the team are certainly listening to users of the new-and-improved Google+.

Specific to what is being addressed in the update, Luke outlines them in his post and provided a great infographic which I have linked to after the break.

• 69 bugs fixed
• 14 accessibility issues addressed
• Automatically hide the bottom tab bar when scrolling (note: not on Notifications screen yet)
• The home stream now remembers your position when you return to it (after going to a different screen like Notifications)
• Search now displays autocomplete suggestions as you type
• If you have no Collections or Communities visible on your profile, we include a prompt for you to add one

That’s a huge number of fixes and improvements that users can expect to see when the update comes out via an OTA update.