Author: Clinton

Earlier today we saw the announcement of the HTC One A9, the next Android flagship phone from the company that will be running Android Marshmallow out-of-the-box.  Part of the announcement today also dealt with upgrades to Marshmallow and HTC made a bold statement.  In effect, if you have an unlocked One A9, you can expect an update to your device within 15 days of it being available for Nexus devices.

Let that sink in for a minute.  15 days.  Not weeks, not months.  Days.  This in light of devices running out there right now that still don’t have the Android Lollipop update.  This update is huge.

HTC this morning launched their next flagship devices, the One A9.  The 5″ Full HD display device is squarely aimed at the mid-market with a comfortable pre-order $399.99 price tag for the 32GB storage model.  Overall it is not a bad specifications on this device and obviously it is important for HTC that the One A9 does well given the lackluster performance of the One M9 last year.

The One A9 sports a fingerprint sensor which is rapidly become a standard issue for any Android device and equally as important, it comes with Android Marshmallow, making it the first non-Nexus device to come with the latest version of Android out-of-the-box.  The One A9 will come in two configurations:  a 2GB RAM/16GB Storage variety and a 3GB RAM/32GB Storage version while it is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 octa-core processor.  As mentioned, it has a 5″ Full HD display covered by Corning Gorilla Glass 4.

Google has released the Compatibility Definition Document for Android Marshmallow and there are a lot of important elements to it for phone OEMs.  For those who may not be familiar with it, the guide serves as a roadmap of what a device most possess and do in order to be certified by Google as being compatible with Android Marshmallow.  These guides are not new as Google publishes on with each release of Android.  While it is a bit of a technical read, it is still a good read as it will help you understand what a device must have and do in order to get Google’s blessing.

A key tidbit in the Compatibility Definition Document for Android Marshmallow is section 8.3 on Power Saving Modes.  Effectively the rules are simple:  OEMs cannot alter or hide the new Doze feature in Marshmallow.  Why is this important?  Doze could well be the killer feature of Android Marshmallow and it has proven to save a huge amount of battery life when your device sits idle.  By preventing OEMs from altering how Doze works, it means everyone who upgrades to Marshmallow will see the benefits.

And that is a very good thing.

With the shipment of 1st day orders of the Nexus 5X starting today, Google has made a few interesting posts on their various sites today.  First, as you saw earlier, you can now get a zero wait Project Fi invite to try the service out.  Second came the posting of the factory image for the Nexus 5X, codename “bullhead”.  Interesting, Google posted three images for the 5X, all based on Android Marshmallow.  The latest update is MDB08I.

For those who are unfamiliar, the factory images are the full Android images for Nexus devices that you can install on your device instead of waiting for the OTA update.  Generally speaking only developers should need to load these images but Google explains on the site how to install these on your Nexus devices if you chose to do so.

Over the course of the weekend I saw several different news sites posts articles that went along the lines of “Google has been listening to your voice and recording it”.  Here is an example, and another and a third for good measure so you get the idea of what I’m talking about.  I watched in befuddled amazement as I saw link after link to these articles on Twitter, Google+ and even my personal Facebook timeline.

This isn’t news folks and the fact that your voice is recorded for, erm, a voice search should not be a shock to anyone.  In fact Google has made it clear they would be doing for some time and have always given users the ability to listen to their recordings and delete them.  Why this has all of the sudden become a big issue is a surprise to me quite frankly as recordings are both necessary for the service to work and for Google to improve their search algorithms.

HP has announced today that they will be refreshing their Chromebook 14 lineup with improved specs and a new Sky Blue color option.  The updated Chromebooks will be available starting November 8th with a starting price of $249.99.  The updates will include improved overall battery life which is now rated up to 9 hours while bringing an updated Intel Celeron N2840 processor along with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of on-board storage.  There will be two variants to the new Chromebook 14:  A 1366 x 768 resolution version at $249.99 while a full HD version will be $30 more at $279.99.

HP is also bundling several things in with the Chromebook upon purchasing, some of which come from Google on any Chromebook purchase.  You will get 100GB of storage on Google Drive for 2 years, 12 GoGo Inflight passes for use while on flights and a 90 day subscription to Google Play Music Unlimited.  HP is also throwing in 3 free movie rentals from Google Play Movies.

HP Chromebooks