Author: Clinton

Over the course of the weekend, Netflix dropped an update for their Android app in the Google Play Store.  The new 3.15 version – for those keeping score at home – is primary a bug fix release while also bring full support for Android Marshmallow to the app.  Nothing super news worthy but what was worth a mention was a tease that Netflix put at the bottom of the release notes:  Call Netflix Help directly from the app.  While no indicator of timing was given in the notes, the idea of being able to get technical support directly from within the app is one that could help users quickly if they are having trouble.

Netflix for Android – Free (In-App Purchases) – Download Now

The number of manufactures who have committed to bringing the Android Marshmallow update to their devices has already been impressive.  Today it got just that much better.  Chinese manufacture Huawei (who also makes the new Nexus 6P) has committed to bringing the latest version of Android to no less than 15 of their devices.  The news came from a leaked document on GizmoChina that points to the laundry list of devices that will be seeing Marshmallow.  While dates and timelines were not covered, clearly the company is set on getting the update out to a lot of their devices.  That is only good news given the features (like Doze) and security benefits that Android Marshmallow brings.

Review of Android Marshmallow

Last month during the Google event that saw the Nexus 5X and 6P announced, Google made several announcements around other services including Google Play Music.  While the big news was the upcoming family subscription service, the ability to send subscription gives was also very briefly mentioned.  That feature it appears has now gone live.

If you navigate to the Google Play Music app on your Android phone or tablet and open the hamburger menu, you will now see a “Send gift” option.  Tapping it will take you to the Google Play Music website where you can then place your gift subscription order.

Google Play Music – Free (in-app purchases) – Download Now

OnePlus has announced that on October 22nd they will be closing down and locking the OnePlus 2 invite program.  If you want to get on the invite list, now is the time to do it.  The company stated that the reason for the closure was to try to tackle the some 5 million invite holders that are out there.  As they say, “While we appreciate all your support and enthusiasm all things must come to an end eventually. And so, it is time for us to sunset the reservation list, and start fulfilling it.”

The news will come as good news for those who are on the reservation list and still haven’t had their device ship while those who have been thinking of getting the latest flagship from the company have been given a timeline on when they can jump in on the action.  The bottom line is if you aren’t on the list come October 22nd, you will have to get invited from an existing OnePlus 2 owner.  Those already on the list will stay on the list & your position will be locked after the 22nd.

The Chrome team at Google have just posted an updated build of Chrome OS, bringing with it several improvements, fixes and changes.  The updated build has been released to the stable channel and it is build 46.0.2490.71 (Platform version: 7390.59.0) for those keeping score at home.  In the update there are the normal stability, security and performance improvements which are pretty granular in nature.  However, with this build, the Chrome OS team have added some new features and made other improvements that will be visible to most users on their Chromebooks or other Chrome OS-based devices.

Amazon has released an update to the Amazon Shopping app for Android Phones that brings a mix of updates and new features.  From an updates perspective, this new version 6.0.0.100 supports all of the run-time permissions for those of you who are running Android Marshmallow.  This is part of the overall improvements in app permissions that has come with the latest version of Android (You can read about them in my review of Android Marshmallow).  These new permissions are important for the other big news that comes with this update to the Amazon Shopping app:  Voice commands.

Amazon Shopping for Android – Free – Download Now