Author: Clinton

It has taken seemingly forever but a new update to the Google Calendar app for Android finally, finally lets you duplicate events in one calendar and copy events between calendars.  The updated build of the app is version 5.8.18 for those keeping score at home.  It was released late last week but it is just now rolling out to everyone.

The update to Google Calendar brings two big improvements.  First, you can now duplicate an event on your calendar.  Now, instead of having to create it completely from scratch, you can duplicate a current event on your calendar and use it as a template of sorts.

HTC Vice President of Product Management, Mo Versi, has once again taken to Twitter to announced a new update for one of the company’s phones.  This time it is for the HTC 10 for customers of Sprint here in the United States.

Sprint HTC 10 customers! We have received the Oreo OS approval from the carrier! OTA to start from tomorrow. Thanks!

— Mo Versi (@moversi) February 12, 2018

The release of Oreo on the Sprint variant of the HTC 10 comes literally a month to the day after the build was released for the unlocked variant of the 2016 flagship phone.  That update just over 1.5GB in size so those of you who have the 10 on Sprint, you can expect a similarly sized update for your phone.

Microsoft Launcher, the popular launcher app for Android, has a new and big update rolling out.  The new build is version 4.6 for those keeping score at home and it brings a full integration of Microsoft Cortana to the launcher.

Until now, Launcher and Cortana were two separate downloads and apps with basically no interaction between the two.  Now with the integration done, the behavior of Cortana in Microsoft Launcher is similar to the standalone app.  You can make calls, schedule meetings, change wallpaper and continue a browsing activity from your phone to your PC (assuming you are using Microsoft Edge in both places).

If you haven’t checked into the Google Play Store over the weekend and are a player of games like Candy Crush Saga or Clash of Clans, you may want to take a peek.  Over the weekend, Google started a $1 off promotion on in-app purchases on a handful of games.  The promotion ends on February 28.

There are five games that you can get the $1 discount on throughout this month:

• Candy Crush Saga
• Clash of Clans
• Candy Crush Soda Saga
• Gardenscapes
• Clash of Kings

To get the discount, you just need to accept the promotion within the Google Play Store, then open one of the games and make an in-app purchase.  The $1 discount will be applied prior to completing the purchase.

The sleep monitoring app, Sleep as Android, has a new update rolling out that brings a huge number of improvements and new features.  The most exciting new feature is a new Dashboard view, allowing you to look at all of your sleep related data on one page in the app.

The Dashboard is customizable, allowing you to pin different cards to it to give you information that is personalized to you.  By default, it will show you when your next alarm is, your sleep score, your last sleep recording, your sleep Deficit chart and any advise to help improve your sleep.

If there has been one criticism of the Essential Phone, it has been the camera and the camera app.  Frankly, it was a hot mess when the phone was released but the company has been making huge strides in updating both the firmware and software to improve photos from the phone.  Today, they are getting a little better.

There is an update to the Essential Camera app in the Play Store that brings a lot of fixes as well as Auto-HDR support.  The update is version 0.1.096.003 and a lot of work has gone into it around HDR in general.