Category: Android

For readers who are on Sprint and wanted to pick up the new Essential PH-1, today’s a good day.  Starting today, you can pick up the PH-1 from the carrier both online and in stores.  It will mark a turning point for availability of the phone as shipping from Essential has been slow and it has hasn’t even started from Amazon yet.

Sprint has a promotion running on their Sprint Flex Lease scheme.  Effectively you save 50% off the cost of the phone if you order now which drops the price of the phone to $14.58 per month for 12 months.  Using this program, you save about $260 according to the carrier. Want to buy it outright?  No problem.  You can do that from Sprint for $699.99.

Thanks to a lot of happenings all at once, it is pretty much a lock that we are going to see Google’s new Pixel lineup on October 4th.  That will put the launch of the new Pixel 2 and Pixel XL 2 almost a year out from the current Pixel phones.

To start, there is now a new, albeit empty, website for the phones.  Literally, it’s empty.  It only asks the question “Thinking of changing phones?” and you can register your email address.  This is is very similar to what they did with the original Pixels last year.

Second, there were FCC approvals made for what is presumed to be the XL 2.  It is an LG build device and you can read all the gory details at the FCC site.  It’s not overly exciting but it confirms some of the rumors known about the phone.

Late yesterday, Google released the latest Android Distribution Report and it is one of the more positive reports in a while.  While Android Oreo did not make its debut in the report, Android Nougat gained 2.3% in overall install base for this month’s report and was the only version of Android that saw gains.

The distribution report looked at devices coming to the Google Play Store for the 7-day period ending September 11, 2017.  For that time, Android Nougat was seen on 15.8% of devices, an increase of 2.3% over the August report.  That makes Nougat third most installed of Android flavors, behind Marshmallow (32.2%) and Lollipop (28.8%).  Nougat jumped ahead of the long loved KitKat version which now sits at 15.1%.  Jelly Bean continues to hang on at 6.9% while Ice Cream Sandwich and Gingerbread continue to fall, both down to just .6% of devices.

Last month, ASUS announced the updated series of ZenFone 4 devices and released them, mostly in Asian markets.  Now we are starting to see the first of these here in the United States.  The new ZenFone 4 Max, sporting a huge 5000 mAh battery, is now available for $199 from Amazon.  It is not a bad price for a well appointed mid-range Android phone that will be getting updated to Android Oreo in 2018.

The ZenFone 4 Max has a 5.5″ display that renders 1280 x 720 (that gives you ~401PPI) and is powered by the Snapdragon 430 processor.  It has 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage (which can be expanded up to an additional 256GB thanks to the MicroSD slot) and, as mentioned, a 5000 mAh battery which can actually be used to charge other devices thanks the reverse charging feature.

The phone is sold unlocked and will work with GSM carriers here in the United States like T-Mobile and AT&T.  Canadian readers, it will work the likes of Rogers and TELUS too.  Here’s a run down of the supported frequencies.

• GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
• HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
• LTE: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 17, 18, 19, 26, 28

Unfortunately for those of you who are CDMA carriers like Sprint & Verizon, this phone won’t work for you.

The Google+ app for Android has an update rolling out in the Play Store that brings support for Android Oreo’s new Notification Channels feature.  The update is version 9.20 for those keeping score.  It was released yesterday and should come to everyone who has the app installed over the course of the next few days.

For those who aren’t familiar, Notification Channels are built into apps by developers as a way to allow you greater control over the notifications you see and how you are notified.  They bring granularity to notifications and not just a general “on or off” type functionality.  That’s an over simplification but you get the idea.

With this update to Google+, you have three channels now available:  App Status Updates, New Activity, and Content.  You can now customize the notifications for the app to different levels depending on how you set it up.  To setup the channels, go to Settings>Notifications then select the Google+ app.  There you will see your stock notification settings which you can tap to adjust.

It is news that Blackberry Priv owners likely knew was coming down the pike:  There will be no Android Oreo update for the last Blackberry-build device.

The news came via the company’s general manager of Mobility, Alex Thurber.  He was recently on the UTB Blogcast and confirmed that the phone will not be updated to Oreo.  It is disappointing of course but not surprising.  Blackberry’s new parent company, TCL, has been focusing on restoring the brand’s name and their own first built device, the KEYone.  The KEYone has been confirmed to receive an update to Oreo.