Category: Android

There is a new command in Google Assistant that makes taking a screenshot of your phone even easier.  Now you can either long press the home button on your phone or simply saying “OK Google, take a screenshot” to capture display on your phone.

The ability to capture a screenshot on virtually any Android phone (or tablet for that matter) has been available for a long time through the button combination of Power+Volume Down and it remains so today.  Further, many manufactures have included a shortcut in the Notification Shade for easy screenshots (Huawei and Lenovo for example).  Even Google at one point had a screenshot option in Google Now but none of these have been voice enabled to this point.

The LG V30 was announced earlier this morning and now you can download the official wallpapers for LG’s latest flagship phone.

In all, there are 22 wallpapers that come with the V30 and I’ve added them all to the wallpaper page.  After the break, I’ve also added them to this post for those who are interested.  As I always do, I display them in a lower resolution to speed things up but when you click on the wallpaper, you will get the full 2880 x 1440 image.

As you would expect, all of the wallpapers for the V30 are in a 18:9 ratio so if you have a phone that renders at that ratio, they will work perfectly.  For other, smaller ratio phones, you’ll have a bit of a cropped image.

As a reminder,  6″ display is a QHD P-OLED display that renders 2880 x 1440 in a 18:9 ratio.  That gives you a very eye comforting 538ppi.    LG refers to the display as FullVision which is their term for a near bezel-less experience.  The phone is powered by the Snapdragon 835 SoC with 4GB of RAM.  This is coupled with either 64GB or 128GB of storage depending on the variant you pick up.  That storage can be expanded up to an additional 2TB thanks to the MicroSD slot.

One of the more anticipated phones of the second half of 2017 is finally here.  The LG V30 was announced at IFA 2017 in Berlin this morning and it has all the specifications you would expect for a flagship device.

The LG V30 is 151.7 x 75.4 x 7.39mm &  weighs 158g.  That’s 5.97 x 2.96 x .29 inches & 5.57 ounces in old money.  The 6″ display is a QHD P-OLED display that renders 2880 x 1440 in a 18:9 ratio.  That gives you a very eye comforting 538ppi.    LG refers to the display as FullVision which is their term for a near bezel-less experience.  The phone is powered by the Snapdragon 835 SoC with 4GB of RAM.  This is coupled with either 64GB or 128GB of storage depending on the variant you pick up.  That storage can be expanded up to an additional 2TB thanks to the MicroSD slot.

Microsoft’s personal assistant, Microsoft Cortana, has a new update rolling out in the beta channel this morning.  The new beta build is version 2.9.3 and while it doesn’t bring new features, it does bring a lot of performance improvements and stability to the app.

The update outlines three key areas of focus in the release notes:

• Improved app performance
• Stabilized the app
• Fixed several crash bugs

While that isn’t overly exciting, the fact is that Microsoft has been working pretty hard on getting Cortana solid for Android.  Having tested out this new beta build this morning, I can say it is much faster than the current stable channel build and seems to be far more reliable.

OnePlus has begun the process of rolling out an update to OxygenOS for the OnePlus 3 and 3T.  The updated version is 4.1.7 and brings a handful of fixes, security improvements and optimizations to the Android-based platform.

The August 2017 Android Security Update is included in the 4.1.7 build, bringing it up from the May 2017 patch, the last time the OnePlus 3 and 3T so an OS update.  This makes the 3 and 3T one of just a handful of phones outside of Google’s own Nexus or Pixel devices that have the August update.

OnePlus has also optimized the battery and improved overall system fluidity which should make these devices a feel a bit snappier when you are using them.  What exactly was improved here was not outlined in the release notes but users are reporting that these are positive steps in usability.

The Android apps team over at Microsoft has been busy and has rolled out another update to the popular Microsoft To-Do app.  This is the second update to this app this month and more-or-less is a package of refinements on the new features that were introduced earlier this month.

The updated build is version 1.12.32 for those keeping score at home.  If you have the app already installed on your Android phone or tablet, the update should come to you over the course of the next few days via an OTA update.  For those who haven’t installed it, you can download it free from the Play Store.

This update focuses on refinements.  In the last update, the ability to search notes came to the app but with this update, To-Do will now show you the titled of a To-Do title of a particular note.  In other words, it makes finding all of your notes in Microsoft To-Do a bit more reliable.