Category: Android

Today’s Deal is one that is hard to pass up if you are looking for a inexpensive and solid little tablet.  Right now you can pick up the Amazon Fire 7″ tablet with 8GB of storage and in a variety of colors for just $39.99.  This Android tablet, which runs Amazon’s Lollipop-based Fire OS, is tied to the Amazon ecosystem like the Amazon Underground App Store, Amazon Video and Kindle.  If you have a Prime account, all of these services along with Amazon Music are there for you.

Specs of the Fire 7″ are solid for the price.  It’s powered by a quad-core processor running at 1.3GHz, has 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage.  That storage can be expanded up to an additional 256GB thanks to the MicroSD slot.  Display wise, it has a 7″ display that renders at 1024 x 600, giving about 171ppi.  So no, this Fire 7″ isn’t going to set the world alight with its specs.  But for $39?  It still a great deal for those who are tied into the Amazon ecosystem.

Google’s health and activity tracking app, Google Fit, saw a minor update yesterday but it contains a big fix for users.  To be clear, this is not the update that brings a lot of new features to the app to support Android Wear 2.0 devices.  That update is expected once the 2.0 devices get out there, which starts on Friday, February 10th.  So for those of you who have Fit installed, don’t expect to see a lot of changes visually.

The big change is a bug fix that had to do with mileage estimates from the app.  When you were on a walk, run, biking or I’ve found it even in skiing, there were times that the mileage estimates were off.  Sometimes they were off by a little bit, sometimes by a lot.  This update appears to address those issues based on an evening walk I made last night after updating.

The good news is, a new build of Chrome OS has been released and is making its way to a wide range of Chromebooks.  The not-so-good news, it doesn’t enable Android apps in the Stable channel yet.

Sigh.

Here is the deal:  Chrome OS build 56.0.2924.87 (Platform version: 9000.82.0) is rolling out to all devices except those devices which are already able to run Android apps.  That includes the ASUS Chromebook Flip C100PA,  Google Chromebook Pixel (2015), and the Acer Chromebook R11.  If you have any other device running the platform, the update is rolling out and should hit your device via an OTA update in the next day or two.  You can force the update by going to Settings>About Chrome OS and checking for an update.

However, don’t despair:  There are some really nice updates in this build, especially around Material Design.

Today’s Deal over at Amazon is on the zippy Samsung EVO MicroSD card.  The 64GB version of the card is down to $21.99 today while the 32GB model is only $10.99.  If you are looking to expand the memory of your Android phone or other devices, these are solid performing cards that can keep up with an impressive 48MB/sec throughput.

Whether you pick up the 32GB or the 64GB version, both cards are UHC-1 certified so you can record Full HD to them as the write speed is fast enough.  The cards will be supported by the vast majority of Android phones as well as other recording devices (like a GoPro) but be sure to double-check the specification requirements of your device before you make a purchase.

For those of you who are Amazon Prime customers, you get free shipping on the cards.  Head over to Amazon to get all the details.  Prices are good while supplies last.

Android Wear 2.0 is expected to be released today but it appears to Google is already paving the way for it with other apps.  Android Pay was updated late yesterday and with it comes support for Wear 2.0.  The support for it is not explicitly called out in the release notes for the update, something that Google is notoriously bad about updating on their apps.  Rather, it is in the screenshots that are associated with the update in the Play Store.

In those screenshots, you will see round Android Wear captures of a transaction with a Bank of America card along with another screenshot of a history of transactions.

Google has released the latest Android Platform version report which sees Android Nougat finally break through the 1% install base level.  The report is based on devices that visited the Play Store for a 7-day period ending February 6, 2017.  While it is not the ultimate report of which versions of Android are in use, it is nevertheless a good resource to get a picture of what is out in the wild.  For Nougat, across versions 7.0 and 7.1, the devices coming to the Play Store topped out at 1.2%, nearly double that of the .7% from the January report.  This number should continue to increase as new devices hit the market as well as updates to Nougat from HTC, Sony, Moto and others that have been happening over the course of the past few weeks.  It’s still a low number but it is heading in the right direction.

Android Marshmallow was the only version of those in the report besides Nougat to see an increase in usage.  Marshmallow jumped 1.1% to 30.7% of the total while Lollipop, KitKat and Jelly Bean all saw drops.  Lollipop fell .5% to 32.9 while KitKat saw a .7% decrease and Jelly Bean was down .3%.  Android Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich just made the report with a 1% total each.