Category: Android

Today’s Deal over at Amazon is on the Microsoft Office 365 Home subscription.  Normally $99.99, it is down to $84.99 at the online retailer.  The Home edition of Office 365 allows you to install the Office suite of apps – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote – on up to 5 PCs or Mac (any combination) and also comes with 1TB of OneDrive storage for your files and photos.  That 1TB of storage applies to all users on the subscription so each will get 1TB.  It’s a pretty sweet deal on the flagship Office offering from Microsoft.

If you already have a subscription, you can still take advantage of this deal.  When you get the subscription card shipped to you, just go to your Office account and add it to your existing subscription. This will just push out your renewal date another year.

Add to this, with the Home subscription, you get full access to the Android and iOS versions of the Office apps.  These apps are free on both platforms but to get all of the features, you have to have a subscription.

Today’s Deal is on the physical subscription card being shipped to you (it’s Prime eligible so it won’t cost you anything if you are a member) and not on the download version.  That version is still $99.

Check it out at Amazon

As expected, Google released the January Android Security Update patches yesterday for the Google Pixel phones and Nexus devices.  The full system images and the OTA images have been released to the Android Developer site already so users who have these devices should start seeing the OTA update come to their phones or tablets over the course of the next few days.  For those who want to manually flash, you can do so with these factory images.

The new build versions are as follows:

• Google Pixel XL – NMF26U or NMF26V (for Verizon owners)
• Google Pixel – NMF26U or NMF26V (for Verizon owners)
• Pixel C – N4F26I
• Nexus 6P – N4F26I and N4F26J
• Nexus 5X – N4F26I and N4F26J
• Nexus Player – NMF26R
• Nexus 9 (Wi-Fi) – NMF26R

Notably the Nexus 6 is not on this list nor is the Nexus 9 LTE version.  The Nexus 6 should be getting Nougat 7.1.1 next week but it is unclear why the Nexus 9 LTE did not get updates yet.

WhatsApp has announced that effective in 2017, support for several legacy mobile OS versions has been or will be eliminated.  For Android, Eclair (version 2.1) and Froyo (version 2.2) are on the list.  What this means is if you are running a device with Android 2.1 or 2.2 (which begs the question, why?) you will no longer get support from WhatsApp for any issues.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that the app on your phone will quit working, just that future updates may not be available (highly likely).

Android wasn’t the only OS impacted.  Support for BlackBerry OS and Blackberry 10 was dropped as well as Nokia Symbian S60 and Windows Phone 7.  Here is the complete list:

• BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry 10
• Nokia S40
• Nokia Symbian S60
• Android 2.1 and Android 2.2
• Windows Phone 7
• iPhone 3GS/iOS 6

As you can see, all of these are rather old mobile OS builds.

Intuit has rolled out an update to their financial budget and bill tracking app, Mint.  The update brings many improvements including a much improved ability to see the bills you have due, which ones have been paid and payment reminders so you can avoid late fees.  If you are a subscriber to Mint and have the app installed, the OTA should be coming to you over the course of the next couple of days.

The biggest change in this update is the new bill section.  Now you can see the number of bills that have been paid and the number that you have coming up in the month.  Tapping on this new tile will give you the exact details of which bill is do when and who it is due too.  The idea is to give you a better grasp on your cashflow so you can budget to get your bills paid on time.

Although it is still an exclusive for iOS users, Super Mario Run looks to be coming to Android soon.  In the Google Play Store you will now find a listing for the new game as well as the ability to pre-register for it.  Pre-registering will assure that you get a notification on your phone when the game is available, likely sometime this quarter.  You will then be able to go to the store to purchase it and install it.

As for the game itself, Nintendo describes game play as…

In this game, Mario constantly moves forward through the courses while you use a variety of jumps to navigate. Mario will behave differently depending on the timing of your taps, so it’s up to you to show off particularly smooth moves, gather coins, and reach the goal.

The announcement of the game back in October at an Apple event was one of the highlights for that event and one that got a lot of people excited to see a classic video game, at least in character, come to mobile devices.

Keeping with their self imposed end-of-2016 deadline, OnePlus has released the Android Nougat based OxygenOS 4.0 update for the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T.  The update was released very late on December 31st, hitting the deadline and the update is now making its way out to all owners of the 3 and 3T.  While it still may take a few days for your phone to see it, it is out and it is only a matter of time.

The update is all focused on Android Nougat.  The release notes in the OnePlus forums essentially highlight all of the features of Nougat and speak very little of any other changes that the company has made in their custom version of Android.