Category: Android

There are a lot of travel apps in the Play Store but the newest one, Google Trips, is mighty impressive.  The app launched earlier this week and aims to be the one app you go to for information about your trip and to help you plan it.  Best of all (besides being free) is that it can work completely offline, saving you data usage while you are traveling internationally.  The leverages travel reservations received in Gmail to determine where you are going on a trip and stores that information in the Reservations section of the app.  There you can see your car, hotel and air travel all in one place.  There are other sections too such as Things to Do.  This gives you recommendations on things around where you will be traveling that you can do to get to explore the city you are visiting.  Once you find something you like, tap the star icon for that things and it will be added to your Saved places so you can keep track of them and plan them into your trip.

Android fans, time to mark your calendars.  All indications including a teaser video from Google are pointing to the Google Pixel and Pixel XL to be announced on October 4th.  The video, which popped up on Google’s YouTube channel, starts with a search box that slowly morphs into a phone-shaped device by the end of the 30 second clip.  Couple this with the new Made By Google website, which features the same morphing search box, it is clear that the Mountain View company is getting things prepped for their new devices.

OnePlus has announced that a big update for OxygenOS is coming to the OnePlus 3 starting today.  The updated build is version 3.2.6 and will have a small roll out today with a broader roll out starting tomorrow.  The Android Marshmallow-based build has a significant number of performance and bug fixes in the update and if you have a OnePlus 3, you will most certainly want to get this installed on your device as soon as it comes to it.  You should get an OTA update over the course of the next few days and you can manually check for it by going to Settings>About Phone>System Update.

Chrome for Android has been updated to build 53 and the update will be rolling out to your Android devices this week.  The update comes a week after the same major build was released for Chrome OS and about two weeks after it was released for Chrome for desktop (Windows, MacOS and Linux).  The updated build number is version 53.0.2785.124 for those keeping score at home.  The update has been released to the Google Play Store so it is a matter of when the OTA update comes to your device which will likely happen at some point this week.

Last month eBay had the Nexus 5X down to $239.99 and it has returned at this great price.  Currently the 32GB model of the Nexus 5X is down to $239.99, a savings of about 40% over what you can pick it up from Google directly. Right now both the Carbon and Quartz colors are in stock.

Obviously with the new Marlin and Sailfish Nexus devices on their way, we can expect to see the prices starting to drop on the 5X and 6P but these are still solid devices.  Plus, as you probably already know, the 5X is upgradable to Android Nougat.

As a reminder, the specs of the Nexus 5X are pretty impressive.

While Samsung and carriers here in the United States have been voluntarily recalling the Galaxy Note 7, yesterday the government made it official.  The Consumer Product Safety Commission, the agency in charge of protecting US consumers from dangerous goods, has officially issued a recall for the nearly 1 million Note 7’s in the country.  The CPSC also makes it very clear that the phones should be powered off, not used, and returned to Samsung or carriers for a replacement or refund.

Consumers should immediately stop using and power down the recalled Galaxy Note7 devices purchased before September 15, 2016.  Contact the wireless carrier, retail outlet or Samsung.com where you purchased your device to receive free of charge a new Galaxy Note7 with a different battery, a refund or a new replacement device.  Go to www.samsung.com for more details.

Despite the warning to not use the phone, reports seemingly come in daily about someone getting hurt from a battery catching fire or property being damaged.  Folks, seriously.  Shut them off and get them back to where you both them immediately.

Samsung has setup an official recall site that has an IMEI search feature which will allow you to see if your Note 7 is impacted by the recall.