Category: Android

Android Pay and Uber have teamed up to give you a great deal now through October 15, 2016.  If you use Uber and you pay for your fare with Android Pay, you will get a 50% discount off that fare.  The better news?  You can do this up to 10 times!  That could be a huge savings for you if you use the service extensively.

What do you have to do?  Well, not much really and chances are you already have everything on your phone you need to take advantage of this promotion.  First, and obviously, you need to have both the Android Pay app and the Uber app on your phone.  If you don’t have them, you can get Android Pay here and Uber here from the Play Store.  Sign into Pay and get it all set up then open up the Uber app and we’ll pick things up after the break.

A new version of the Chrome browser for Android is making its way into the Play Store.  The updated build, version 53.0.2785.97 for those keeping score at home, has a lot of security updates and improvements that we’ve come to expect from these types of updates.  However, there is also support for Payment Request API which means that this build of Chrome supports Android Pay.  The Payment Request API is somewhat self explanatory but here is the W3C definition:

This specification describes a web API to allow merchants (i.e. web sites selling physical or digital goods) to easily accept payments from different payment methods with minimal integration. User agents (e.g., browsers) will facilitate the payment flow between merchant and user.

This means that you will be able to use Android Pay to pay for goods and services through the Chrome browser on your phone without having to type in a credit card number.  It should make buying goods online faster and more secure.

The Starbucks app for Android has been updated today and with it comes several new features around Mobile Order & Pay.  For those who aren’t familiar with Mobile Order & Pay, as the name suggests, you can pre-order your coffee or food items from your nearest Starbucks location using the app, pay for it using the app, and then just walk in and pick it up at the store.  No more queues waiting for our precious coffee!

One of the new features that has come to the app is travel times to the store at which you made your Mobile Order & Pay order.  The feature requires location services to be enabled and if it is, you will see the travel time from your location to that store so you can plan your journey to pick up your order.

Last night the all new LG V20 was announced and this flagship device has a some serious specs for those looking for a high end, high performing device.  The first phone to run Android Nougat will be hitting the market later this month and will be carried by a few carriers here in the US as well as being available unlocked.  The 5.7″ device is powered by the Snapdragon 820 processor, has 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, a 16MP main shooter and a removable battery.  And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The Google OnHub app was updated last week and while the official release notes indicated it was primarily around performance fixes and adding support for Phillips Hue lighting, there was another small but important change made to the app.  The OnHub app has always been able to do some network testing and when I initially reviewed the router and app, this was one area that was really in need of improvement.  That improvement has come over the course of the past few updates (I have no hesitation in recommending it now) but the change made to the app last week brings some clarity to those network tests.

To begin, the testing of your Internet connection speed and your Wi-Fi speed are now two separate tests.  You can run both of them or just one of them where as before, they were all lumped in together.  To be clear however, you have to run the Internet test first, every time, to get to the stand alone Wi-Fi test.  Hopefully this will change in the future but for now, it is what it is.

If you have been wanting to get your hands on one of the better devices to hit the Android market in 2016, you can do so now through Amazon.  The new Huawei Honor 8 is now available at the online retailer starting at $397 in white and $399 in black.  The 5.2″ device was release on the Huawei website last week but has made it to Amazon, Best Buy and Newegg online now.  The device is receiving high praise already and has a powerful set of specs for a phone in this price range.

The Honor 8 is powered by the Kirin 950 processor which has four Cortex A72 cores running at 2.3GHz and four Cortex A53 cores running at 1.85GHz.  It has 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage built-in but can be expanded an additional 128GB thanks to the MicroSD slot.  The 5.2″ LTPS display renders at 1920 x 1080 which gives you ~423PPI.