Google Contacts is a great contacts management app that has been available for Android 5.1 and higher users despite being a stand alone app for some time now. That is changing a bit now and it is a good change. The latest build of the app, version 1.4.9 for those keeping score at home, lowers the minimum Android version to Lollipop 5.0. This may seem like a small thing but it actually opens up the app to a huge number of potential users.
Owners of the NVIDIA Sheld Tablet K1 should start seeing an update come to the device that brings, amongst other things, Android Marshmallow 6.0.1. The update is version 1.2 for those keeping NVIDIA software version scores and has been released by the company at this point. The update will come to users as an OTA update over the course of the next several days. The headliner feature of the update is of course Marshmallow 6.0.1 and the improvement that update made as well as the new emoji that are in that release. But the update contains much more than that according to the NVIDIA update page.
About a month after the first Developer Preview as released, Google announced today that the 2nd preview for Android N has been released. While Android N remains very much in beta mode, this update addresses a significant number of bugs that were identified by testers and also brings some new features for testing.
Google Photos for Android has received a small but important update for Android devices. The update, version 1.18 for those keeping score at home, adds the ability for you to back up photos on your device to your Google account online manually. To this point, the Photos app has only allowed you to automatically backup photos in your camera or other folder but not force the issue with a manual override. That, fortunately, has now changed.
If you are a frequent visitor to Starbucks, you will need to make sure you get the new app for your Android phone today. The updated app has been released in conjunction with the revamped star rewards scheme that the company has to reward frequent shoppers. The updated app reflects this update to the scheme along with some general improvements to the user experience in the app. While you can still use the old version of the app – at least for now – you may not get the correct star rewards totals with it. Upgrading is highly recommended.
For those of you who have unlocked Nexus devices, you should start seeing the April Security update come to your device via an OTA update. Last week Google released the factory images for the update for those who wanted to manually flash their devices. For the rest, the over-the-air updates started hitting devices yesterday with wider distribution of the update happening over the course of the next few days.
Although we pretty much knew everything there was to know about the HTC 10 prior to its launch today, it was good to see the official announcement and specifications of the device that will be their flagship device this year. HTC has stuck with the same design they have been using since the ONE M7, which is not a bad thing. The ONE series have been some of the more acclaimed devices from a design and aesthetics perspective but the specifications of those devices, particularly around the camera, have been lackluster at best. With the HTC 10, it seems that has changed.
Android Marshmallow has taken another big step forward in the number of devices the platform is install on according to the latest report from Google. For the week ending April 4, 2016, Marshmallow represented 4.6% of all devices that came to the Google Play Store. That is a 100% growth over the March figure of 2.3% and is reflective of the significant number of devices that have seen the update come to them or new devices hitting the market.