Category: Android

It seems like I posted on this ages ago but the new user experience for the Google Play Store for Android appears to be rolling out to the masses at this point.  Over the course of the past 24 hours or so, multiple people have posted screenshots of their devices sporting the new look store on Google+, Facebook and even a few dropped them in email.  If you are still waiting for the update to come to your devices, your wait may not be much longer.  As for me, I received the updates about 5PM MST today on both my Nexus 6 and Nexus 7 at the same time (seems once one updates they all update on your account).

To be clear, there is nothing you can do to push this update to your devices.  Yes there was an update to the Google Play Store app a couple of weeks ago but this UI change is server side.  You have to wait until you get it.

The Google Play Music app has been updated today for Android devices and while it is mostly a bug fix release, there are a few new features that are worth a mention.  This new build is verion 6.1.2115T for those keeping score at home and it is rolling out to the Google Play Store now.  If you have the app installed then you should expect to see the OTA update for it anytime over the next couple of days.

As far as new features in this update, the first thing you will notice is a completely revamped Settings menu.  Things are generally much more organized into sections with this update and it is a bit easier to see all of your settings without having to tap to change a particular setting in most cases.  Functionally there isn’t much different other than the new Auto-offline feature which I will discuss after the break but I find the new Settings to be a bit easier to figure out what to adjust in Google Play Music.

Google Play Music – Free – Download Now

If you are a new Project Fi users, chances are you are a bit confused.  That confusion surrounds SMS and which app you can use for getting your text messages on your Nexus phone using Fi.  On the surface, it looks like you are required to use Google Hangouts, the voice, video and yes, text messaging integrated app.  But that not necessarily true and in fact, even Google suggests that you use Google Messenger, the default SMS app on Nexus devices, for texting.

So what gives?  What’s the truth and what is the plus or minus of using Google Hangouts or Google Messenger?  Essentially it comes down to where you want messages to appear and on which devices and how you plan to communicate to friends and family.

Keep track of the amount of data you consume on your mobile plan is something that the majority of us have to do.  While there are some unlimited data plans that meet the need for power users, the rest of us usually have a limited amount each month or top up of our mobile accounts. To aid in this, there are several apps out in the Google Play Store to help you get a reasonable grasp of the amount of data you are using for a specific period of time.  My personal favorite has been My Data Manager as I’ve been using it on Android and iOS and it is reasonably good at tracking not only your mobile data usage but your Wi-Fi usage at the same time.

With the release of Android Lollipop, Google added a data manager into the platform directly.  Designed to give you information on your cellular usage as well as Wi-Fi, the Data usage feature in Android Marshmallow is nearly identical to that which we found in Lollipop.  In this How To I will show you where to find this on your Android Phone and how to configure it to set thresholds so you will know if you are approaching your data allotment for your billing period.

In a post in their customer forums yesterday, Asus cleared up any doubt on which of their devices would see the Android Marshmallow update.  Asus is one of the few manufactures who had not publicly stated (clearly at least) which devices would see the latest version of Android which certainly was causing some consternation amongst owners.  While the list isn’t extensive, it does cover the major devices from Asus. The concern of course is that no timeline was mentioned in the post.

If you are a frequent traveler on American Airlines (Clinton raises his hand) then you will want to make sure you have the latest update to their app for Android.  The new version 4.3 build is in the Google Play Store for those keeping score at home and it comes with a streamlined and much improved user experience along interactive terminal maps for many of the airports where you can find the airline. The update is free of course and to take full advantage of it you will need to have an American AAdvantage frequent flyer account but it is not necessary to use a good percentage of the app.

American Airlines – Free – Download Now