Category: Android

With the shipment of 1st day orders of the Nexus 5X starting today, Google has made a few interesting posts on their various sites today.  First, as you saw earlier, you can now get a zero wait Project Fi invite to try the service out.  Second came the posting of the factory image for the Nexus 5X, codename “bullhead”.  Interesting, Google posted three images for the 5X, all based on Android Marshmallow.  The latest update is MDB08I.

For those who are unfamiliar, the factory images are the full Android images for Nexus devices that you can install on your device instead of waiting for the OTA update.  Generally speaking only developers should need to load these images but Google explains on the site how to install these on your Nexus devices if you chose to do so.

If you have been wanting to get on board with Project Fi, now you can do it without having to wait for an invite.  For the next 24 hours, when you go to the Fi site, your invitation will be instantly approved so you will be able to sign up and start using Google’s virtual mobile operator platform.  The news came via Twitter just a bit ago and it is all being done as part of the celebration by Google on the shipping of the Nexus 5X today.

The #Nexus5X ships today–so Project Fi is giving out instant invites for 24hrs to celebrate http://t.co/t3N7V4FaOC pic.twitter.com/qmpUVHttlS

— Project Fi (@projectfi) October 19, 2015

To remind everyone, to use Fi you will need to have a Nexus 6, Nexus 6P or Nexus 5X to take full advantage of the program.

Sign Up for Project Fi

The number of manufactures who have committed to bringing the Android Marshmallow update to their devices has already been impressive.  Today it got just that much better.  Chinese manufacture Huawei (who also makes the new Nexus 6P) has committed to bringing the latest version of Android to no less than 15 of their devices.  The news came from a leaked document on GizmoChina that points to the laundry list of devices that will be seeing Marshmallow.  While dates and timelines were not covered, clearly the company is set on getting the update out to a lot of their devices.  That is only good news given the features (like Doze) and security benefits that Android Marshmallow brings.

Review of Android Marshmallow

Last month during the Google event that saw the Nexus 5X and 6P announced, Google made several announcements around other services including Google Play Music.  While the big news was the upcoming family subscription service, the ability to send subscription gives was also very briefly mentioned.  That feature it appears has now gone live.

If you navigate to the Google Play Music app on your Android phone or tablet and open the hamburger menu, you will now see a “Send gift” option.  Tapping it will take you to the Google Play Music website where you can then place your gift subscription order.

Google Play Music – Free (in-app purchases) – Download Now

It looks like big changes are coming to the Google Play Store if the posts from Googler Kirill Grouchnikov are any indication.  Posts of a highly animated, Material design friendly and cleaner looking Google Play Store were posted on Mr. Grouchnikov’s Google+ account today as part of a sign off he made regarding the store and his departure to another team within Google.  In fact in his post, he makes it quite clear that the changes to the Google Play Store have been a team effort and what is coming up is very much in that same vein.

Amazon has released an update to the Amazon Shopping app for Android Phones that brings a mix of updates and new features.  From an updates perspective, this new version 6.0.0.100 supports all of the run-time permissions for those of you who are running Android Marshmallow.  This is part of the overall improvements in app permissions that has come with the latest version of Android (You can read about them in my review of Android Marshmallow).  These new permissions are important for the other big news that comes with this update to the Amazon Shopping app:  Voice commands.

Amazon Shopping for Android – Free – Download Now