Category: Android

Google has released an update to the the Google Street View app that now supports Google Cardboard for a more immersive experience.  The update is version 2.0 for those keeping score at home and it has been released to the Google Play Store.  That means if you have the app installed on your Android phone or tablet, the update will be coming to you anytime from now to a couple of days.  For those who don’t remember, Google released Google Street View as a standalone app about this time last month, separating it from being embedded within Google Maps.  The reason is for updates like this one which allow Google to give a more enhanced experience without the limitations of the Maps app.

Google Street View – Free – Download Now

If you are like me, next to my bed each night is my Android phone or tablet.  I use either of them for reading in the evening to wind down and given that my mobile number is the only number most of my family have for me, I want to have it near me in case of emergencies.  That said, I work for a global company and I get email at all hours of the day and night and the occasional call when someone forgets the world is round and we have time zones.  What I don’t want – and my wife really doesn’t want – are these tones and rings waking us up at night. Likewise, I don’t want the vibration of my phone sitting on my nightstand waking me up.

There have been a variety of apps that give you a Do Not Disturb like function for Android but with Android Marshmallow, it went native.  Google now includes a DND mode in their latest build of Android and it is highly customizable for your needs.  In fact, you can even have multiple rules for different days of the week.  All of this can be configured with just a few taps and I will show how to set these up so you can take advantage of this great new feature.

Yesterday Sony announced the devices that they plan on providing an update to Android Marshmallow to in the coming weeks and months.  Now the company has opened up beta testing of Marshmallow to 10,000 Xperia Z3 and Xperia Z3 Compact owners.  The news comes from Sony’s blog and is going to be strictly limited to these devices and the first 10,000 users who sign up and meet the criteria.

Like many of you who have Nexus devices, I have spent this past week putting the release build of Android Marshmallow through its paces.  As I noted in my review of Android Marshmallow, I’ve had it up and running on one of my Nexus 6 for the past few weeks with the Preview 3 and now running it on my daily driver Nexus 6 and my Nexus 7 tablet.  One of the key features that I mentioned in my review was Doze and App Standby. In Android Marshmallow, when your device is sitting idle, the OS will shut down apps to a very lower power state but will stay alive enough for you to get updates and notifications.  When you pick your device back up, everything comes back to life as normal and you won’t have any lag or delay when you open up an app.  This is the Doze part of the equation. What makes this really impressive is Marshmallow learns your habits and the apps that you use most and which ones you don’t so much.  On these apps it dramatically restricts the amount of power used by the apps for maximum battery efficiency.  This is the App Standby functionality.

I have spent the last couple of nights testing the Doze functionality and the results are dramatic.  This could well prove to be the killer feature of the release and based on what others are reporting, I’m not along in the battery savings I’m seeing on my devices.

Android Marshmallow has been with us for about 24 hours now with the Factory Images being released yesterday and the OTA updates trickling out to more Nexus devices as we speak.  So now it is time to start telling me how your experience with the upgrade and performance Marshmallow has been for you.

Click here to read my review of Android Marshmallow

I’ve put together a simple poll for readers and would like to see how your experience has been with Android Marshmallow so far.

While the news of Android Marshmallow has been dominating things these past few weeks, that doesn’t mean that Android Lollipop is dead by any means.  Google has updated their Developer Dashboard and the latest figures through October 5th, just yesterday, indicates that Android Lollipop is seeing its highest install base ever at 23.5%.  These numbers come from Google and represent the version of Android run on devices that signed into the Google Play Store over the course of the past 7 days.  While it is by no means complete or 100% accurate, it does give a good indicator of just where the Android install base is currently.