Category: Android

Like its desktop brethren, the Chrome for Android app has now officially been updated to Chrome 68.  The promotion comes after five beta builds of the Chrome for Android Beta app over the course of the past month or so.  The new build is 68.0.3440.70 for those keeping score at home.  Google has released it but it will take several days before everyone gets it – perhaps up to a week in some cases.

Like the desktop version of the browser, Chrome for Android has a load of bug fixes and other improvements.  It also brings the “Not Secure” banner to sites you visit that are not encrypted (HTTPS) as it does on the desktop.  This is a change that Google announced was coming last February to help identify non-encrypted sites.

After skipping June, Google has published the latest Android Distribution Report for Android and it is extremely positive for Android Oreo.  The current version of the mobile platform saw a 6.4% increase in devices that came to the Google Play Store for the 7-day period ending July 23, 2018.  It is the biggest single increase that Oreo has seen and it doubles the install base since the last report in May.

In fact, digging into the report shows that Android Oreo was the only version of the version of the platform tracked that gained any usage in this report.  The two biggest losers in the report were Android Lollipop and Android Marshmallow which both saw a drop of 2% since the last report.

A new commit found in the Chromium Gerrit suggests that Quick Reply support could be coming to Chrome for Android by the time we get to Chrome 70 or 71 later this year.  The feature would allow for users to reply to notifications directly from within Chrome that sites pop up to users on a site.

Quick Replies themselves are not new and are supported through Android and apps that developers have enabled to support.  This would bring the same functionality to Chrome and would have the same benefit of being able to reply to a notification without having to leave the browser.

While it doesn’t get updated as often as the Office 365 suite of apps, Microsoft SwiftKey does see an update every couple of months on average and they tend to be sizable updates.  The update that the Redmond company released today for their Android keyboard app is no exception.  It brings a significant number of improvements with a heavy emphasis on improvements around Arabic.

The update is version is 7.0.9.28 for those keeping score at home.  It is in the Play Store now and if you have the keyboard installed, you likely have the update waiting or it has been installed if you have Automatic Updates enabled.

Another new build of Chrome 68 has arrived in the form of an update to the Chrome for Android Beta app.  The new build is 68.0.3440.70 for those keeping score at home.  This new update marks the fifth Chrome 68-based build for the Beta app in this current cycle.

For readers who may not know, anyone can download and install the Chrome for Android Beta app from the Play Store.  No registration is required and you can have both the stable version and the beta version on your phone at the same time.  Just keep in mind that the key word in all of this is “beta” so you could run into bugs or other odd behavior with the app as it goes through testing.

After a three year hiatus, Google has announced that they will be hosting an Android Dev Summit November 7th and 8th in the Mountain View, California based Computer History Museum.  The event, as the name suggests, is aimed for Android developers and will provide two days of breakout sessions, keynotes and time to chat with other developers and Googlers.

Registration details and session details have not been announced and readers are encouraged to follow the Android Dev Twitter account for more details (or the hashtag #AndroidDevSummit