Category: Android

Microsoft has released an update to Outlook for Android that brings a number of improvements to the calendar portion of the app.  The update is version 2.2.91 and should be coming to those have the app installed over the course of the next few days.

The biggest changes in this update are the ability to set events on your calendar as free or busy as well as being able to mark events as private when you are sharing your calendar.  This is most often used in corporate environments but can also impact personally shared calendars too.

The Google Phone app has a small update rolling out but it has a big fix for some users who have had issues with answering calls with a Bluetooth device connected to your phone.  The update, version 16.0.181771308 is rolling out now and it fixes an issue where users couldn’t answer calls because their phones wouldn’t wake up when a call was incoming.  The issue seemed to impact mostly Pixel 2 owners but others in the Google Product forums reported it as well.

The issue, based on reports in the forums, seems to have been resolved with this update which became an issue after the last update to the app.

In an unannounced updated, Google and Netflix have been partnering to give Voice Match support to the streaming service when using Google Assistant.  With Voice Match you can now have your Netflix profile linked to your voice for your personalized content on the service when you invoke it from Assistant.

Voice Match is aimed at personalizing information for you when you interact with Google Assistant.  For example, if I speak to Assistant through my Google Home, I will get my personal information (like my calendar) while if my wife speaks to it, she gets her personalized information.  Think of this addition to Netflix as an extension of that same service.

After accidentally leaking the news over the weekend, Google has officially announced that audiobooks have come to Google Play Books.  The update requires that you have the latest version of the Play Books app for both Android and iOS, which is version 4.0 for those on Android.  Once you have it, you will be able to listen to your books on your phone or tablet.

Even better, Google has fully integrated the experience with Google Assistant and Google Home, meaning you can tell Assistant to read a book to you and it will read it on your Home.

Google is finally offering a reasonable replacement to those that have struggled with defective, often bootlooping, Nexus 5X on Project Fi.  Customers who have the 5X and have the $5 per month Device Protection Plan on the device, can now get a Moto X4 as a replacement.  The $69 deductible payment is still required but this is far better than the $53 check that was offered by Google on defect 5X’s just a few weeks ago.  If you didn’t want that $53, you could get a $100 Google Store credit.

The Nexus 5X has been plagued by bootloop issues where the device would simply be stuck in a mode where it is simply never is able to get past the boot up screen on the device and actually load Android to run the phone.  Not all phones were effected of course but many where, prompting some class action lawsuits against Google and LG.

Good news for those of you who have the ZTE Axon 7, Android Oreo is now in beta for your phone.  The Chinese manufacture quietly began rolling out a beta program for the latest version of Oreo over the weekend, with select users being able to opt into the program.  While no official timeline was given on when an official Oreo build will come out for the 2016 flagship phone, which actually launched with Marshmallow at the time.

In the ZTE forums, there is a screenshot of the Axon 7 running Oreo with the notice that it is in the first round of beta testing.  Again, how many cycles there will be on the beta test is unclear.