Category: Android

Now that the dust has settled a bit from yesterday’s massive Google product event, we can start digging into the details.  One of the items in the afterglow that caught a lot of people’s attention has to do with Google Photos and the new Pixel 2 lineup.

As readers are likely aware, with the original Pixel and Pixel XL, users had unlimited uploading of original quality photos to Google Photos.  On every other device out there this counts against your Google Drive quota (remember, Google Photos leverages your Google Drive for storage) so it was a nice perk to have indeed.  Everyone else has to use High Quality, a compression process that allows Google to look at the content of photos to train their AI, in order not to use their Drive quota.  Frankly, I use HQ on my other non-Pixel devices because the compression is pretty lossless, especially if photos are under 16MP.  The original Pixel and the Pixel 2 both have 12MP cameras so technically, there is no reason not to use HQ.

In the fine print yesterday it was discovered that for owners of the new Pixel phones, the Original Quality uploads will be available until 2020.  After that, uploads will start counting against your Drive quota.  This cause a lot of consternation for some but frankly, it isn’t a surprise or a big deal.

At the Google event this morning, the all new Google Pixelbook was announced.  The premium Chromebook experience is the first Made By Google Chromebook since 2015 and the specs are pretty amazing.

The new Pixelbook is equipped with an Intel i5 processor or i7 processor and 8GB or 16GB of RAM and has three different storage options:  128GB, 256GB and 512GB.  The display is a 12.3″ with 2400 x 1600 resolution.  That gives it a 3:2 ratio which is what was on previous generations of Pixel Chromebooks.

The new Pixelbook is a 2-in-1 design with the tablet portion folding back behind the keyboard to give it a tablet only feel.  Like other similarly designed Chromebooks, the keyboard becomes inactive when you are in this mode to prevent erroneous key presses.

Pricing will put the new Google Pixelbook in the premium category for sure.  The 128GB with 8GB of RAM model will be $999, the 256GB model is $1399 and the 512GB model is a wallet shattering $1749.

OnePlus has announced that they have released an incremental update to their Android based OxygenOS for the OnePlus 5.  The new build, 4.5.11, is rolling out today to a small group of users and assuming all goes well, it will start rolling out to a larger contingent of OnePlus 5 owners.

The update is fundamentally a bug fix and security update release.  The release brings the September Android Security Update to the device and it also fixes an issue with 4G+ networks that some users were experiencing in some regions of the world.

Android Pay and Dunkin’ Donuts have teamed up to provide users a great excuse to use the tap-to-pay service.  Right now you can sign up for a promotion in the Pay app that will score you a $5 Dunkin’ Donuts gift card.  All you have to do is use Pay three times within 30 days of signing up for the promotion to get the gift card.

First things first, you have to sign up for the promotion itself.  To do this, go into Android Pay and tap on the overflow menu (the three vertical dots) and go down to “Enter promo code”.  On that page, type DUNKIN and tap Apply.  You will get a splash screen that lets you know that you have been signed up.

Multiple Project Fi subscribers have reported receiving an erroneous error message telling them that their data was being throttled.  The message indicated that because of high data usage, that their date would be throttled until the end of their billing cycle.

It turns out this was an error on the Project Fi side and was not actually the case.

You may have received a data management notification in error earlier today. We’re working on a fix. Details here → https://t.co/ZvgFYHk31d

— Project Fi (@projectfi) October 4, 2017

Google’s MVNO service acknowledged that a test that was suppose to be internal only leaked to the public.  Based on the Reddit account for Fi, it appears that it was related to SIM authorization.

The much anticipated Google event to launch the next generation of Pixel phones, the new Pixelbook, the new Google Home Mini and many other things happens tomorrow.  The event kicks off at 9 a.m. Pacific here in the US.  That’s 12 p.m. Eastern and 5 p.m. London time.  The event is being held in San Francisco.

As they have done with previous events, Google will be streaming the event live on YouTube.

You can go to YouTube and watch it there or you can simply watch it below.  Either way, you can set yourself a reminder to tune in for the event.

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