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Paranoid Android, the AOSP-based build for a wide range of phones, has a big update rolling out that brings a lot of improvements and features. The new update is build 7.3.0 and is rolling out now.

The biggest new feature is their own camera app.  The new camera app is a simple but effective app with easy-to-understand controls (swipe left or right to go between camera and video for example) and has all the camera features you’d expect like slow motion, HDR and red eye reduction.

Last month, Google and Walmart made an announcement that shopping for the retailer would be coming to Google Express and Google Home.  That agreement has now gone live and you can find Walmart in the app as a shopping option.

Users will be able to link their Walmart online account with Google Express and shop a wide range of products from the retailer, mostly focused on groceries, and have them added to your Express shopping list.  They are then shipped to your home and if you spend over $35, the shipping is free.

OnePlus has begun the process of releasing core apps within OxygenOS, their version of Android, to the Google Play Store.  This allows for the apps to be developed independent of OS releases which, in turn, makes updates faster on the apps while concentrating the major system releases on new features and fixes.

This step is very similar to what Google themselves have been doing over the past 18 months and other manufactures such as Samsung and Huawei have been doing recently too.

Happy Birthday Android!

Back on September 23, 2008, Android 1.0 made its debut with T-Mobile G1, also known as the HTC Dream, making it commercially available for the first time.  As we who love the platform know, it has grown exponentially in features, performance and functionality over the past 9 years and it is exciting to think of what the next 9 years hold in store for it.

When Android 1.0 was released, it did not have a confectionary codename.  In fact, it wasn’t until version 1.5, released on April 27, 2009, that we start seeing these names.  That release, of course, was cupcake.  It has come to light however that version 1.1 did have an internal codename, Petit Four.