Download the Android P Developer Preview 2 Default Wallpaper

With the release of Developer Preview 2 for Android P yesterday, there was also a new wallpaper amongst all the new features of the build.  The thing is, if you upgraded your phone to DP2 from the Android Beta Program, you didn’t get the new wallpaper… until now.

Thanks to Semih Celik, it is now available for everyone.  Semih posted it on his G+ page yesterday and I have no added it to the wallpaper page here on the site as well as to this post after the break.

Second Chrome 66 Build Released to The Chrome OS Stable Channel

After being first released last week, a second Chrome 66 build is now available in the Chrome OS Stable Channel today.  Build 66.0.3359.158 (Platform version: 10452.85.0) is available for most Chrome OS devices starting today and is the build that systems which are capable of running Android apps will be updated to run.

I can confirm that my Google Pixelbook was updated to build .158 earlier this morning when I used the chrome://help command to check for the update.

Android Oreo Finally Breaks 5% in the Latest Android Distribution Report

The latest Android Distribution Report has been made available and the numbers for Android Oreo are still anemic.  After being available for 8 months, the latest version of Android is on only 5.7% of devices that came to the Google Play Store for the 7-day period ending May 7, 2018.  That is an improvement of 1.1% over the April report but still shows the significant upgrade challenge Android faces.

If there is good news it is that the last two version of Android, Nougat and Oreo, are the only two in this month’s report that gained any usage.  Nougat was up .3% and remains the most widely used version of Android at 31.1%.

Chrome OS Officially Support of Linux Apps is Coming Soon

After months of rumors and commits in Chrome OS development, it was made official at Google I/O yesterday:  Chrome OS will soon natively support Linux apps.  It is a significant step forward for the platform and should bring improved tools to developers on the platform.

During the keynote, where this was almost mentioned as an after thought, Android Studio was highlighted as being one of the apps that will work once this feature rolls out to everyone.

Gmail Now Allows You to Work Offline Natively in Chrome

While Google I/O was going on yesterday, the Gmail team announced a new feature that you may have missed.  If you are using the new Gmail experience and Chrome as your browser, you can now configure the mail service to work offline in the browser.

In Settings, there is now a new Offline tab where you can configure things.  You can select the amount of time you want stored locally – 30, 60, 90 days – and then configure the security settings on what to do if you sign out of Chrome.  Save the settings and now you can work offline in Gmail while you are on that flight or elsewhere that WiFi isn’t available.

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