Category: Android

Today at Mobile World Congress, Google has announced the expansion of the languages supported by Actions for Google Assistant, the SDK that allows developers to leverage Assistant in their apps and solutions.  The new languages, which go live today, include:

• Hindi
• Thai
• Indonesian
• Danish
• Norwegian
• Swedish
• Dutch

These languages join English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Russian which are already supported.  The new languages are fully supported in development tools too, like DialogFlow and, of course, the Actions SDK itself.

Less than a day after being announced, all of the stock wallpapers for the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ have leaked and are now available here on the Wallpaper page.  As I normally do on these posts, I’ve put all of the wallpapers after the break so those who are not interested can move along and skip having to load them.

All of the wallpapers measure 1920×1920 or 2560×2560 so they will work with any mobile out there and could even be used as a wallpaper for your Chromebook, PC or Mac in some cases.

While the attention on Nokia this weekend and this week will be their activities at Mobile World Congress, it doesn’t mean that things are standing still back home.  HMD Global’s Chief Product Officer Juho Sarvikas took to Twitter in the wee hours of the morning here in the US to let people know that the Android Oreo beta program for the Nokia 3 has now kicked off.

You can now get #AndroidOreo for #Nokia3 in #Nokiamobile #Betalabs. Please help us test and perfect for commercial release! Thank you 🙏

— Juho Sarvikas (@sarvikas) February 26, 2018

It is great news and follows up on Nokia’s promise last year to bring Oreo to all of their current devices, including the budget friendly Nokia 3.

There is no debate that the Google Pixelbook is a premium device.  Not only does the $999 starting price tag give that away, but the overall design of the machine itself screams premium.  It could well be the most attractive – dare I say sexy? – laptop on the market today, regardless of platform.

Google launched the Pixelbook, and the accompanying Pixelbook Pen in October 2017 with the launch of the Pixel 2 phone lineup.  At the time, and still today, many scoffed at the idea of a $1000 Chromebook, citing previous web-only experiences with Chrome OS.  But the world, and Chrome OS, has changed.  No longer does the platform require a constant connection to be functional and add to that the native Android app support of the Pixelbook, you have a device that can serve many purposes in your day-to-day life at work and at home.

The question for the Pixelbook, and really any Chromebook, is can it meet your needs?  I suspect that for the vast majority of readers, it will hit the 90-95% of what you need.  The question is can you live without the other 5-10% or compromise to make it work on this device?  That’s something I can’t answer for you as everyone’s 5-10% is different.

Recently I received a Google Pixelbook to review.  After spending a couple of weeks with it as my primary laptop device (as well as my Android tablet), I’m nothing short of impressed.  No the Pixelbook is not perfect but it is close.  Really close.

Actually, I should clarify that statement.  The Pixelbook, from a hardware perspective, is second-to-none.  The only limitations are with Chrome OS itself.  And with the additional features that are coming in future Chrome OS builds, that will change.

As expect, Samsung has announced the all new Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ at Mobile World Congress today.  The two flagship devices are solid upgrades to last year’s S8 series with the S9+ having some unique features over the standard S9.

The S9 and the S9+ are both powered by the Snapdragon 845 here in the US, with the S9 having 4GB of RAM and starting with 64GB of storage.  You can go up to 256GB on that built-in storage on both devices but, the S9+ will have 6GB of RAM on board.

The Galaxy S9 has a 12MP rear facing camera while the S9+ has a dual camera configuration with an adjustable aperture.  The S9 is powered by a 3000mAh battery behind the 5.8″ QHD Super AMOLED display while the 6.2″ S9+ will have a slight bigger 3500mAh battery.

Today has been a busy day for Nokia at Mobile World Congress.  Not only did they announce their first entry into the Android Go program, the Nokia 1, but they also announced three other devices that are a part of the Android One program.  Along with the Nokia 6 (2018) and Nokia 7 Plus, the company announced the new Nokia 8 Sirocco and it is clearly aiming for flagship status.

Sporting a 5.5″ QHD pOLED display with rounded edges, the Nokia 8 Sirocco provides a premium experience and performance.  It is powered by the Snapdragon 835 SoC and is coupled with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.  It will come with Android Oreo out of the box and, because it is part of the Android One program, it will come with a pure Android experience.