Tag: Android Nougat

Some seven months after it was released, Android Oreo is now the required Android version for manufactures who want their new phones certified by Google.  The change means that if a manufacture wants to introduce a new phone to the market and wants that phone certified by Google to run Google Mobile Services and access the Play Store, it will have to be on Oreo 8.0 or later.  Phones running Android Nougat will no longer be certified.

While we can debate why it took the Mountain View company seven months to require this, it is good news on the whole.  Oreo is far more stable and secure than any previous version of Android and it arguably provides one of the best user experiences at the same time.

The Blackberry KEYone Black Edition has made its way to the United States via Amazon.  The slightly bumped-up-in-specs version of the KEYone is $549.99 at the online retailer and readily available.

Powered by the octa-core Snapdragon 625, the Blackberry KEYone Black Edition sports 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage built-in, which can be expanded up to an additional 256GB thanks to the MicroSD slot.  It has a 4.5-inch display has a resolution of 1620 x 1080 and is powered by a 3505mAh battery that supports Quick Charge 3.0.  Of course, the unique feature of this phone is the built-in physical QWERTY keyboard.

A new update to the Android Wear app is rolling out in the Play Store today, bringing some visual improvements as well as improvements for accessibility users.  The update to the app is version 2.7.0.180439970 which will then have build 2.8.0.181612071 to send to your Wear watch.  Once you get the new app update, you’ll need to also perform an update on your watch itself.  You should have a notification that there is a new update to the Android Wear app on the watch itself.

As for what is new, there are improved typefaces and fonts in this build.  The aim of these is to improve glanceability (i.e. readability) when you glance at your watch.  Also, the base theme for your watch’s menu will appear noticeably darker.  This is likely a part of the effort to improve glanceability.

Google has released the December 2017 Android Distribution Report this week.  The report reflects the version of Android on devices that visited the Google Play Store for the 7 day period ending January 8, 2018 and it shows that while Android Oreo was only one of two versions that saw growth for the reporting period, that growth is anemic.  And that is putting it nicely.

Oreo gained just .2% in this month’s report, with both 8.0 and 8.1 accounting for a total of just .7% of device share.  The only other gainer in the report, Android Nougat, gained 3% and now sits at 26.3% for device share.  That moves Nougat into second behind Android Marshmallow as the most widely used version of the platform.

Today’s Deal is on the powerful and ultra thin Lenovo Yoga Book Android tablet.  The 10″ 2-in-1 tablet is my current Android tablet of choice and you can pick up a great deal on it right now.  The Champagne Gold model is down to $275, a savings of $224 off the original price.

The Yoga Book has a 10.1″ display that gives Full HD resolution of 1200 x 1920.  It is powered by the Intel Atom x5-Z8550 processor, a quad-core processor that is clocked at 2.4GHz.  That is coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage.  That internal storage can be expanded up to an additional 256GB thanks to the MicroSD slot.  Also, the Lenovo Yoga Book can take advantage of Adaptive Storage in Android Nougat so once you have a MicroSD card installed, it can act as part of the main storage on the device.

OnePlus has begun the process of rolling out an update to their OxygenOS Android variant to their 2017 flagship phone, the OnePlus 5T.  The updates build of OxygenOS is 4.7.6 and in normal OnePlus fashion, is slowing going out to a select number of users today with a broader deployment happening over the course of the next few days.

The update is still based on Android Nougat 7.1.1 so for those hoping this would bring Oreo to the flagship, you have to still wait a bit.  OxygenOS 5.0 is in beta with an early 2018 release expected.  This 4.7.6 update brings a lot of fixes to the camera, other system improvements as well as the December Android Security Update patch for the device.