Tag: Android

The final beta build of Android O has been released today by the Android team to those in the Android Beta Program.  Build OPP4.170623.014 is rolling out to devices now with it having the final API levels (API level 26) along with finishing touches on the platform overall.

In a post on the Android Developer blog, Vice President of Engineering David Burke indicated that this is being considered by Google as a Release Candidate.  That means that it is both very stable and very little, barring a major bug being found, will stop it from being released in short order.

Developer Preview 4 is a release candidate build of Android O that you can use to complete your development and testing in time for the upcoming official release. It includes the final system behaviors, the latest bug fixes and optimizations, and the final APIs (API level 26)

To be clear, the new APIs were introduced in Developer Preview 3 so this confirms that they are indeed final.

If you are a T-Mobile subscriber and have a Samsung Galaxy Note 5, there is a minor update rolling out that should hit your phone this week.  The update is build N920TUVS4EQG1 for those keeping score and weighs in at only 25MB.  The hint of the type of update is in the size of the install package.  At 25MB, this is addressing minor bugs and issues with the phone and isn’t going to be uplifting big changes.

This is also backed up by the vague release notes from T-Mobile on the update.  They only list “various system improvements” in those notes.

When it comes to video calls on any app, the question for many is just how much data is this app consuming?  In the case of Google Duo, it isn’t much for what you are getting.  Google’s Justin Uberti, a principle engineer with the company and the technical lead on Duo, Tweeted that in the case of the video calling app, it consumes about 8MB per minute.

Current usage for video calls when on cell data is about 8 MB/min, similar to Netflix ‘medium’ quality.

— Justin Uberti (@juberti) July 22, 2017

That means that a 5 minute call is going to consume roughly 40MB of your data plan while an hour long call would be roughly 480MB.  So is that a lot?  Well, not really for the quality of the calls that Duo produces.

While overall a minor update, the latest build of Google Calendar for Android brings a long desired feature by users:  Drag & Drop moving of events.  The new feature is in version 5.7.29 and that update is now rolling out into the Play Store.  Expect the update to hit your phones and tablets over the course of the next few days.

With this new feature, when you are in any view except monthly, you can now tap & hold then move an event on your calendar to a new time or day.  No more having to go into the event and manually edit the times or day.  Once you have moved it, anyone who is associated with that event will automatically get an update emailed to them of the day and/or time change.

The shopping app Google Express has been updated for Android today, bringing the ability to edit and access your shopping lists while you are offline.  For those who may not know, Google Express is a shopping app that allows you to shop over 30 stores like Costco, Whole Foods and Target and have those purchased items delivered to your home.  The service has next day delivery in most areas and is free shipping for those who have a membership.  That membership is $10 per month but is not required to use the app – you’ll just pay shipping.

The updated version of the app is 18.0 and once you have it, you will be able to access your shopping lists and edit them while you are offline.  Think of that thing you need to buy while on a flight?  No problem.  Open the app update, add it, and it will sync up with the service once you are back online.

Google’s consumer messaging app, Google Allo, has another update rolling out that brings the ability to uplift your chat conversation to a video call with a single tap.  The update, version 14.0.037 for those keeping score, now has a button in the upper-right corner in the messaging screen that to launch Google Duo.  So if text-based messaging isn’t getting the conversation done, you can now place a Duo video call without having to launch it separately.  The new feature is aimed to bring the two apps more closely together but also to make communication more frictionless.

For those new to Android, Google Allo is Google’s text-based messaging app while Google Duo is their video calling app.  Both are focused on the consumer market while Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Video, the completely revamped versions of what is now known as Hangouts Classic, is for the enterprise space.