Tag: Android

T-Mobile continues to be one of the best carriers in the US when it comes to device updates.  The latest proof point is the 2015 HTC One M9.  The carrier has released the Android Nougat update for customers who have the phone on their network.  The update is based on Nougat 7.0 and has the January Android Security Update.  It comes some two months after the unlocked One M9 received the Nougat treatment.

The update is just over 1GB in size so those of you with the One M9 will want to download it via Wi-Fi and you can expect the total download and upgrade time to take about 30 minutes.  Once you get it installed, you’ll have all the Nougat niceties along with some improvements to HTC’s Sense UI.

Like many readers, I travel a lot and often times I’m trying to charge my Nexus 6P at the airport.  More airports today have seats with USB ports on them so even if you can’t find an electrical outlet, you can still get charged up before or between flights.  The trick, however, is how much you use your phone while it is charging.  We all know that using your phone while it is charging increases the charging time.  But by how much?  Wouldn’t it be great to see how much your phone is consuming energy as you charge it?  Enter the Choetech Current Voltage Monitor cable.

The Current Voltage Monitor cable allows you to see how much voltage is running to your phone as it charges and equally, how many amps are being consumed by your phone to charge it.  Not only will you see how your usage is impacting the charging time, you will see if that USB port in that chair at the airport is only putting out 2-3v instead of 5v which also slows down charging time.  Recently the team at Choetech sent me one of these cables to review and its quite handy having this knowledge in the palm of your hand.  Here’s my review of this handy little accessory.

Today’s Deal is on the Choetech Dual-Port Car Charger.  Today you can pick up one of these great little accessories for either $7.99 in black or $5.99 in white.  Choetech makes a wide range of accessories for Android and iOS devices and this Car Charger is one that I personally use in my car and when I travel.  It features two USB-A ports, one of which sports Quick Charge 2.0 technology.  If you have a compatible device, it will charge at up to 5v for minimal charging time but the adapter also includes over-charging technology to prevent damage to your device.

The second port in the charger is designed for any device and has auto detection technology to charge that device with maximum efficency.

Google News & Weather has been updated with a new feature that basically allows you to infinitely scroll news headlines.  The new feature, named More Headlines, brings you 200 headlines to stories that you can scroll through and read.  The articles offered up are based on the settings you have in the app but also an algorithm to keep articles clustered together and to present you more relevant information.  It is a nice update to an app that has taking a little bit of a backseat to the recently revamped Google News app.

The new More Headlines feature is enabled by default once you have the latest version of the app.  That is version 3.1.4 for those keeping score at home.  You will get your normal weather card and headlines from categories that you have selected in the settings of the app.  Once you’ve gone past those sections, you will see the new More Headlines section.  Then just keep scrolling!

With the release of the first Developer Preview of Android O, the question most people want to know the answer for is when it will be available for the masses?  According to Google, that will be Q3 of 2017.  Google, much like they did with Android Nougat, is being very transparent about their timelines and have published it in the O Program Overview.  Basically it will breakdown like this:

• Preview 1 which is the initial release and considered alpha (do not install it on your daily driver!)
• Preview 2 will be an incremental update and the first beta of Android O
• Preview 3 will bring us the final APIs and the official SDK.  At this point, developers will be able to published their Android O compatible apps
• Preview 4 will be the near-final image for final testing
• Final Release will be the AOSP build and ecosystem release.  This is when the public will get it and OEMs will get it to start prepping their devices images.

This pattern follows much of what Google did with Android Nougat so there aren’t a lot of surprises here to be found.

A bit unexpected, Google has announced the Developer Preview of the next generation of Android, Android O.  The program is designed for those who want to check out what is coming in the next version as well as developers who want to start preparing their apps for the build.  It is not intended for general consumption and should not be considered a beta!  At this point, Android O is very much an alpha or even pre-alpha build and I highly recommend non-developer readers not to install it on their daily devices.  To give you an idea of just how alpha this build is, it isn’t even in the Android Beta program yet.  That’s still focused on Android Nougat 7.1.2.

On the preview page, Google highlights five key areas in which O will be focused:  Notification channels, picture-in-picture viewing, autofill, adaptive icons and multi-display support.  All of these are aimed at making the platform more flexible and considering that Android now runs on Chrome OS, the ability to do some of these things will become ever increasing in importance.