Tag: Android

For those of you who have an Android Wear 2.0 device, Android Oreo is coming to you.  Google has officially released the Oreo update for Wear, bringing with it several improvements and tweaks to the platform.  News of the release came from Googler Hoi Lam via Google+.

As for new features, here is the brief rundown:

• Notification vibration strength setting
• Touch lock option for wet conditions
• Support for 7 new countries / languages
• Notification channels
• Battery saving background limits

In other words, lots of the great features of Oreo now on your wrist.

Google, through various partnerships in Latin America, has announced that RCS Messaging will be rolling out to various carriers in the region over the coming months.

Today we’re excited to announce that we’re working with leading carriers América Móvil, AT&T in México, Oi and Telefónica to bring RCS messaging to people across Latin America. In collaboration with these carriers, we’ll roll out RCS messaging in the countries where they operate over time, bringing better messaging to more than two thirds of all mobile subscribers in Latin America.

The news means that subscribers to these carriers will be able to communicate in a more rich way than plain SMS, offering the ability to send GIFs and other rich media as well as have group messaging across international borders.

For those who are not familiar, RCS Messaging is Rich Communication Services and has been rolling out here in the United States and Europe for a while now.  It offers a more “smartphone” experience over SMS as Google likes to say.

If you have been wanting to get your hands on the Pure White edition of the Essential Phone, you can get one at Amazon right now at a great price.  Featuring all of the same specs, the Pure White version is down to $499 on Amazon, a savings of $200.

The phone got off to a bit of a rough start but through multiple software updates, it has become one of the best out there.  As I posted earlier this morning, the December Android Security Update is already rolling out for the phone.

The Essential Phone has a titanium body with a ceramic back, a 5.7″ 2560 x 1320 Quad-HD display, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage built-in.  It is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor.  This octa-core processor has four cores running at 2.45GHz and the remaining four clocked at 1.9GHz.

A new update to Chrome for Android is rolling out today, bringing mostly under-the-hood improvements to the browser.  The update is build 63.0.3239.83 meaning that it is the first build in the Chrome 63 train to go to the stable channel for all users.

While the release notes for the update point to mostly stability and performance improvements, it was noted that in this update there are also improvements to the autocompletion feature in the address bar.  This should make it easier and faster to get to websites while on your mobile.

Good news this morning for those of you who have an unlocked Essential Phone.  The company has begun rolling out an update that brings the December Android Security Update to the device.  It will make Essential one of the first beyond Google themselves to get the December update out to end users.

The update is build NMJ51B for those keeping score at home and, based on Essential’s twitter post about the update, it appears that the update contains only this security patch.

We’re currently rolling out a software update (build NMJ51B) with December security patches.

— Essential (@essential) December 5, 2017

It is possible (likely) that there are some other minor updates in the build but clearly the main focus is on the December security update.

An interesting leak suggests that the next Huawei P-Series phone could have an almost unbelievable 40MP camera in it.  And if that isn’t enough, the front facing selfie camera will be a 24MP shooter.  Most phones don’t even have a 24MP main camera!

The leak came from Evan Blass and while we don’t have a name for the next P-Series phone (likely the P11) or a release date, it looks like the Chinese manufacture is hard at work on getting the advertising ready for it.

Is the next Huawei P-series going to be an imaging powerhouse? A digital artist at one of the company’s creative agencies added these “PCE Series” ads to their portfolio — claiming 40MP, 3 lens rear (5x hybrid zoom) + 24MP selfie, all Leica-co-developed. pic.twitter.com/t8w3VlL55L

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) December 6, 2017

Long time readers know that I don’t post a lot on rumors or leaks because things change so rapidly in the smartphone arena.  but when it comes to leaks from Mr. Blass, I generally pay attention to them.  And so should you.  He is probably got a 98% (if not higher) accuracy rate.