Tag: Android

Android Pay and Dunkin’ Donuts have teamed up to provide users a great excuse to use the tap-to-pay service.  Right now you can sign up for a promotion in the Pay app that will score you a $5 Dunkin’ Donuts gift card.  All you have to do is use Pay three times within 30 days of signing up for the promotion to get the gift card.

First things first, you have to sign up for the promotion itself.  To do this, go into Android Pay and tap on the overflow menu (the three vertical dots) and go down to “Enter promo code”.  On that page, type DUNKIN and tap Apply.  You will get a splash screen that lets you know that you have been signed up.

Multiple Project Fi subscribers have reported receiving an erroneous error message telling them that their data was being throttled.  The message indicated that because of high data usage, that their date would be throttled until the end of their billing cycle.

It turns out this was an error on the Project Fi side and was not actually the case.

You may have received a data management notification in error earlier today. We’re working on a fix. Details here → https://t.co/ZvgFYHk31d

— Project Fi (@projectfi) October 4, 2017

Google’s MVNO service acknowledged that a test that was suppose to be internal only leaked to the public.  Based on the Reddit account for Fi, it appears that it was related to SIM authorization.

Android Pay has grown up since its introduction in May of 2015.  It launched with just a handful of major US banks at the time and the growth the first year was slow.  But through the latter half of 2016, that growth accelerated.  In 2017, the growth has been exponential.

Over the weekend, 16 new financial institutions joined the supported list for Android Pay and that brings the total number to a nice, even 1,000.  Indeed, nearly 400 new institutions have been added in 2017 along to give you an ideal of the growth rate.

The latest version of Google Contacts for Android is rolling out in the Play Store and it is bringing several noticeable UI changes.  Version 2.2 should be hitting devices with the app installed over the course of the next few days and when it does, you will immediately notice these visual updates.

First, the contact photo for your contact is much larger in this new update, harkening back to older versions of the app when this was normal view.  Google has indicated that this was one of the most requested features of the Contacts app which is why the added it back to the app.

In a surprise move, Microsoft has announced that the Microsoft Groove music service will be ended on December 31st of this year with Spotify becoming the music streaming service of choice.

As of October 2, 2017, we’re excited to announce that we’re partnering with Spotify to bring the world’s largest music streaming service to you. We know that access to the best streaming experience, the largest catalog of music, and a variety of subscriptions are on the top of your list. Now you can move your curated playlists and collection from Groove directly into Spotify.

It is a surprising move by Microsoft but equally, given how competitive the streaming music market is these days, it isn’t completely shocking.

Google Photos for Android has a small but handy update rolling out to users today.  The update, version 3.6 for those keeping score at home, brings improved speeds when it comes to sharing videos from your collection.

The improvements in speeds comes in the way that Photos handles video sharing.  When you want to share a video, a low resolution version of that video is uploaded to the service while the full resolution version is uploaded more slowly.  This is particularly handy when you are in congested network or have low signal while out-and-about.  Now you can share the video and it not take a long time to upload before you can share it.