Tag: Android

Microsoft’s Arrow Launcher for Android has slowly but surely becoming a solid launcher for Android devices.  The company, through the Microsoft Garage project team, has continually been adding features, improving the stability, and the performance of the launcher.

If you are a heavy Microsoft user, you should consider Arrow Launcher for your launcher.  You can read my review of it here.

Back in June, in the 3.5 update to Arrow Launcher, the introduced a new feature, Arrow Hub.  Arrow Hub allows you to easily sync photos, documents, videos and anything you have in your Android device’s clipboard to the cloud which you can then get to via the web or OneDrive.  It is brilliantly simple and is an effective way to get files from your phone to your PC, Mac or Chromebook.

So how does it work and how do you get to your files?  In this How To I will outline how the feature works on your Android device and how to get to those files.

Prerequisite:  This How To assumes that you are running Arrow Launcher on your Android phone.  If you are not, you can download it free from the Play Store.  It also assumes that you have a Microsoft account that you can use with Arrow Launcher, OneDrive, etc.

Google Photos continues to be one of the fastest growing app & services from the Mountain View company.  With over a billion active users each month, Photos is the go-to place to store your photos online safe and sound.

But as a Google Top Contributor for Google Photos, there is one concept with the app that is a mystery to many:  Albums.  In the Product Forums for Photos and contacts here at the site, the idea behind Albums in Photos is one of the more confusing elements.  Hopefully this little tutorial will help explain things a bit.

First, let’s talk about the underlying structure of Google Photos itself.  The service leverages your Google Drive storage to store your photos.  If you store them in High Quality (you let Google compress your photos under 16MP in size), they don’t count against your Drive quota.  If you keep them in Original Quality, regardless of size, the count against your quota.

Second, there is no folder hierarchy concept in Google Photos.  Everything is in one folder which you view when you are viewing your library.  So what about albums?  Think of them as labels.

Last month, ASUS announced the updated series of ZenFone 4 devices and released them, mostly in Asian markets.  Now we are starting to see the first of these here in the United States.  The new ZenFone 4 Max, sporting a huge 5000 mAh battery, is now available for $199 from Amazon.  It is not a bad price for a well appointed mid-range Android phone that will be getting updated to Android Oreo in 2018.

The ZenFone 4 Max has a 5.5″ display that renders 1280 x 720 (that gives you ~401PPI) and is powered by the Snapdragon 430 processor.  It has 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage (which can be expanded up to an additional 256GB thanks to the MicroSD slot) and, as mentioned, a 5000 mAh battery which can actually be used to charge other devices thanks the reverse charging feature.

The phone is sold unlocked and will work with GSM carriers here in the United States like T-Mobile and AT&T.  Canadian readers, it will work the likes of Rogers and TELUS too.  Here’s a run down of the supported frequencies.

• GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
• HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
• LTE: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 17, 18, 19, 26, 28

Unfortunately for those of you who are CDMA carriers like Sprint & Verizon, this phone won’t work for you.

Well done Project Fi.  Well Done.

Google’s MVNO service has been notifying their customers that were impacted by Hurricane Irma this weekend that they will be receiving a $20 credit on their account to assure they can stay connected and not worry about overages for this trying month.

The actions by Fi follows on a similar action they took with victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas at the end of August.

Project Fi is known for their customer support and this is another example of it for customers who, right now, need to make their mobile bill the last thing they are worried about today.

It is news that Blackberry Priv owners likely knew was coming down the pike:  There will be no Android Oreo update for the last Blackberry-build device.

The news came via the company’s general manager of Mobility, Alex Thurber.  He was recently on the UTB Blogcast and confirmed that the phone will not be updated to Oreo.  It is disappointing of course but not surprising.  Blackberry’s new parent company, TCL, has been focusing on restoring the brand’s name and their own first built device, the KEYone.  The KEYone has been confirmed to receive an update to Oreo.

Microsoft Bing, the Redmond, Washington’s search engine and app, has an update rolling out for Android users that brings a lot of improvements.  Along with an overall improvement in the search experience, this update to Bing also brings support for Android App Shortcuts.  Now you can long press the app to open new tabs, save images, and start a new search.

Search results in Microsoft Bing are also improved with this update.  Searches are new faster with the search results being more accurate and more clearly laid out in the results view.