Category: Google

Google has just released the factory images and security bulletin for the May 2016 Android Security Update.  Those who want to manually flash their Nexus devices to the latest build can get the images to do so while those who want to wait until the OTA is available will have a few more days or weeks to wait.  The update is a fairly big one with 25 fixes for security issues.  Once it is available via an OTA, it is highly recommended that users download it and apply it to their devices.  Of the 25 updates in the release, 6 were marked as critical and mostly focus on elevation of permissions or remote code execution.  Most users will never see these issues but Google and those who help them “bug hunt” continually work to close any potential issues before a customer encounters them.

Google has been tinkering with the Google Play Store behind the scenes and that has lead to the addressing of two annoying and sometimes confusing issues.  The company is rolling out an update that fixes the download size indicator when you are viewing an app’s details and the download progress bar when you download the update.  So what’s the big deal here?  For some, this will be a no big deal but for others, this was a real annoyance.  The first issue was on the update size for an app you have installed.  Before now, the Google Play Store would show only the full size of the download.  Unless it is a comprehensive redo of an app, an OTA update is usually a fraction of that size.  So take Gmail for example.  The app itself is 40MB and the latest update was only about 6MB.  Before this update, you would see the update size as 40MB, not 6MB, so it would lead people to believe that these update were taking up a huge amount of space on their devices.  The reality is that it wasn’t but this not-so-clear download size didn’t help matters.

The gulf of quality between the low end Chromebook devices and the high end Google Pixel is huge.  Most Chromebooks are under $350 but if you want a metal body device with a high end specs, you are going to have to shell out a thousand dollars for a Pixel.  That gulf has been bridged a bit today with the announcement from Google and HP for the new HP Chromebook 13 G1.  This mid-market device starts at $499 and while you can go up to $1000 for the top end, the entry level device is nicely spec’d for the price.

Readers will know that I don’t post a lot about rumors because they are, well, rumors.  But this one was just too good not share.  It looks like we are going to see not one but two new Nexus devices coming from HTC, possibly as soon as next month at I/O.  The rumor and support for it comes from Android Police and that team has a great track record for getting these types of rumors right.  They did it 2014 and 2015 with the Nexus 6, 6P and 5X.

Google has begun rolling out a new update to Inbox, bringing with it several new features and some key enhancements to the email app.  Inbox by Google continues to develop rapidly as the go-to mail app for Android and these latest updates make it clear that this is the app for the future by the company.  The biggest feature change in this update is streamlined event tracking.  Now when an event has changed, you will see that update in your Inbox so you can view it at a glance.  Tapping on it will give you more details about the event and what has changed.

On Monday, Google announced that audio podcasts were coming to Google Play Music for the first time with the feature already enabled on the web and an updated app coming to Android.  To make your life easier and to find those podcasts you want to listen to on your phone, the Google search app on your phone has received a background update to help you find and play them.  The good news is that there is no update of an app required for users.  This is all on the back end and it is already working.