Author: Clinton

Google’s new cross platform mobile SDK, Google Flutter, has had its first Release Candidate build released for developers to use and test.  Flutter was announced way back in February at Mobile World Congress and it is aimed to give developers a leg up in developing mobile apps that are native for both Android and iOS.

The beauty of Flutter is that it comes packing its own rendering engine and framework which, in essence, bypasses the native UI frameworks in both platforms.  This is not something new for developers, especially game developers who have used different rendering engines.  This allows for significant performance increases (particularly on Android).  When you compile the app with the available Android and iOS SDKs, you get the appropriate app & framework for the respective platform.

Microsoft’s efforts to update and modernize their Android apps continues with a new update to what was known as MSN News.  The revamped app is now under the name Microsoft News and it has a load of changes.  Well really, it is pretty much a new app.

Starting with the new first run experience to help you personalize the news and information you get and when you sign in with your Microsoft account, your interests will follow you device-to-device.  You also have a new dark theme and a revamped look and feel overall.

Following the release of Android Oreo on AT&T and Verizon, Sprint has now begun rolling out the update to the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge on their network.  The updated build is R16NW.G93xPVPU6CRE7 and it comes in at a 1.7GB on the download.  The update has been released by Sprint so you should see it at any point if not already.

Essentially, the update is the same that was pushed out to AT&T and Verizon customers.  It brings the April Android Security Update Patch and all of the goodness that comes with Android Oreo.  It also brings the new Samsung Experience 9 user interface and experience to the 2016 flagship.

Actions for Google Assistant continue to be added at a pretty fast clip and most of them we don’t hear much about.  They just show up in the Assistant app on your phone and then you can use them there or on your Google Home.  However, every once in a while, Google highlights a new Action like that have with Tasty.

Tasty.co is a fantastic recipe site that gives you step-by-step instructions and videos to cook just about anything.  Now it is even easier by simply asking your Google Home to talk to Tasty.

As expected, the Chrome OS Dev Channel has now been updated to its first Chrome 69 based build today.  The update was expected given that Chrome 67 is now in the Stable Channel and the Beta Channel was updated yesterday to Chrome 68.  The new build in the Dev Channel is 69.0.3464.0 (Platform version: 10798.0.0).

As a reminder to those who are new to Chrome OS, the Chrome OS Dev Channel is considered the alpha build channel for the platform.  Builds here often contain many bugs and odd performance issues and it is recommended only for developers to use to get a preview of what is coming in the platform.

A few weeks ago Spanish support for Google Assistant was added in what at the time looked like a precursor to Google Home being available in the country.  Today that has proven to be the case.  Now on the Spanish Google Store site, you can order a Google Home for €149 (roughly $172) and a Google Home Mini for €59 (roughly $68).

While Spain was expected due to the the Assistant support, the fact that Austria and Ireland also now has Home available came as a bit of a surprise.  Google had not previously announced these two countries, but given the rate of expansion that the Mountain View company has aimed for in 2018 both with Assistant and Home, it isn’t too big of a surprise.