Author: Clinton

The Android Enterprise Recommended program has been expanded and now includes Android tablets for the first time.  The new Huawei MediaPad M5 tablets, which were announced as being available in the US yesterday, are now a part of the program.

For those that don’d recall, the Android Enterprise Recommended program certifies devices that meet criteria for manageability, support, productivity, security, and reliability.  The idea behind the program is to eliminate the guesswork on which devices are up to the task of being ready to handle the wear-and-tear of being an enterprise phone but also manageable from an enterprise IT perspective.

If your Pixel 2 XL seems to have slowed down on wake-up after the June Android Security Update, you are not alone.  Yesterday Google confirmed that a bug, which was likely introduced with the update, has caused devices to take 1-3 seconds to wake up after the power button is pressed or the fingerprint scanner is used.  They also identified that the issue only impacts Pixel 2 XLs that have had the Ambient Display is disabled in Settings.

The work around to the problem is to turn the Ambient Display setting to Always On until Google can roll out a patch to fix the issue.

Huawei has lowered the price of the Huawei Mate 10 Pro for the next couple of weeks and now is the time to seriously consider it.  Normally the 6″ phablet is $799 now through June 30th you can pick one up on Amazon for just $549.  And this isn’t a stripped down version either.  It has 6GB of RAM and 128GB of built-in storage.  The $549 price represents the lowest price by far that has been available on the Mate 10 Pro here in the US.

I reviewed the Huawei Mate 10 Pro earlier this year and as I put in that review, it is one of the best phones out there right now.  Huawei has done a fantastic job with the overall design of the phone and the Android Oreo built EMUI 8 user experience is excellent.

Huawei has announced this morning that the company’s MediaPad M5 lineup is now available in the United States.  Coming in both an 8.4″ and 10.8″ with 2D curved glass – a first for tablets, the Huawei MediaPad M5 brings a powerful Android tablet experience that really no other manufacture can match these days.  Both tablet sizes are powered by the Kirin 960 SoC built by Huawei, 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM.

The MediaPad M5 lineup will be available from Huawei’s Amazon storefront.  The 8.4″ model is $319.99 while the 10.8″ model is $359.99.  Both models are currently in stock.

Sony has announced on their Google+ beta community page that the development of their Xperia Home launcher for their phones has entered maintenance mode.  The news was a bit of a surprise for some, especially given that Sony has a reasonably robust beta community for the launcher.

Despite that community however, Sony clearly sees the writing on the wall.  There are far superior launchers available in the Google Play Store such as Action Launcher, Nova Launcher and the new Lawnchair Launcher that offer more customization and personalization than the Xperia launcher.

A new Material Design look is in the process of rolling out for Google Maps on Android devices.  The update is a cloud-side change but you’ll want to make sure that you have the latest version of the app installed on your phone.  For those curious, that’s version 9.79.2.  Since this is a cloud-side update to Google Maps, not everyone is seeing the changes just yet.  It will likely be several days before all accounts get it.

Once you do, the changes will be immediately noticeable.  Gone are the square information blocks and icons on the Explore tab, replaced with bright, rounded corner information boxes and round icons.