Author: Clinton

Over the course of the past couple of years it has been clear that Microsoft’s mobile strategy is developing apps for Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.  This isn’t a bad strategy overall and it is clear from presentations this week at Build, Microsoft’s developer conference, that they are continuing that strategy.

One of the more exciting announcements on the first day of the conference is Windows 10’s new Timeline feature making it to both Android and iOS.  For Android users, access to Timeline will come via Microsoft Launcher while iOS users will have access to via Microsoft Edge.

It looks like the Apple HomePod is about to get a much needed feature:  Calendar access.  Right now HomePod isn’t able to access your calendar.  It can access your Messages, Reminders and Notes, which is handy but having calendar access is key to increasing the productivity of users of the smart speaker.  It looks like it is going to be changing pretty soon.

In the 3rd beta of iOS 11.4, when you go through the process of setting up an Apple HomePod, you now will see an icon for Calendar along with Messages, Reminders and Notes.  It is the strongest indication yet that calendar support is coming – although Apple hasn’t said anything on the topic to date.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced this past week at BrandCast in New York that the video streaming and sharing service has now reached a staggering 1.8 billion monthly registered users watching content.  It is a jump of some 300 million since the last update of usage figures were announced back in June 2017.

Perhaps even more staggering is the sheer amount of videos being uploaded on the service.  Roughly 400 hours of videos are uploaded to YouTube every minute and the company now has some 10,000 monitors looking through content for sensitivity, criminal or terrorist related videos.  Machine Learning and stricter policies will also help in managing the content on the site too.

Good news this morning for Moto X4 owners who are on Project Fi.  Your Android Oreo 8.1 update is now ready to download.  The update follows up the Oreo update back in December for the device which is the first non-Google branded phone to work with Google’s MVNO service.

If you have a X4 on Fi, you should have the update available by checking for it in the device’s settings under the About phone section.  It is a small update given that it is incrementing the Oreo build on the device but it is always a good ideal to download these types of updates via WiFi.

Late last week a change happened with Google Now Launcher, Google’s first proper attempt at a launcher for Android.  It basically became incompatible with virtually every Android phone out there.  The change was unannounced and it is preventing anyone from going to the Play Store and downloading the launcher.

Up until last week, you could use Google Now Launcher as your launcher on any Android phone running Android Jelly Bean 4.1 or higher.  Now, when you go to the launcher’s page in the Play Store, you get a warning that the app isn’t compatible with your device.

The Microsoft OneDrive for Android app has been updated with a feature that has long been requested by users:  The ability to install the app on a SD card.  To this point, if you have an Android phone with a SD Card, OneDrive would not allow itself to be installed on that external storage.  It is something that long time users of the cloud storage app have requested of Microsoft as it can save space, especially if you are syncing a lot of content offline from your OneDrive account, on your phone.

With version 5.9 which is now available in the Play Store, that changes.  You now have the option to install the app on your SD Card.  Further, if you already have the app installed, you can move the app to your card via the Settings in the app.