Author: Clinton

A fifth and somewhat surprising Chrome 67 build has been released to the Chrome OS Dev Channel.  For readers new to Chrome OS, the Dev Channel is what would be considered the Alpha channel for the platform.  Build 67.0.3396.19 (Platform version: 10575.17.0) comes just two days after the fourth build was released and brings the update to all devices.  The released on April 25th, build .17, was noted that it was for some devices.

From a feature or fixes update, there isn’t much to report.  This is basically the same build but has had a few underpinnings that allow it to get it out for all devices.

Update – Now Live in the Stable version

A new and pretty exciting feature is making its way to Microsoft Authenticator for iOS.  The feature will allow the app to keep a user’s credentials so they don’t get locked out of their accounts when they move to a new device.  The feature is a long requested feature by users and should make the migration from one phone to another more simple.

Today, if you migrate to a new phone, you have to pre-configure the Microsoft Authenticator app on your new phone prior to wiping your old one.  If you wipe the old one prior to doing this pre configuration, you run the risk of losing access to your two factor accounts – which is a gigantic pain, let’s be honest.  This new feature should make it a lot easier.

Some seven months after it was released, Android Oreo is now the required Android version for manufactures who want their new phones certified by Google.  The change means that if a manufacture wants to introduce a new phone to the market and wants that phone certified by Google to run Google Mobile Services and access the Play Store, it will have to be on Oreo 8.0 or later.  Phones running Android Nougat will no longer be certified.

While we can debate why it took the Mountain View company seven months to require this, it is good news on the whole.  Oreo is far more stable and secure than any previous version of Android and it arguably provides one of the best user experiences at the same time.

On the Apple Developer site, the Cupertino company has released the latest update of iOS distribution figures and it is pretty astounding.  For the report which is dated April 22, 2018, 76% of all iPhones and iPads coming to the App Store were running a variant of iOS 11, the latest version of the mobile platform.  A further 19% were running iOS 10, meaning that stunning 95% of all devices are running the last two major updates to the platform.

The numbers stand in stark comparison to Android Oreo, the latest version of Android from Google.  There, you will find just 4.6% of Android devices coming to the Google Play Store.  In fact, if you add up Oreo and Nougat, the version prior, you only get to 35.4%.  While it is easy to point the finger at Google, the reality is that the blame for the lack of updates to the majority of devices in the Android ecosystem lies with manufactures, a problem Apple clearly doesn’t have with iPhones and iPads.

Google has finally released a standalone task management app.  A round of applause please….  Google Tasks is a new app for both Android and iOS that allows you to create and management your tasks that formerly, you could only get to from Google Calendar.  The app, though, doesn’t remove your tasks from Calendar but instead, provides you a way to management without having to dive into Calendar itself.

The new app has been rumored for a while and was leaked a few weeks ago but there wasn’t much information on it until it was released today.  The new app is a beautiful example of Material Design and makes task management easy.

Microsoft has begun rolling out an update to the Android and iOS Microsoft OneDrive app that brings a much improved sharing experience.  The update now makes it clear which file or folder you are sharing and the extent of that sharing.  It is a much cleaner and easier to understand experience.

The update to the mobile apps falls in line with the updates that Microsoft has been doing to OneDrive online as well as the Windows and Mac clients.  File sharing from the cloud storage service is a fundamental element of the service which is used widely, especially with OneDrive for Business users.