Category: Android

Three years ago on Sunday, Google launched Project Fi.  The MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) solution combined T-Mobile and Sprint as carrier options for the Nexus 6 and allowed for seamless switching between the two carriers automatically.  Fast forward to today, you still have T-Mobile and Sprint in the mix but now you also have U.S. Cellular in there for additional coverage.

The idea was a unique one and remains so today.  Project Fi also brought low cost data usage at the time of its launch, particularly for those who traveled internationally.  That part of the service has improved too as you are not longer as severely throttled on your data speed as you were back three years ago.  As for the cost, it still remains mighty competitive in the market.

A new update to the Google Pay app is rolling out in the Google Play Store today.  While the update itself, version 1.57 for those keeping score at home, doesn’t bring a lot of excitement on the surface, there are some potentially exciting things in the code that could bring big improvements to the app.

A teardown of the app by the team over at Android Police points to code within the Google Pay app where airline boarding passes could be supported.  This would allow for the Pay app to be the center of your travel, not just a tap-to-pay app.  Given that the app already supports some transit tickets with more coming, supporting airline boarding passes isn’t a big stretch.

After three beta builds over the past few weeks, the Chrome team has released the Chrome 66 update to Chrome for Android.  The new app is build 66.0.3359.106 and it will be landing on devices over the course of the next few weeks.  There are several changes in this update including most noticeably, a new modern UI look to the browser.

This new look rolled out via a flag change in one of the first betas of Chrome 66 and it is still a flag that you can enable.  That flag is chrome://flags/#enable-chrome-modern-design.  It gives everything a more rounded and polished look over the current, default UI.  Also, like the desktop updates and Chrome for iOS, you can now export your passwords in the mobile browser to save as a .CSV file.  Keep in mind though that the file is not encrypted so if anyone gets hold of it, they have your passwords.  Protect it!

G Suite is getting a small but time saving feature for admins who have corporate owned Android devices, or devices with a corporate work profile.  They will now be able to allow any app to be installed on those devices, saving the tedious work of having to whitelist apps one at a time.  It is a change that will be rolling out to all domains over the course of the new few weeks.

To this point, if a corporate owned or corporate work profile device needed to install an app beyond what the admin’s had whitelisted, they had to go and approve that app for that specific device.  As you can imagine, this can be time consuming if you have a lot of corporate devices.  Now admins can allow any app to be installed but, and this is important, end users will still only see the whitelisted apps in the corporate version of the Google Play Store first.  It is only when they search for an app that they will be able to find it and install it.

OnePlus has released OxygenOS 5.1 for the OnePlus 5 and 5T today, bringing Android Oreo 8.1 to the two phones as well as other improvements to the device.  On the OnePlus 5T, it also brings the new full screen gesture support which is similar to the gestures found on Apple’s iPhone X.  The gestures have generated a bit of controversy as they appear to almost directly mimic Apple’s gestures on their flagship phone – but the implementation in testing has been lackluster with multiple user issues.

Along with Oreo 8.1, OxygenOS 5.1 brings the April Android Security Update patches to the phone as well as a new optimizing gaming mode which pauses the adaptive brightness of the screen and has power saving features.

The ultimate Android gaming phone, the Razer Phone, has its shiny new Android Oreo 8.1 update rolling out according to the company.  While it will take several weeks to get to everyone, once it arrives, you will get all the goodies that 8.1 brings along with some stability improvements and the latest Android Security Updates.

For those that don’t recall, the Razer Phone was borne out of the acquisition that the company made of Nextbit last year and their first phone is a powerhouse of a gaming and entertainment device, sporting HDR video and Dolby audio for Netflix to name but a few of its high end features.  Couple that with its 120MHz refresh rate and it provides a great gaming experience in your hands.