The OnePlus 5 may have been outshined by the OnePlus 5T, but it remains a capable 2017 flagship smartphone. It shares some hardware in common with its successor, including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 system-on-chip, and software-wise, OnePlus has taken pains to keep it up to date. In fact, the OnePlus...
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Huawei Partners with UnionPay International to Accelerate Huawei Pay’s Roll Out Worldwide
These days, it’s tough to think of a major smartphone manufacturer that doesn’t have its own mobile payments service. Apple has Apple Pay, Google has Google Pay, Samsung has Samsung Pay, and LG has LG Pay. Huawei is no exception — Huawei Pay launched in China in March 2016, and it gave Huawei...
Spotify Experiments with a Free Playlist-Only App Called Stations
Spotify is one of the most popular music streaming subscription services in the world. It’s constantly expanding old features and introducing new ones, which is one of the reasons it’s the platform of choice for more than 100 million users. But it’s not resting on its laurels. This week, Spotify published...
Reliance Jio and MediaTek Team Up to Build an Android Go Smartphone
In some regions, high-end and mid-range smartphones reign supreme, but in emerging markets, low-end phones tend to be much more popular. For a while now, Google has been talking about bringing the “next billion users” online, and central to its plan is Android Go, a configuration of Android Oreo optimized...
Learn C from Front to Back with This Ten-Course Bundle
In the world of web and software development, few programming languages are as relied upon and revered as C. Yet, far too many programmers shy away from learning this go-to language due to its perceived complexity and steep learning curve.
The Complete C Programming Bonus Bundle breaks down the mystery...
OnePlus 5T Android Oreo Update Now Officially Rolling Out With OxygenOS 5.0.2
This month, we’ve seen the OnePlus 5T receive two new beta builds. Open Beta 2 brought new clipboard features and performance optimizations, and Open Beta 3, which was announced just yesterday, introduced iPhone X-style navigation gestures. But the next Oreo-based update is expanding beyond the beta...
Essential Phone Will Skip Android 8.0 and Go Straight to Android 8.1 Oreo
Andy Rubin-backed startup company Essential started talking about Oreo beta builds for the Essential Phone in October 2017, and a little over a month later, the phone received its first Oreo beta firmware. Since then, it’s gotten not one, but two additional beta Oreo updates, but they’ve both been...
Google Removed Over 700,000 Copycat, Malicious, and Inappropriate Apps from the Play Store in 2017
When people talk about the advantages of the Google Play Store compared to the iTunes App Store, they almost always bring up how quick and easy it is to get applications or games published. That’s partly because Google, unlike Apple, doesn’t rely on humans to individually test and approve every submission,...
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
Honor announces the first developers to receive the Honor View 10
The Honor Open Source Program was announced earlier this month and kicked off with the Honor View 10. Honor promised timely kernel source releases and API access to the AI capabilities of the...
[Update: Pricing and availability] The Sony Xperia XA2, Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra and Sony Xperia L2 Will Carry Fingerprint Sensors in the US
Update 1/30/2018: Sony announced pricing and availability information for the Sony Xperia XA2, Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra, and Sony Xperia L2 on Tuesday. The Xperia XA2 and Xperia XA2 Ultra will go on sale...
Amazon Alexa Can Now Send Text Messages to Any Number in the US
In recent months, competition in the virtual assistant space has picked up. At the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show, Google launched Smart Displays — new lineups of screen-equipped, Google Assistant-powered...
Honor 9 Lite and Huawei P Smart Kernel Sources have been released
When it comes to releasing device kernel sources in a timely manner, Huawei hasn’t always had a great track record. It didn’t make the Huawei Mate 9’s code available until six months after the phone’s release, and the company took three months to release kernel sources for the P10 and the P10 Plus....
Google Photos v3.13 adds Search Filter for Motion Photos, Auto-Sharing, Notifications for Photo Books, and More
Google Photos received a major update today, bringing it to version number v3.13. The new features include search filters for Motion Photos and new Photos Books notifications, and an APK teardown of the app reveals that Google might be readying a new dialog messages related to Photo Books and the...
Google Completes Acquisition of HTC Engineers Who Helped Build the Google Pixel 2
Just because two companies announce an acquisition doesn’t always mean the deal’s closing right there and then. Typically, it just means that both sides have agreed to terms — there’s usually paperwork to file and regulatory hurdles to overcome. That was the certainly case with Google’s acquisition...
VLC Beta for Android Adds Experimental Chromecast Support
The developers behind popular media player VLC recently pushed out an update to the app’s Play Store beta channel, and it’s a doozy. The newest Android beta (version 2.9.0) comes with a lot of features and changes, the most significant of which is experimental support for Chromecast.
Google...
Chinese Nvidia Shield TV with Nintendo games may actually be running a GameCube/Wii Emulator
Nintendo has been stuck in its ways for decades. In recent years, though, it’s been more willing to experiment. It released a Mario game for third-party platforms, for example, and teamed up with...
New Samsung Galaxy S8, S8+, and Note8 Bootloader Prevents Flashing Out of Region Firmware
Samsung is rolling out a new update for the Galaxy Note8. These updates come with the January security update which brings some patches for the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities, but it also comes...
Honor 7X Update Brings Face Unlock and AR Lens Camera App Feature
Huawei unveiled the Honor 7X in October 2017 to mostly positive reviews. Some in the community were disappointed it shipped with Android Nougat instead of Oreo, but others appreciated that it delivered high-end specifications at a reasonable price point. In any case, it’s gotten excellent software...
Verizon Reportedly Drops Plans to Sell Huawei Mate 10 Pro
Huawei has substantial traction in markets like Europe and China, but hasn’t managed to get a foothold in the United States. It’s sold smartphones from US retailers including Best Buy, Amazon, B&H, and others for years, but that’s no substitute for shelves in wireless carrier stores. To that...
ASUS ZenFone 3 Android Oreo Update Rolling Out with Improved UI and a New Swipe Gesture
When Google announced Android 8.0 Oreo last year, ASUS was one of the first companies to commit updating its older devices. The company said in August 2017 that it planned to bring Oreo to the ZenFone 3, and started to roll out Android 8.0 Oreo to the ZenFone 4 late last year. This week,...
ELEPHONE U/U Pro Reservations Now Open
On February 8, in Madrid Spain, Elephone plans to launch their newest phones which include the Elephone U and U Pro. Right now you can reserve one of these phones for yourself, and even claim a free gift...
OxygenOS Open Beta 5/3 for the OnePlus 5/5T Released with Bug Fixes and Other Improvements
OnePlus launched the Android Oreo-based OxygenOS Open Beta programs for the OnePlus 5 and the OnePlus 5T in late 2017, shortly after it kicked off the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T Oreo betas. They’ve generally enhanced or added to features in the stable releases of OxygenOS, and these...
Android One Xiaomi Mi A1 Kernel Sources Finally Released
Four months after the launch of the Xiaomi Mi A1, Xiaomi’s first Android One smartphone, the company finally released the kernel source code in compliance with the GPLv2 license. It has taken a lot to get to this point, but what makes it worse is these are kernel sources for Android Nougat. The phone...
Monday, January 29, 2018
Google app v7.20 beta hints at new Assistant Hotword, Duo Integration for Smart Displays, and more
Google App v7.20 beta is now rolling out to users enrolled in the Google App beta on the Play Store, and while Google hasn’t published an official changelog for the update, we did an APK teardown and found some changes related to the Google Assistant, Google Duo support for Smart Displays, and more...
[Update: Reverted] Chrome for Android will soon support Chrome’s DNS Prefetching for Faster Web Browsing
Update 1/29/18: The Asynchronous DNS feature has been reverted due to an unspecified bug.
Chrome for Android will soon support DNS prefetching, a technology that allows for faster web browsing, according to a merged commit in the Chromium Gerrit.
DNS prefetching, which is also known as asynchronous...
Progressive Web Apps can be enabled on Desktop Chrome right now—here’s how
Apps on Chrome generally offer a good user experience, but they can be nightmares for developers who have to navigate the browser’s proprietary APIs. Luckily, Google’s moving to adopt a platform — Progressive...