News and notes on the latest from Google.
RCS has been considered to be the successor to SMS and possibly even a competitor to iMessage ever since Google had announced it. Google’s been working hard to widely roll it out, but carriers? Not so much. Now, Google is finally taking charge of the RCS rollout—sort of.
Amid the U.S. trade restrictions placed on Huawei, the Chinese tech giant must find an alternative to the Google Play Store. Huawei’s Android skin, EMUI, does come with their pre-installed AppGallery app store. However, if they really do plan on going for that alleged Android replacement, they’re going to need developers to port their apps to AppGallery.
Continue reading “Huawei is requesting developers to publish their apps on its AppGallery app store”
Ever since the launch of the original OnePlus One, the recipe for a killer mid-range smartphone was very simple: flagship specs coupled with a modest camera hardware setup for nearly half the price of a fully fledged flagship. Things like decent software support and build quality were the icing on the cake, but they were never a guarantee. Over time, as prices kept creeping up, these two factors started to become a bigger part of the picture, even putting some of the bigger names to the sword—OnePlus is talking about updating the OnePlus 5/5T to Android Q while Samsung is yet to roll out the Android Pie update to the Galaxy S8 and S8+. Of course, this incredibly saturated segment of the market features a lot of the endeavors of other companies. But ultimately, they all share the same recipe. Google, on the other hand, had the guts to stray away from that route and create their own recipe for a worthy mid-range smartphone. In this article, we will discuss why Google’s new recipe will pay huge dividends to the Mountain View tech giant.
Continue reading “Why the Pixel 3a is the best mid-range phone you can buy in the US”
Digital Wellbeing, first introduced with Android 9 Pie last fall, is part of Google’s push towards balancing your technology usage with a healthy life. With the beta v.1.0.2483 (and a server-side switch), you can finally pick which days you want Wind Down to enable.
Google has been redesigning its apps one by one to match its new Material Theme. A few months back, Gmail and G Suite received a Material redesign. Now’s the time for the app that really needs it: the Play Store. Earlier, 9to5Google was able to get us some early pictures of the redesign, but now, it’s officially rolling out to users.
Earlier last week, the US-based tech giant Google revoked Huawei’s license to use the Android operating system as the base for its EMUI skin. That came after President Trump signed an executive order to put Huawei on what’s known as the “Entity List.” This means that all American companies are forbidden from doing any kind of business with the Chinese tech giant without explicit government approval.
Continue reading “Google silently adds Huawei back to the Android Q Beta program”
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard that the United States Government added Huawei to its “Entity List.” This prevents American companies from doing any type of business with Huawei without explicit government approval. To comply with this order, Google has to stop providing Huawei with Google services like the Play Store, Gmail, and anything else that requires the Play Services Framework.
Continue reading “The Huawei and Google dilemma: A complete rundown of everything”
Google wrapped up its annual I/O keynote today led by CEO Sundar Pichai. Pichai talked about the new developments at Google and gave us a glimpse of what’s to come. Here’s a quick recap of what was announced.
Continue reading “Recap: Here’s what was announced at Google I/O 2019”
The first Monday of May has arrived, and in an orderly fashion, Google’s monthly security updates are here. As always, just head to Settings > System > Advanced > System update to get the OTA.
Every year, the multi-million worth tech giants, in Samsung, Apple, and Huawei, introduce the world to their latest fleet of flagship smartphones, boasting about the hardware and some of the features their phones have on board. And while these phones gain a lot of traction among the average Jacks and Joes of people, these tech marvels don’t necessarily float the boat of the geeky critiques—it’s a natural progression that newer models will continue to improve and fill the voids of their predecessors. Apart from the eye-watering price tag these phones have, their manufacturers don’t really care about those who love to tweak their phones and develop interesting projects for them. And when Google wielded an ax in the Nexus lineup, there weren’t many choices left for these people other than OnePlus, a (sort of) fresh start-up company at that time. However, I think there is one brand that escaped through the nets that many have unfairly given their cold shoulders: Essential.
Continue reading “Counterclockwise: Using an Essential Phone in 2019”
