Oreo was released to the public last August; by Christmas I had a selection of Android 8.0 devices to hand and as of last week only 20% of my Android estate was not running 8.0 or above, one of which was my Note 8 which had been seemingly permanently stuck on 7.1.1 and failed to get any security updates beyond Jan 2018. On Sunday evening however I did one of many weekly manual update checks since the announcement of Oreo for the Note some time back, and finally the upgrade had arrived (with last month’s security update – March 2018) … read more.
2018 marks the first time I was able to attend Mobile World Congress. While a few topics appeared to feature heavily across the event – IoT, 5G, AR/VR and connected everything, and others – it was the sheer dominance of Android that truly captured my attention. Between the device launches, the Android Works, the Google & Android “offices” (because it certainly felt like a building within a building), the folks in white Google Assistant overalls roaming around, and Android marketing pretty much everywhere I looked, it was clear Google held nothing back this year. Android as a topic is a … read more.
You may have heard of FreedomPop at some point, they’re an MVNO offering free (as in beer) minutes, texts and data every month with no strings attached (unless you count the requirement for their app as part of the deal). They launched in the UK in 2015 and have been slowly making a name for themselves both for the free service and their low-cost plans for when the free tier is not quite enough. I’ve been making use of their services infrequently over the last couple of years for test devices and tablets which mostly live near WIFI, but may … read more.
With minutes before 2016 officially comes to an end, I’d like to continue my yearly tradition of listing my top Android apps over this and previous years. This year my aim is to offer a fresh list of applications not previously featured, mostly as I’m still very much using those highlighted in 2015! Without further ado and in no particular order.. HoloIRC I recent addition towards the end of this year. As I’ve become more heavily interested in open source software and with the myriad of projects that I have to started to rely upon, a common theme is the … read more.
The Android N beta program has been open to to the public for a couple of hours as of writing this, and after an excruciatingly slow ~800MB OTA download following my immediate opt-in I’ve got the first development build running on my Nexus 6. What’s new It feels immediately as though something’s changed on first boot, with a lockscreen that’s visibly different. The notifications catch the eye straight away. Gone are the adequately spaced cards in favour of a new, tighter, simpler design. In addition similar notifications are grouped together, expanding on a quick tap near the arrow beside the notification time. Once … read more.
As 2015 comes to an end, it’s that time again to reflect on my favourite apps over the last year or so. It has been two years since I last published my top apps list; this time last year I’d thought about writing an article but hesitated for two reasons – 1. my fiancée and I had just welcomed a little boy into the world, as such my hands were a bit full (to say the least!) and 2. the lists I’d published in 2012 and 2013 covered a lot of what I consider to be my favourite apps even to this … read more.
