Android’s progress lives and dies by Samsung

Google makes Android, but Samsung increasingly owns Android. And that’s a problem for updates.

In Canada, we have seasons. It’s currently winter, and therefore cold. Not so cold, but enough to change the snow to rain and back again, and it’s been doing a fair amount of both lately.

But aside from cold hands and wet feet, this type of weather isn’t great for most Android phones, and only one in my lineup right now is IP68 water resistant: the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge. But as wonderful and beautiful as that phone is — and despite the presence of a Micro-USB, it’s barely aged a day — its success is actively being undermined by the fact that it’s running Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, and has been since I got it in March.

The problem

More than ever Google’s Android strategy is permanently and inextricably aligned with Samsung’s

With Samsung officially rolling out Nougat to its GS7 lineup, the time is ripe for talking about how much influence the company has over how Android’s update-reliant fragmentation is seen by the world. But this is not just about Samsung’s flagships, either. No, looking at this month’s Android version distribution numbers, it occurred to me that more than ever Google’s Android strategy is permanently and inextricably aligned with Samsung’s as long as the former develops the OS for free and the latter keeps building the world’s most popular phones on top of it.

And while we’ve heard rumors for years that Mountain View will take Android updates into its own hands, the most likely scenario is one that’s playing out already: Google releasing annual updates to its Pixel line and keeping those running the latest version of its mobile OS for as long as possible.

In the meantime, it’s hard to look at the paucity of phones out there running Nougat without levelling some of the blame directly at Samsung. While the Korean giant has certainly had a tough few months, potentially pushing back the release of Android 7.0 for its non-exploding phones, there’s no question Samsung has a dubious track record for expeditious updates. A flick of the switch on a couple of generations of handsets would singlehandedly quintuple the number of phones running the latest version of Android.

It’s going on six months since Android 7.0’s official release on Nexus devices.

This time, Samsung did do things a little differently by offering a public (though hard-to-sign-up-for) beta of Nougat for the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, but as valuable as such a process will be to the overall stability and performance of the phone’s eventual release candidate, it will be nearly a full year after Android N was announced, and going on six months since Android 7.0’s official release on Nexus devices.

The cold hard data

Even though Samsung begins its Nougat trickle next week, it will be months before all 50 million or so units get it — the majority will have been sold through carrier channels, most of whom perform their own extensive quality control — and many of those may receive the older Android 7.0 instead of the more recent Android 7.1.1. Again, this is nothing new. But based on new data from Kantar WorldPanel, Samsung’s latest phones captured 28.9% of holiday sales, sitting closely behind the iPhone as the most popular devices in the U.S. That’s millions of phones unboxed during the busiest season of the year running year-old Android software.

That same data from Kantar claims Google’s Pixel phones accounted for just 1.3% of the smartphones sold in the same period, and more than half of that business was done from a single carrier, Verizon. Most people in the U.S. still buy their phones through carriers, and thanks to the longevity of hardware, last-generation devices are still being offered at tremendous discounts to people who just want something that works.

Devices like the Galaxy A and Galaxy J are the devices sold and forgotten, never receiving the upgrades us early adopters so crave.

Moving down the line, Samsung’s A and J series are competent devices that, according to IDC, comprise the majority of the company’s smartphone shipments every quarter. These are the devices sold and forgotten, never receiving the upgrades us early adopters so crave. But the longer replacement cycle of smartphones coupled with the fact that Samsung has little incentive to invest the considerable engineering time to even issue security updates to those entry-level and mid-range phones, let alone the updated Android code, means that we’ll likely see slower uptake of Google’s latest Android versions unless the cycle is broken. Same goes for older flagships like the Galaxy S6, Galaxy S5 — even the Galaxy S4, which Verizon still sells — which are still being purchased in the millions.

This isn’t really Samsung’s fault, either. The company has a right to support or neglect its phones as it sees fit, and millions of customers are obviously speaking with their wallets by continuing to purchase Galaxys over competing Android devices, most of which have better update track records. But that Android’s long-term health is so caught up in Samsung’s own update strategy can’t sit well with Google, and the Pixel’s modest success hasn’t, and likely won’t for some time, positively impact Mountain View’s own desire to get the Platonic ideal into as many pockets as possible.

Well, I guess there’s always next year.

Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge

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Video: HTC U Ultra + U Play first impressions!

Just a week removed from the end of CES, we already have our first major Android launch of 2017 — from HTC. The Taiwanese company has just unveiled the HTC U Ultra and U Play — a pair of new phones pitched as “flagship” devices.

But while both pack the same impressive metal-and-glass construction, the Ultra is the handset you’ll want to get more excited about. It’s got top-tier internals, an upgraded version of the camera from the HTC 10, Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box and AI smarts thanks to the new “Sense Companion.” It’s early days for both these phones: so early, in fact, that HTC isn’t allowing live hands-on video. But we’re still able to give you an early sneak peek at both phones. You’ll find everything you need to know compressed into four minutes in our first look video!

• Android Central on YouTube
• HTC U Ultra + Play hands-on!
• HTC U Ultra specs
• HTC U Play specs

How to allow extensions in Incognito mode on your Chromebook and why you want to

Sometimes being incognito just isn’t enough.

Chrome’s Incognito mode is a great thing. It won’t hide who you are on the internet but it does keep all traces of the websites you’ve visited out of your Google account and local browser storage. Sometimes, you want to keep those cookies and trackers from being stuck to you and your account. Reasons range from looking at porn to using a computer on someone else’s account to sneaking around the five per month limit at some major news outlets. All reasons are valid if it’s what you want (or need) to do.

You can take this one step further if you need to by adding some necessary extensions to incognito mode. Your Chromebook is pretty safe from malicious things actually being installed, but things like web beacons and trackers can still try to keep tabs on you. And even Incognito mode can’t stop the piss-poor ads that end up getting put everywhere. But extensions can. Here’s how easy it is to do.

Best Chrome apps and extensions

You don’t need to install anything special or enable any settings or flags to run extensions in Incognito mode. You just need to have them installed and trust that the people who developed the extensions themselves aren’t collecting data they shouldn’t be. Google is pretty tough on the latter, and extensions you get from the Chrome Web Store are limited to the data they actually need.

To enable an extension in Incognito mode:

• Open the extensions page by entering chrome://extensions/ in the Chrome omnibar.
• Find the extension you want to enable in incognito mode.
• Check the box that says Allow in incognito.

Be mindful of the warning — an extension can store data from an incognito browsing session even if the browser itself can’t. This data might also have a trail of where you visited and the things you clicked on. It won’t have any data about who you are, what your Google account is, or anything else that can personally identify you.

Once you’re done, the next incognito session you open (control + shift + n opens a new incognito window) will have the extensions you selected active. Now your private browsing can have the same features as your normal browsing.

Chromebooks

• The best Chromebooks
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• Acer Chromebook 14 review
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Trackmania Turbo VR review: it’s you against the track

Time to get loopy in your coupe.

Trackmania Turbo VR is, in one word, intense. The larger-than-life tracks, winding wallrides, and magnet corkscrews are taken to the next level when your face is stuck right behind your car. Never before has Trackmania been officially released for VR, and I’m sure many fans of the series always dreamed of what it would look like. Well, it’s here…sort of. This free add-on to Trackmania Turbo brings some of the best parts of the standard game to VR while leaving others behind.

No, the entire Trackmania Turbo game is not playable in VR other than in cinema mode. Instead, you get a special section accessible through the main menu that has a limited amount of content. This review will focus on Trackmania Turbo VR and whether or not it’s worth buying the entire game if you’re looking to get your hands on the VR part only.

Read more at VR Heads!

How to set up and use Chromecast Audio groups

Put your music where you want to hear it by setting up Chromecast Audio groups.

One of the coolest features of Chromecast Audio and the Google Home app is the grouping setting. If you have multiple Chromecast Audio or Google Cast-ready speakers, you can set things up so that you can cast audio to specific devices while others stay silent. For me, this reason alone makes the Chromecast Audio the best solution for a complete home audio setup.

And doing it is easy. We love easy. But like many of the cool things Goggle lets us do, it’s buried in the settings and it seems like nobody at Google PR is talking about it. No problem. We can talk about it instead!

For starters, you’ll need to have at least two devices to do anything here, and they both need to be set up through the Google Home app. If you have the devices but haven’t set them up yet, figure out where you’ll put them and plug them in (one at a time) then look at your phone. Tap the notification and go through the setup process. It’s easy, promise. At the end, make sure you sign into your Google account on each device if you want to cast Google Play Music or audio from YouTube. This will let you use any subscription services you might be paying for and help filter music based on your tastes if you are using a Google Home (also an audio Cast target!) and voice commands to cast from.

When you’ve got things setup, follow these three steps to make a group.

• In the Google Home app, tap the devices button in the upper right corner.
• Pick a device that you want in a group, then press the settings button (three vertical dots) in the upper right of its card and choose the Create group option.
• Choose a name and the other devices you want in that group then press the save button.

Just like setting up the devices themselves, it helps to give things a descriptive name so you know what is what. If you are going to use Google Assistant (either through your phone, Google Home or NVIDIA Shield TV) make it a name you can say and one that Google will understand. Weird stuff isn’t recognized very well and you can’t always say some things, like when mom is visiting.

When you want to cast music (from any valid Cast audio-enabled app) you can cast it to the group you named, and all the devices you picked will play at the same time. Any devices you didn’t pick won’t play anything. This is a great way to have music fill the places you are or have a podcast follow you from room to room so you don’t miss anything. You can still cast to a single target, too — just pick it by name in the list of available devices or say it by name to Google Assistant.

A device can be in more than one group at a time or no groups at all. It’s completely up to you.

Groups work with any device that’s a valid audio Cast target. That means the Chromecast Audio as well as stand-alone Google Cast-ready speakers or other devices. It doesn’t work with video devices, like a regular Chromecast, Android TV or Chromecast Ultra. Hopefully, Google enables a method that these devices can also play in a restricted audio-only mode so they can join the party. But as of now, they don’t work.

If you have a house full of audio Cast-ready things, you owe it to yourself to set up a group or two and fill your life with sound.

Chromecast

• Chromecast and Chromecast Audio review
• Chromecast Ultra vs Roku
• Chromecast vs Chromecast Ultra: Which should you buy?
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Lego City Undercover confirmed for Nintendo Switch, here’s the trailer

Warner Bros has confirmed that there will an enhanced Nintendo Switch version of the underrated Wii U title Lego City Undercover.

The open world adventure – sort of a tamer, Lego-flavoured Grand Theft Auto – was one of the Wii U launch games and got rave reviews back in 2013. But it was hard to come by and exclusive to that platform at the time.

Now Warner is bringing it back, for the Switch, PS4, Xbox One and PC, with hugely improved graphics and, in the case of the latter three machines at least, new control systems.

• Nintendo Switch: Release date, price, specs and everything you need to know
• Nintendo Switch games: The games revealed so far and what we’d like to see

That’s because it heavily relied on the Wii U GamePad and its touchscreen for some of the gameplay features. The Switch version might be able to capitalise on some of those features, although the touchscreen is not available when docked so we’re not sure exactly how it’d work. Perhaps it won’t.

What will remain is the cunning sense of humour that runs throughout the game. In many ways, it was funnier thanks to the lack of a big screen movie licence. The original plotline was welcome too.

You can check out what to expect on the Switch version of the game, along with the PS4, Xbox One and PC variants, in the official trailer below…

Patent leak shows Nokia may want to enter the folding smartphone game

It seems Nokia believes there will be a market for foldable smartphones after Phone Arena uncovered a patent filed by Nokia way back in 2013 for a “Foldable device”. The patent was granted by the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), although Nokia has apparently been filing patents for more simple versions of the technology since 2005.

• These pictures could reveal Nokia’s 2017 flagship, the Nokia 8

The picture in Nokia’s patent shows what looks like a compact mirror, with two identical looking sides connected by a hinge. Inside the device is a single screen panel that folds in half, but as for the size of the screen, the possibilities are vast. Nokia mentions in the patent filing: “[i]n this way it is possible to provide a pocket size device with a relatively large display (for example, a 6, 7 or 8 inch display or larger)”.

Phone Arena does say that the patent filing may mean nothing at all, and Nokia may not ever release a foldable smartphone, but considering there’s rumours suggesting Samsung will release a folding smartphone later this year, we’ll be keeping a close on this one.

The Samsung Galaxy X is expected to launch later in 2017 and will allegedly feature a design that will allow it to transform into a 7-inch tablet. Samsung is reported to have already ordered 100,000 units of the device, so perhaps it doesn’t expect huge sales if and when it launches.

• Mobile World Congress: Smartphones, smartphones, smartphones to expect
• Samsung Galaxy X foldable smartphone may morph into a tablet, will launch in Q3 2017

Nokia has only just made a return to the smartphone world after parent company HMD Global recently released the Nokia 6 in China. We’re also expecting to see the Nokia 8, the company’s flagship device, unveiled at Mobile World Congress 2017.

Nintendo Switch presentation: Watch it right here

Nintendo will finally reveal all about its new console on Friday 13 January during an online presentation event that you can watch, if you’re an insomniac.

The Nintendo Switch full unveiling is to be screened live on Thursday 12 January at 8pm Pacific Time, 11pm Eastern Time in the US, and that means UK Nintendo fans will have to stay up until 4am on Friday morning (or get up super early).

We bet some do though, and that’s why we host the livestream below for you to enjoy:

If you’re willing to wait however, it will likely be repeated or you can catch up with all the action here on Pocket-lint.

We’ll be at a special hands-on event in London soon after the broadcast in order to bring you our first impressions of the Nintendo Switch and some of the games on show.

You can also catch up with some of the rumours and confirmed details ahead of the official presentation by clicking on the links below. This is a major deal for Nintendo, especially after the widely perceived failure of the Wii U, but like you we are willing the Switch to be a great success. The games industry deserves a great Nintendo console and everything we’ve heard so far suggests the Switch might well be it.

• Nintendo Switch: Release date, price, specs and everything you need to know
• Nintendo Switch games: The games revealed so far and what we’d like to see
• Official Nintendo Switch accessories include Zelda skins, arcade stick and in-car charger

ICYMI: A medical breakthrough inspired by a kids toy

Today on In Case You Missed It: Stanford bioengineers created a centrifuge to separate blood and detect disease, all based on whirligigs from childhood. They estimate the blood cell device would cost only 20 cents a piece to make, and since it’s human-powered, could be used all over off-the-grid locations to help diagnose diseases like tuberculosis.

The National Science Foundation helped fund research into walking efficiency and the artist who imagined a sad robot dystopia is here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.

Exxon must turn over decades of climate change research

A court in Massachusetts has ruled that Exxon Mobil must reveal how much it knew about our looming environmental apocalypse. The oil giant is under investigation by the state’s attorney general, Maura Healey, who is looking at claims that the company mislead investors about climate change. The court has compelled the company to hand over decades’ worth of paperwork relating to what Exxon chiefs knew, and when.

It’s believed that Exxon knew about the impact its business had upon the environment as far back as 1977. Rockefeller descendant David Kaiser launched a broadside against the company in November, outlining the charges. He claims that Exxon concluded that we were sliding toward a carbon catastrophe by 1980 but used paid scientists to muddy the consensus around carbon dioxide’s impact.

This affirms our authority to investigate fraud. @exxonmobil must come clean about what it knew about climate change https://t.co/vlDgRxDJyc

— Maura Healey (@maura_healey) January 12, 2017

An Exxon spokesperson told Reuters that it was “reviewing the decision” of the court, in order to “determine next steps.” As reported by the Boston Globe, Exxon has also launched two lawsuits at Healey directly, claiming that her actions are politically motivated. In this particular case, however, the court was unconvinced by the line that Healey was acting arbitrarily or capriciously against the oil company.

It may be a while before we know the contents of the documents that will soon be on their way to Healey’s office. But if they do contain evidence that Exxon Mobil knew and chose to mislead both the public and its investors — then it’s going to be a fun couple of years.

Source: Reuters, Boston Globe, Republic Report (.PDF)