Gresso’s insane iPhone case is so durable a grizzly bear can stand on it

Why it matters to you

Your iPhone deserves the highest level of protection, and a case made from titanium provides that.

If you adore your iPhone 7 and want to make sure it stays protected, while lavishing it with some love at the same time, the name at the top of your shopping list should be Gresso. It’s a luxury phone brand also known for its custom smartphone projects, and for producing limited edition phone accessories. This is the Gresso Magnum, a beautiful, and quite insane, case for your iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus. It’s going to cost you $500, but is made from titanium and gold, so your iPhone is really going to know you love it.

The case comes in two parts. First is an inner flexible TPU section for absorbing shocks and to protect the screen when the phone’s face down on the table. The real standout piece is the grade-5 titanium shell that attaches to the TPU case, providing style and immense durability. How much? Gresso claims the Magnum will withstand up to 550 pounds (250kg) of force. To put this into perspective, it should easily cope with a full-grown bear standing on it — a scenario many of us here at Digital Trends deal with on a regular basis. Additionally, the combined toughness of the titanium and TPU shell means the phone will survive a 10 meter drop.

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

Gresso’s lattice design looks superb, and keeps the weight of the case down. It really added very little additional bulk or heft to our iPhone 7, while the striking looks attracted many admiring looks and comments. There’s an 18k gold plate embedded in the titanium with Gresso’s logo embossed on it, along with the limited edition number. Just 999 are made of each style, and it takes Gresso’s engineers eight hours to create each one. They arrive in a presentation case covered in black leather.

Fitting the case is easy, but removing it requires the use of a special key to pry the two sections apart. When it’s on, the iPhone’s volume keys are hidden under a single TPU strip that sits flush against the side of the case. This does make it more difficult to locate them than usual, but the sleep/wake key is raised up and doesn’t suffer from the same problem. The lattice work takes some getting used to when holding the phone, as it’s totally different from the smooth or textured cases we’re more familiar with.

The version you see in the pictures is polished titanium, but a version with a black PVD coating is also available for a stealth look that’s also popular in the watch industry. It’ll cost you $600, rather than the $500 for the regular version, and the price is the same regardless of whether you choose the iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus case. Both can be purchased through Amazon.

It’s an outrageous price for a phone case, regardless of what it’s made from; but we love the unusual design and its ability to really protect our device. If you’ve got the money sitting around, you won’t be disappointed with the Gresso Magnum.

The Color Notebook is a connected drawing pad for 21st-century kids

Why it matters to you

Want your kids to color on an actual page instead of an iPad? Get the best of both worlds with The Color Notebook.

Nostalgia, meet technology. The matchmaker? This clever new notebook. Meet The Color Notebook, a new Kickstarter project that will allow your kids to be kids, free from the fetters of technology (at least, for now). But that doesn’t mean that you can’t take advantage of technology to share your kids’ creations with friends and family the world over. You see, The Color Notebook is an actual, physical coloring book that comes with eight blank pages for free-form art, two dot-grid pages for structured drawings, and two lined pages for handwriting. But the kicker is that this notebook is actually infinitely reusable and comes with a mobile app that lets you save all your children’s artwork into the cloud or send it via email or text.

The writing surface of this notebook promises to be amenable to markers, crayons, and colored pencils alike, but can be wiped totally clean in just seconds. You can also use dry-erase and washable Crayola markers to the same end — a totally spotless notebook when all’s said and done.

To save your kid’s work, simply pull out your smartphone and open the Rocketbook app. Using its patent-pending image-capture technology, the app accurately and quickly photographs the artwork (or note or anything else) and sends it to your contacts or to Dropbox, Google Drive, or another cloud storage service.

At the bottom of each page of the notebook are magic “buttons” that control the Rocketbook app’s cloud access. Just assign each button to a specific destination, be it a phone number, an email address, or cloud drive. Then, when your child marks a button on a page and scans the page’s contents, that processed image is automatically sent to the right person or place.

In essence, it’s all the versatility and functionality of an iPad, with all the durability and kid-friendliness of a good ol’ notepad.

It appears that parents are already quite eager to share the magic of this connected notebook with their children, as the project has already raised nearly $40,000 from over 680 backers. You can pre-order The Color Notebook from Kickstarter now for $20, with an estimated delivery date of November 2017.

The Color Notebook is a connected drawing pad for 21st-century kids

Why it matters to you

Want your kids to color on an actual page instead of an iPad? Get the best of both worlds with The Color Notebook.

Nostalgia, meet technology. The matchmaker? This clever new notebook. Meet The Color Notebook, a new Kickstarter project that will allow your kids to be kids, free from the fetters of technology (at least, for now). But that doesn’t mean that you can’t take advantage of technology to share your kids’ creations with friends and family the world over. You see, The Color Notebook is an actual, physical coloring book that comes with eight blank pages for free-form art, two dot-grid pages for structured drawings, and two lined pages for handwriting. But the kicker is that this notebook is actually infinitely reusable and comes with a mobile app that lets you save all your children’s artwork into the cloud or send it via email or text.

The writing surface of this notebook promises to be amenable to markers, crayons, and colored pencils alike, but can be wiped totally clean in just seconds. You can also use dry-erase and washable Crayola markers to the same end — a totally spotless notebook when all’s said and done.

To save your kid’s work, simply pull out your smartphone and open the Rocketbook app. Using its patent-pending image-capture technology, the app accurately and quickly photographs the artwork (or note or anything else) and sends it to your contacts or to Dropbox, Google Drive, or another cloud storage service.

At the bottom of each page of the notebook are magic “buttons” that control the Rocketbook app’s cloud access. Just assign each button to a specific destination, be it a phone number, an email address, or cloud drive. Then, when your child marks a button on a page and scans the page’s contents, that processed image is automatically sent to the right person or place.

In essence, it’s all the versatility and functionality of an iPad, with all the durability and kid-friendliness of a good ol’ notepad.

It appears that parents are already quite eager to share the magic of this connected notebook with their children, as the project has already raised nearly $40,000 from over 680 backers. You can pre-order The Color Notebook from Kickstarter now for $20, with an estimated delivery date of November 2017.

How to fix LG G6 battery life problems

There are many ways to make sure your battery goes the full day, every day.

No matter how good battery life is on a phone, we always want more. The LG G6 manages to do pretty well with its 3300mAh battery, getting most of us through a full day on average — but of course, we don’t use our phones the same every day.

Whether it’s turning into a regular occurrence for your phone to hit 50% before lunch, or just a here-and-there situation of needing to be sure that you’ll have enough battery for well into the night, there are a handful of things you can do to make the most of your LG G6’s battery. And now that LG’s leading device no longer offers a replaceable battery, these tips may be even more important to know.

Watch for battery-hungry apps

One of the biggest (and easiest to pick up) issues that can destroy your battery life is a power-hungry app (or three) that start taking up more than their fair share of resources when they’re not actively being used.

Open your Settings, head into Battery & power saving and tap Battery usage to see what’s going on. For most users, individual apps won’t crack the top five spots on the most-used chart. If you see one on there — perhaps a social media or streaming app — that’s high on the list but hasn’t actively been used that day, consider force stopping it with the “Stop” button or rebooting your phone; there’s a chance it may have been a one-off issue.

Keep an eye on it for the next couple of days and make sure the problem doesn’t resume. If it does, you can go through the app’s settings to see if there are any you can tweak so it doesn’t wake up so often — if it persists, you may want to uninstall the app.

Uninstall or disable unused bloatware

Pre-installed and unwanted bloatware is still a scourge on our daily lives, but you do have some control. Depending on where you bought your phone you’ll have varying levels of pre-installed apps, but there’s a good chance you could be looking at two dozen apps you just don’t want. These apps may wake up and use battery throughout the day — while it’s probably not a lot of battery, it’s still wasted charge either way.

Go into your Settings, Apps and scroll through the list. If you don’t want the app, tap on it and you’ll see a large “Uninstall” or more likely “Disable” button at the top. Uninstalling does what you think it does; disabling simply turns off the app but keeps it on your phone to be enabled later if you wish.

One word of warning: if you’re not sure what an app is, it could be an important part of a different app. If you disable an app and find that it’s causing issues with another feature or service on your phone, get ready to go back in and enable that app again to fix it. You can quickly sort for disabled apps by tapping the “All apps” dropdown in the Apps menu and selecting “Disabled.”

Turn off unused radios like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

If you don’t regularly use Wi-Fi or Bluetooth throughout the day, you can choose to turn them off and save a little battery life. Having the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth toggles in your notification quick settings makes it easy to turn them back on when you need them.

Keep in mind the location accuracy consequences of turning off radios.

Most of us do use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth throughout the day, though, and in those cases it’s best to just keep the radios on for your own benefit. There’s also the added benefit that your phone actually uses both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to help locate your phone as a combined system along with mobile network triangulation and GPS.

This system uses battery, though — if you want to keep Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on for your own uses but not let the system use the radios for location, you can head into Settings, Location, tap the overflow menu in the top-right corner and tap Scanning. Uncheck Wi-Fi scanning and Bluetooth scanning. This will save some battery, but be aware that these settings are turned on by default for a reason, and having them off may impact your phone’s ability to locate itself in the world when you’re using apps that benefit from location information.

Configure battery saver mode

LG offers a relatively simple one-level battery saver mode, and it can be enabled either immediately using the notification quick settings or set up to turn on automatically at 15% or 5% battery. Most people will want the balance of having it auto-enable at 15% battery, since that gives you a chance to more gracefully finish off your battery over the course of a few hours, while keeping the phone at its full potential for the first 85%.

No matter when you enable battery saver, you get the same effects to extend the life of the phone: brightness is turned down, vibrations are reduced throughout the system, apps can be restricted when in the background so they don’t drain your battery unless you’re using them. When battery saver is on you’ll get a permanent notification letting you know what’s going on, and you can tap that notification to go into the battery saver settings.

Battery saver will automatically turn off when you plug your phone in or unplug it again after charging above the 5% or 15% threshold if you have auto-enable turned on.

Make a few changes to your Display settings

Smartphone displays continue to get more efficient, but lighting up a big, bright panel is still one of the biggest drains on your LG G6’s battery. Making a few changes to the way it behaves can save you a notable amount of juice throughout the day. Open Settings and find Display to start checking out your options. Here are the big three to look at:

• Brightness: The lower you set your brightness, the less power the screen uses. But if you set it low and find you’re just adjusting it manually all of the time anyway, you may want to just leave auto-brightness on and deal with the slight battery consequences.
• Always-on display: The always-on display provides useful information, but drains more than its fair share of battery. You can turn it off entirely, or perhaps set a “daily timeout” so it starts turning on later in the morning and turns off early in the evening.
• Screen timeout: Again in the self-explanatory realm, if your screen is on longer it’s using more battery. By default the screen stays on for one minute after you’ve last touched it — consider dropping down to 30 seconds.

Update to the latest software

Now of course there’s always the opportunity that new software can also bring some headaches, but in general you’ll always want to keep your phone and apps up to date. On the LG G6, you can check for new firmware from Settings, About phone, Update center. You’ll see an “App Updates” option to update LG’s own apps, but the more important one is “Software Update” which can update your phone’s operating system.

You should keep the apps you installed from Google Play up to date as well. Open the Play Store, swipe in from the left edge and tap My apps & games to check for updates. You can just tap “Update all” at the top if you see updates that are available.

Turn off automatic updates from Google Play

It may seem a little counterintuitive if you take our advice to keep apps up to date, but in terms of maximizing your battery life you won’t want to keep Google Play automatic updates turned on. If you have “auto-update apps” turned on in the Google Play Store settings, the phone can check and download updates regardless of how concerned you are about your current battery life.

If battery life is the main priority, turn off automatic updates off entirely, and make sure to be diligent about manually checking on your own. While you’re in the Play Store settings you can check the box next to “App updates available” under notifications, which will alert you when updates are available but let you decide when to update.

If you don’t want to have to think about updates at all, but want a more battery-friendly setting, tap on Auto-update apps in the Play Store settings and select Auto-update apps over Wi-Fi only. This way the phone won’t download apps over mobile data, which will save you on your data plan but also in overall battery usage.

Check out the ‘battery optimization’ settings

These settings aren’t necessarily about raw battery savings as much as they are about finding a balance between app performance and battery life. Going back into the Battery & power saving settings, tap on Ignore optimizations (oddly named, to be honest) to manage which apps the system can aggressively slow down in the background to save battery.

Most people won’t want to touch these settings.

By default, the system will be willing to optimize and slow down apps when they’re not actively being used. This is great for battery life, and overall most people will prefer this. But on an app-by-app basis, you can choose to whitelist certain apps to perform however they want without the system scaling them back. Good examples of this are perhaps travel apps when you’re on a vacation or perhaps a messaging app that you absolutely cannot miss a notification from.

Again, for the most part, you won’t need to step into these settings unless you notice something odd happening with your apps not working properly. If you choose to ignore optimizations for some apps, be sure to check back in using the methods discussed earlier to make sure the apps aren’t running rampant with your battery in the background.

Take advantage of Quick Charge when you do have to power up

Yes, this isn’t exactly fixing any battery life woes you may have — but sometimes your battery is going to die earlier than you want because you’re simply using the phone more than usual. Battery drain isn’t always going to be tied to something wrong or bad happening on your system, and if you have to charge up during the day you might as well keep it as brief as possible — in comes Quick Charge 3.0.

Quick Charge is an intelligent charging system that focuses on hitting your phone with a very fast initial charge — well over 1% per minute — and then tapering off after the first 30 minutes or so to preserve the battery’s longevity. This means if you put your LG G6 on a Quick Charge 3.0 charger (Quick Charge 2.0 and 1.0 chargers will work too), like the one included in the box, you’ll be able to add a significant amount to your battery in about 15 minutes.

If that’s all the time you have, and you can get your phone plugged into either a wall, car or battery charger, make sure it supports the Quick Charge standard to make the most of the time.

Update, July 2017: Article improved with all of the latest battery-saving tips and tricks.

LG G6

• LG G6 review!
• LG G6 specs
• LG G6 vs. Google Pixel: The two best cameras right now
• Everything you need to know about the G6’s cameras
• LG forums

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Is now a good time to buy a Chromebook?

See what’s on sale, what’s not, and what’s coming soon on the Chromebook front.

It’s never a bad time to get a Chromebook; they come in every price range and even older models are kept up-to-date with the latest software. But some times are better than others, especially if you’re looking for a great deal or wanting to get the latest model.

What you’re looking for will also affect when you should buy. Buyers looking for a good deal on a current model or a better deal on an older model can usually find something that ticks the right boxes, but certain times of the year will bring bigger sales and lower prices. Of course, if you’re waiting for the latest and greatest, it makes sense to wait if it looks like a new model is going to be released soon.

That’s what this is for. We keep an eye on things because we like Chromebooks and because that’s what we do — follow the industry. Here’s what we recommend if you’re looking and don’t have to buy right now.

July 2017

Here’s our take on the market as of July 2017.

Current models

You’ll always be able to find an older Chromebook on the cheap at places like Amazon. For the most part, there’s nothing wrong with buying a Chromebook that’s 2 years old. They’ll keep getting updated and stay secure and easy to use, but they use older processors that will eventually feel sluggish when you’re doing the things you want to do with your Chromebook.

Sometimes you’ll find a fairly new Chromebook that fits your price on sale. Right now, Amazon is having a back to school sale on Chromebooks and has the Acer Chromebook R11 priced at $250. You can find cheaper Chromebooks, but the Acer R11 is a great Chromebook and saving $50 makes it even better. There’s a reason it’s Amazon’s best selling two-in-one laptop.

Another good buy is the Acer Chromebook 14, which is on sale (at the time of this writing) for $265. You get a bigger and slightly better display than the R11 and better battery life, but it’s a bit heavy and won’t have Android apps enabled out of the box.

At the high end, the ASUS C302 can be had for $470, which is $30 cheaper than normal. And our choice for Best Chromebook, the Samsung Chromebook Plus is listed at $405 and that’s $50 cheaper than the normal price.

$400 or more is a lot to spend on a Chromebook, and we suggest you try something cheaper if it’s your first time. But if you already love the speed and simplicity that comes with a Chromebook or want security and safe browsing in a premium model, either of these models is highly recommended.

See all Chromebook models at Amazon

What’s coming

We usually don’t recommend waiting for any rumors to pan out when it’s time to buy a phone or a Chromebook. No matter what you get or how much you spend, there will always be something better in the works.

Having said that, all signs point towards Google releasing another Chromebook of its own some time in late 2017. And for a few of us, another Google Chromebook Pixel is worth waiting for.

We expect a two-in-one specifically built to enhance the touch experience of Chrome OS and to debut the latest version of Android to offer better control over windows and multiple apps on the screen at once. Google also appears to be baking Google Assistant into Chrome and many speculate we’ll see advanced new features or special hardware dedicated to Assistant.

One thing we’re sure of is that any new Chromebook coming from Google will be built spectacularly and priced outrageously. If a high price doesn’t scare you off, we expect to see a new Chromebook some time before the Thanksgiving holidays.

We’ll revisit this before then to keep things updated so you know if right now is the time to buy.

Chromebooks

• The best Chromebooks
• Should you buy a Chromebook?
• Google Play is coming to Chromebooks
• Acer Chromebook 14 review
• Join our Chromebook forums

Daily Steals is running a Christmas in July sale with discounted phones, accessories and more

Our friends at Thrifter are back again, this time with another one-day promotion you won’t want to miss!

The folks at Daily Steals are getting in the holiday spirit early this year by running a Christmas in July sale. This one-day promotion brings discounts to phones, accessories, computers, and more! Best Buy just ran deals for Black Friday and Cyber Monday in July, and now we are already at Christmas. There are a bunch of gadgets available to browse at great prices.

Some of these are used, some refurbished, and some new. The conditions are noted below (and in the listings).

• 16/32/64GB iPhone 5s (Used, signs of wear) – Starting at $119.99
• 16GB iPhone 6s Plus (Refurbished) – $319.99
• BlackBerry Priv (Unlocked, new) – $279.99
• HTC One M9 (Refurbished) – $99.99
• Huawei Fit Fitness Watch with Heart Rate Monitor (New) – $64.99
• Logitech K380 Bluetooth Keyboard (New) – $15.99
• Samsung Gear VR 2016 (New) – $34.99
• Foscam FI9816P Wireless IP Camera (New) – $37.99

These are just a few of the items available during this sale, so be sure to hit the link below to check them all out!

See at Daily Steals

More from Thrifter:

• How to save money while keeping cool this summer
• Target’s REDcard has tons of benefits you may not know about

For more great deals be sure to check out our friends at Thrifter now!

How to change the default apps on Google Home

Personalize the apps that Google Home uses.

Google Home makes it easy to keep track of your busy life and enjoy some music when you’re relaxing at home. When you’re ready for some music or you want to check up on the news, though, you’ll want to be sure that the default apps are the ones that you want to use. Adjusting default apps is different for each service, but we have the details for you here!

• How to adjust your default music app
• How to adjust your news sources

How to adjust your default music app

Google Home supports Pandora, Spotify, and Google Play Music for all your jamming needs. To use anything but Google Play Music — which is already linked to your Google account — you’ll need to link an account. After you’ve done that, all you need to do is tap on the music service you are interested in using.

Open the Google Home app.

Tap the menu button (it looks like three horizontal lines).

Tap Music.

Tap the circle next to the music service you want to change to.

Read more: How to use Google Home to listen to music

How to adjust your news sources

Getting the headlines you care about from Google Home (rather than all the superfluous news that is out there) is a handy way to get a head start on your day. To personalize the news you want to hear about, you just need to adjust the news sources Google Home will read to you. There is a fairly extensive list to choose from, and you can even tweak the order of what news is delivered first.

Open Google Home.
Tap the device icon in the upper right corner of the screen.

Tap the menu button for Google Home (it looks like three vertical dots).

Tap Settings.

Tap More under Google Assistant settings.

Tap News.
Tap Add new sources.

Tap a checkbox to select new sources.

Questions?

Do you still have questions about changing default apps for Google Home? Is there one that we should have included? Be sure to leave us a comment below and let us know about it!

Google Home

• Google Home review
• These services work with Google Home
• Google Home vs. Amazon Echo
• Join our Google Home forums!

Google Store Best Buy Target

Android O: Everything you need to know

You have questions about Android O and we have answers. Here’s the skinny on what you need to know about Google’s next.

Android O is upon us! Well, not really. But the second developer preview, and the first public beta, have been released and we’re starting to uncover what Google has been doing with Android for the past year and what to expect when it’s released.

Google says to expect the full version in late summer 2017 (and a Pixel 2 with some even newer features in October). For now, though, there’s a beta that you can easily install.

Until the final release, we’ll keep this page updated as the best place to find everything you need to know about Android O!

What’s new in Android O

We have to start with all the changes under the hood that come with Android O. And we expect plenty of them!

With the first developer preview, we saw some exciting stuff that will have a big impact for developers and the apps they can make. New ways to use custom fonts and icons, a better way to deliver professional-level audio and awesome ways to connect with others for things like head-to-head gaming or local social applications.

The second developer preview added notification badges, support for picture-in-picture, autofill support, smart text selection, and TensorFlow Lite for improved apps with machine learning integration.

The third one fixed bugs, added a few new features and finalized the Android O APIs for developers.

The fourth one is considered a Release Candidate, and is nearly free of damning bugs.

What’s New in Android O: Everything you need to know

How do I install the Android O beta?

Now that the second Android developer preview is available, Google has launched an official Android O beta. It’s really easy to install — you don’t need to go through command lines or the Android SDK — by following a brief set of instructions at the link below. It’s also pretty easy to opt out if you want to go back to Nougat.

How to get Android O on your Pixel or Nexus right now

Should you install the Android O developer preview?

Sure!

Now that we’re at the fourth Android O Developer Preview, and the third public beta, the build is considered a Release Candidate, and is safe to use for everyday activities. Developers can not only update their apps to support the latest Android O APIs (in fact, Google is forcefully encouraging them to do just that!) but users can expect a very stable experience using old apps and new.

What devices can install the Android O developer preview?

The Android O developer preview is available for the Pixel, Pixel XL, Nexus 6P, Nexus 5X, Pixel C and Nexus Player.

Remember, that doesn’t mean Android O will be released for all of those devices, as we saw the Nexus 5 get developer previews for Android 7 and it was not part of the release. There is a lot of work behind the scenes with licensing and software versioning so just because a device can run the software doesn’t mean it will officially see it.

What will Android O eventually be called?

Android O will be called Oreo. Probably.

As of Google I/O, we don’t know the official name for Android O, but it’s looking increasingly likely that Google will net a deal with Nabisco, the makers of Oreo, the way that it did with Nestle for Android 4.4 KitKat.

Will my phone be updated to Android O?

There’s a good chance that if you have a phone that debuted in 2017, your phone will eventually be updated to Android O when it’s released. It may not be until 2018, but it will happen. If your phone is from 2016, the chance of it being updated to Android O is less, but some manufacturers — Samsung, Motorola — will be updated.

If you have a Pixel or Pixel XL, or a Nexus 5X or 6P, your phone will be among the first to receive the final version of Android O.

Android O

• Everything new in Android O
• Should you put Android O on your phone?
• How to get the Android O Beta on your Pixel or Nexus
• Join the Discussion

What’s new in Android O?

See what the latest and greatest version of Android has in store for you!

Android O brings several changes to existing features as well as all new features. Since it first arrived in 2008, Android has been a very fluid bit of software. The mobile space is always evolving and Android has evolved along with it so it could meet the needs of people like us who use it every day.

With the first developer preview of Android O, we got a glimpse of some of the new features. With the beta release we get a clearer picture of what can expect when it’s released later this year. Google also tells us that this is just a few of the things we can expect with the next version of Android. Now we’re at the fourth beta, which is considered a Release Candidate.

Here’s everything you need to know!

How to get Android O on your Pixel or Nexus (and how to roll back to Nougat)

Background limits

Starting with Android 7.0, Android can restrict certain activities an application wants to do while it’s in the background. Android O builds on this beginning and places top priority on saving power and improving battery life without the user (that’s us!) having to do anything or install anything,

New limits on implicit broadcasts (sending “signals” for other apps or activities to act upon), background services (activities of an app that continue to run when it’s not on the screen) and location updates (checking to see where you are using Android’s location services) are automatic. This means it’s easier to build apps that don’t have an impact on battery life and the user doesn’t have to manage anything.

This is a new area for Android, so developers are encouraged to study the documentation and try out the background execution and location limits before Android O is available for consumer devices.

Notification channels

Android N brought a new framework for notifications and ways for developers to use it so we get more information in a space where real estate is at a premium.

With Android O Google is introducing new Notification channels: grouping notifications together by their type. Notifications are still managed by the app that delivers them, but users can control how things are displayed on a per-channel basis. This way we can decide things like how a news app notifies us or a music player shows a persistent notification. Notification channels is a new way for us to control the rich notifications that Android apps bring to us.

Some of those rich notification changes come in the form of a custom notification when media is playing. Google’s examples use the album art or video thumbnail to build a colorful interactive notification.

Notification channels are required if a developer targets their app for Android O, and are an all or nothing affair. If a notification isn’t assigned to a channel it won’t be displayed.

Picture in picture for handsets

Google is moving PiP display support to Android phones.

Currently, Android TV has a native PiP display method but handsets use a standard multi-window view versus an overlay. With the new way of doing things, and apps can be designed so that the supplementary window is strictly for content and controls or other bits of app chrome can be placed elsewhere.

With Android O, we can shrink the view of an app into a small secondary window that can be positioned by the user at run time. For example, a YouTube window can be shrunk and moved so that you can take notes in a second app while it’s playing.

This also brings a new way to handle screen overlays and methods for a device to launch an app or activity (a portion of an app) on a remote display. An app can run on more than one display at a time, and the developer can decide which screen to launch an app on when the user starts it up.

Adaptive icons and badges

The Google Pixel Launcher brought adaptive icons, and now Android supports them systemwide and natively.

Options can be given for different shaped masks that define the outside border (think squircles) and icons can be animated. Adaptive icons will be supported in the launcher, shortcuts, device Settings, sharing dialogs, and the app overview screen.

Google has built this out in a way that’s easy for developers. They provide an icon as normal, and a background, and the system stitches them together using a mask that the home launcher defines.

Additionally, new icons support badges for new content. Called “Notification Dots” they are a lot like badges we’ve seen before. Google adds things like a preview pane from the homescreen you can access from the icon shortcut as well as app-exclusive shortcuts, such as replying to a message.

Font resources in XML

Android O promotes fonts to a full resource type.

This means that fonts can be defined the same way colors and other resources are in application layouts using XML, and developers will have more control over the fonts and style they use. This might mean we can have apps with their own custom fonts without any complicated procedures by developer or users.

Google is bundling all their own free fonts into downloadable packages that can be used here, and this can apply to emojis, too!

Project Treble

Project Treble is a fundamental change in how Android is created and how third party vendors — companies like Qualcomm or NVIDIA — can add their required software outside of the main Android framework. It’s a major undertaking and has been a long time coming, but it should alleviate much of the slow update problem we see from companies who make Android phones.

The Pixel and Pixel XL are the only existing phones that will be able to use Project Treble’s features, but phones shipping with Android 8.0 or later will have full access. We hope they take advantage of it!

More: How Google’s Project Treble will help fix one of Android’s oldest problems

Autofill APIs

Platform support for autofill means better security and a powerful way for an application to store repetitive information.

With the new Autofill API, a user will be able to choose a source for autofill data, and applications that need to store and retrieve this sort of data no longer will need to act as an Accessibility service. An app like a password manager can bundle its own activity for using the autofill API and we can choose it when we need it much like choosing a new keyboard. An app could also be built that acts as a global storage for autofill data without being associated with any one particular program.

Wide-gamut color for apps

Developers building applications for Android O on devices that support wide-gamut color can now leverage those displays.

Apps like photo editors and image viewers can make use of this, and the developers simply need to enable a setting letting the system know the app is wide-gamut color aware and embed a wide color profile. Some of the support profiles are AdobeRGB, Pro Photo RGB, and DCI-P3.

Connectivity

Android O brings some changes to the way our devices communicate with other devices. Welcome changes include:

• High-quality Bluetooth audio through the Sony LDAC codec. Your favorite songs will sound even better through Bluetooth connections.
• NAN (Neighborhood Aware Networking) connectivity using the Wi-Fi Aware specification. Devices with supported hardware can communicate with each other using Wi-Fi without a central access point.
• Telecom framework introduces new ways for third-party calling apps to work with each other and with your carrier’s special features. New APIs now support apps that don’t need to use the universal system phone app to display calling information and this data can be displayed and controlled over Bluetooth.

Keyboard navigation

Android on Chromebooks means we need a better way to use all the features of an app through the keyboard and mouse. Android O focuses on building a better model for arrow and tab key navigation. This is one of those things that are both better and easier for developers and end users.

AAudio API for Pro Audio

The new AAudio API was built for applications that need a high-performance and low-latency audio path. Audio data can be read and written via normal streams and the AAudio API handles the routing and latency.

The first versions of the AAudio APIs are not yet complete but are a great way for developers who need these features to provide feedback. We want the people building an equivalent of GarageBand for Android to have some say in how the new features work!

WebView enhancements

Android O enables the multiprocess mode for WebView components from Nougat as the default and adds an API so that developers can handle their own errors and crashes.

This makes applications that use web development languages better stability and security, and users will benefit if developers enable Google Safe Browsing for remote URLs.

A friendly octopus

While we expect the final version of Android O to have its own unique Easter Egg, preview 4 brought a change from last years’ Neko feeding.

After doing all the right tapping you can play with a physics-enabled octopus on your screen. Is it useful, or does it bring new features to Android? Nope. But it’s cool. We love cool.

More: The latest Android O developer preview has a new Easter egg: 8 is for octopus

Java 8 APIs and runtime optimizations

Android O supports new Java Language APIs, including the new java.time API introduced with the latest version of Java 8. Optimization for the new runtimes is also included for better performance and stability in apps designed for Android O.

It’s important to remember that early builds of Android O are designed for app developers to get a head start and aren’t really consumer focused. That means the features introduced during any preview period are subject to change, get better, break or even be removed. We’ll keep this page updated as we see more from Google about Android O!

More to come

Most of the changes from developer preview 3 to 4 are things to get ready for the final release. The long list of known issues that came with the third beta has been cut, and what we see right now is essentially what Google wants to release as final. Barring any show-stopping bugs getting discovered, we think this is a good look at what to expect when Android O is final.

And then, we’ll even get to know its name!

Updated, July 2017: The final Android O Developer Preview adds a bit of polish and removes some nagging development features. Here’s what you need to know!

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Nielsen counts live Hulu and YouTube TV streams for its ratings

Nielsen might be the lord of all TV ratings, but they’ve been scrambling to catch up in this new media landscape we’re in. Over the years, the service has been shifting and adjusting its traditional model to take into account the new and myriad ways we are all consuming TV. And now, they have a new announcement: Nielsen is adding Hulu’s live TV service and YouTube TV to its traditional TV ratings.

Nielsen has a separate digital ratings system, where it tracks what we’re watching (and how we’re watching it) on Netflix, Amazon Video and other streaming services. The noteworthy aspect here is that Nielsen is adding what’s watched on Hulu’s new live TV service and YouTube TV to its C3 and C7 ratings — time-shifted ratings of viewership three and seven days beyond airing that networks use to negotiate with advertisers.

Right now, purely digital numbers are not incorporated into C3 and C7 numbers for many reasons, one of which is that different ads are shown on streaming versus TV. The service does blend digital and TV ratings for networks to show overall Total Audience numbers, but these aren’t used officially or directly for sales. Instead, the networks might use the data to discuss their overall reach, and advertisers could strategize accordingly.

As more people, especially younger viewers, cut the cord and turn solely to streaming services for TV, it’s important that Nielsen change its model to accurately reflect what and how viewers are watching. There needs to be a more seamless integration between how TV and network executives treat digital and traditional TV; if it’s the same content, platform shouldn’t make as big of a difference as it does.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Nielsen, The Wall Street Journal