How to get Xbox Game Pass app on Android

With a new Xbox Game Pass app headed to Android and iOS, here’s how to download right now.

Microsoft’s all-new app for mobile devices builds on its Netflix-style subscription service, Xbox Game Pass. Headed to Android and iOS, the app allows subscribers to remotely browse the service’s current library while pushing games to the Xbox One’s download queue.

Although the new Xbox Game Pass app hasn’t formally released on mobile storefronts, Microsoft is currently distributing in-progress beta versions to select Xbox users. The Xbox Game Pass app beta for Android is now on Google’s Play Store, while iOS users require a direct invite from Microsoft.

Here’s what you need to know about the Xbox Game Pass app on Android, and how to download it today.

Get Xbox Game Pass app beta on Android

For those on Android, downloading the Xbox Game Pass app is relatively easy. Only a few steps lead to installing the app for free, with an immediate download across any device.

Open the Play Store on your Android device.
Search Xbox Game Pass on the Play Store.
Select Xbox Game Pass from app listings.
Select Install to begin downloading the Xbox Game Pass app beta.

Once downloaded, the Xbox Game Pass beta app and its features will be available for use.

Your thoughts on the Xbox Game Pass app

For a full breakdown of the Xbox Game Pass app and its features, be sure to check out our full hands-on with a pre-release version. In the meantime, be sure to drop into the comments section with your thoughts on Microsoft’s latest mobile venture.

See Xbox Game Pass at Microsoft

Check out these fixes if your Oculus Go games won’t download or install

Not much fun without content.

The Oculus Go is a portable VR headset that avoids cables and external hardware, yet provides a truly immersive experience. It is a relatively new product, so there are some bugs to be found, but you can usually fix them without much trouble. One common problem involves not being able to download or install games and experiences from the Oculus Store. Let’s take a look at a few potential fixes that can get you back to VR gaming on your Go.

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Restart your Oculus Go

If you’ve successfully downloaded and installed a game or experience from the Oculus Store and it doesn’t want to launch on your Go, start off by restarting the headset.

Hold down the Oculus Go power button on the headset until a shut down menu appears on the display.
Select Restart with your Oculus Go motion controller.

Your Oculus Go will power cycle and you can then attempt again to launch a game or experience that’s already been downloaded and installed.

Install games from your phone’s Oculus app

Attempting to install a game from inside the headset might not work, but you can always try installing by using the Oculus app on your phone. The app and the headset remain synced, so anything you do on either device will show up on the other.

Launch the Oculus app on your phone.
Tap Library.
Tap a game or experience that won’t install on your headset.

Tap Install.

If the phone app isn’t working properly either, you can always try reinstalling it for better results.

Download the Oculus app at Google Play

Try downloading one Oculus Go app at a time

Some users have found that downloading multiple games and experiences at once can cause a bit of confusion for the system. If you are indeed queueing up a bunch of downloads, try going one by one to see if there is any difference.

Keep your Oculus Go from sleeping

Power management kind of sucks right now on the Go, and you’ve probably noticed that it will turn off almost immediately if you remove it from your head. This remains true when games and experiences are downloading, and many people have had problems attempting to restart a download when the headset wakes back up.

While downloading, you’ll want to either keep the headset on your head or place a piece of tape over the built-in sensor to keep the headset from sleeping.

If you are downloading and the headset powers down, you might have to perform a complete factory reset to get the specific app onto your Oculus Go.

How to factory reset your Oculus Go

Unfortunately, it seems that a factory reset is often necessary if a game or experience gets stuck. This will erase everything on your Oculus Go, but you will retain any games and experiences in your library. That means you have to go through the process of reinstallation, but at least you won’t have to re-buy your content.

We’ve already written a great guide on factory resetting your Oculus Go with step-by-step instructions to get you through the process.

How to reset your Oculus Go

Open a support ticket with Oculus

There’s no shame in reaching out to Oculus when you can’t find on your own a solution to your problem. Opening a support ticket usually means you’ll hear back within a few days, hopefully with a fix that will get you back into VR.

Open an Oculus support ticket

Related resources

• Which Oculus Go should you buy? 32GB or 64GB?
• How to fix an Oculus Go controller that doesn’t connect

1Password 7 comes to Android with a new UI, account breach alerts, and more

The new update is rolling out via the Play Store now.

1Password is one of our favorite password managers around, and after rolling out its big 1Password 7 update to Windows and Mac, it’s now time for the Android app to share in on the fun.

As soon as you update to 1Password 7, the first thing you’ll notice right off the bat is the new UI. A bottom navigation bar now provides quick access to your Favorites, Categories, Tags, and Settings — things you previously had to open the hamburger menu to use. Speaking of the hamburger menu, opening this now shows a new vault launcher where you can switch back and forth between your vaults in you have more than one.

If you go to the Categories tab, you can now press and hold on multiple entries to favorite, copy, or delete multiple items at once. When you tap on a single entry, the view for it has been updated so that the most important info is now more readable and easier to understand.

When it comes to creating passwords, 1Password 7 includes a new Strong Password Generator that allows you to create memorable/easier-to-remember passwords that are still plenty secure. Similarly, Watchtower is also integrated into the 1Password Android app to alert you if you have a weak password, one of your online accounts has been compromised, or if a password is expiring soon and needs to be changed.

Other goodies with 1Password 7 include the ability to upload documents from your Android device, Autofill support for DuckDuckGo and Brave web browsers, your most-used logins now being shown at the top of the Categories page, and more.

1Password 7 is rolling out as a free update to the Google Play Store now. If you don’t see it quite yet, 1Password says it should be available for everyone in the coming days.

Download: 1Password (free w/ paid subscription)

Google Assistant Routines make Google Home the best alarm clock you can buy

Google Assistant’s Routines turn the most hated activity of the day into something gentle, useful, and guaranteed to make you not hit the snooze button.

As a child, I hated alarm clocks with a passion. They’re harsh, ugly, and the snooze button meant that I’d hear my siblings’ or dormmates’ alarm clocks over and over again as they looked in vain for five more minutes of sleep. CD alarm clocks and their sweet music helped me make peace with the morning alarm, with my iPod and eventually Google Play Music (via custom Tasker profiles) replacing the harsh beeps, buzzers, and klaxons that have made users young and old curse their clocks for centuries.

Well, Google Home has finally freed us from the shackles of traditional buzzer, ringer, or ringtone alarm clocks, and it’s all thanks to Google Assistant’s custom Routines .

If I wanted to set a morning alarm with Google Assistant, why wouldn’t I want to have all of that in my alarm?

Google Home has had alarms since its inception back in 2016, and even allowed users to start setting music alarms earlier this year, but these alarms left a lot to be desired. Google Assistant’s “Good Morning” routine can turn on the lights, read you today’s schedule, tell you how much traffic is on your way to work, then play your favorite music or the latest news.

Now, Google Home users in the United States can get Google Assistant to wake them up with all of that thanks to time-activated custom routines.

When you create a new custom routine, you’re given two activation methods: a voice command that will manually trigger the routine on whichever device you say it to, and a time/date trigger that can be used to trigger the profile up to once a day on any and every day of the week you want on a single Google Home device. Other Google Assistant smart speakers like the TicHome Mini and the Insignia Voice Smart Speaker and Alarm Clock, but you cannot designate your phone or Chromecast as the designated Speaker for the routine to play out on.

If you already had a custom routine set up the way you’d like it for your routine — or a ready-made routine like Good Morning — you can’t add a time/date trigger to it; you’ll still have to set it up as a brand-new custom routine. It’s also not possible to add different times for different days of the week, so if you want the same routine to fire at 8AM on days you have class and noon on days you don’t, you’ll have to make two routines for the two different time triggers.

Once you have your trigger phrase and trigger times set up, you can add actions in your desired order. First things first, I’d recommend adjusting the media volume of your Google Home so that Google Assistant speaks loudly enough to wake you up. You can use any Google Assistant command in these routines that you can use with your Google Home such as:

• Turning on one of your Philips Hue scenes
• Reading the daily forecast
• Hearing what traffic on the way to work is like
• Saying a quote or motto from one of your favorite authors to motivate you
• Turning up the thermostat so the A/C doesn’t run all day

• Hear a fun fact or word of the day

  

Below the ordered actions section is “And then play”, which will start up your favorite podcast, playlist, or morning news. I wish you could have multiple categories here play in a designated order — such as having the news play and then music play afterwards — but this setup is easy enough to customize the way I want.

Make sure to always save and back out when you change your alarm routine.

Using Google Assistant’s custom routines for an alarm clock has been a breeze once it’s set up, so long as you remember to finish saving your changes to a routine if you tend to change your wake-up time from day to day. The alarm triggers daily, and it sends a notification to my phone once it activates, giving it a notification chirp just in case something goes wrong with the profile.

Since these profiles are not traditional alarms, you can’t tell Google Assistant to hit the snooze button, but the snooze button is bad for you and needs to die a painful death for its oversleeping-enabling sins.

Now, I know that I said that Google Home is the best alarm clock you can buy, but I’ve actually been using the TicHome Mini as my alarm because of its portability: the small circular speaker hangs from my bedpost during the night, and after it wakes me up with YouTube Music in the morning, I unplug it and bring it into the bathroom so I can keep the music flowing while I shower and get dressed, then into the kitchen for breakfast and some frantic morning writing. It’s also an easy size for packing on trips, assuming the Wi-Fi at my destination works with Google Home.

At $100, that’s a bit steep for a portable Google Home, but the Insignia Voice Google Assistant Portable Speaker is on sale for $45 right now, features bigger, richer sound, and a LED clock display on the front. I’ve been enjoying it the last few days, and stay tuned for a full review

Things are still early days with time-activated routines — and it needs to roll out to users outside the United States pronto — but I’m embracing these custom alarm routines and all that they can do for me. We’re another step closer to that pipe dream from Iron Man.

Now to find those holographic windows and get some more dry sarcasm into Google Assistant.

Google Home

• Google Home review
• Google Home Mini: Everything you need to know!
• Google Home Max review
• These services work with Google Home
• Google Home vs. Amazon Echo
• Join our Google Home forums!

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Metro Exodus is the one game you NEED to watch in 2019

Metro Exodus is the third installment in 4A Games’ leading apocalyptic shooter franchise, and it looks set to take the series to all-new heights.

At Gamescom 2018, we went hands-on with Metro Exodus on an Xbox One X and came away feeling elated. The game should also be released on PlayStation 4 early next year.

Metro could be called a “cult” shooter franchise from 4A Games. The series, based on apocalyptic novels of the same name, takes place in a post-societal Russia following a devastating global catastrophe.

The first two games, Metro 2099 and Metro: Last Light, we’re well received in general, but the franchise never seems to have gotten the widespread attention it truly deserves. Metro Exodus could change that.

See at Amazon

Blue skies above, apocalypse below

Metro Exodus takes place some years after the events of the first two games. Traversing Moscow’s winding metro systems was an incredibly dangerous, claustrophobic affair, forcing the player to use a gas mask that severely limited field of view, while your oxygen filters slowly degraded, creating an anxiety-inducing sense of urgency.

Atmospherically, these oppressive systems are incredible to experience and form part of Metro’s signature gameplay, but they also created some limitations on the types of environments 4A could create for the non-radioactive areas. In Exodus, much of the most aggressive pollution seems to have cleared up. Wildlife is returning, and flora is growing again, albeit often twisted by radioactive and supernatural mutations. Exodus has blue skies, and it’s a breath of fresh air.

Ranger purists will be happy to know Metro Exodus still has its more dangerous survival elements. Protagonist Ranger Artyom still has his gas mask, which takes damage and has limited filtration. He also has his hand-crank dynamo, used to charge your torch and, eventually, night vision goggles. You will have to use all of the tools at your disposal to survive in Metro Exodus’s vast play spaces, that take inspiration from Metro Last Light’s more open areas and expands upon them exponentially, cramming them with detail and reasons to explore.

Fight or flight

During my play session, Artyom had been pulled from a lake and resuscitated by a Mad Maxian “child of the forest,” clad in animal leathers and bones. Humanity might have survived Metro’s apocalypse, but it has regressed to scrapping tribes and warring factions, rife with death and tribal law. Stalking through the painstakingly-crafted undergrowth, I happened upon the corpse of a marauder bandit, crucified, with a bullet wound to the groin, “rapist” written in blood on a scrap of paper impaled to his chest.

If you let it, Metro Exodus’s sobering journey may immerse you like few games can.

Every building was bristling with small details, which are often overlooked as unimportant in some titles. Discarded toys languished on decrepit floors, next to a note penned by a small child addressed to Santa, requesting the opportunity to see her parents again for Christmas. If you let it, Metro Exodus’s sobering journey may immerse you like few games can.

Metro Exodus’s visual quality on the Xbox One X is truly striking. Light plays a huge part in Metro’s stealth gameplay, and it returns with gusto for Exodus. Sunlight realistically dances on the water, which is painted with floating debris and stagnant overgrowth. Grass brushes aside as you stalk through it, and ominous ambience accompanies every step.

Gameplay-wise, Exodus feels familiar but refined. There are a few new systems to help players indulge their inner apocalyptic drifter, including in-the-field weapon modification and crafting, and upgrades to the game’s enemy A.I. and combat tactics. It feels as though “immersion” was a guiding mission statement for this game, with 4A adding some really smart touches that helped bridge that uncanny valley.

Like previous Metro titles, Exodus supports both stealth and gung-ho guns blazin’ gameplay styles, providing silenced weapons for sneaky kills, as well as a powerful double barrel shotgun pistol for going loud. Weighing up my options, I noticed a fallen road sign pointing left, giving me a hint that there might be a hidden entrance into the camp. Sure enough, I found an entrance off to the side through the undergrowth, shooing away some large radioactive hares as I went.

I could catch the “pirates” unawares. Two of them were discussing the gallery of crucified bandits I’d seen on the way to their camp, with one raising concerns that their last kill probably wasn’t a bandit, but just a traveller. It gives you some narrative context for your combat options. Maybe they were only killing bandits before, but now, it looks like they have killed an innocent drifter. You could stealth past this group completely and proceed on your mission, or take them all out – there might be a hoard of crucial supplies inside their base. I chose the latter option.

After killing a couple of enemies with the silenced crossbow, I missed the third, unaccustomed to the crossbow’s arrow-drop physics. They raised the alarm and began to attack. Bullet holes in Exodus ooze cascades of gore realistically, leaving bullet deformations in the targets you shoot. It’s not as gory as say, DOOM, but feels more realistic in the context of the game’s world.

In-keeping with Metro’s immersive priorities, I was surprised to hear enemies calling out my location, contextually. Few games do this, and it might seem like a little thing, but hearing an enemy yell to his friends “he’s by the window!” added to the sense of realism in a big way.

Biology and biomes

The radiation and supernatural phenomena unleashed by Metro’s apocalypse has warped the games flora and fauna in the process of wiping out civilization. In Metro Exodus, you’ll live among these rabid creatures, as you stalk towards your objectives.

Exodus features dynamic day and night cycles that will dramatically alter the way you’ll approach the game.

It isn’t an “open world” game, but it is extremely wide in its approach to level design. If you played Metro Last Light, you may remember the swamp levels which were far more open, built for exploration. Exodus applies this “wide linear” approach to its entire game, giving you optional paths to traverse and uncover.

While Exodus features some scripted encounters, it also features biome-based, dynamic A.I. ecosystems that interact organically with each other. A stampede of mangy deer rushed past me, flanked by a pack of mutated wolves hungry for meat. A gigantic bear-like creature was also stalking the wilds, grunting ominously in the distance.

The remaining humans had set up a series of pulleys, zip lines and tree houses in the gloom, allowing you to escape the danger of running into one of the game’s nuclear predators. It was around then my demo ended, soaked in the incredible lighting effects of Exodus’s moon, cascading through the trees and mist.

It was awe inspiring.

Keep an eye on Metro Exodus

There are a lot of apocalyptic titles on the market. I’ve always felt like Metro didn’t get the attention it deserved, but with Exodus, that could surely change. Even with these brief demonstrations, Exodus felt like the definitive, polished, post-apocalypse experience I’ve been yearning for since the days of STALKER and Metro 2033. If you put ANY shooter on your watch list, make it this one.

Metro Exodus looks utterly stunning in 4K on the Xbox One X, and you’ll be able to crank the experience even higher on PC, as Exodus plans to support ray tracing dynamic lighting on NVIDIA’s new RTX graphics card line.

Metro Exodus should launch on February 22, 2019, for Xbox One, Windows PCs, and PlayStation 4, and it’s available for preorder now starting at about $60.

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Act fast and grab a 500 million limited edition PS4 Pro

Snag this coveted collectible (relatively) hassle-free.

It’s no secret that Sony is a juggernaut in the video game console market. Since the original PlayStation first went on sale nearly 25 years ago, the company has sold over 500 million systems across the world, taking into account each console iteration. To celebrate the momentous occasion, Sony revealed a Limited Edition PS4 Pro in an old school translucent blue casing. Now when they say limited, they mean it. Only 50,000 of these bad boys are being manufactured, and here’s how you can grab one for yourself.

When can I get mine?

The Limited Edition 500 million PS4 Pro will be available at participating retailers starting on August 24 in the United States and Canada, when sales are set to go live. It will be priced at $499.99 USD / $639.99 CAD. This seems a bit costly compared to regular PS4 Pros, but the console packs a 2TB hard drive and includes a PlayStation camera.

We’ve compiled a list of known retailers expected to carry the console. We’ll update this page if/when more pop up. Some listings are already live without the ability to purchase while other store pages appear to have been removed. These should go live once sales do.

Amazon

See at Amazon

GameStop

We’ll update this once GameStop’s listing is live.

Best Buy US

See at Best Buy

Best Buy Canada

We’ll update this once Best Buy Canada’s listing is live.

Walmart

See at Walmart

Orders have already started on Amazon UK and have sold out, but more stock may be made available.

See at Amazon UK

If you’re unable to purchase one through official retailers, you may need to contend with scalpers on the market. Since that’s certainly not appealing to anyone, we’ll have you covered with some other suggestions on what to pick up if you don’t get a hold of a coveted 500 million PS4 Pro in the following days.

PlayStation 4

• PS4 vs. PS4 Slim vs. PS4 Pro: Which should you buy?
• PlayStation VR Review
• Playing PS4 games through your phone is awesome

Amazon

The best shower speakers to groove while you clean

Sing along with your favorite tunes in the shower with these great speakers.

If you’re sick of belting out your favorite tunes in the shower a cappella you may want to consider getting a speaker to use in the shower.

We’ve compiled a list of the best shower speakers you can find to help you sing like nobody’s listening.

• UE Wonderboom
• Polk Audio BOOM Swimmer
• Photive Hydra
• SoundBot SB510
• UE Roll 2
• Fugoo Sport
• UE Boom 2
• Sbode Bluetooth Speaker

UE Wonderboom

UE’s latest water-resistant Bluetooth speaker is cute as a button and only costs about $70! The Wonderboom is a compact Bluetooth speaker with big sound, a lovely design, and an IPX7 rating, meaning it can be submerged in up to 1 meter of water for 30 minutes — it’s perfect for the shower. I’ve been testing this speaker and have been very impressed with its low end. The bass is surprisingly warm for such a small unit, and its size, again, is perfect for the shower.

See at Amazon

Given its size, the Wonderboom does have a bit of trouble at higher volumes, with clarity capping out around the halfway mark on my phone’s volume. That being said, half my phone’s volume is plenty loud outside the shower and almost too much in it, so you don’t need to crank it at all.

Polk Audio BOOM Swimmer

This tadpole-looking device was conceived by the folks at Polk Audio to be as versatile as possible. The tail-end of the speaker is bendable, making it easy to wrap around shower curtain rods or even your shower head pipe, meaning there is always a convenient place to put it. Plus, it’s $20 price tag is super affordable.

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The Swimmer’s waterproof rating is even greater than it needs to be for use in the shower. It can be submerged in up to 3 feet of water for half an hour without suffering any damage, meaning it can even fall into the tub when you’re taking a bath. The sound quality is not bad; although, there is very little bass, which isn’t a surprise when you’re talking about something this small.

Photive Hydra

At roughly $35, the Photive Hydra is perfect for people that want a shower speaker and are more concerned about sound quality than convenience. Sporting a passive subwoofer and two 40mm drivers, the Hydra delivers a fuller sounding low-end, while still providing pleasing, clear treble.

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Its IP66 rating won’t allow the speaker to be submerged, but it can handle water jets and splashing just fine, making it more than durable enough to withstand your daily shower. The Hydra is a little bulkier and bigger than most of the other speakers on the list, but it’s still compact enough to fit on the edge of your tub or on your shower caddy.

SoundBot SB510

The SoundBot SB510 is perfect for people who want an easier way to control their music while they are listening in the shower.

The simple interface on the front of SoundBot will let you control playback or adjust volume with just a tap of its buttons, meaning you don’t need to get out of the shower and touch your phone to change songs. Plus, there is even a speaker and microphone for taking calls, so you won’t miss anything important just because you’re bathing. Plus, for $15, it’s the cheapest speaker on our list.

See at Amazon

Its water-resistant rating only protects the SoundBot from splashing; however, It installs super easily with a suction cup that is attached to the back of the speaker, so you should have no problem finding a place for it that’s out of harm’s way.

UE Roll 2

The Ultimate Ears Roll 2 has an IPX7 rating, meaning submerging it in up to 3 feet of water for about half an hour won’t cause any damage, so your daily showers won’t affect it at all. Plus, on the back, it comes with a bungee cord loop, making it easy to wrap or tie the speaker around your curtain rod or shower head, so it stays out of your way while you’re headbanging in the shower.

The UE Roll 2 will cost you about $99 at full price; however, it’s a very popular product and often goes on sale, so make sure you look out for those deals!

See at Amazon

The UE Roll 2 does come with a couple of improvements over its predecessor model. It has better sound, regarding both volume and quality, than its predecessor, and it also has an increased Bluetooth range of 100 feet, meaning your phone or tablet doesn’t even have to be in the hot, steamy bathroom while you’re getting clean.

Fugoo Sport

The Fugoo Sport is an awesome device that carries a starting price of about $89; the thing that stands out the most is its 40-hour battery life. If you are truly using this in just the shower, you could probably go for weeks without needing a charge. With a waterproof rating of IP67, not only can you submerge the speaker in 3 feet of water for 30 minutes, but it’s also dust-proof, meaning dirt and other particulates won’t cause you any problems.

See at Amazon

On top of it all, the sound quality is very good. The Fugoo Sport has six drivers that are spread out across all four sides, giving you clear, well-balanced 360-degree sound.

UE Boom 2

Taking the $130 UE Boom 2 into your shower is absolutely no problem as it has a very high water-resistant rating, allowing it to be submerged in 3 feet of water for 30 minutes. It’s also protected against dirt and mud, but you can hand-wash the speaker with warm, soapy water just in case it gets messy.

See at Amazon

UE Boom 2’s battery will last you approximately 15 hours of playing time, which should amount to a lot of time in the tub, and has a Bluetooth range of 100 feet, making sure your phone, tablet, or PC doesn’t have to be anywhere near the water. Plus, if you truly want the Boom 2 to live up to its onomatopoeic name, you have the option to set up another one to make a stereo pair and really raise the roof.

Sbode Bluetooth Speaker

With eight hours of battery life, you should get quite a few showers between charges, and its IPX6 is plenty of protection from water for your average shower, but you won’t be able to submerge it, so keep it away from bath time! Plus, it has an FM radio built-in, meaning you can go old school and listen to your favorite local morning show while you’re getting ready for the day in the morning. The $50 price tag won’t hurt your wallet too much either.

See at Amazon

The Sbode Bluetooth Speaker also allows you to stereo pair two speakers to give you a big boost in sound. As an added bonus, the speaker will shut itself off after 10 minutes of stanby, so you never have to worry about forgetting to turn it off.

What’s your favorite?

Are you a shower singer? Let us know your favorite speaker to take into the shower with you by leaving us a comment below!

Updated August 2018: These are still our favorite Bluetooth speakers to take with you in the shower.

Android Pie’s App Actions now appearing on the Play Store

From new gestures to extending battery life, here’s everything you need to know about Android Pie!

Following last year’s Oreo release, 2018 is the year of Android 9 Pie.

Google’s latest flavor of Android is jam-packed with all sorts of new features, including a brand-new gesture navigation system, new UI elements, and a heap of under-the-hood tweaks that aim to make this the best version of Android to date.

Without further ado, here’s everything you need to know about Pie!

The latest Android Pie news

August 23, 2018 — App Actions pops up in the Play Store

App Actions — the Android Pie feature that uses machine learning to predict what you want to do with various apps — now has its own listing on the Google Play Store.

Listed as “Action Services”, the new item is listed under the Tools category and is described as “Predicting next actions using on-device machine learning.”

Even if you see this in the Play Store, there’s no actual app shortcut or anything for it. Instead, it’s simply there for easier updates going forward as Google evolves the service.

Are you seeing Action Services in the Play Store on your Pie device?

August 15, 2018 — Android 9 Pie (Go Editon) is coming this fall

With Android Oreo, Google launched a special “Go Edition” of it that was designed specifically with lower-end hardware in mind. With Pie, that same idea is continuing (and getting better) with Android 9 Pie (Go Edition).

Android 9 Pie (Go Edition) is keeping everything that made its Oreo sibling great while also adding faster device boot times, a dashboard for tracking your data usage, verified boot + other security features, and comes with an extra 500MB of internal storage compared to Oreo’s version of Go (5.5GB vs. 5.0GB).

In other Go news, Google says that more than 100 OEMs will have Go phones on the market before the end of the year and that there are already 200+ devices available in over 120 countries.

August 15, 2018 — A fix is coming for slow-charging speeds on Pixel and Pixel XL running Pie

Google’s Pixel and Pixel XL are among the first smartphones to be treated by the Android 9 Pie update, but after getting the new software, users have been complaining about slow charging speeds with both the official charger that’s included with the phones and third-party ones. This bug’s been reported by both Pixel and Pixel XL owners, so we’re glad to hear that a fix is on the way.

According to The Verge, Google’s currently testing a software update that resolves the issue. In a statement that was sent to the publication, Google said:

We’re aware of an issue where non-Power Delivery (PD) USB-C chargers no longer rapidly charge the 2016 Pixel and Pixel XL after the upgrade to Android 9 Pie. The 18W rapid charger included in-box is a PD charger and does not exhibit this behavior. We are verifying a fix for non-PD USB-C chargers and will roll it out in the coming weeks.

A clearer timeframe than “the coming weeks” would be nice, but nonetheless, it’s great to hear that these troubles with be over with soon.

August 6, 2018 — Google releases Pie’s OTA images for Pixel and Nexus devices

If you’re eager to start using Pie ASAP, Google’s got you covered.

The full OTA images have already been released, meaning you can grab them and flash Pie onto your Pixel or Nexus phone this very second.

Go, go, go!

Grab the OTA files here

August 6, 2018 — Google unveils Android Pie statue at the Googleplex

Every new version of Android is represented by a statue at Google’s Mountain View campus, and with Pie going live, Google has unveiled the Android Pie statue.

The unveiling didn’t have the same fanfare as last year, where Google held events in New York and Mountain View to launch Oreo. With Pie out of the way, it’s time to start guessing what Android Q will be called next year.

August 6, 2018 — The Essential Phone is already being updated to Pie

Oh man — that was fast!

Just a few minutes after Google announced that Android Pie will begin rolling out to its Pixel phones, Essential announced on Twitter that the Essential Phone is also getting its Pie update today.

We’re proud to bring Android 9 Pie to Essential Phone the same day it’s released! Check your phone now for the update. 🥧 pic.twitter.com/pniUDl9yr8

— Essential (@essential) August 6, 2018

This is the first non-Pixel phone to get the Pie update so far, and as more are announced, we’ll update this article accordingly.

August 6, 2018 — Android Pie is here!

After months and months of waiting, Google’s officially announced that Android P is Android 9 Pie.

As expected, the update will roll out to Pixel and Nexus devices first with OEMs involved in the Android Beta Program to follow. Pixel phones will begin receiving the Pie update today, and while we don’t have any exact dates yet as to when Pie will be available for the other beta program phones, it should be at some point this fall.

Android 9 Pie is official and the update is starting today

August 2, 2018 — Android P tipped for August 20 launch

We’re expecting the final version of Android P to land any time now, and according to Evan Blass on Twitter, the new software is slated for a release on August 20.

pic.twitter.com/ovby4pC3ph

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) August 2, 2018

That date lines up with the release schedule Google previously published, not to mention the fact that Oreo was released on August 21 last year.

Now, what in the world will it be called? 🤔

July 25, 2018 — Google pushes Android P Beta 4

“Android P is almost here!” That’s how Google starts its blog post introducing Android P Beta 4, also known as Developer Preview 5, which is available on all supported devices starting today.

According to Google, “Today’s Beta 4 update includes a release candidate build with final system behaviors and the official Android P APIs (API level 28), available since Beta 2. It includes everything you need to wrap up your testing in time for the upcoming official Android P release.” In other words, this is basically the same version that will ship to Pixels later in August, when the public version is released.

How to install Android P on your Pixel right now (or roll back to Oreo)

July 20, 2018 — Android P engineers discuss dark mode, gestures, and more in Reddit AMA

Leading up to the official launch of Android P in about a month or so, the development team behind the new update recently got together for an AMA on Reddit to answer technical questions about P.

The dev team covered a ton of stuff, but there are a few highlights worth pointing out here. First off, when it comes to Android P’s gesture navigation, they had this to say:

We evaluated many, (MANY!) options for navigation as part of this overall change to the system spaces (worth noting that our main impetus was about making All Apps/Overview more accessible from wherever you are in the system, similar to the notification shade). HOME and BACK are so central to Android navigation (both the system and the apps) – that ensuring the dependability of them via buttons with enough space led us to the current design. All that said – we really value both the aesthetic and functional appeal of a smaller nav bar / more gross-gesture navigation and are continuing to explore opportunities to bring that in.

A system-wide dark mode has also been on the minds of many, and to not much surprise, it was said that Google doesn’t “have anything to announce about a unified dark mode.”

The team also explained how maintaining Project Treble is actually more difficult than past efforts, said a fix is coming for Android’s awful sharing menu, and more.

Read through the full AMA here

All the big details

Android P is officially Android 9 Pie

No Popsicles or Pineapples here. On August 6, 2018, Google revealed that its next version of Android is Android 9 Pie.

Along with the name change, the number this year is also slightly different. Rather than following the trend of 7.0, 8.0, etc., Pie is referred to as 9. This probably doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, but it’s still an interesting move on Google’s part.

Check out our full review!

Every new Android version builds upon the previous one, meaning that each new update is better than the last.

However, in day-to-day use, how does really Pie hold up? What’s it like using the new gestures instead of the traditional navigation buttons? How do the subtle UI tweaks compare to Oreo? What’s performance like?

All those questions and much, much more are answered in our full review, so be sure to give it a read and watch!

Android 9 Pie review: Greater than the sum of its slices

How to upgrade to Pie

We could talk about Android Pie all day long, but if you don’t know how to actually use the new software for yourself, what’s the fun in that?

Most users will likely upgrade to Pie via a simple OTA update, but if you don’t feel like waiting on Google to serve that to you, you can manually flash it on your phone, too.

Jerry’s got all the details of how to start using Pie right now, so be sure to give his guide a look.

How to install Android Pie on your Pixel right now (or downgrade to Oreo)

See what Google has to say about Pie in our interview with Android’s UX Manager

Android Pie is a big deal for Google. Between the gestures, digital wellbeing initiative, and more, there’s a lot going on all at once.

Andrew recently had the chance to talk with Android’s UX Manager, EK Chung, about all things Pie to get a better understanding of why this is such a big release for the company.

This is a longer read, but it’s absolutely worth a look if you want a deeper understanding of what all went into crafting Pie into the final build that we have today.

Interview: Google’s EK Chung on Android 9 Pie design, simplicity and digital wellbeing

It completely changes Android’s navigation system

Back in 2011 with Android 3.0 Honeycomb, Google introduced Android’s iconic three-button navigation system we’ve come to know and love – Back, Home, and Recents. Seven years later with Android Pie, these are being eliminated in favor of a gesture-based system.

Android Pie is the first time Google’s heavily relying on gestures for navigating the UI, and in their current form, they work as follows:

• Tap the Home button/pill to go home
• Swipe up to access the recent apps page
• Swipe up twice or do a long swipe for the app drawer
• The Back button only appears in certain apps/menus when it’s needed

This combination of taps and swipes can be confusing at first, but with enough practice and patience, are fairly easy to master in a short amount of time. Phones that are updated to Pie will still use the three-button nav by default, but if you want to turn them on, doing so is fairly simple.

Going forward, phones like the Pixel 3 will have gestures turned on by default with no way to revert back to them. So, while you can keep using your Back, Home, and Recents for now, you’ll need to get aclimated with the gestures sooner or later.

How to master the new Android Pie gestures

The user interface is more rounded and colorful

Android Pie isn’t as drastic of a visual change like we saw with the jump from KitKat to Lolipop, but compared to Oreo, there are some elements that are noticeably different.

At first glance, things like the colorful icons in Settings, circular Quick Settings icons, and rounded corners for just about every menu jump out like a sore thumb. These elements do take some getting used to, but I ultimately came around to liking them quite a bit.

Something else you’ll notice with Pie is just how alive it feels. Between the new gestures and updated animations, Android moves in a way that I’ve never seen before. Oreo was smooth and buttery, but Pie flies underneath your fingertips in a way that can only be experienced in-person.

There are tools for helping you use your phone less

Google talked a lot about helping people with their “digital wellbeing” at this year’s I/O conference, and a lot of those efforts are baked right into Android Pie.

Although not live quite yet, later versions of Pie will introduce a new system called Android Dashboard. Android Dashboard will offer a quick glimpse into how you’re using your phone, including stats on which apps you’re using the most, how many times you’ve turned on the screen, how many notifications you’ve received, and how much time you’ve spent on each app.

You’ll also find a feature called App Timers that’ll restrict you from using a certain app after you’ve spent x amount of time on it, as well as tools for easily turning on Do Not Disturb and switching your screen to a monochrome color palette to help you wind down for bed.

Google’s Digital Wellbeing initiative: Everything you need to know

Google’s trying to squeeze as much juice as possible out of your battery

It seems like Google’s always trying to find ways to maximize your phone’s battery life as much as possible, and with Android Pie, those efforts are present in a new Adaptive Battery mode.

Similar to how Adaptive Brightness automatically adjusts your display’s brightness level based on your environment and usage, Adaptive Battery will examine how you use your phone and limit CPU usage to apps you infrequently use.

Google notes that Adaptive Battery can lower CPU usage by as much as 30%, and thanks to the use of Machine Learning, it’ll only get better the more you use your phone.

How to save battery life on Android Pie

App shortcuts are everywhere

With Android Nougat, Google introduced us to App Shortcuts for the first time. Holding down on an app icon to quickly access certain elements of it can be genuinely useful at times, and with Android Pie, Google’s taking these to the next level with App Actions and Slices.

App Actions will try to determine what you’ll do next with your phone and give you recommend shortcuts for doing so within the app drawer, Assistant, and more. For example, if you watch Good Mythical Morning each day with breakfast, you might see an App Shortcut in your app drawer for searching Rhett and Link on YouTube during the morning.

On the other hand, Slices will allow you to perform more complex actions from the Assistant or Google Search. In the example Google gave at I/O, searching “I want to book a ride” will give you a special link to call a ride home via Lyft (assuming you’ve got the app installed).

Android Pie features you’ll love: App Actions

157 new emoji

In Android 9, Google’s added a ton of new emojis to keep your conversations bright and colorful — 157 of them, to be exact.

Although we won’t run through the entire list, some of the highlights include red hair, superhero, face with three hearts, bagel with cream cheese, mooncake, lobster, and llama.

There are also improvements to existing emoji, including two new gender-neutral family and couple designs and updated looks for the bacon, salad, turtle, and cricket emojis.

Check out all of the new emoji here!

A new standard for biometric authentication

Fingerprint sensors and face unlock systems make it easier than ever to access private information on our phones, and in Android P Developer Preview 3, Google added a brand-new standard for this called “BiometricPrompt API.”

Thanks to the new API, developers no longer have to create their own dialog for using biometric systems with their apps. This isn’t something you’ll notice in day-to-day use, but it’s an important background change we’re more than happy to see.

Android Pie features you’ll love: Better, faster biometrics

All the little things

In addition to the big changes found in Android Pie, there are a ton of smaller elements also scattered throughout the update. Some of my favorites include:

• Built-in screenshot editor
• Zoom pop-up when highlighting text
• Changing the volume now defaults to your media volume
• Volume controls appear on the right of your screen instead of the top
• Do Not Disturb is more customizable and easier to understand

Updated August 6, 2018: This article was revamped/refreshed with up-to-date content now that Android Pie is official!

Android 9 Pie

• Android 9 Pie review: Greater than the sum of its slices
• Everything you need to know about Android 9 Pie!
• Will my phone get Android Pie?
• How to get Android 9 Pie on your Pixel right now
• Join the Discussion

The Nokia 6.1, 5, 3, 1, and 3310 are all now available in Canada

The phones are being sold at Best Buy, Staples, and more.

Thanks to the hard work of HMD Global, the Nokia brand has been synonymous with some of the best budget smartphones for more than a year. Now, the company’s bringing a few of its most popular Nokia handsets to Canada.

The Nokia 6.1

On Thursday, August 23, HMD Global announced that the Nokia 6.1, Nokia 5, Nokia 3, Nokia 1, and Nokia 3310 (3G) are all now available for purchase in the Great White North.

The Nokia 6.1 is the most powerful of the bunch, and when Harish reviewed it this past June, he called it, “one of the best phones you can buy today for under $300.” The phone is a bit more expensive in Canada at $399 CAD, but with a Snapdragon 630 processor, 5.5-inch LCD display, and dual rear cameras, still offers a lot of bang for your buck.

If you’re interested, the phone’s being now at Staples and is coming to other “select stores” soon.

The Nokia 5 (left) and Nokia 3 (right)

The Nokia 5 and Nokia 3 are even cheaper budget Android phones, coming in with $279 and $209 price tags, respectively. These two phones aren’t quite as nice or powerful as what you’ll get with the Nokia 6.1, but if you’re trying to save a bit more cash, are still worth considering. Both are available now from Best Buy, Staples, and Canada Computers.

The Nokia 1 (left) and Nokia 3310 (right)

The Nokia 1 is Nokia’s first Android Go device, and it’s currently the cheapest smartphone in Nokia’s lineup with a CAD price of just $129. The phone proved to be surprisingly great in our full review, and if you want to pick one up for yourself, it’s available at Best Buy and Staples.

Last but not least, the Nokia 3310 is the reimagining of Nokia’s ultra-popular phone by the same name from 2000. While you won’t find Android here, it does have 27 days of standby time with its battery, 3G connectivity, and (of course) Snake. The phone’s on sale now for just $89 at Best Buy, Staples, and Walmart.

Nokia 6.1 Plus preview: The start of something great

Here’s how good the Galaxy Note 9’s battery life is in the real world

This large battery is the real deal.

Best answer: Samsung finally has a Note with battery life to match its size and capabilities. The Note 9 can go all day with a good amount of battery to spare, even if you make no attempt to change its behavior in the name of battery life. The Note 9 also charges 0-100% as quickly as the Galaxy S9+ despite its larger battery capacity.

Samsung: Galaxy Note 9 ($999)

All-day battery life

If you followed any of my coverage of the Galaxy S8+, Note 8 or even S9+, you’ll know I wasn’t always happy with the battery life. With the Note 8 in particular it just came up short too often for how large it is and how much it was focused on power users. Now with over 20% more capacity and a new slate of more efficient components, the Note 9 is a full-day phone for me without any question.

It was easy to expect ending each day with 20-30% battery left, even with no attempt to conserve.

I have ended most days with about 20-30% battery remaining, which is a healthy buffer zone that can absorb any abnormally heavy usage that may come from time to time. I reach that mark after 15-16 hours off the charger, typically with about 3 hours of “screen on” time. I make no overt attempts to conserve battery life on my Note 9 — I use automatic brightness, leave all of my accounts syncing, have many notifications turn on, leave Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on all day, and use Bluetooth audio multiple hours a day. Samsung’s battery information screen gives you an accurate representation of how long your phone will last based on your past week of use, and my Note 9 consistently offers me 22-24 hours of estimated time 100-0% — which is a little on the high side compared to what I actually end up getting, but it’s not far off.

Samsung’s screen is very efficient, but how long it’s turned on is still a big determination of battery drain, as it’s still the top battery consumer on any given day. The Always On Display, too, is a consistent drainer, making up about 5% of my battery usage daily. Streaming media or even playing casual games really doesn’t hit battery life that hard — the only thing that’s a truly heavy drain on the Note 9 in my experience is running Google Maps navigation in the Android Auto app, which has the screen on at high brightness while using GPS and LTE constantly.

The screen is still a sizable part of battery drain, as is Always On Display.

Samsung phones always take a few days to “settle in” to optimal battery performance in my experience, as it takes a little bit of usage for the battery optimization features to take hold. The system goes through and automatically optimizes lesser-used apps from waking up and syncing unnecessarily in the background, which in my experience works seamlessly with no consequences. You can of course go in and whitelist apps to do whatever they wish, but I haven’t needed to do this in Samsung’s latest software. I’ve had a “just use it and see what happens” philosophy with the Note 9, as shown with my usage patterns above, and it’s worked out just fine — that’s the kind of confidence that’s important to have in a big phone like this.

This isn’t a multi-day phone, at least without seriously changing how you use it.

What the Note 9 won’t be able to offer is full multi-day usage — that is, unless you severely limit what the phone is doing and what you use it for. Even with extremely basic usage, I easily dip under the 50% mark in any given day, meaning there’s no way I could let it sit overnight and then get a whole day out of it again. Overnight standby battery life alone is going to take a little chunk out of that, using up 0.5-1% per hour while on Wi-Fi, even with Always On Display turned off. The battery is good enough to get you through a full day, night and the next morning — but you’ll have to hit a charger at some point before noon to keep going for the rest of the day.

But with this capacity, more is always possible if you’re willing to dramatically change the way you use your phone. Turn off Always On Display for starters, limit the number of apps providing push notifications, turn off unused radios, limit screen brightness and use Power Saving Mode regularly, and sure you could get through two full days if you really need to. But Samsung wasn’t designing for this use case — it wanted to give enough capacity to get even hardcore users through a full day, not try and be a true two-day phone without limiting its usefulness.

Good enough charging speeds

I’ve been one of many people consistently chastising Samsung for its decision to stick with the same charger its been using since the Galaxy S6, a basic USB-A plug that operates on Quick Charge 2.0 technology. The argument for faster charging came back to the surface with the Note 9’s larger battery, which would presumably take longer to charge than the Galaxy S9+’s. Thankfully, that isn’t actually the case.

Despite using the same charger, the Note 9 charges to full in the same amount of time as a GS9+.

For whatever reason — likely a handful of purposeful tweaks in the system — the Galaxy Note 9 charges at a higher wattage from this standard Samsung charger than both the Galaxy S9+ and Note 8 do. Plugging in to this 15W charger the Note 9 draws roughly 14.5W, whereas the Note 8 draws between 13.5-14.5W and the Galaxy S9+ draws between 13-14W. The Note 9 also doesn’t seem to drop charging speed when the screen is on, which is something I’ve observed in both previous phones.

That increase in (and sustained) wattage makes sure the Note 9 charges 0-100% in the same amount of time as the Galaxy S9+, despite its 14% larger battery. Charging time is roughly 1 hour and 40 minutes, depending on how much the phone is doing during that period, which is pretty good. Better yet the Note 9 also supports the same charging speed from a 15W+ USB-C PD charger, like the Google Pixel 2’s, so you don’t have to stick with a Quick Charge plug to get the fastest speeds.

Knowing you can have this larger capacity and strong battery life without giving up on overall charging speed compared to the rest of the recent big Galaxy phones is reassuring. But I still wish Samsung would’ve found a way to get Quick Charge 3.0 or even 4.0 in here. Not necessarily for fast 0-100% charging, which we almost never need in the real world, but for quicker 0-30% or 15-45% charges, which is the most critical time where every minute matters.

Great battery life

Samsung Galaxy Note 9

$999 at Samsung

This phone is a real battery champion.

When battery life is critical, you want a phone to have a battery as big as the Galaxy Note 9’s. With a 4000mAh capacity and lots of efficient internal components, the Galaxy Note 9 can make it through a full day with capacity to spare. That’s the case whether you hit it hard or take it easy — and if you go light on the phone, it can make it through the night and into the next day if you need it to. Not only does it have better battery life than Samsung’s previous flagships, but it also beats most of the flagship competition as well.