‘Pokémon Go’ studio Niantic plans to add trainer battles by the end of the year

Pokémon Go has been available on iOS and Android for well over two years at this point, and developer Niantic recently updated it to add trading, which had been a requested feature since the game’s initial launch. Pokémon battles between trainers still aren’t in the game, but it appears that won’t be the case for much longer.

Speaking to Polish publication Gram at an event for its Ingress game in Warsaw, Niantic head of European marketing Anne Beuttenmuller revealed that the team is actively working on a player-versus-player mode right now.

Beuttenmuller stated that Niantic wants to add the mode by “the end of this year,” and that improvements will be continuously made to the trading feature, as well. In order to trade with a friend, you must first add them to your friends list and then meet up in person — you can trade online in the main handheld Pokémon games, but of course that wouldn’t be in the spirit of Pokémon Go.

In late July, Pokémon Go introduced “Lucky” Pokémon, which sparkle on the screen. These require less of the Stardust resource to level up, which allows them to become powerful more quickly than normal monsters. The only way for a Pokémon to become Lucky, however, is to be traded, so you better have a friend who is willing to trade them back. And since you have to do this face-to-face, you could feign a few tears to make them feel bad if they resist.

Ingress and Pokémon Go aren’t the only games Niantic has in the works. The studio is also developing Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, a similar augmented reality game that will send aspiring wizards out into the real world to discover artifacts and beasts, cast spells, and meet famous characters from the books and movies. With any luck, it will be significantly better than this year’s Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery. The free-to-play game makes heavy use of microtransactions, which are used in conjunction with timed challenges to create a pretty clear-cut case of “pay to win.” Critics and fans alike have derided it, accusing the game of being little more than a cash grab.

Editors’ Recommendations

• How to trade Pokémon with other trainers in ‘Pokémon Go’
• Subscription required to trade or battle online in ‘Pokémon: Let’s Go’
• The best iPhone games of 2018
• ‘Pokémon: Let’s Go’ games are a full-featured nostalgia trip for longtime fans
• The best ‘Pokémon Go’ tips and tricks

Here’s how to download and install Android 9.0 Pie

Google’s Android 9.0 Pie has landed. If you’re curious about trying out a slice, you’ll need to make sure you have the right smartphone (until all the major manufacturers push the update out within the next six months to a year).

You can learn about all the new features in our Android 9.0 Pie guide, but if you are eager to try it out now, follow our step-by-step directions to jump into the new version.

Note: Downloading the Android 9.0 Pie beta is pretty easy for the average user. But if you encounter a lot of bugs or decide you don’t like it, going back to an earlier version is costly. You’ll have to flash your device back to Android Oreo, which means you’ll lose any phone data that isn’t backed up. Please keep this in mind.

Make sure you have the right device

Julian Chokkattu / Digital Trends

First, the bad news: Android 9.0 Pie is only available right now for certain devices — the Google Pixel and Pixel 2 series, and Android One smartphones. The good news is Google expanded its list of beta partner devices, which means there are quite a few phones that are likely to get the final version quickly. If you have one of these phones, you’re set:

• Pixel 2/Pixel 2 XL
• Pixel/Pixel XL
• Essential Phone
• Sony Xperia XZ2
• Sony Xperia XZ2 Premium
• Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S
• Nokia 7 Plus
• Oppo R15 Pro
• Vivo X21
• OnePlus 6

If you don’t have one of these phones, well, you’ll have to wait until the final version of Android 9.0 Pie is available on your phone.

Back up your data

For the beta, the usual caveats apply: Not everything may work correctly, bugs may crop up, and so on. Even if you plan on keeping Android 9.0 Pie up through the official release, you should still take the time to back up all your important phone data. Make sure your photos, contacts, and documents are available on the cloud or uploaded to another storage device before you begin.

Sign your phone up

Google has made signing up for the public beta very easy. Visit this Android developer page, where you will find a list of all the compatible phones. Locate your phone model, and choose Get the beta at the bottom of the phone description.

Every Get the beta option will take you to a separate page for that phone brand with instructions on how to sign up.

The Pixel version is particularly simple, since Google will automatically detect any compatible phones on your account (you will need to be signed in to your Google account to complete this process). Once you’ve signed up for your Pixel, you should receive an over-the-air notification that says System update available from the Android Beta Program. Agree to download the update and you’ll be playing around with Android 9.0 Pie in no time. You do not need to sign up for the beta to receive the final version — if you have a Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL, or an Android One device, you should automatically get an update notification.

For other phone brands you’ll need to download the new software and flash your phone with the Android 9.0 Pie beta yourself. They’re all a little different. Sony, for example, wants you to use its Xperia Companion software, whereas Xiaomi suggests the fastboot method and offers the Android 9.0 Pie ROM, as well as the Oreo ROM you need to revert, as a download.

The process shouldn’t be difficult if you follow the instructions carefully, but if you run into problems you’ll also have to flash back to Oreo yourself, so keep that in mind. The manufacturers aren’t making any guarantees about it working perfectly, so always back up everything that matters to you before you start.

Here are the direct links to each manufacturer’s instructions:

• Essential Phone instructions
• Sony Xperia XZ2 instructions
• Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S instructions
• Nokia 7 Plus instructions
• Oppo R15 Pro instructions
• Vivo X21 instructions
• Vivo X21 UD instructions
• OnePlus 6 instructions

These phones should receive the final version of Android 9.0 Pie quickly, and we’ll update this post when they do.

Editors’ Recommendations

• When is your phone getting Android 9.0 Pie? We asked every major manufacturer
• Sony Xperia XZ2 review
• When is your phone getting Android 8.0 Oreo? We asked every major manufacturer
• Here’s our comparison of the most bezel-less designs among smartphones
• Android 9.0 Pie: Everything you need to know

New laptops may see more storage as SSD prices expected to fall through 2019

Buying a solid-state drive (SSD) today is far more cost effective than it used to be, even if you’re buying one that’s as large as a terabyte or more. A big part of that is competition in the market, but oversupply of the NAND Flash memory chips that are used in their manufacture has helped, too. With the suggestion that this trend will continue in the latter half of 2018, we could see SSDs reach historically low prices as we enter the new year.

The battle over whether SSDs are better than hard drives for just about anything but mass storage is long over, but SSDs are still typically more expensive on a dollar per gigabyte basis. That may change for smaller drives in the future though, as forecasts from DRAMExchange suggest that the average selling price of NAND flash could fall a further 10 percent in the third and fourth quarters of 2018. As with previous quarters, oversupply is to blame.

The main culprit for this is reportedly smartphones and specifically a lack of growth in that sector. With annual shipments expected to only meet, rather than exceed, last year’s, and sluggish replacement demand due to lower-than-average differentiation between new models and old, ever-expanding NAND supply is left with more stock than needed. That has meant prices have come down and major components like SSDs have been selling at lower prices because of that.

Other factors that are thought likely to affect SSD prices in the second half of 2018 include a slowing demand for notebooks with SSDs after a stronger than expected first half of the year, and strong competition in the server SSD space.

This should lead to better-than-ever prices for consumers looking to buy new SSDs, but could also lead to manufacturers offering more storage in compatible devices, as end cost will not be much affected. Smartphones have already started to respond to this with flagship devices offering as much as 512GB in some cases.

Despite SSD prices falling in the months to come though, it may still be worthwhile waiting until 2019 to buy a new one, as oversupply may yet worsen still, leading to even lower prices in the new year. A new Toshiba fabrication facility is expected to open in 2019, potentially leading to even greater falls in SSD pricing.

If you want to buy an SSD right now though, these are our favorites.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Microsoft leak hints dual-screen Andromeda device targets launch later this year
• Why Apple Watches, Fitbits, and more could soon get more expensive
• Samsung’s wireless mixed reality headset could launch this year
• The first six ‘World of Warcraft’ expansions are now free, as they should be
• Unknown computer virus halts factories that make iPhone chips

The $100 Automatic Pro OBD-II car adapter can track your car and diagnose problems

Real-time diagnostics and easy solutions.

The Automatic Pro real-time car tracking Connected Car OBD-II adapter has dropped to $99.99 on Amazon. This is its lowest price ever outside of Prime Day and Black Friday events. We have seen it hit $110 a couple of times, but this is the first drop to $100.

If you have a car that’s newer than the mid-90s, you most likely have an OBD-II port in it. You can use that to plug in this little dongle, which works with Bluetooth and a constant 3G connection to provide you information on your car. You can track your car, even while you’re not driving it, and diagnose your engine light when it pops on. There’s crash detection to deploy emergency services, too. You can even connect it to other smart devices like the Amazon Echo.

See on Amazon

T-Mobile Essentials is yet another take on affordable unlimited plans

$60/month gives you unlimited talk, text, data, 3G hotspot use, and more.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen Verizon and Sprint introduce new “unlimited” plans that are cheaper and come with a bevy of restrictions compared to their more expensive counterparts. Not wanting to be left out, T-Mobile is now following suit with its new T-Mobile Essentials plan.

For $30/month for a family of 4 on Autopay, T-Mobile Essentials includes unlimited talk, text, and data. Subscribers get unlimited 3G mobile hotspot use, access to T-Mobile Tuesday perks, and unlimited talk, text, and 2G data in Mexico and Canada. Data is subject to throttling after you use 50GB and during times of congestion before those that pay for T-Mobile ONE or ONE Plus.

What won’t you get with T-Mobile Essentials? There’s no free Netflix plan, Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi, unlimited texting/data in 210+ countries, and taxes + fees are not included with that $30/monh rate.

One line of T-Mobile Essentials costs $60/month, $30/month for the second line, and $15/month for lines 3-6. If you don’t have Autopay turned on, those prices will all go up by $5.

T-Mobile Essentials is launching Friday, August 10, and you can learn more by clicking/tapping the button below.

See at T-Mobile

Carriers

• Which unlimited plan should you buy?
• Verizon’s Unlimited plans: Everything you need to know
• Everything you need to know about the T-Mobile ONE unlimited plan
• Everything you need to know about the AT&T Unlimited plan
• Everything you need to know about Sprint’s Unlimited Freedom plan
• Join the Discussion

Amazon is discounting popular smart home accessories by 20% for Echo device owners

Some deals worth considering!

If you own an Echo device or other 3rd-party Alexa-enabled hardware, you can save 20% on a bunch of smart home accessories at Amazon right now with the use of coupon code SMART20. From smart plugs to bulbs, smart door locks to security cameras, this sale has a little bit of something for everyone. The TP-Link Wi-Fi smart LED bulb drops to $17.59 from $22, the Sengled starter kit with 2 bulbs and hub is down to $31.99 from $40, and Ring’s Video Doorbell Pro and Floodlight camera are going for $199.20 each.

If you’ve been eyeing a smart lock, the Yale keyless push-button deadbolt is currently $103.99 from $130 in bronze or $127.20 in satin nickel. Amazon already has a few great deals on Arlo security cameras today, but if you want something else, you can opt for the Arlo baby monitor for $159.99 or the TP-Link 1080p camera for $79.78.

You can also grab the TP-Link Smart Plug mini or LIFX’s mini white smart LED bulb for just $10 each when you use coupon code SMART10 during checkout.

Be sure to check out the whole sale and see if there is anything else you may be interested in picking up.

See at Amazon

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

Pie does a good bit of fine-tuning the things that make Android great, then adds a few more of them.

Android platform updates have traditionally followed one of two paths: delivering a huge number of changes that make thing very different than they used to be, or tightening the screws and polishing the silver of what we already have. Both play a very important part of maintaining a long-term platform like Android, even if they don’t provide an equal dose of “wow” power.

Google’s release of Android for 2019 is Pie. It falls in the middle of the two types of updates much like the previous version, Oreo, did last year. Common wisdom says that this is what to expect in an update; Android is stable and established, and as long as Google doesn’t change its goals for the platform, tossing it to try a new look probably isn’t in the cards. Android Pie may look and feel a lot like Oreo or Nougat, but the feature additions and minor tweaks only tell a small part of the story.

Android Pie is where Google starts to make the software something new and different through the use of AI. Google aims to have Android 9 Pie learn from you, so it can, over time, improve. On its own. With Pie, your phone will try to predict what you’re going to do next. It will help preserve your battery by knowing what apps you use most and prioritizing those over others. It will make it easier to switch from the thing you’re doing right now to the thing you want to do next. And at the end of the day, it will help you shut down and tune out so you get the break you deserve.

Google had everyone guessing the nickname for Android 9, but we’ve witnessed the changes as they happened through the developer previews and beta versions. Now that we’re able to see the final product, it’s time to step back and take it all in.

About this review

Work on this review started the moment we received the very first Android P developer preview. And for the first time, we didn’t have to base our assessment on phones only from Google. The expansion of the Android Beta program to other device manufacturers gave us an idea of how things work on phones that don’t have the Android team across the hall. This gives both Google and its hardware partners a better foundation for updates and long-term software support, especially on phones where the software doesn’t resemble the Pixel’s version of Android.

Much of what we see with Android Pie will be Google Pixel specific, but everything under the hood will apply to your phone, too.

Having said that, this review will still be very Google Pixel-centric. It has to be — we have no idea when or how these features may be adapted for Samsung or Huawei phones once they are finished. Some features will be better once more bright minds have a go at them, others won’t fit in very well, and others might be plain broken.

This review is a high-level look at what the Pie update brings to Android and the direction Google is steering the huge ship that powers billions of phones.

Look and feel

How Android Pie will look and how the user interface helps or hinders us when we go to use it all depends on who made our phone. The Android 9 Pie you see once the Galaxy S9 finally receives it will have little resemblance to what you see here.

But Google’s “stock” vision of Android matters more than ever now that companies like Motorola, HTC, OnePlus, and Sony are staying close to Google’s implementation. Maybe this is the result of Google focusing on how Android looks and how basics like navigation and multitasking are handled. Regardless of the reason, “Pixel style” Android will be present on more phones in 2019 than ever before.

Changes to the look start at the top of your phone. Google has made additions to Android that allow manufacturers to ship phones with a “notch” where a portion of the top of the screen is unused and blank.

The immediate change is the shift of the clock to the left of the screen while the service indicators for things like your cell connection and battery remain on the right. This was done so that the time and status indicators will always be visible no matter how notchy your phone screen needs to be. (Lots of Android phones, from the OnePlus 6 to the Huawei P20 Pro, have notches and run earlier versions of Android, but Pie offers APIs for developers to optimize their apps for the notch.)

Notifications are more useful

Pull the notification down and you’ll see the next big change and notice that notifications are now done using a card-style interface. Your quick settings remain at the top and have a new look that’s more colorful and provide a more noticeable indication, using a big blue circle, that something like Bluetooth or Wi-Fi is active. Those quick settings are also their own card and can be expanded by dragging the handle or swiping the fingerprint sensor a second time. These changes are an overhaul of how Pie looks, but the rest of the notification shade has seen a drastic revision.

Changes in notifications are always welcomed and usually a large part of any Android Platform level update. With Pie, we see quite the visual overhaul while the basic function stays the same. Rounded corners and brighter colors rule the roost, and once developers make the small changes to take advantage of Pie’s notification system, everything will become more useful and informative. That’s what notifications should be.

Every developer will now be able to implement smart replies using Google’s machine learning algorithms. Your phone parses the content of a notification when it draws you the preview, and used with information the app itself has up to three smart replies are available. You can perform any of these actions with a single tap, and your decision will be sent to the application and the notification will be marked as read and removed from the shade.

For messaging, Pie’s new person class allows an app to identify the sender and provide you with the user avatar and name that you recognize as well as the first few lines of a message. A quick drag will expand and give you more context should you need it.

More: Android P features you’ll love: Improved notifications, 2018 edition

Gesture navigation

The biggest overall change we see with Android Pie is the inclusion of gestures into the navigation settings. It’s a simple change — enable gesture navigation and you swipe to open your recent apps and swipe more to open your application tray. The back button — a staple of Android since its inception — is mostly gone. For better or worse, Google now expects developers to implement their own navigation inside apps or us to simply return to the home screen and rely on the new AI features to manage opening and closing of apps.

The best part of the new gesture system is that you aren’t required to use it nor is the company that made your phone required to include it. It’s simply a new way to navigate — one that needs a lot of polish in Android 10.

More: How to master the new Android Pie gestures

Smaller tweaks abound

Another visual change comes to the settings app. Once upon a time, Google loved the slide-out hamburger menu. When the company decided to use it in Android’s system settings pages it realized that there is often a better way. With Pie, the actual menu design hasn’t changed, but now things are more bright and colorful. Not everyone will love bright and colorful, but Google does.

Other smaller tweaks abound and you’ll notice tiny changes like the arrangement of the battery usage screen list items as you use your phone. Now Playing notifications are as colorful and bold as they were in Oreo. Icons and animations have small changes but still remind us all of Oreo, as do ambient notifications — the card style has been implemented here but the level of information and placement remains the same. Even notification dots have made it through the update process unscathed.

A better camera experience

There is a very good chance the phone you have now has two cameras on the rear. Not every company has the resources to build out a cluster of machine learning servers that can analyze a photo and make the adjustments needed for color and focus that Google can do with a single lens, and the addition of a second for depth perception, focal data, and other image information is the logical alternative. Android Pie adds OS-level support for multiple cameras in a great way.

Multi-camera API

Multiple cameras that build a single photo require that real-time data be acquired and processed concurrently, and not every company has the resources to do this. That’s why companies like LG and Samsung can provide great results using two cameras while other companies show very little improvement over a single lens. The new Multi-camera API allows for two cameras to operate this way, plus a whole lot more.

Not every company has the resources to write their own multi-camera software, and now they don’t need to.

A clear and true-to-life photo is the most important thing a camera can deliver, but we all like a bit of extra flair now and then. The new Multi-camera API also allows for “logical” cameras to be used — the actual physical cameras gather data to use in the photo as normal, but switching is done so fast that one or both can also acquire extra data into a separate stream as if there were a third camera. This allows for real-time filters or extra photo data for effects or portraits without changing the original image data.

The specifics might get into the weeds a bit, but what it all means is that your phone camera doesn’t have to give a lower quality look when you add effects or filters or do something like after capture refocusing. This means a company like OnePlus, which can offer the same great hardware when it comes to the camera system, now has a much easier time improving things on the software side. Hopefully, this means that choosing which phone has the best camera in 2019 will be a lot more difficult than it was in 2018 and that almost every phone has a great camera.

More: Android Pie features you’ll love: A better camera experience

HDR and HEIF

How images are captured is only half of the .. erhm .. picture. How we look at them is important, too, and the addition of HDR and HEIF support means we can look at more of them and they could look even better.

HEIF is the new High-Efficiency File Format that allows photos to be compressed more with less quality loss. If you’ve ever dabbled with hobby or professional photography you’re probably familiar with compression — a raw image file is much larger than a .tiff image file, which is still a lot bigger than a .jpg file. The .jpg — usually your “final” picture, still looks good but it has had most of the extra image data stripped away. Complex algorithms decide what data is “extra” by making tiny changes to colors, shapes, and focus that shouldn’t have any effect when we use our eyes to look at a photo instead of using software to analyze it.

Upload your HEIF files to Google Photos so you can view them anywhere on any device.

HEIF compression does the same thing. It scans all the data in a captured image, tosses what it thinks we would never notice and uses what remains to build a (hopefully) beautiful picture that is saved on your phone. What’s special is that the algorithms are better and the file size is smaller while the image looks as good or better than a JPEG. WIth Android 9, the system can now not only view HEIF files but as long as the ISP (Image Signal Processor) is capable, it can save them, too.

Android 9 Pie also supports HDR VP9 video at the OS level. This isn’t much of a change for some of us who have phones that can already process HDR video, but it means that now all Android phones have the luxury. Having support at the system level means developers no longer need to license any technology in order for you to enjoy the benefit that HDR can bring.

More: Android Pie features you’ll love: Improved photo and video with HDR and HEIF

Of course, one change is never enough for Google and we also see new ways developers can make the camera process images faster, help us share them more easily, and even provide more data for after-processing editing. None of this makes us better photographers, but our cameras will be better at taking the photos.

Saving your battery using a smarter phone

Seeing AI demos can often be informative and entertaining, but with Android Pie, Google is using AI to finally do something utilitarian and useful — help extend the time between charging.

We are all creatures of habit. We tend to do the same things — whether on our phones or anywhere else — at or around the same times almost every day. You have a routine when you wake up in the morning, and so do I. The parts of it that involve our phones’ batteries are about to get a lot smarter thanks to Adaptive Battery.

AI can drive cars and make appointments at a hair salon, but it’s nice seeing that it can do something useful, too.

Android is a lot like the software that runs your computer. Apps have multiple processes running and those can work independently of each other. Often, one or more of them will try to stay alive in the background so that it can perform its task. Think of an app that refreshes with data from the internet; Twitter is a good example. When you open Twitter your timeline is where you left off, but all the new messages are already downloaded and in place. That’s because Twitter has a process that checks and refreshes data every now and then.

With Android Pie, if the system learns you use an app once and then stop for a while, you’ll be asked if you would like the system to manage the app. it will close everything down that’s not needed and put it into a very low-power state until the next time you use it. It keeps it that way because it will save your battery life. Too many apps that keep the processor or network alive and running can wreck your battery even when the screen is off. Google’s AI can try to prevent that.

More: Android Pie features you’ll love: Adaptive Battery support

Adaptive Brightness

Ai is also working on another thing that can be less than kind to our battery: controlling how bright our screens are through Adaptive Brightness.

We all want a bold and bright display on our phones. If you’re outdoors, you probably wish it were even bolder and brighter sometimes! But screen brightness, regardless of the type of display used on your phone, is one of the most power sucking features on any device with a display. Traditionally, phones have used a light sensor to control any automatic brightness features, and they work fairly well.

Allowing software that can recognize what any sensor sees as well as other ambient conditions so it can turn that data into something useful — how bright the display should be — is another simple and remarkable achievement. We’ve come to expect big things from Google’s big ideas, and often we forget about the little things. It’s nice to see that the basics haven’t been overlooked to make room for the grand.

App actions when and where you need them

Another smart feature we see on Android Pie is App Actions. These depend on prediction but are far more complicated than sending an app to timeout or turning down the screen brightness.

Actions are designed to know what you’re about to do and provide you with a quick and easy way to get it done. Some can be simple — connect a set of headphones to your phone and the playlist you last listened to will appear. Others can be complex — ask your Google Home about booking a car and the Lyft app can open on your phone at the point where you enter the details about your ride.

Google Assistant plays a big part in the App Actions feature, as it’s modeled on what Assistant on your Google Home or phone can do today. You can see an overview of the available Actions for Assistant already, or even set up some of your own.

More: Android Pie features you’ll love: App Actions

Google’s ambitious use of AI for handling these tasks works surprisingly well. Every app you allow Android Pie to manage works exactly the way it should when you’re using it and adaptive brightness works as well as relying on a sensor ever did. Actions show some incredible promise once developers get on board and think about using them in ways nobody else has.

Google has finally used AI for something amazing and simple.

K.I.S.S.

Simplicity seems to be a theme in Android Pie and small but relevant changes throughout the OS can make a big impact when we just want it to work.

Features like better volume controls and rotation confirmation mean we no longer have to dig levels deep to find a setting to make a change. The same can be said for the new power confirmation dialog which asks if you meant to take a screenshot by giving you the option beside the usual off and reboot entries. Who hasn’t tried to take a screenshot and ended up in the power dialog?

Small features can be as important as the larger ones.

Work profiles make it easy to separate free time from the work week with separate instances of the apps you’ll need and an easy way for you or your IT department to set up and manage them all. Indoor navigation using the IEEE 802.11mc Wi-Fi protocol — also known as Wi-Fi Round-Trip-Time (RTT) — means we can find our way around inside the shopping mall as easily as we can outside of it. Of course, improvements to privacy and security like the new support for improved biometrics mean we can rest easy knowing our phones are safer than they have ever been.

Simplicity can be a very good thing when done right. Many of these changes look to have been done right.

Restrict bad apps when they need it

There are thousands of different models of phone that run Android, and not all of them are on the same version. This can be frustrating to a developer — and the end user — because apps tested and perfected on one set of hardware or one version may act differently when faced with a different environment. Android Pie introduces Background Restrictions to keep misbehaving apps in check.

If an app exhibits some of the bad behaviors described in Android vitals, the system prompts the user to restrict that app’s access to system resources. This is a new feature for Android P.

Android Vitals is a Google program that has only one goal — improve how your phone runs. That can be difficult because nobody can test a phone using the very same set of apps and location you are in, and what works one time may not work another. The companies who make our phones test them rigorously before they send anything out the door, but the first thing we all do is add more apps. It’s impossible to determine how one person will use their phone, let alone every person.

When apps do anything in the background that the Android Vitals initiative has described as impacting performance, it can be restricted as to what it is allowed to do without you telling it to do it. The company that built Android for your phone also gets to decide what sort of restrictions can be placed on an app that’s marked as misbehaving. That’s good because the company who built your phone is the only company that knows exactly how bad performance can be impacted. Here’s a list of what an app can be prevented from doing if it will degrade performance by doing it in the background.

• Run jobs. A job is a single unit of work that you, an app, or a part of the OS called a scheduler (it runs things on a schedule) assigns to the operating system.
• Fire alarms. An alarm is an alert or event that gets sent from an app to the operating system. These are different from the types of notifications you see.
• Use the network. This means any network — LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi, etc.

What’s ‘coming soon’ to Android Pie

There are also two big things yet to come to Android Pie: Digital Wellbeing and App Slices.

App Slices is another way the AI inside your phone can help you do what you need instead of just telling you how to do it. Developers can use Slices to drop a small portion of their own user interface — a slice, if you will — that’s connected to Google properties like Search or Maps. Imagine typing a question about somewhere you would like to visit into your Google Search bar and seeing a popover from an app that can book a room or one-tap navigation instructions. this — and more — is possible using Slices. Slices is currently being beta tested and will become available to all developers sometime in the Fall of 2018.

Google says these features will be available sometime in 2018.

Digital Wellbeing is Google’s ambitious project that exists to take the tech out of our life from time to time when we need it to.

A new Dashboard will let you know how much time you spend on your phone, and even how much time you spend inside a specific app. Other useful information like how many notifications you’ve received (too many!) and how often you unlock your screen is available. You won’t be able to get away from seeing how much of a phone junky you might be!

Seeing this information can be helpful but providing ways to limit it all is even better. Digital Wellbeing will also bring things like app timers to make sure you don’t spend all day on Facebook, changes to Do Not Disturb that make your phone quiet and keep the distractions from popping up on the screen, and the new Wind Down Mode helps by adjusting the display using the Night Light feature once it gets dark, and when it’s time to get you ready for bed it will enable Do Not Disturb and switch the display to grey scale.

Digital Wellbeing is currently available in beta form for Pixel users and expected to be ready for Android One phones and select others later in the year.

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

A big slice of upgrade

At the top of this review, we talked about how some of these changes won’t be the same on your phone unless you’re using a Google Pixel. When your phone was designed and built, a group of software engineers was tasked with adding the right features to Android. But part of what makes Android great is how different it can be from device to device.

As manufacturers release their takes on Android Pie, we’ll see how these features are implemented and customized. It’s always fun to compare how each company makes Android its own, and it will be no different with Android Pie. Google has added some very important changes to security and stability that we all love seeing and every phone benefits when that happens.

The best parts of the Android Pie update, in my opinion, are the least flashy. Using the AI engine Google has worked on for the past few years to save your battery by clamping down on apps or lowering the brightness of your display is great! It works well and does so without any kitschy user interface. Most importantly, it does what it’s supposed to do without getting in your face or using up any of the resources it’s supposed to be saving. Almost as great is the addition of a multi-camera API so that developers can now have something consistent to use and support for HDR. This is what Google needs to do if it wants to call Android its own — add feature support directly to the software instead of outsourcing it to phone makers with varying degrees of success.

Android Pie brings a bit of control where it’s really needed — taming bad apps — and that’s a great feature addition in itself.

Other features, though, like Google’s half-hearted attempt at gesture navigation and its laissez-faire attitude about how a notch should be sized and implemented take a different road. We’ve seen far too often what can happen when Google lets phone makers do whatever they like — and the final product is rarely good. Basics like how I get from one screen to another or what information I can see when I get a notification are important and need to be consistent. What Google has done turns them into a feature that companies will butcher in order to differentiate themselves.

4
out of 5

Overall, Android Pie offers a bunch of minor improvements. That’s a good thing, and I think once developers start taking advantage of what we can’t see it will get even better. And I think that some developers will take notice and use what Google has given them to make Android Pie great.

Here’s hoping that when your phone gets it, it resembles what we see here.

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

Android 9 Pie is official and the update is starting today

Current Pixels get the latest software right away, with beta program devices to follow throughout the fall.

Following months of beta releases, Android 9 is being officially released to the public today. And its name is Pie. As is usually the case, this release of Android 9 Pie comes about two months before the expected launch of the Pixel 3 line of phones — meaning current Pixel owners get the latest and greatest software exclusively for a while. But given the history of Google’s releases, that doesn’t rule out a release of 9.1, or at least 9.0.1, coinciding with the upcoming Pixel 3 launch to include new yet-to-be-seen features designed to highlight the new devices.

Android 9 Pie review

This is a more ambitious version release than you’d think at first.

In the tradition of Android versions being named sequentially following the alphabet, while sticking to a theme of tasty treats, Pie feels like a solid choice from what was a pretty stout field of options. “Popsicle” would’ve been interesting, but for whatever reason Google chose not to go with another brand name tie-in like KitKat and Oreo. Pie is also an interesting nod to the Android super-fans that were aware of the rumored “key lime pie” code name for Android 4.4 before it became KitKat. We had speculated that Google could go all in on pie with “Pecan Pie” or “Pumpkin Pie” — but we didn’t expect the generic version of the name.

If you’ve been following the Android 9 Beta builds the pst two months, you’ll have a handle on everything we’re seeing in the final production release. The last beta build was released less than two weeks before the stable build, so it’s understandable that not much has changed. As a quick refresher, Android Pie includes a new gesture navigation system, app actions and shortcuts in the launcher, new battery life-saving tweaks and many user-focused tweaks to simplify the software experience overall.

And just a note on those gestures: they aren’t enabled by default on Android Pie when the device is being updated from Oreo — you’ll have to enable the gesture navigation manually to give it a try. Future Pixels will have the gestures as their only navigation system, and third-party phone makers will reserve the choice of which to use.

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

Pixel users get it first, but many other people can get in on the fun too.

Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL owners will start to receive the Pie update starting today, including anyone who’s currently on the Android Beta Program — so don’t unenroll from the program. The Beta Program will come to an end with the stable release, so you’ll be back on the regular track with everyone else. For those who are extremely impatient, Google is also posting factory images and OTA files to flash to your Pixel manually. We have a handy guide showing you how to get it done, too.

One of Google’s biggest user-facing changes, the “digital wellbeing” suite of features, isn’t quite ready to go with this first public release of Android 9. If you want to get an early look at an unfinished version of the features that track and limit the time you spend on your phone and in specific apps, Google is opening up digital wellbeing through a Google Play Store beta program. Just visit Google’s beta link and enter your email address, so long as you have a Pixel that’s been updated to Pie.

Google is also committing to continued work with its partners that provided beta releases to their phones alongside the Pixels. The phones that received beta builds of Android P over the past few months, such as the OnePlus 6 and Nokia 7 Plus, are slated to also receive Android 9 Pie in short order behind Pixel phones — which is of course precisely what we wanted to see from the use of Project Treble and the beta program. It’s neat to see early builds on your phone, but the real reason for the expanded beta program was to give companies early access to the software so they can get official stable builds out the door sooner than ever before.

One shining star from the extended beta program? Essential, which is already pushing out a stable version of Android Pie to the Essential Phone.

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

We’re going to keep bringing you the best coverage of Android 9 Pie as it starts to hit devices. In the meantime, let us know what your thoughts are on the new release!

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

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

Cherry pie, pumpkin pie, Android Pie.

Well, it’s here: Android Pie is officially available, and that means finger-tapping, impatient waiting for the update to hit your phone.

Now that the update is available, there are a few things you need to know before receiving it. So read on and let’s get the party started.

Android Pie review: Greater than the sum of its slices

• The easy way
• The harder way

Which phones are receiving the final Android Pie version?

As of today, there are just four phones receiving the Pie update directly from Google:

• Pixel 2
• Pixel 2 XL
• Pixel
• Pixel XL

That means your Nexus 5X or 6P is out of the running, unfortunately.

What about the phones included as part of the expanded Android Beta program?

For the first time ever, Google included non-Pixel or Nexus phones as part of its Android beta program. They were:

• Nokia 7 Plus
• OnePlus 6
• Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S
• Essential PH‑1
• Sony Xperia XZ2
• OPPO R15 Pro
• Vivo X21

According to the company, “devices that participated in the Beta program from Sony Mobile, Xiaomi, HMD Global, Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus, and Essential, as well as all qualifying Android One devices, will receive this update by the end of this fall!” So you’ll have to wait a bit longer.

What if I already have the Android P beta?

Nothing! You won’t have to do anything — just wait for Google to send the over the air (OTA) update to your Pixel or Pixel 2. Once you receive the final software, you may choose to opt out of the beta program entirely to stay on the stable track.

What if I am running Oreo and want to install Pie as soon as possible?

Your Pixel or Pixel 2 will receive the Android Pie update in the next few weeks without your intervention. If you’re patient (which, if you’re reading this article, you’re likely not), you can just sit and wait for the update to hit your phone.

If you want to fast-track your Pie update, you’ll need to enroll in the Android Beta Program, which makes it super easy to opt in and out of the program. If you’re more hardcore, or want to manually flash the Android P developer preview, we have those instructions, too.

The easy way — Android Beta Program

If you don’t want to mess with unlocking your bootloader or the command line, you will get an update to the Android Pie if you’re part of the Android Beta program. Simply visit the Android Beta portal and opt-in to the beta, which will then prompt Google to send your phone or tablet an over-the-air update. Depending on the timing, your phone will receive the latest beta and then an OTA for the final version, or it will just receive the final version of Android Pie.

Head to Android Beta program portal on your Pixel phone.
Sign into the Google account associated with that phone.
Scroll down to Your eligible devices.
Find the device you want to enroll in the Beta program and tap Opt in.
Follow the prompts to accept the over-the-air download.

Note: Once your phone receives the stable version of Android Pie, opting out of the beta program will not revert back to Oreo like it did in the beta — it will just prevent you from getting future beta updates.

The harder way — Flashing through bootloader

If you’re really impatient, and don’t want to wait for an over-the-air update to Android Pie, you’ll need to go in through the back door — you’ll need to flash the factory image or OTA update.

Before we go through the steps of sideloading Android updates, it is strongly recommended that you have previous knowledge of working with the Android SDK (software development kit) and the Terminal (OS X or Linux) or Command Prompt (Windows), as it is possible to harm your device if something were to go wrong in the following process.

If you need to download the Android SDK you can grab it from the Android Development website and follow their instructions on how to install it correctly. For the following process, all you will need is the adb and fastboot files which are located in the Platform Tools folder, so make sure to read the description at the dev site and grab the right download.

Additionally, all the following commands are written as they would be in Terminal on a Linux or OS X platform. If you are following this guide and using a Windows machine, you will not need to use the “./” seen in the guide. Just type the rest of the command line by line in the order they are listed and you’ll be good.

Enable developer settings and USB debugging

Go to your Settings and scroll down to About Phone/Tablet.
Tap on the Build number seven times until the dialog box says you are now a developer.
Go back to the Settings menu and you should find a new option called Developer options. Tap into the Developer options.
Make sure that the developer options are turned on and that USB debugging is checked on.
Plug your device into your computer and tap “OK” on the dialog box asking you to Allow USB debugging while connected to the computer. You can also select to always allow access on that computer.

If done correctly, this will be everything you will need to do on your phone or tablet for the moment.

Unlocking your bootloader

Pixel phones bought from Google directly have a bootloader you can unlock. If you want to manually flash software, you’ll need to do this.

To do this you must first boot into your bootloader. You can either manually turn off your phone or tablet and hold down the power button and the volume down button to enter your device’s Bootloader Menu or you can enter the following commands into your terminal or command prompt.

Run the following command to make sure your device is properly connected to your computer. If it returns a string of characters it means that you are all set to start updating your device.

./adb devices

Now to enter into the Bootloader menu just run the following command.

./adb reboot bootloader

At the bottom of the screen, there will be several things listed including the lock state of the device. This should say locked unless you have unlocked your bootloader in the past and never went back and locked it again.

To unlock your bootloader, which is required only when flashing a stock firmware image (not sideloading an update), you must enter the following commands. Remember that when unlocking your phone’s bootloader it will factory reset your device, so you will lose everything stored on it. If you have not yet backed up anything important on your device you can hit the power button while Start is highlighted in the Bootloader menu and this will boot you back into your device like normal. Now back to unlocking your bootloader.

Now type:

./fastboot flashing unlock

A dialog will appear on the device asking if you are sure about unlocking. Again this will factory reset your device, so if you want to back out of the process you just need to select no with the power button. If you are ready to unlock your bootloader you press the volume up button and then the power button to confirm that you wish to unlock your bootloader.

./fastboot reboot-bootloader

It is recommended to reboot the bootloader just to give itself a check to make sure everything is working correctly before moving on to the next step.

Flashing the stock image or OTA update

Now that your bootloader is unlocked, it’s time to flash the new firmware. To find the images, head on over to the Android Full OTA Images page, find your device, and download the latest image. It is easiest to then uncompress the file in the Platform Tools folder you downloaded (where the adb and fastboot files are) so that you don’t have to type the path to the different files when flashing the firmware. (Or if you know that you can drag a file into a terminal window to copy the path, just do that.)

To begin, make sure you are still in the bootloader menu on your device and double check that your bootloader is in fact unlocked.

First, make sure that your computer is communicating correctly with your phone or tablet. As long as your device’s serial number comes back as a connected device you are ready to begin updating your device.

./fastboot devices

Now it is time to flash the updated bootloader with the following command.

./fastboot flash bootloader [bootloader file].img

You will not see anything on the screen of your device but there should be a dialog in your terminal or command prompt. When it is done flashing the bootloader you should reboot back into the bootloader to make sure everything is still working correctly.

./fastboot reboot-bootloader

Next, you flash the updated radios. This step is only necessary if you are updating the firmware of a phone or tablet that has cellular radios built into it.

./fastboot flash radio [radio file].img

./fastboot reboot-bootloader

Finally, it’s time to flash the actual system image to your phone or tablet.

Warning: The following line of code will wipe your device. Normally, you can remove the “-w” from the command but when moving to a beta version of Android it’s not guaranteed to work.

./fastboot -w update [image file].zip

When this is done, your phone will restart itself and boot up normally. As this process clears all data from your device, it will take slightly longer for your device to boot up for the first time. Once you have been greeted with the device setup walkthrough process, you know you have successfully flashed a new version of the firmware.

If you do not want to enter the commands manually there are scripts included in the compressed folder containing the system image that will do most but not all of the heavy lifting for you. The flash-all script files will automate the flashing of the bootloader, radios (if needed), and the system image. The problem with this process is that you must first make sure that your phone is in the bootloader menu and its bootloader must be unlocked before starting the script. Of course, if these are not already done the script will fail to run and nothing will happen.

Going back to Oreo

If your phone is freaking out or you just want to go back to Oreo, it’s definitely possible. The process is simple, and you just learned how to do it! Simply go back through the same steps above, except for two changes: you don’t need to unlock your bootloader again, and you’ll want to download the Oreo factory image from Google instead.

If you have any trouble along the way, be sure to hop into the forums and ask for help!

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

Update August 6, 2018: This article was renovated to explain how to upgrade to the stable version of Android 9 Pie.

A slice of heaven [#acpodcast]

Taste this.

Daniel Bader, Andrew Martonik, and Russell Holly convene once again via a series of tubes to discuss lots of hot topics in Android news. First, Epic Games is bypassing the Google Play Store for upcoming Android release of Fortnite — requiring users to side-load the game and pay for in-app purchases directly to Epic. Next, Android P finally has a name: Android 9 Pie! While not as catchy as ‘petit four’ or ‘pumpkin spice latte’, it’s less controversial than the great ‘New-git/New-gah’ wars of 2016.

Samsung Galaxy Note 9? Never heard of it. But the Galaxy Tab S4 is here; with high end specs, build quality, and a price tag to match. A full review is still forthcoming, but comparisons to iPad and Chromebooks are plentiful.

In the home stretch, Moto Z3 is officially coming to Verizon on August 16th. It’s the first “5G-upgradeable” smartphone thanks to a Moto Mod expected in 2019.

Listen now

• Subscribe in iTunes: Audio
• Subscribe in RSS: Audio
• Download directly: Audio

Show Notes and Links:

• Epic Games’ strategy for Fortnite on Android is stupid, greedy, and dangerous
• Android P is Android 9 Pie
• Everything you need to know about the Samsung Galaxy Tab S4
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 hands-on preview: The two-faced tablet
• The Moto Z3 is official, coming to Verizon on August 16
• Moto Z3 hands-on preview: A Verizon exclusive with 5G flourish

Sponsors:

• Ziprecruiter: The smartest way to hire. Try ZipRecruiter for free. That’s right FREE!
• LightStream LightStream rewards consumers who have good credit with a great interest rate and no fees!