- Nexus Line is Dead. Long Live Pixel: The Nexus line is now pining for the fjords, it has ceased to be, it’s snuffed it. Alright, that might not be the case, but the pair of phones previously thought to be the next in the Nexus line-up won’t carry the Nexus name. According to androidpolice.com, the upcoming devices will instead be named Pixel and Pixel XL for the 5” and 5.5” handsets, respectively. What this means for the Nexus brand is still too soon to call. You can read more here.
- Samsung Calls a Recall of Note 7, Free Replacements: After several reports of Note 7 devices catching fire, an investigation by Samsung revealed issues with the battery cell. They’ve deemed the issue severe enough to halt all sales of the Note 7, and now offers free replacements, no questions asked. If supply is short, you can have a temporary replacement in the S7, which, according to reports, you might be free to keep instead of the Note. Some estimates put the cost of the recall at around $1 Billion, but regardless of what this kind of oversight says, it’s a great decision in terms of customer service. Too often have we seen severe issues go uncommented, much less replaced. You can read more here.
- Project Ara Is Dead: Project Ara has definitely shuffled off its mortal coil, in contrast to the Nexus line that’s merely on life-support. Alright, fine, we don’t know anything for sure, other than that the project has been suspended from Google’s end. Project ARA was an initiative to bring fully modular phones to the market, more similar to PC’s than other phones today. While this really is the end for Google’s participation, it is still possible they could end up licensing out the parts, but at this point, it seems unlikely. Read more here.
- 7” Google Tablet On Track For End-of-Year Release: Built by Huawei, the 7” tablet is on track for release before the end of the year, according to @evleaks on Twitter. Much is still unknown, and there’s been conflicting reports on whether or not there will be any tablets released from Google this year, but it could carry the Pixel brand along with the new phones, to further enforce the shift from the Nexus brand. You can read more here.
- OnePlus To Merge Hydrogen And Oxygen OS: Officially, the choice to merge the two OS’s is made in order to facilitate faster updates. It makes sense; having two teams working on two separate OS’s takes time and resources. This allows them to pool said resources for, theoretically, a better experience. It does, however, come with some problems, not the least of which is the vastly different demographics the two have. You can read more here.
This Week in Apps:
- Google Rolls Out In-App Search Function: For now, the in-app search function only works with Gmail, Spotify and YouTube, but support for more is in the pipeline. Support for apps such as Facebook Messenger, LinkedIn, Evernote, Keep, Todoist is explicitly stated to be on the way. As for what it does, that’s pretty much exactly what it says on the box. It lets you search for things that are contained in the apps. See? The name “in app search” makes perfect sense. All that’s lacking is Google now integration. And the ability to search in Hangouts, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before that happens. Here’s Fred with the weather… Read more here.
- Snapseed 2.9 Is Out: The latest Snapseed update brings new perspective and white balance tools, as well as the ability to set the preferred compression rate on JPGs, or save as PNG directly. When it comes to features, it really is the more the merrier. Beware though, some users have reported a bug that caused the original photos to disappear, so you might want to back them up beforehand, just in case. Read morehere.
- Google Opinion Rewards Launches in France: Congratulations France, your opinion matters now! A new thing to note here is the part where users are paid through PayPal, rather than just Play Store credit. Read more here.
Brief Introduction
Hi, I am /u/deu5ex, one of the writers for the /r/android content creation team. Economics student, hooked on customization fiddling, consumer of unhealthy amounts of caffeine, and I will be providing you with periodic content your reading pleasure. I also write for the XDA News Portal, where I go more in-depth into just about anything Android related. Check myself and /u/justblais out every Tuesday as we try to summarize the crazy stuff that happens in Android every week!
[Source:-Android]
