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The fight for the headphone jack seems to be a losing battle, much to my own cable-loving chagrin. With the simultaneous popularity of Bluetooth headphone deals and a growing tolerance for jack-less phones, I thought it would be a good time to revisit the question: What kind of headphones are you using for your phone?
It's weird to think that there's a high-end power accessory market, but there is. Mophie pretty much dominates it with just a few special characteristics: a slightly more premium build quality, better materials, and high-end specs. Of course, Mophie's products also typically come with a sky-high price tag, and that's the case here with the Powerstation USB-C 3 XL. You get 45W of power on both USB-C input and output (with pass-through and different ports for each, too), a voluminous 26,000mAh capacity, and an exorbitant $200 MSRP to go with it. Unfortunately, it refused to work with any Chromebook I tested it with.
RCS has been a long time coming, but the last few carrier holdouts in the US are finally starting to push out support for the "enhanced messaging" standard. Earlier this year, T-Mobile rolled the feature out to the Galaxy S7, then the S8, and now Verizon is joining in on the fun a bit earlier than originally expected, pushing out RCS support to Google's latest Pixel 3 and 3 XL starting this morning.
OnePlus will launch its first 5G phone in Europe next year, may cost up to $300 more than 4G version
In a series of interviews yesterday, The Verge was told by OnePlus CEO Pete Lau that his company was simultaneously working on both an upcoming 5G and 4G phone, though the former was expected to cost "$200 to $300 more" than its 4G counterpart. According to UK carrier EE, OnePlus' 5G phone is set to come to the carrier next year.
It's that time of the year again. What? No, not Christmas, that's still a ways off. It's Spotify Wrapped season. After all, the best thing about Spotify is discovering new music, and now you can take a tour of you musical tastes from the last year by numbers. And not only do you get some fun statistics to brag about (I beat you this year, Artem!), there are also a pair of new playlists: Your Top Songs 2018, and a rut-defying Tastebreakers for a glimpse at something new.
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- We're approaching the end of Allo history, as a recent report indicates that Google is planning to announce its death. As we wait for that last word to fall, it's time to ponder and reflect upon Google's short-lived and misguided messaging platform one last time, and we've updated our historical editorial to include this latest (and possibly last) development.
Back in April, it was revealed that development for Allo was temporarily suspended while Google redoubled its efforts at spreading the gospel of RCS. At the time, the company reassured consumers that it was still committed to supporting Allo, but the recent news of it's expected shutdown, paired with a total absence of updates for the last ten months, casts those earlier statements into severe doubt.
Xiaomi is celebrating a strange milestone today. According to a tweet by the company's global VP, Xiaomi has 700,000 users, which presumably means the company has seen about as many sales. It's an odd milestone to be celebrating — 700K in "over three months" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue — but it's a good indicator of the company's success in its Pocophone experiment, especially when compared to OnePlus.
According to a report from 9to5Google, Allo's days may be numbered. Details are admittedly sparse, but a source communicating with 9to5Google's Stephen Hall said that Google is (or was) expected to announce a shutdown of the messaging app "soon," though an additional delay could be imposed in the wake of the related news surrounding the expected "Hangouts classic" shutdown/migration.
After teasing us for what felt like years across Twitter and Twitch, Beamdog has finally released the Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Android beta. You can pick up the classic third-person RPG and play it for yourself on your phone or tablet for just $9.99, but keep in mind there could be a few rough edges — it is a beta.
Niantic promised to bring PVP to Pokémon Go by the end of the year, and today the company has revealed how it should work when it lands later this month. However, PVP in Pokémon Go — which will go by the name "Trainer Battles" — is going to be a bit different than what you're used to from other games from the series, so let's take a look at how it all works.
Google's Santa Tracker and Santa's Village are both making a return this year, with a couple of new additions. This year Santa has decided to enable location sharing in Google Maps, giving you another way to follow his location come Christmas. This year's app seems mostly the same as last year's, with a minor bump in version to 5.3.0 from 5.1.4, but it's available now for your kids (or your inner kid) to enjoy.
For many, a phone is a black box filled with apps, connectivity, and no small part of modern tech magic. But for the technically inclined (like enthusiasts and developers), the intricate operations that keep us knee-deep in apps and services are well understood, and access to specifics like kernel sources and factory images helps tremendously when it comes to rooting, ROMing, and device-targeted development. So it's a good thing Razer pushed out both factory images and kernel sources for its most recent flagship, the Razer Phone 2.
Yesterday it was reported that Google was planning to sunset Hangouts sometime in 2020. However, according to Scott Johnston, director of product management and realtime comms product lead for G Suite (i.e., the guy who runs Hangouts at Google), that isn't the case. Johnston says there have been "no decisions made about when Hangouts will be shut down." Furthermore, we're told current Hangouts users will be upgraded to Hangouts Chat and Meet.
Essential has a habit of beating even Google when it comes to rolling out updates, and that trend continues today. An OTA including the December security patches for Android is rolling out to PH-1's everywhere as we speak, download at your leisure.
It's the first Monday in a new month, so there's one thing you can typically expect from today: Google will release its monthly security patches for Pixels. There are a couple of surprises this month, though. The Nexus 5X and 6P are still getting updates, and December images for Google's 2016 Pixels are again curiously absent. The list of functional patches included this month is large, and it also includes "improved memory performance in certain circumstances," for the Pixel 3, 3XL, 2, and 2 XL.
Google's Hangouts messaging platform has been a hot subject these last couple of days. Initially, a recent report pegged Google to give Hangouts the ax in 2020, but a director involved with the project at Google claims no such date was set, and that a migration is planned to transition Hangouts (as consumers know it, anyway) into Meet/Chat. Whatever ends up actually happening, at a minimum, it sounds like Hangouts will change in the future. With that in mind, we're curious: How many of our readers are still using Google Hangouts?
For the last few years (since Google launched and the effectively killed Allo), Hangouts has been slowly dying. Bits of it have been broken off, and others were outright killed. According to a report by 9to5Google's Stephen Hall, its days are very literally numbered. The service is expected to shutter in the not-so-far-off year 2020.
The "camera hole" looks set to replace the more traditional notch in the future, but we still don't really know what the concept will actually end up looking like in person. At least, we didn't until today: Sparrow News seems to have gotten its hands on real-life (if slightly potato) photos and video of Lenovo's Z5S, which features such a circular cutout. And it looks pretty snazzy.
Most of the details surrounding Sirin Labs' Finney "blockchain phone" were revealed back in the spring/summer, including the Safe Screen dual sliding display design and a whole pile of specs. I'll be honest, on paper it sounded like it could be Saygus-level vaporware, but the phone is now open for pre-order ahead of its expected launch.
Obviously, we prefer Android here at Android Police, but there are a handful of features from iOS that we historically envy, like iMessage, the platform's expanded app selection, and the performance of Apple's SoCs. But more minor feature from Safari that Android converts may have missed and which Chrome for Android lost long ago could be coming back. As spotted by the folks at Chrome Story, gesture-based history navigation may be coming to Chrome (i.e., swipe to go back/forward).