Android Police

Scott Scrivens-

Scott Scrivens

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About Scott Scrivens

Senior UK Editor — My interest in Android began with the beautiful Nexus 4 and the less-ugly-than-before Jelly Bean. Right now, I'm probably watching Black Books, playing football (soccer), or listening to Answer Code Request.

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At an event in London today, the Honor 20 series was unveiled with an emphasis flagship photography at an affordable price. Honor has made no secret of the fact it's targeting the youth segment of the smartphone market and it hopes this latest selection will appeal to camera-conscious youngsters on relatively small budgets.

Firefox developer Mozilla has rolled out an update to the release channel of its browser app for Android that adds an important security fix. The update to version number 67.0.3 patches the critical zero-day flaw and protects users from potential attacks.

Rumors have swirled for some time about a Facebook cryptocurrency and now it's official. It's called Libra and its lofty mission is similar to that of other digital currencies that have come before it, to "reinvent money" and "transform the global economy." At the same time, Facebook is sharing the wider plans for Calibra, a newly-formed subsidiary in charge of blockchain and financial services products going forward.

As one of the most popular and fully-featured video player apps available on the Play Store, we've become accustomed to MX Player getting useful new features on a regular basis. Most recently, the team behind it added Chromecast support for online streaming content, and the latest update includes a Picture-in-Picture function.

Tab grouping is a feature many Chrome users are excited to get, especially since other browsers have been capable of similar for a while. The feature is still a while away from being released in the stable version of Chrome, but the latest update in the Canary channel includes colors for each group and automatically opening links from the same site in the same group. The Send to Self feature for sharing tabs with Chrome on another device now has a history page.

Google took the unusual step out-leaking the leakers with a render of the upcoming Pixel 4, even though we had been expecting the usual October announcement. That lead us to wonder whether Google might be pushing its schedule forward and getting ahead of the 2019 iPhone launch, but alas that appears not to be the case.

A few days ago, the beastly OnePlus 7 Pro got an OS update to fix a few issues and make some improvements to camera performance, and now it's little sibling is getting the same treatment. The company is starting to push the OxygenOS 9.5.5 update to the smaller OnePlus 7, and it includes the latest security patch and a number of other enhancements.

In the wake of the $5 billion antitrust fine it received from the European Commission last year, Google laid out plans to prompt Android users in Europe to choose a different default search or browser app. In a new blog post, Product Management Director Paul Gennai introduces the changes that will come as part of an imminent Google Play Store update.

The Xiaomi Mi Band 3 was an insanely cheap fitness tracker (£26.99 in the UK, which works out as about $35) with a relatively impressive feature set. Its successor has just been announced by Xiaomi in China, and this time it includes a color display and microphone for voice assistant functionality. There's also a slightly more expensive variant with NFC, although it's still cheap as chips.

Wi-Fi Protected Setup authentication, or WPS for short, disappeared from Android 9 Pie in an intentional move by Google due to security concerns, although it then promised that the feature would return in a future Android release, although perhaps in a slightly different form. Instead, Android Q supports a similar technology called Wi-Fi Easy Connect.

TWRP is the most trusted Android custom recovery around at the moment and is adding support for more devices all the time. Over the past month or so, 14 new phones and tablets have appeared on the TeamWin Recovery Project site, including the beastly new OnePlus 7 Pro. Support has also been added for all Android One Fifth Generation handsets.

During I/O, Google outlined its vision for the fully gestural navigation system that debuted with Android Q Beta 3. In the fourth beta that arrived yesterday, some further refinements have been made to gesture navigation that make it a little smoother and more usable.

The ability to snooze notifications is a divisive feature, with some (like me) using it fairly often and others at AP saying they never do. If you fall into the first camp and have installed the third Android Q Beta that became available yesterday, you may have noticed that snoozing is no longer possible.

The original Ultimate Ears Wonderboom was a tiny and cute little portable Bluetooth speaker that could float on water and sounded pretty decent — all for just $100. There was little not to love about it, a sentiment echoed by Jeff in our review. It must have been a good seller for UE owner Logitech, too, as it's seen fit to bring out an updated version with better sound and more features.Probably the most important new capability offered by the Wonderboom 2 is stereo pairing. You were able to connect more than one speaker with the previous generation, but stereo sound wasn't possible. Now you can pair two of them and throw them in the water for a full-on stereo pool party. A new feature called Outdoor Boost enables an EQ setting specifically designed for louder and crisper outdoor audio, and the bass will also generally be beefier.

Google has been gradually updating all of its apps with its latest Material Design components and stylings over the last year or two, and that process is now reaching some of the company's lesser-known apps. Family link for Parents is the latest to get a makeover, albeit very a very subtle one.

Google's antitrust woes aren't showing any signs of stopping, with rival Android app store Aptoide launching a full-on campaign against alleged unfair treatment by the tech giant. Back in October last year, Aptoide gained an injunction against Google in a Portuguese court after a Play Protect notice warning users that the alternative might be unsafe. Now, Aptoide is upping the ante.

For every major market except the United States, a new OnePlus phone is available for purchase today. The OnePlus 7 is very much an updated 6T (a 6Tt, if you will), but I found the upgrades to be worthwhile when I tested the phone for my review, especially considering the price is the same.

Samsung updated the beta version of its Internet Browser app earlier this month, adding a notification manager and home screen shortcut renaming. A couple of extra items have been snuck onto the same changelog, one of which is sure to be very popular — there's a new feature that can prevent videos from autoplaying.

The UK's first 5G network was switched on today by network operator EE, and the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G is the first commercially available 5G smartphone in the country. The carrier owned by the BT Group has beaten Vodafone to the punch by more than a month— its 5G rollout doesn't commence until July 3.

In a long-expected move, OnePlus launched a more premium device earlier this month with a more premium price tag to boot. US consumers were presented the OnePlus 7 Pro as the only option for a brand-new OnePlus phone, but other markets have also been treated a with a cheaper alternative. The standard OnePlus 7 is something of an updated 6T — practically identical on the outside but with some significant enhancements on the inside — and at £499/€559, it also starts at the same price. Interestingly, the OnePlus 7 is even cheaper than the 6T in India where it starts at just 32,999 INR.

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