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It's very rare that Android phones receive more than two years of major software updates. Google has even stuck to that rule in the past, with the Pixel 2 being the company's first phone with three years of promised Android updates. According to T-Mobile support pages, Samsung could be planning an Oreo update for its 2015 flagships.
Last August, I published a list of the most and least popular smartphones and tablets used on Android Police. That post was surprisingly popular - and I've had repeated requests for a follow-up. Now that well over a year has passed, I think the time is right for a new installment, and one spanning a far greater time period than the month-long data set I used to compile the last version.
Phones are pretty expensive these days, but you don't necessarily need to spend a lot to get good protection for them. Ringke is currently discounting cases for many phones such as the brand new Galaxy Note8, Galaxy S8/S8+, LG G6, and more to as low as $1.92 shipped per case, which is dirt cheap.
Caseology is a trusted and well-reviewed case maker, so a sale of its products on Amazon may well be of interest to some of you. Particularly those of you who've so far managed not to break that beautiful screen on your Samsung Galaxy S8 or S8+, as there are cases for those devices starting at $4, as well as many others.
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T-Mobile customers may have seen the recent news that Galaxy Note5 owners on AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon were starting to get the Android 7.0 Nougat update, and worried that they were being overlooked. But fear not! It appears that nougaty goodness is just around the corner for you.
Trailing just behind AT&T and Sprint, Verizon is starting to roll out their Android 7.0 Nougat updates for the Samsung Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+. First pointed out by a tipster, information for each is now live on the Verizon site. Not just the usual bug fixes and security updates this time around, as this release finally brings Verizon devices up to speed with the 7.0 version of Android, promising “a fresh, simple user interface” and new customization options.
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The Nougat OTA for the AT&T Galaxy Note 5 (N920A) has been released. Be sure to check yours for updates.
Samsung promised that the S6, S6 edge, S6 edge+, and Note 5 would be getting Nougat in the first half of 2017 and it's starting to fulfill its end of the deal now. Galaxy Note 5 and S6 edge+ devices on Sprint are one of the first to benefit from an OTA update that takes their devices up to Android 7.0.
Well, this is a first. Of all the major OEMs that we cover on Android Police, few give us more headache when it comes to their Android updates than Samsung and LG. HTC, Sony, Motorola have been known to reveal which devices they plan to update to a newer version of Android and to give a timeline of that update, a practice they have followed over the past few years, but Samsung and LG? Radio silence. That frustrated us as reporters and you as users because you never knew if a phone you bought last year would get bumped to a new Android version or not. And you didn't have a timeline. But that has changed today.
AT&T and Samsung are both notoriously bad with Android updates, but they've done a good job with this latest update for the Galaxy Note5 and the Galaxy S6 edge+. Not only does this update bring the latest security update, but it also adds support for AT&T WiFi calling and Advanced Messaging.
Hot on the heels of a recent update to the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, Verizon has released one for the Galaxy Note5 and S6 edge+. Like the S7/S7 edge update, this adds support for a barcode scanning app called Barcode Beaming Service. Unfortunately, Note5 and S6 edge+ owners will not receive the FM radio capability that S7 and S7 edge owners just did. Fixes for Verizon's Advanced Calling are included as well.
Okay, so there's a small chance the Galaxy Note 7 might explode. That's a bummer, but older note phones probably won't do that. It just so happens a lot of them are on salve via Woot today. These are all refurbished phones, and a few of them might have some cosmetic damage, but they're cheap.
About nine months ago, Rootjunky managed to bypass the factory reset protection (FRP) on Samsung devices simply by inserting an OTG drive into the phone and installing an app. Then, two months later, he found a vulnerability on LG phones; this time, he circumvented FRP by using talkback settings to open a browser, downloading an APK that opened settings, adding a new user, switching back to the main account, and then resetting without FRP. However, this new exploit for Samsung phones might be the most ingenious yet.
Software updates are like Christmas gifts for geeks like us. We rush to get them and we can't wait to unpack them, but we never know what we're really going to get. Sometimes it's everything we've been begging for in the past months, other times it's just a pair of socks for... I don't know mom, why did you think I needed socks?!
Minecraft isn't the first game you think about when you hear the word "immersion." No, it's the first one you think of when you hear "surprisingly popular," or "construction-based," or "Notch made more money than Solomon's divorce lawyer." But even so, it's been tied to the new virtual reality trend more than once, most notably thanks to new owner Microsoft's HoloLens platform. That said, a little platform competition isn't going to keep them from making ungodly amounts of money, so check out Minecraft for Samsung's Gear VR headsets.
Samsung and The Weather Channel aren't two companies you would naturally pair together, but they've done just that: the two have partnered up to produce a specialized version of the weather app, exclusive to Samsung's S6 edge, S7 edge, and Note 5.
Galaxy Note 5 owners on Verizon Wireless and Sprint received Android 6.0 last month. Weeks later, the time has come for T-Mobile customers to get the same experience. The carrier has started pushing over-the-air updates to devices.
It's update season at Verizon at the moment, with lots of phones on the network getting updates to Marshmallow. The latest is Samsung's Galaxy S6 Edge+, receiving a build which takes it from the Lollipop-based LMY47X to the all-new MMB29K. The update includes WiFi Calling, a feature which has been in Marshmallow updates for other Samsung devices on Verizon, improvements to the Edge panel, and Live Broadcast, and standard Marshmallow features such as on-demand permissions, Doze, and Now on Tap.