About a week ago, images of the Galaxy Tab S4 were leaked, showing some interesting departures from its predecessor. The screen ratio reverted back to 16:10, and the physical home button was ditched. It looks like similar things are happening with the Galaxy Tab A 8.0 (2018), which has just been leaked by Netherlands-based site NieuweMobiel.
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Chrome for Android has had a home button since its inception, but only on certain devices. Google started experimenting with allowing all devices to have a home button in April, but the feature is still opt-in. Now it appears Google is experimenting with the button's design.
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You may have noticed that when using Chrome on some devices, a home button appears in the address bar. This is because manufacturers can optionally include an APK called 'ChromeCustomizations.apk' in the system folder, which sets default values for the home link and bookmarks (there's an example here). Strangely, if you have a device without ChromeCustomizations.apk, you can't get the home button in the first place.
Now it appears that might finally be changing, according to a new flag discovered by XDA Developers.
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The personal assistant arms race is heating up, as the latest update for Microsoft's Cortana can now easily replace the Google Assistant. If you'd like, the next time you long-press home to pull up your personal assistant, you can find the familiar oscillating purple and white dot staring back at you. The new feature comes via the latest 2.8 update to the Cortana app on Google Play. If you'd like to check out how it works, we gave it a try.
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We're starting to hear a few Galaxy S8 rumors well ahead of the usual Mobile World Congress-ish reveal for Samsung's flagship series (usually around late February or March). That may or may not have something to do with the phenomenal failure of the Galaxy Note 7, after which Samsung must be scrambling to shift potential customers' attention elsewhere. So we're treated with two somewhat credible pieces of Galaxy S8 info in a single week: one that Samsung will drop the headphone jack, and another that the company will finally release its deathgrip on physical home buttons.
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An iPhone 7 take that isn't about the headphone jack? Surprising! But yesterday's Apple announcement contained one piece of information that left me really wondering about the future of the world's most popular brand of Android smartphones. The iPhone 7 has officially ditched the physical home button - and I'd argue that decision makes complete sense. Failed home buttons have been a hallmark of iPhone ownership even from the early days, and relying on an oddly primitive, analog mechanical key as the access point to a device that will likely be used hundreds of times a day by the average owner doesn't really make sense in 2016.
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What you're looking at above could well be the appearance of the navigation bar in Android N on Google's next Nexus phones, Marlin and Sailfish, when they launch - and possibly all devices using the stock navbar in Android N. According to a reliable source, Google's newest Nexuses may be getting a navbar do-over, but it remains unclear at this time if the new design we're seeing here will be available to all devices running N or only Google's in-house Nexus brand. A closer look follows.
A good portion of you have probably been playing with a spiffy new Windows 10 upgrade this week. If you're a fan of Microsoft's HALO-branded digital voice assistant, Cortana, you can check it out on your Android phone, too - it's more or less a remade version of the implementation that debuted on Windows Phone devices. The Android beta app has been available for a few weeks, and Android developers are already having fun with the new tool.
If you're so enamored with Cortana that you'd like to make it the default voice assistant on your Android phone... well, you're probably going to make Microsoft very happy.
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Numerous users have come to us with reports of an option to enable a home button appearing on Chrome's settings page. None of us at Android Police have personally seen this item pop up on our devices, but if it's going out as a limited test, this wouldn't be at all out of the norm. The user who submitted the shots below, taken on an LG G3, says the option doesn't appear on any of his other devices despite having the same (stable) version of Chrome installed.
Once enabled, the option tosses a home button into Chrome's toolbar. It appears to the left of the URL.
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Since the OTAs for KRT16S started rolling out in the middle of last week, some Nexus 4 owners updating from Jelly Bean are experiencing really troubling behavior after installing the new version. There are reports of issues with core interface functionality like a non-working Home button, Quick Settings toggle, a broken dialer, and various other issues. Not all affected devices have had exactly the same results, and many weren't hit, but some unusual complications have definitely started turning up.
The problems seem to be limited to those upgrading from the final version of Jelly Bean (JWR66Y) to the most recent build of KitKat (KRT16S) via the OTA, or using the factory image without wiping data.
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