Image Credit: AllThingsD
Eric Schmidt, Google’s former CEO and current Chairman, talked to AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher for an hour on Wednesday evening, sharing his views on Google’s current state of affairs but also on the tech world as a whole.
Apple vs Google – the “defining fight” Apple came up quite a few times during the interview, with Schmidt eyeing it as one of the most important Google competitors, if not the most important one – he sees important rivals in other companies like Amazon and Facebook, but not Microsoft, at least not for now.
As the world waits for the impending arrival of the Samsung Galaxy S3, more details trickle out about the flagship phone, making tech pundits pore over every little scrap of information, in a sort of virtual feeding frenzy. Coming from the same source that revealed the physical home button and 5-column layout of the phone, a new report allegedly reveales the process used to produce the true HD Super AMOLED display of the Samsung Galaxy S3.
The Find X has a 6.42-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 2,340 x 1,080 pixels and an aspect ratio of 19.5:9. The panel is curved on the sides like on the Galaxy S9 series, doesn’t have a notch, and is surrounded by extremely thin bezels — 93.8 percent screen-to-body ratio. In fact, the top bezel is so thin there’s no room to fit for the phone’s 25MP front-facing camera. Oppo took a page out of Vivo’s playbook, hiding the selfie snapper in a module inside the device, which pops up from the top edge in just 0.
Starting today, via Droid Life, Verizon-branded LG G6’s will receive an update to Android 8.0 Oreo. The OTA weighs in at 1.9GB, so be sure to connect to Wi-Fi and have plenty of battery charge before beginning the process. Also, make sure you have enough space on your device to accommodate the big file!
LG G6 update tracker (Update: AT&T variant finally getting Oreo!)
News
Once you do update, you’ll have access to the usual Oreo features like picture-in-picture, notification dots, and access to Android Instant Apps.
A huge aspect of the Essential Phone is the concept of modularity. Sure, this idea has been adapted time and time again, but outside of OEM’s like Motorola we haven’t seen many companies follow through with their promises of vast selections of module adapters.
Essential is taking a bit of a different stance on these modules, putting the idea of the phone first and offering add-ons that can enhance the experience if the user chooses they want to.
Not only does the update include visual updates, such as pumpkins for heads on several zombies, but it comes with other additions too. For example, players can now wield a crossbow for 99 in-game “gold” – you have to complete offers to obtain the virtual currency. Moreover, the update includes a new arena, Haunted Graveyard, “the scariest place in the City,” a spooky addition to Madfinger’s take on the festive season.
Other changes include the mini gun, which also comes at a reduced price, while the AlienGun effect has been improved for lower-end devices, meaning higher frames-per-second.
Last month the team behind theMinuum keyboard revealed they were working on bringing their one-line keyboard over to Android Wear devices. Now that the first Android Wear devices are commercially available, Minuum is bringing us an early demo showing us exactly how their keyboard works on the cramped screen of an Android Wear smartwatch.
As you can see in the video above, using the keyboard seems to work rather well, in large part thanks to the excellent predictive capabilities built into Minuum.
An Android-powered smartphone previously known as the M4 is now said to be on its way to T-Mobile USA. It’s none other than the HTC One Mini, which we first covered in earlier reports from the start of this month. An HTC developer that goes by the Twitter handle LlabTooFer confirms that the HTC M4 and the HTC One Mini are indeed one and the same. @WhizGidget I'm not sure that Verizon will launch One Mini in near future…T-Mobile USA will have it for sure… When the HTC One Mini will actually become available through T-Mobile USA is still unclear at this point, but it looks like it might be a carrier-exclusive by the time it arrives.
Sundar Pichai
TL;DR
Qualcomm has taken a shot at Google with a new tweet. The tweet takes aim at Google’s decision to offer its own custom chipset. Google’s Pixel 6 series marks the first time that the Mountain View company is offering a Pixel phone without Qualcomm Snapdragon power, as Google opts for its in-house Tensor chipset instead.
It looks like this may have ruffled Qualcomm’s feathers, as the company took advantage of a new red flag meme on Twitter to take a swipe at Google (h/t: Android Central).
The best selling Android smartphone in the first quarter of 2017 didn’t come from the usual suspects like Samsung, LG, Huawei, or Xiaomi. Instead, a new report claims the OPPO R9s was the most popular Android phone during the quarter, as it shipped 8.9 million units worldwide.
Best Chinese Android phones (December 2018)
The Best
The report, from the research firm Strategy Analytics, stated that Apple’s iPhone 7 was the best selling overall smartphone during the last quarter, with 21.