Android Archive

Play Store comes to Chrome OS, but not the way we expected

Thom Holwerda 2016-05-19 Android 21 Comments

It's really happening. Android apps are coming to Chrome OS. And it's not just a small subset of apps; the entire Google Play Store is coming to Chrome OS. More than 1.5 million apps will come to a platform that before today was "just a browser," and Android and Chrome OS take yet another step closer together.

In advance of the show, we were able to sit down with members of the Chrome OS team and get a better idea of exactly what Chrome OS users are in for. The goal is an "It just works" solution, with zero effort from developers required to get their Android app up and running. Notifications and in-line replies should all work. Android apps live in native Chrome OS windows, making them look like part of the OS. Chrome OS has picked up some Android tricks too - sharing and intent systems should work fine, even from one type of app or website to another. Google is aiming for a unified, seamless user experience.

Interestingly enough, this project is actually not ARC, the technology Google used before to bring Android applications to Chrome. ARC wasn't good enough for Google, as it still required developers to make changes to their code. In fact - and this is kind of funny - ARC didn't even pass Google's own Compatibility Test Suite Android variants have to comply with. So, they started from scratch, and used containers instead.

The new model dumps the native-client based implementation for an unmodified copy of the Android Framework running in a container. Containers usually bundle an app up with all of its dependencies, like the runtime, libraries, binaries, and anything else the app needs to run. This allows the difference between application environments to be abstracted away. In this case, Google is putting the entire Android Framework into a container, all the way down to the Hardware Abstraction Layer.

I'm hoping Google will eventually bringing Android applications to all variants of Chrome, including the one on Windows.

The explosion of lock screen adware in the Play Store

Thom Holwerda 2016-05-18 Android 35 Comments

The once beloved ES File Explorer was revealed recently to be little more than a Trojan Horse, used to get adware installed on thousands of devices with one update. This was apparently just the beginning. Users have started compiling a spreadsheet of apps that sneak the same adware-infused charging lock screen onto your device. There are already about 20 of them. Google, where are you?

Google needs to address this grotesque abuse of its users quickly and decisively, and remove all applications that install this adware from the Play Store, no questions asked. This is in direct violation of the Play Store rules.

Google’s Andy Rubin defends Android to jury

Thom Holwerda 2016-05-12 Android 80 Comments

During hours of unrelenting cross-examination today, Andy Rubin, Google's former Android chief, was on the stand in the Oracle v. Google trial defending how he built the mobile OS.

Rubin's testimony began yesterday. He's another one of the star witnesses in this second courtroom showdown between the two software giants in which Oracle has said it will seek up to $9 billion in damages for Google's use of certain Java APIs in the Android operating system. Since an appeals court decided that APIs can be copyrighted, Google's only remaining defense in this case is that its use of those APIs constitutes "fair use."

The "API's are copyrightable"-ruling is one of those rulings we will look back on decades from now and point to as "that's where it all went wrong", much like how we now look back upon disastrous rulings like Citizens United or the slew of bad rulings that legitimised software patents.

And we have the despicable Oracle to thank for that. As I've pointed out before, it's no coincidence that the three-pronged legal attack on Android - from Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle - all started at around the same time, and that Larry Ellison was a very close friend of Steve Jobs.

When all this stuff hits the fan even harder, you know who to thank.

Only 7.5 percent of Android phones are running Marshmallow

Thom Holwerda 2016-05-04 Android 67 Comments

Two weeks shy of Google detailing the next big revision of Android at its annual developer conference, the current Android version is still struggling to make its way out to devices. Android 6.0 Marshmallow is currently running on just 7.5 percent of active Android devices that have access to the Google Play Store. The rest of the field is dominated by 2014's Android Lollipop at 35.6 percent, 2013's KitKat at 32.5 percent, and 2012's Jelly Bean at 20.1 percent. 2011's Ice Cream Sandwich still clings on to a stubborn 2 percent and the immortal Android Gingerbread (version 2.3!) accounts for 2.2 percent of Android smartphones.

Using an iPhone 6S since it came out has made me appreciate more and more just how much better Android is than iOS - but it's all for naught if Google doesn't get off its bum and fixes this long-running problem. Now that Android at 6.x is definitively better than iOS, it's way, way, way, way beyond time for Google to drop everything they're doing and somehow find a way to forcefully and resolutely address this deficit.

If the latest version of Android is the best (i.e., the least crappy) mobile operating system out there, but nobody is running it, is it really the best mobile operating system?

Google Play Store headed to Chrome OS

Thom Holwerda 2016-04-25 Android 36 Comments

Google first brought the ability to run Android apps on Chrome OS with a project called the "App Runtime for Chrome (ARC)." Google built an Android runtime on Chrome OS and partnered with select developers to port a handful of Android apps. Now it sounds like Google is ready to unleash millions of Android apps onto the platform by bringing the entire Play Store to Chrome OS.

This is great news, because the more exposure Android applications get to the proper desktop world, the more developers will take that into account when developing Android applications. We need these applications to become properly resizable to prepare them for the future of the desktop/laptop Android Google claimed it's working on.

In addition, it makes Chrome OS - which is going to be phased out in the process - a lot more useful.

EU formally lodges Android antitrust complaint

Thom Holwerda 2016-04-20 Android 58 Comments

The European Commission has formally lodged an antitrust complaint regarding Android.

The European Commission has informed Google of its preliminary view that the company has, in breach of EU antitrust rules, abused its dominant position by imposing restrictions on Android device manufacturers and mobile network operators.

The Commission's preliminary view is that Google has implemented a strategy on mobile devices to preserve and strengthen its dominance in general internet search. First, the practices mean that Google Search is pre-installed and set as the default, or exclusive, search service on most Android devices sold in Europe. Second, the practices appear to close off ways for rival search engines to access the market, via competing mobile browsers and operating systems. In addition, they also seem to harm consumers by stifling competition and restricting innovation in the wider mobile space.

Google has already responded in a blog post (read the whole thing):

The European Commission has been investigating our approach, and today issued a Statement of Objections, raising questions about its impact on competition. We take these concerns seriously, but we also believe that our business model keeps manufacturers’ costs low and their flexibility high, while giving consumers unprecedented control of their mobile devices. That's how we designed the model.

This EU antitrust complaint is one of the biggest jokes in EU antitrust history; an even bigger joke than the Windows N editions. Not only is Android open source, the operating system has created a vastly more open and consumer- and competition friendly mobile operating system than anything else that has ever existed on the market. The situation before Android was absolutely dreadful - dozens, if not hundreds, of closed little feature phone platforms, the closed-source Windows Mobile, the completely locked-down iOS, the heavily fragmented, obtuse, and effectively locked-down Symbian.

The situation after Android is that any user has a lot of control over the software they run on their phone, with tons of cheap, yet high quality devices to choose from. You can install whatever software you want, from whatever source you want, without having to go through Google or anyone else. Developers can target a vast segment of the market - Android has 80% market share in Europe - without being beholden to the nonsensical whims of a single corporation. In addition, users can run Android on pretty much any phone without any additional Google software or services.

The situation clearly isn't perfect by any means, but the real problems with mobile software are not in Android - or iOS for that matter - but in the baseband processors, firmware, and similar software. Far less sexy, of course, and yet a far bigger problem that needs to be tackled.

This entire antitrust complaint is a complete waste of money and taxpayer resources - which, coincidentally, makes it a very EU thing to do.

Ars HTC 10 review: “HTC builds the best Android flagship of 2016”

Thom Holwerda 2016-04-15 Android 21 Comments

The HTC 10 takes the HTC design formula and distills it down to its purest form. There's nothing but excellent smartphone here - no silly gimmicks or odd design decisions. Even the software was treated rather well, with any curiosities relegated to optional parts of the OS that can be turned off or replaced.

HTC really seems to have taken the feedback from the One M9 to heart. The design is much more compact, with less bezel dead space dedicated to speakers and an HTC logo. The SoC is improved by dumping one of the first and hottest Snapdragon 810 implementations for the cooler, faster 820. The ugly side ridge design of the M9 is gone. The camera is a lot better, too, particularly when it comes to low light.

I have a soft spot for HTC, but with Nexus phones being the Android enthusiasts' phones, and with Samsung taking everything else, it's going to be hard for them to sit somewhere in the middle. People who buy Samsung aren't going to suddenly buy an HTC, and toned-down Sense or no, this is still not Android-proper, so updates will be a mess (it's already running outdated software), so enthusiasts won't really be enticed either.

I'm not really sure where HTC's smartphone business is going.

Android Studio 2.0 released

Thom Holwerda 2016-04-11 Android 28 Comments

Android Studio 2.0 is the fastest way to build high quality, performant apps for the Android platform, including phones and tablets, Android Auto, Android Wear, and Android TV. As the official IDE from Google, Android Studio includes everything you need to build an app, including a code editor, code analysis tools, emulators and more. This new and stable version of Android Studio has fast build speeds and a fast emulator with support for the latest Android version and Google Play Services.

This is Android N’s freeform window mode

Thom Holwerda 2016-03-21 Android 25 Comments

We'll get to the instructions, but first let's talk about what's actually here. Freeform Window Mode is just what we imagined. It's a dead ringer for Remix OS - multiple Android apps floating around inside windows - and might be the beginnings of a desktop operating system. It works on Android N phones and tablets, and once the mode is enabled, you'll see an extra button on thumbnails in the Recent Apps screen. To the right of the "X" button that pops up after a second or two, there will be a square shape - the same ugly placeholder art Google used for the split screen mode in the Android M Developer Preview.

Press the square symbol for an app and you'll be whisked away to a screen showing that app in a floating window that sits on top of your home screen wallpaper. The windows aren't floating above the Android desktop; it's just a blank wallpaper without any of your icons or widgets. The floating apps all have title bars like in Recent Apps. You can drag the apps around by the title bars or use the close and maximize buttons. Apps can be resized exactly how you would expect - press or hold on the edge of and all and move your finger, and you'll see the app change shape. Just like in split screen mode, apps will auto-switch between their tablet and phone layouts (with some apps dealing with this better than others). You can only resize in one direction at a time though; there doesn't seem to be a corner hotspot that will let you adjust the width and height.

It's honestly kind of amazing that we get to see both Apple and Google work on scaling up their mobile operating systems for desktop use, with the eventual end goal of replacing Chrome OS and OS X (get used to it, people - OS X is on its way out), and unify everything from desktop, to laptop, to tablet, to phone, in a single user interface that scales from top to bottom.

It's what Microsoft tried to do by scaling down, which honestly didn't pan out very well. We'll see if scaling up is a better approach, but exciting and interesting as it is to see this take shape before our very eyes, I still have my considerable doubts.

Google releases Android N developer preview with multiwindow

Thom Holwerda 2016-03-09 Android 15 Comments

Just a random Wednesday in March, and Google releases the first Android N developer preview. The biggest new feature in this Android N developer preview is, as Google promised, multiwindow.

Multi-window - A new manifest attribute called android:resizableActivity is available for apps targeting N and beyond. If this attribute is set to true, your activity can be launched in split-screen modes on phones and tablets. You can also specify your activity's minimum allowable dimensions, preventing users from making the activity window smaller than that size. Lifecycle changes for multi-window are similar to switching from landscape to portrait mode: your activity can handle the configuration change itself, or it can allow the system to stop the activity and recreate it with the new dimensions. In addition, activities can also go into picture-in-picture mode on devices like TVs, and is a great feature for apps that play video; be sure to set android:supportsPictureInPicture to true to take advantage of this.

As you can see in the video The Verge has up, the multiwindow feature is fairly straightforward, and it looks quite smooth considering it's a beta - see the video on The Verge, or this one for a tablet view. Unlike iOS, the feature is not restricted to just certain tablets; multiwindow on Android N is available on both phones and tablets, in landscape and in portrait.

There's a number of other new features as well, such as improvements to the power-saving Doze feature, notification grouping (finally!), direct replies to notifications, several Java 8 language features, and more. Digging a little deeper into the changes, there's an interesting tidbit about future releases possibly bringing an end to unbound background services.

You can install the Android N developer preview on a Nexus 5X, 6, 6P, 9, 9G, Player, and the Pixel C. You can also enroll your device in Android's new beta program, allowing you to upgrade your device using over-the-air updates, so you don't lose all your data. This program will go live later today.

Cyanogen introduces MODs

Thom Holwerda 2016-02-23 Android 8 Comments

As mods, 3rd party applications that were previously isolated can now take advantage of platform APIs to implement unique experiences directly within Cyanogen OS. Users can install a variety of mods to extend the functionality of their devices. For example, through Cyanogen's partnership with Microsoft, a user can install the Skype mod directly into their dialer to add VoIP calling functionality or they can install the Cortana personal assistant mod to power features like voice-activated selfies.

Cyanogen OS, which isn't CyanogenMod, is introducing MODs, that plug into Cyanogen OS and CyanogenMod. At this point, they are intentionally muddying the waters, right? This is the system Microsoft is using to integrate its services into Android, and now, everybody can use them. The wording here is a bit strange, though, because one of the core strengths of Android is that applications are not isolated, unlike on iOS, where every application looks, feels, and functions like an island.

It's all pretty nifty, and all made possible because of two things: first, Android in and of itself is incredibly extensible, and it contains a ton of APIs for these sorts of things. A lot of this integration can be achieved simply by installing applications from Google Play. Second, it's made possible because Android is open source, so that Cyanogen can make a few changes and claim they're taking Android away from big, bad Google who is giving them Android in the first place, and without whom Cyanogen wouldn't exist, or wouldn't continue to exist.

In any case, let's see if other 3rd parties are going to adopt this. It seems like Android as-is is extensible enough, so I don't see much life in this for most developers and users.

Samsung, LG announce new flagship phones

Thom Holwerda 2016-02-21 Android 21 Comments

Both Samsung and LG announced their new flagship phones for the year, and lo and behold, there's actually something interesting to discuss. First, let's get the new Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge out of the way: even though they look very similar to the S6 and S6 Edge, Samsung has brought back a few things that many here will like: water resistance, and a microSD card slot. In addition, Samsung has revolutionised the smartphone industry by making the S7 and S7 edge slightly thicker to fit a much, much bigger battery and to reduce the camera hump.

The new LG G5 is more interesting. The phone is, of course, kitted with all the latest processors and RAM and whatever, but at the bottom of the device, there's a slot that you can use to snap on all kinds of additional hardware.

Two of these new accessories plug directly into the LG G5's bottom. A small key on the side of the phone pops open its lower section, which can be pulled out along with the battery, then the battery is fitted into the next module and that straps back into the phone. The whole process sounds finicky, but there's nothing flimsy about the way LG has constructed either the phone, its battery, or the extras, so everything can be done quickly and forcefully. And yes, it really does feel like loading a fresh clip into your gun.

If this reminds you of Handspring's Springboard, you're not alone. As with virtually everything in mobile today - everything can be traced right back to Palm.

In any event, as much as I personally always like these kinds of experiments, the problem is that generally, nobody ever builds anything worthwhile for it. These expansion slots always tend to kind of fizzle out, with few actually, really good accessories to ever be released. Which, in turn, raises the question of why you would invest in it in the first pace.

That being said, let's give it a year or so and see what LG and possible third parties are going to do with this. I like the G5 overall, and the expansion slot is a fun and gutsy move (the fact that it is tells you a lot about the state of the industry, sadly).

As always, be careful with these phones if you care about running the latest Android: flagships or no, updates for these things will be messy.

Submitted by KLU9 2016-02-16 Android 8 Comments

After initially thinking this would be great for people who want to do some of the stuff usually done on PC without the expense, now I'm not so sure who it suits. It fits only very simple work, ideally just in the browser or in Google apps; it's not enjoyable or smooth enough for leisure time use; for viewing content you'd be better off with a set-top box; and you can just plain forget playing games on it.

The Remix Mini has its appeals and uses only for pretty basic work. But as it is, here and now, it's not the post-Windows solution that some of us are looking for.

I applaud what Jide is trying to do, but at this point, with Google having openly stated they are working on bringing Android to the desktop, and giving it proper multi-window and all other features that come with it, I see little to no reason to invest too much into these products.

Google rolling out Marshmallow for Android Wear

Thom Holwerda 2016-02-04 Android 5 Comments

Evidence has been mounting over the last few days and it looks like it's finally happening: Android 6.0 for Wear is starting to roll out. Googler Wayne Piekarski just announced on his Google+ feed that OTAs have begun and should continue over the next few weeks.

An official blog post by Google lists some of the new features we can expect in the new firmware, including: newly navigation gestures, audio support on speaker-equipped watches, and expanded support for messaging clients.

The update itself seems a bit 'eh', but the interesting thing here is that all Android Wear devices will be getting this update to Marshmallow, even the first generation Wear smartwatches.

Goes to show that Google does, in fact, know how to do this - now they just need to apply this to phones and tablets.

Google wants to take ‘Apple-like’ control over Nexus devices

Thom Holwerda 2016-02-03 Android 23 Comments

Two very interesting articles about Android's future that are strongly related. First, Vlad Savov wonders why Android OEMs continue to make Android phones when there's little to no profit to be gained.

If there's no money in it, why would a company continue to be an Android OEM today? Ideally, every mobile OEM would like a bottom line that looks like Samsung's, but no others have achieved it. It's not even certain that Samsung Mobile will sustain its profitability, with industry analysts describing its present Herculean efforts as "running to stand still." So how do others bridge the cognitive dissonance between the desired outcome and the perpetual failure to achieve it?

It's no secret that Android OEMs are facing hard times, and since there are no alternatives people are willing to buy, they really don't have anywhere to go... Except exit the smartphone business.

Interestingly enough, that's where the second article, from Ars Technica, comes into play.

A report from The Information (subscription required) states that Google wants to take "greater control" over the design and building of Nexus phones. Currently, a Nexus device is a co-branded partnership between Google's Android team and an OEM, but this report says Google wants to move to a more "Apple-like" approach.

The report says that in the future, "hardware makers will be much more like order-takers, similar to the way contract manufacturers like Hon Hai (Foxconn) follow Apple's directions for producing the iPhone." Apple designs its phones, SoC, and other parts and then ships the plans off to third-party factories to have them built.

I'm sure Google is looking at the massive profits Apple is raking in with its iPhone, as well as the tight control Apple gets to exert over its hardware, and thinking to itself: why aren't we doing this? Looking at the complete failure of OEMs to properly update phones, I can't do anything but strongly applaud Google taking the Nexus program closer to its chest, and build true Google phones.

BlackBerry: “the future is really Android”

Thom Holwerda 2016-02-01 Android 32 Comments

Speaking with The Economic Times of India, Damian Tay (Senior Director for Product Management, BlackBerry Asia Pacific) described the new Priv as "essentially our transition to Android ecosystem. As we secure Android, over a period of time, we would not have two platforms, and may have only Android as a platform . But for now, we have BB10 and Android platforms for our smartphones."

If those comments somehow left you in any doubts about the company's intentions, Tay continued: "The future is really Android. We went for Android essentially for its app ecosystem. In addition, all the enterprise solutions that we have been doing have been cross-platform for a long time now. So it's a natural progression towards Android."

Just in case you thought BB10 had a future.

Why Android Sucks even though it does not

Submitted by Anonymous 2016-01-25 Android 51 Comments

Do not be mislead by the title of this page: Android by and large is the best mobile operating system out there however as a fan of it, I cannot help but notice certain things which warrant attention and should be fixed right away because they are simply crucial.

This is from the same author of the similarly-styled Linux, Windows 10 and iOS lists.

Google tests installing Android apps straight from Google Search

Thom Holwerda 2016-01-20 Android 27 Comments

But Google over the past year or so has gotten serious about getting more apps in front of more users, particularly in search results - which remains Google's bread and butter. App indexing - wherein Google actually sorts through the content of an app so it can present it back to users in any number of ways - is the key to all this. You can open a traditional web search result directly into an app. And later Google would show a button that take you to the Play Store to install the app.

And now Google has cut out the middleman - for some of us, at least - by skipping the step of opening the Google Play Store app before installing. Technically speaking, that's probably not a huge leap. And, frankly, it's not as big a deal as headlines are making it seem.

Installing applications is just one of the many things where Android outshines iOS. For instance, it's 2016, and you still can't install applications from the App Store web listing to your iPhone or iPad. I spend most of my computing time on my desktop computer, and I've lost count of how many times I came across an interesting iOS application, only to realise that the only way to actually install on my iPhone was to actually get my iPhone, which could be anywhere in the house, open the App Store, search for the application, hopefully actually find it (search in the App Store is dreadfully bad), and then install it, all the while hoping the App Store app won't soil its undies halfway through.

For Android applications, I just click install on the Play Store web listing, and I'm done. It's one of those niceties that companies that understand web services can do properly without much effort. And it seems like Google is taking all this a step further now, allowing you to install stuff straight from Google Search

Meanwhile, the iOS App Store application is so unreliable and terrible, it needs a hidden "tap ten times to reload" shortcut.

OK.

Dutch consumer group sues Samsung over Android updates

Thom Holwerda 2016-01-18 Android 68 Comments

Well, this is interesting. The Dutch Consumentenbond, the largest consumer protection advocacy agency in The Netherlands, today filed a lawsuit against Samsung demanding the company starts properly updating its Android phones. The Consumentenbond had been in talks with Samsung about this issue for a while now, but no positive outcome was reached, and as such, they saw no other option but to file suit.

The Consumentenbond is demanding that Samsung provides two years of updates for all its Android devices, with the two-year period starting not at the date of market introduction of the device, but at the date of sale. This means that devices introduced one or even more years ago that are still being sold should still get two years' worth of updates starting today.

There's actually an official English version of the press release (as a translator, I am genuinely surprised about that).

Bart CombÃ©e, director of the Consumentenbond: "On buying a Samsung Android device, consumers are given inadequate information about how long they will continue to receive software updates. The Consumentenbond is demanding that Samsung provide its customers with clear and unambiguous information about this. Samsung moreover provides insufficient information about critical security vulnerabilities, such as Stagefright, in its Android phones. Finally, the Consumentenbond is demanding that Samsung actually provide its smartphones with updates."

The Consumentenbond's own research has shown that 82% of the Samsung phones sold in The Netherlands did not get updates to the most recent version of Android in the two-year period, which leads to all kinds of security issues and other problems. While Samsung, which has a smartphone market share in The Netherlands of about 80% (yeah... Sorry about that), is the focus of this particular lawsuit, the Consumentenbond notes that other manufacturers are guilty of the same problems.

It will not come as a surprise to any of you that I sincerely applaud this effort. The Android update clusterfrick is by far the biggest problem in the Android world, and OEMs should be, if possible, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for their negligent practices regarding updating their software. There is an extremely strong mandatory EU warranty policy on all products sold in the EU of at least two years, and Samsung and other Android OEMs are clearly failing to follow this law.

That being said, the minutiae of any possible outcome of this lawsuit are extremely crucial. Not only should Samsung and other OEMs be legally forced to release updates for their smartphones for at least two years (I would personally prefer three or four years, actually, but let's start somewhere), the updates ought to be timely. Every Android smartphone should be updated to the latest version of Android for two years after sale of said smartphone, with each update being released no later than four weeks after code availability from Google.

If this means they have to spend more resources on their development team - so be it. If this means they can no longer sell outdated, crappy hardware because newer Android versions would be too slow - so be it. If this means they have to work more closely with Google to prepare for new releases - so be it. None of that should be the concern of any consumer.

Sony’s Z5 Compact is coming to the US

Thom Holwerda 2016-01-15 Android 11 Comments

If you long for the days of 2011, when 5.3-inch smartphones were enormous outliers rather than the norm, Sony has some news that may interest you: its flagship Xperia Z5 smartphone and its smaller-but-still-high-end sibling the Xperia Z5 Compact are coming to the US on February 7, 2016.

Sony smartphones are the only non-Nexus Android phones I'd even remotely consider buying. Even though they, too, suffer from the ridiculous update situation, they are at least trying to sell a nice, compact, high-end Android phone. In fact, I find it kind of remarkable that some version of the Z5 Compact isn't available in a Nexus configuration.