Table of contents for 39 in Android Advisor

Android O has been available as a Developer’s Preview for a while now, but at the Google IO conference, Google took the wraps off some new features designed to make the next-gen version of Android more accessible, secure, and long-lasting. Let’s start with ‘Fluid Experiences’, or aesthetic design tweaks to the operating system. Android O actually adds some handy new features on this end, such as a ‘picture-in-picture’ mode that minimizes an open app to a small window in the corner if you need to multitask. Who says you can’t multitask on phones? Another addition, ‘notification dots’, steals the look of iOS’s notification bubbles on home screen apps, but makes it more useful. A dot plopped on a home screen app means you have a notification from it; long-pressing the…

We’ve been hearing a lot about how Google Home and Amazon Echo can control our smart appliances and devices, but for many of us, they’re still out of reach. Spending a couple hundred pounds on smart light isn’t an impulse buy, especially if we’re just buying them to try out voice control. But now there’s a much cheaper alternative for smart home newbies. Thanks to IKEA, just about anyone can install smart lighting in their homes and manage them with Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Siri. The Swedish furniture company announced in a press release that you will soon be able to control its affordable line of smart lights with the smart speakers and assistants you already have. IKEA’s bulbs offer a no-frills approach to smart lighting. Unlike Philips Hue…

£381 inc VAT from fave.co/2sCQnuA Wow. That’s what comes to mind when you consider Xiaomi’s new flagship Android phone for 2017. The Mi 6 is around half the price of more familiar flagships such as the Galaxy S8, LG G6, Sony Xperia XZ Premium and HTC U11, but it’s just as fast, just as beautiful, and just as much a must-have for anyone serious about their smartphone tech. A clear contender for snatching the crown for best Chinese phone, the successor to the Mi 5 and Mi 5s takes on design aspects from the Mi Note 2, adds a dual-camera and forward-facing features such as USB-C audio, and tops it all off with faster performance than anything we’ve seen yet. While Samsung is still debating whether to add a dual-camera…

£122 inc VAT from tinyurl.com/yd2t27qg We all try to look after our smartphones and protect them from damage, but for some users doing so is almost impossible. If your job involves manual labour or you’re into extreme sports, your phone is more vulnerable to the elements than most. For these type of users a rugged phone such as this Ulefone Armor will make a great purchase. Available from GearBest at the attractive price of £122, the Armor is IP68-certified waterproof, dustproof, shockproof and can withstand temperatures from -40°C to 80°C. With a Gorilla Glass 3 coating the screen is also scratchproof. Ulefone claims it has an extra strong signal thanks to a large antenna and that plastic casing, which combined with built-in GPS and a compass will be useful in…

Google Lens looks fresh and exciting, though we’ve seen hints of this technology before. Google Goggles might not have been mentioned during the I/O keynote, but its spirit was most certainly present at I/O. Released seven years ago when AI and AR were still in their infancy, Goggles was an app that let you identify places, scan barcodes, and search for prices by snapping a photo of the thing you were looking at. Google Lens, which was announced during the very first minutes of I/O, is essentially a supercharged version of Google Goggles. Built into Assistant and Photos, the new machine learning AI promises to decode the world around us by using Google’s AR and neural networks to scan images and pull out relevant bits of data. Here are the…

Kids are increasingly tech-savvy these days, and even a toddler will manage to use your Android phone or tablet in ways you didn’t know were possible. Apart from running up a heavy bill in app and game purchases, this means your children may also be at risk from online predators and adult content. But you don’t have to live in fear. We’re going to show you how to set up sensible parental controls and create user profiles for kids that you can use in Android 5.0 or later (and in 4.3 onward on tablets). Set up a child’s account on Android We’re using Android (7.1 Nougat) on a OnePlus 3T, but since the interface varies on just about every Android phone don’t expect yours to look identical. The process, though,…

Every time we open a Chromebook and see that an update is available, we get a twinge of excitement. Is this the moment that my Asus Chromebook will finally get Android apps? So far, the answer has been no, and it doesn’t look like that will change anytime soon. Google didn’t have much to say about the state of Android on Chrome OS during its annual Google I/O conference. But the firm did run a dedicated I/O session aimed at teaching developers how to target their apps for Chromebooks and larger screen devices. The big takeaway from the session is that Google is grappling with the same issues we’ve been hearing about for months. At the opening, Google showed some of its own apps, including Google Maps and Hangouts, that…

Android Auto may not get as much attention as Waymo, Google’s more exciting and mysterious self-driving car technology, but it’s chugging along. While no cool new features were unveiled at I/O – we’re still waiting for the Waze integration we were promised at last year’s event – Google’s clearly been busy putting Android Auto directly into cars. Right before I/O, Google announced a partnership with Volvo and Audi to integrate Android Auto right into the navigation system, no phone required. We got to see the Volvo V90’s Android-powered navigation system in action, and it’s a big upgrade from the relatively small screens we use now. The vertical-mounted giant display was similar to the Tesla’s (though not quite as big). As soon as you turn the car on, it comes to…

£649 inc VAT from fave.co/2s3s1gq Okay, we know – we are meant to review every smartphone in isolation, without relentlessly comparing it to others in order to assess it. But by summer 2017 we have already had great things to say about the Samsung Galaxy S8, the Huawei P10 and the LG G6. The HTC U Ultra was announced before any of these phones, back in January at a press conference. HTC has adopted the ‘U’ branding because that’s who it says this phone is for – you. It believes it has designed a highly personal device. It’s definitely different enough to stand out, and we truly wanted to love this phone. In everyday use it does make a half decent argument for itself, but given its obvious flaws, it’s…

Big data on the big stage Leading up to its annual I/O developer conference, Google announced so many new products and features that it was hard to imagine anything would be left. But it left some rounds in the chamber, revealing goodies ranging from an updated Google Assistant to helpful feature updates for hardware like Home and Chromecast to a new vision computing platform that imbues Google apps with the ability to see, understand, and translate the world around you. Android O Even though Android O isn’t new, Google revealed some fresh new features for its upcoming operating system revamp. Highlights include a picture-in-picture mode for app multitasking; ‘notification dots’ that show when a home screen app has associated notifications, summoned with a long-press; and tweaks designed to make everyday…

Google is constantly at work perfecting the latest version of Android, but you might not know that you can help test it out. Before any new version is released, whether it’s a full new major ‘sweet treat’ version (such as the new Android O beta) or a simple maintenance release, you can sign up to test it weeks or months before it’s available for public download. All you need is a Google account and the right phone. And Google makes it easy to sign up, as long as you have one of the newer ‘pure Android’ handsets. Currently, the list is pretty short, but if you own a Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, or one of the Pixel phones, you’re all set. (Additionally, you can install the beta on the short-lived…

Nintendo is charging ahead with its plans for mobile by bringing yet another iconic gaming series to smartphones. The gaming company is reportedly working on a The Legend of Zelda title for Android and iOS, according to The Wall Street Journal. There’s no word on when the game would roll out, but probably in the latter part of 2017. Pricing is also unknown. It may be similar to Super Mario Run, which offers the game as a free download with a few complimentary levels. Anything more than that, however, and you’ll have to pay £9.99.…

£106 inc VAT from fave.co/2s3phzS UMIDIGI has turned out some great-looking phones of late, and despite its budget price tag the C Note is no different. Available from GearBest in grey or gold at the low price of £106, the UMIDIGI C Note is a metal unibody phone with a 5.5in full-HD screen and some mid-range specs. It supports all three UK 4G bands – and on both of its twin SIM slots. Before you jump in and buy the C Note, remember to factor in import duty to the purchase price. This is calculated at 20 percent of the value on the shipping paperwork, plus an admin fee of around £11. Design The C Note has the same premium design as the flagship UMIDIGI Z Pro, with an aluminium…

The future of Android will be a lot smarter, thanks to new programming tools that Google unveiled recently. The company announced TensorFlow Lite, a version of its machine learning framework that’s designed to run on smartphones and other mobile devices, during the keynote address at its Google I/O developer conference. “TensorFlow Lite will leverage a new neural network API to tap into silicon-specific accelerators, and over time we expect to see [digital signal processing chips] specifically designed for neural network inference and training,” said Dave Burke, Google’s vice president of engineering for Android. “We think these new capabilities will help power a next generation of on-device speech processing, visual search, augmented reality, and more.” The Lite framework will be made a part of the open source TensorFlow project soon, and…

Allo hasn’t been the runaway success that Google thought it would be, but that hasn’t stopped it from adding a stream of upgrades and new features. But with the latest new addition, some people might want to give it a second look. With the new update rolling out to the Play Store, Google is introducing a long-rumoured feature called selfie stickers. If you haven’t yet tried out Allo, stickers are central to its appeal, as Google looks to bring an Apple Messages-style whimsy to Android, adorning your conversations with everything from Star Wars to exercising avocados. But selfie stickers add even more personality. Google is using neural networks here “to analyse the pixels of an image and algorithmically determine attribute values by looking at pixel values to measure colour, shape,…