Articles by Michael Allison

HMD Global completes its Android 10 rollout as Android 11 comes out.

What you need to know

HMD Global announced the rollout of Android 10 to the Nokia 3.1 and 5.1.
These are the final phones on its Android 10 rollout list.
The company hasn’t rolled out Android 11 to any of its devices, nor have they announced a rollout plan.

HMD Global is finally rolling out Android 10 to the Nokia 3.1 and 5.1, the company announced on Twitter (via Android Police).

The #Android10 roll out for #Nokia3dot1 is here! Access all of the new features and upgrade your phone experience. Head over to our Community Forum for more details and availability by country: https://t.co/nQmhVAChmj @NokiaMobile pic.twitter.com/mF7LJrH4bq— Juho Sarvikas (@sarvikas) October 7, 2020

The update will be coming to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Georgia, India, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam in th…

Facebook now offers three ways to direct message people on Instagram.

What you need to know

Facebook launched Instagram Threads as a messaging app for Close Friends only.
An update today has turned the app into a general-purpose messaging app.
Facebook last week announced a merger between Instagram Direct and Facebook Messenger, it’s not clear how this change fits with that move.

Facebook today just made a change to its Instagram Threads app, turning it from a place where you communicated with just your Close Friends, to an app where you could direct message just about anyone. In effect, Instagram Threads just became Instagram Messenger.

By way of recap, Facebook launched Threads as an app that would be the opposite of that. It had tested Instagram Direct as a standalone app and killed the project due it being a confusing experience for beta testers who disliked the separate DM app. It then released Threads as an app that was focused on photos and sharing your day to day life w…

ARCore creations can now stick around and be revisited later.

What you need to know

Google introduced persistent Cloud Anchors in preview last year.
It’s rolling out now with ARCore 1.20 for developers.
Now, developers can build apps that leave ‘persistent’ augmented reality creations linked to geographical ‘real world’ locations.

Google will now let ARCore creations stick around longer, the company announced today. It’s doing this with a new feature known as persistent Cloud Anchors, a feature it had in preview over the past year. This is now widely available in ARCore 1.20 to developers who build Android, ISO, and Unity mobile experiences.

So what are persistent Cloud Anchors? Simply put, it’s a tool that lets developers create augmented reality creations and have them exist while being tagged to a “real world” location for a substantial amount of time. In other words, say Mary writes an AR app that displays giant eggs using persistent Cloud Anchors for egg enthusaists, Bob c…

Companies are doubling down on AR as Samsung starts winding down one of its most prominent consumer AR products.

What you need to know

Samsung is disabling App mode, the AR-powered side of Bixby Vision from the end of October.
Bixby Vision will still work for non-AR things like getting translations.
Samsung has been rumored to be dropping Bixby due to pressure from Google.

Samsung is killing off one of Bixby’s differentiating features, the AR support you can find on Bixby Vision. As reported by Android Police, Bixby Vision will now warn users about the loss of AR features starting from the end of October. This means users won’t be able to things like try on makeup or test out furniture virtually with the app.

Bixby Vision offers a bit more than that though. What’s being killed off is what Samsung calls “Apps” mode. Lens mode still remains active, allowing users to do things like run translations, find similar items in a photo, and things like that — essentially, what Google …

Google already teased the Nest Audio back in July.

Update, October 5 (9:00 am ET): The Nest Audio is now available to buy in the US, Canada and India.

What you need to know

Today, Google announced the Nest Audio, a successor to the old Google Home smart speaker.
The Nest Audio will cost $99 from the Google Store and go on sale from October 5 in 21 countries.
Google’s offering this in five colors.

After leaks upon leaks, Google announced the Nest Audio, its 2020 successor for the well-received Google Home smart speaker and bigger brother to the Nest Mini.

Gooogle technically already teased the device way back in July, but this is our first really detailed look at it. it’s a stationary speaker designed to fit in your home space and draw as little attention to itself as possible. It’s got the same minimal, single-tone design that Google is using for its hardware in 2020, and it looks really sleek. It’s also completely covered in fabric like the Nest Mini, and will be able to sit …

A case of the Mondays.

Update, October 5 (03:00 pm ET): Most users should be fine now, but problems remain.

What you need to know

If your’re having issues with Slack, it’s not just you.
The company notes some users are experiencing issues on the desktop, web, and mobile clients.
These issues manifest as connectivity and performance problems, with not all users experiencing it.

Yes, Slack is down this morning, no, that doesn’t mean you get off work — it’s still Monday.

After reports from social media, the company updated its Status side, warning of an ongoing incident that was affecting “some users” worldwide.

“Some users may be experiencing slowness with Slack in the desktop, browser and mobile at this time. The issue is impacting sending messages and troubles with API calls,” the Slack team said. A follow up an hour later didn’t offer much hope, noing that “Some users may be unable to connect to Slack, while others are still experiencing general performance issues. Our tea…

Search by lyrics is rolling out on iOS and Android today.

What you need to know

Spotify will now let you search for songs using lyrics on its mobile app.
This isn’t like Shazam or Assistant, you’ll have to manually enter the song lyrics yourself.
The change is rolling out via an update today to its iOS and Android apps.

Spotify is rolling out a new feature on mobile that will help you identify an unknown song simply by searching its lyrics (via The Verge). As long as you know what those lyrics are, you’ll be able to use those in place of the title.

Spotify will clue you in on which songs it’s surfacing based on matching Lyrics with a Lyrics match tag, so you’ll be able to know that “I’m a Boss” by Meek Mill is surfaced on the title, while “Boss B” by Doja Cat would be matched by its lyrics.

My team just shipped something on iOS and Android – now you can find songs by lyrics ? on Spotify Give it a try ? pic.twitter.com/bOs4Ob9O84— Lina (@linafab) October 5, 2020

Whil…

One UI 2.5 made its appearance on the Samsung Galaxy Note 20. It’s now coming to older flagships as Samsung now promises up to 3 major updates.

Samsung has updated One UI, its own opinionated take on Google’s Android software, version 2.5. The update first made its debut on the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra, and now the company has committed this update bringing it to at least three generations of past flagships.

What’s new in One UI 2.5

Samsung first released One UI 2.5 on the Note 20. It bundles in updates to many of Samsung’s core apps including the Notes app, wireless Samsung DeX, and Reminders. Notes become far more powerful, allowing users to bookmark sections of audio recordings and edit PDF documents. Samsung’s also added syncing so that you can keep your notes in sync across all your devices.

DeX also becomes a lot more powerful with wireless DeX support. Now you can use any compatible smart TV and instantly create a larger workspace while using your Galaxy ph…

The Google Play brand may not be long for this world.

What you need to know

Google Play Movies and TV is being renamed today simply to Google TV.
An app update will bring the name change to U.S. users from today.
Google TV is also the name of Google’s new Android TV interface that ships on its new Chromecast.

Google is rebranding the Google Play Movies and TV app to Google TV, the company announced today. It’s the same name that the company gave its custom interface for Android TV, and its supposed to reflect that the experience it offers with the new Chromecast is also available on mobile.

The rebranding is rolling out as an app update first to users in the U.S. today. Google hasn’t said when it’ll come to people in other countries yet.

With Google Play Music gone and now Google Play Movies and TV, the Google Play brand is losing its power as Google’s entertainment brand. It’s likely that it may rebrand apps like the Play Store and Google Play Books, or simply keep the name…

You’ll get the most out of this app with a Pixel 5, for the next few months at least.

What you need to know

Alongside the Pixel 5 and 4a 5G, Google announced new changes coming to Google Photos.
The app is getting a more powerful and granular manual editor. It’s also getting access to machine learning-powered edit suggestions.
These updates are rolling out to Android phones today.

It seems like just yesterday when Google just launched a Photos redesign alongside a new logo, today it is making a more substantive edit to the Photos app. Google is updating the image editor with new features to coincide with the launch of its new camera-centric phones. These will run the gamut from automated machine-learning aided features to manual features that place more control in your hands. The new app was leaked earlier in the year, but it’s finally being made official.

The first new feature are automatic edit suggestions from Google. The app will highlight actions it thinks will make your p…