Google has released the Android distribution numbers for May 2017, giving us an overview of the general Android ecosystem. Android Nougat finally reaches the 7% mark with a steady growth pattern. The data was recorded in a 7-day period ending on May 2nd.
The rising Nougat stats reflects the ongoing situation as OEMs continue to finally push the Android 7.x update to supported phones. Android O won’t hit the market for at least a few more months, so it’s still ripe to capitalize on the Nougat excitement. This growth is similar to last month’s 2.1%. Android Nougat is still less popular than KitKat, though, which goes to show just how popular the low end devices truly are.
Surprisingly, Nougat is not the only system that recorded growth in numbers. The other two are Gingerbread (!) and Lollipop. We’re not really sure why or how these two Android OS versions are seeing growth, though. The latter is still the distribution leader with about 32% of devices running Android 5.x. Second place goes to Marshmallow and the third is occupied by KitKat. Both systems are respectively running on 31.2% and 18.8% of devices. KitKat is showing a drop by 1.2%.
These numbers show how fragmented the Android ecosystem is. Gingerbread was released in December 2010 and is still the main operating system for 1% of devices, which keep in mind represents thousands of users out there. Android 2.3 is still more popular than Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, which runs on 0.8% of devices but should soon fall by the wayside.
We have some pretty good news for Honor 6X users. This smartphone is now receiving an update to Android Nougat with EMUI 5.0 on board. Some devices should already get a notification about the available update, but the update should hit all of devices by late May.
Android 7.0 brings a lot of awesome features including native multi-window and better notification support. EMUI has also received a major update and it fixes a lot of EMUI’s previous annoyances such as the background app killing. The update is definitely a step in the right direction for Huawei’s software. We are still waiting for users to post an OTA link, but nevertheless, you can also try to find an update for your Honor 6X device using the Huawei Firmware Finder.
The Honor 6x was released in October 2016. This phone has a 1080 x 1920 resolution display. Its CPU is an Octa-core (4×2.1 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4×1.7 GHz Cortex-A53) processor. The GPU is a Mali-T830MP2. The two variants of this phone feature 32GBs of storage and 3/4GBs of RAM, or 64GBs of storage with 4GBs of RAM. The Honor 6x adopts the dual camera system that was popular with the Honor 8; it has back two cameras that are 12MP each and a front camera that is 8MP. The battery has a capacity of 3340 mAh.
You can start tapping the update button right now to see if the update has arrived for your phone, but if it hasn’t, stay tuned to the Honor 6X forums to see when a user captures an OTA link.
UMIDIGI has announced a new edge-to-edge smartphone display in their UMIDIGI Crystal phone. Cash in on the bezel-less trend that is taking over the smartphone world without spending an absurd amount of money.
Following the iPhone 7 knockoff known as the UMIDIGI G, which was just announced yesterday, they launched another new phone today on their officialwebsite. This one is following the trend that we are seeing in many of the flagship phones out recently. The edge-to-edge screen on the UMIDIGI Crystal is bringing this high end feature to a budget phone.
UMIDIGI has made this new phone to be affordable for just about everyone, offering a really good looking phone with decent specs at a great price. This company continues to find themselves paving the way when it comes to premium features in their budget devices. This phone is going head-to-head with the Xiaomi Mi Mix, another well-known frameless smartphone.
The Crystal comes in two different versions. According to UMIDIGI’s website, there is a Lumia edition which is the pro version. There is also an all-metal unibody version. Both versions will come with the MTK Helio P25 processor with 4GB RAM and 64GB of storage. The edge-to-edge display has a 5.5” full-HD AMOLED screen.
You’ll be able to get the Crystal on June 15, but right now you can get a killer pre-order price of $99 by subscribing to UMIDIGI’s official website.
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One of the world’s smallest, yet still usable smartphone has just been announced on Kickstarter. Jelly is a smartphone with a 2.45″ display size running Android 7.0. Compare that to flagship devices with 6″ or larger screens that only a small group of people can hold one-handed. A modern smartphone in the body of a Nokia 8210 from 1999? Sounds interesting.
Jelly will be available in two versions. The base model will sport 1 GB of RAM and 8 GBs of ROM, while the Pro variant will double these specifications. Both the base and the Pro model share a quad-core 1.1GHz Cortex A53 processor, a 240 x 432 resolution display at 201 PPI, and a 950mAh battery. Unihertz company, the creators behind Jelly, believe that the 950mAh battery should give enough juice to last for at least three days. We’ve become so accustomed to QHD phones with 3,000mAh+ battery capacities that we’re honestly not sure how to judge that claim without running an actual test, but we’re intrigued enough to find out.
The world’s smallest 4G smartphone sports two nano SIM-card slots, a microSD slot that supports cards up to 32 GBs, dual cameras (2 and 8 MP), GPS connectivity, and Bluetooth. The smartphone will run Android Nougat out of the box. You can actually see it in action in the video below posted by the popular Unbox Therapy YouTube channel.
Unihertz’s device will hit the market in August. The base model will cost just $109, while the Pro model is priced at $125. You can save some money by pledging to the Kickstarter project, which has already reached its $30,000 goal in just 57 minutes, which is an impressive result. Perhaps people are venting their frustrations at the ever-growing monster phones of the current year, a trend which does not appear to be subsiding any time soon. Although we do wonder, is the 2.45″ screen enough to become a daily driver?
Developers building apps that require close integration with the hardware in order to maximize performance, take advantage of new sensors or security features, or support new peripherals need to purchase a device that contains the hardware they are looking to test against. Developers of AOSP-based ROMs are also examples of people who need to work closely with the hardware inside of a device in order to ensure that all components will function properly. As such, developers often rely on reference boards that contain the same base hardware of smartphones, excluding the display, battery, and all the other things that make it usable to a non-developer. Recently, Linaro and Huawei announced the HiKey 960 96boards development platform to provide developers access to a reference board with the latest ARM technology.
The new board is based around the Huawei Kirin 960 octa-core ARM big.LITTLE™ processor with four high-end ARM Cortex-A73 and four low-power Cortex-A53 cores with 3GB of LPDDR4 SDRAM memory, 32GB of UFS 2.0 flash storage, and the latest generation Mali-G71 MP8 graphics processor. Here are the full specifications of the board.
SOC
Kirin 960 octa-core CPU
CPU
4x Cortex-A53 cores to 1.8 GHz, 4x Cortex-A73 cores to 2.4 GHz
GPU
Mali-G71 MP8 GPU
SOFTWARE
AOSP with 4.4 AOSP common kernel
STORAGE
32GB UFS 2.0 flash storage, MicroSD card
DISPLAY INTERFACE
HDMI 1.2a up to 1080p plus 4-lane MIPI DSI
USB
1 x USB 2.0 type C OTG port, 2 x USB 3.0 type A host ports
CONNECTIVITY
Dual-band 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1 with on board antennas
CAMERA
1x 2-lane MIPI CSI, 1x 4-lane MIPI CSI
IO EXTENDED INTERFACE
40 pin low speed expansion connector +1.8V, +5V, DC power, GND, 2x UART, 2x I2C, SPI, I2S, 12x GPIO, 60 pin high speed expansion connector 4L MIPI DSI, 2L+4L MIPI CSI, 2x I2C, SPI (48M), USB 2.0, PCIe Gen2 on M.2 M Key connector
MISC
4x user LEDs, LEDs for WiFi & Bluetooth, Power button
POWER SUPPLY
12V/2A power supply recommended, 8V-18V/2A via 4.75/1.7mm power barrel (EIAJ-3 Compliant)
DIMENSIONS
85mm x 55mm
Linaro has also announced that the device will have initial support of Linux 4.4 kernel. It’s not the last mainline version of the kernel that will be supported, though, as Linux 4.9 is already in the works. This is great news for developers as the latest stable Linux kernel version at this moment is 4.10. Furthermore, device will run AOSP out-of-the-box, though Android will not be the only compatible operating system as developers will be able to port any Unix-based OS to the board.
The CPU embedded has enough power to encode 4K videos, but the provided HDMI port will stream the video up to 1080p. That’s not a perfect solution, nevertheless it should suffice for most of the potential users. The board allows attaching other hardware like cameras, and the PCIe M.2 M Key connector should also allow connecting fast SSD to expand the in-built 32 GBs of storage.
The team behind the board has also published a YouTube video with an in-depth explanation of the product.
HiKey 960 reference boards are already available to buy. While most of the current ARM devices cost less than $100, the LeMaker HiKey 960 Single Board Computer costs a whopping $239. It’s certainly not cheap, but this price should not be an obstacle if you are looking for a powerful development unit based on the Kirin 960.
Don’t assume that because this reference board runs AOSP and its kernel source has been released that you’ll be seeing stable AOSP ROMs on your Huawei Mate 9, Honor 8 Pro, or Huawei P10 though, because you’ll still need the device specific drivers in order for all hardware components such as the touchscreen, charger, and display to function properly.
Chrome OS is slowly but steadily gaining popularity as the OS of choice for users on a limited budget. By offloading most data storage to the cloud, Chrome OS machines can afford to pack low storage discs to keep costs low. In addition, the light-weight nature of Chrome OS, built on the Linux kernel, allows the operating system to run reasonably fast on a wide range of hardware. As a result, Chrome OS has come to be most associated with the educational market.
Of course, as far as computers are concerned, Microsoft can not be left out of the discussion. In order to compete more directly with Chrome OS, Microsoft has announced a new version of Windows 10 called Windows 10 S. Apps on Windows 10 S are downloaded from the Windows Store, so it requires that developers interested in targeting this OS will have to go through the official Store to market their app on this new platform. Windows 10 S can run desktop apps, but these apps will need to be specially packaged to work. Microsoft will bring full versions of apps in the Microsoft Office Suite to the Windows Store too, so Windows 10 S can take advantage of Microsoft’s powerful collection of software as well.
Windows 10 S also supports many peripherals and devices like Windows 10 does. Microsoft notes that the login process on this OS has been tweaked, taking just 15 seconds for a student to log in and use for the first time. Administrators can also set up machines using a USB drive with pre-configured options as Windows 10 S will detect the key and customize all the settings as necessary for school, making mass setup much less of a pain.
Microsoft’s goal with Windows 10 S is to have a wide range of partners create devices that run this new variant of Windows 10. The first two hardware partners, outside of its own premium $999 Surface Laptop, are Acer and HP. Both HP and Acer are releasing school-focused laptops with Windows 10 S that will sell for $299. Other devices with the new OS variant will also be released this summer, going as low as $189, so you will have more affordable budget options to choose from.
Windows 10 S will also be available for free to schools that are currently running Windows 10 Pro PCs and this switch will include free Office 365 for Education along with Microsoft Teams. If you want to go the other way around, i.e. upgrade from Windows 10 S to Windows 10 Pro, you will have to shell out $49 as a one-time fee. It remains to be seen if that price is worth the convenience of running all desktop apps like normal.
What are your thoughts on Windows 10 S? Can Microsoft compete with Chrome OS in the education market? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Google Instant Apps is a feature that allows users to “stream” parts of existing Android applications so they can try the app out in its native look without having to install the app. Instant Apps requires small modifications from the developers’ end, but once approved by Google to implement these changes these applications will be able to reach a wider audience as users share organically share links to their friends and family. Instant Apps was initially introduced during Google I/O 2016 but it was only until January of this year that a few devices and a few apps could take advantage of Instant Apps.
However, with the release of Google Play Store v7.8.15, Instant Apps may start to see a wider release. In an APK teardown of this release, we’ve discovered new strings and an Activity that will allow users to opt in to Instant Apps.
Although an APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by Google in a future build.
Play Store 7.8.15 APK Teardown
As usual, we can find evidence of new features by seeing what strings have been added to the APK file. In this case, we can see that the Google Play Store will add support for choosing which of your Google accounts to use with Instant Apps.
Play Store 7.8.15 Instant Apps
<string name="instant_app_settings_menu_help">Help</string>
<string name="instant_apps_settings_change_account_dialog_cancel">cancel</string>
<string name="instant_apps_settings_change_account_dialog_description">All instant apps and associated app data, including app permissions, will be removed for the current account.</string>
<string name="instant_apps_settings_change_account_dialog_ok">change account</string>
<string name="instant_apps_settings_change_account_dialog_title">Change account?</string>
<string name="instant_apps_settings_description">You can use apps without installing them. Choose a Google Account to use for app sign-in and payments.</string>
<string name="instant_apps_settings_open_links_dialog_cancel">cancel</string>
<string name="instant_apps_settings_open_links_dialog_description">For this feature to work also turn on Open links in apps</string>
<string name="instant_apps_settings_open_links_dialog_ok">turn on now</string>
<string name="instant_apps_settings_open_links_dialog_title">Turn on required setting</string>
<string name="instant_apps_settings_opt_out_dialog_cancel">cancel</string>
<string name="instant_apps_settings_opt_out_dialog_description">All instant apps and associated app data, including app permissions, will be removed for the current account.</string>
<string name="instant_apps_settings_opt_out_dialog_ok">turn off</string>
<string name="instant_apps_settings_opt_out_dialog_title">Turn off Instant Apps?</string>
<string name="instant_apps_settings_title">Instant Apps account</string>
<string name="instant_apps_settings_turn_instant_apps_off">None</string>
<string name="debug_run_instant_apps_hygiene_summary">Immediately trigger Instant Apps Hygiene service</string>
<string name="debug_run_instant_apps_hygiene_title">Run Instant Apps Hygiene</string>
<string name="publisher_name_instant_app">Instant App</string>
Judging by what’s in these strings, Instant Apps will be an opt out process. Publishers whose apps support the Instant Apps service may show a special indicator in the Play Store that their app supports the service, too.
In addition, there are several XML files within the APK that define how the Instant Apps settings screen will appear to the user. These files are named instant_apps_settings_account_row.xml, instant_apps_settings.xml, and instant_apps_settings_menu.xml.
Finally, since the Instant Apps Activity itself is accessible if you manually launch the right intent, we were able to start it to see what it would look like. Here’s a screenshot of the Instant Apps account selection screen where you can pick which account will store app data and make payments associated with Instant Apps.
I’ll continue digging around and update this article if I find anything interesting in the live build, or through an APK teardown. If you are looking for this latest release of the Google Play Store app, you can download it right now over at APKMirror. Follow our APK Teardown tag for more articles like this!
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