Android Advisor

google adds password checkup to android

Google has announced it’s ensuring that password security straddles both your phone, your PC and your Chromebook. The company is bringing Password Checkup, a feature it introduced to Chrome in 2019, to Android. Password Checkup simply ensures that a password you either pick or are currently using hasn’t been exposed in a password breach. Every year or so password files at major sites are breached and leaked to the web. Knowing if your password has been stolen and compromised is a significant part of maintaining your online security. Google is bringing Password Checkup to Android versions 9 and later, via what it calls Autofill for Google. “Whenever you fill or save credentials into an app, we’ll check those credentials against a list of known compromised credentials and alert you if your password…

send texts on your own time with android’s new schedule send feature

Google has revealed that it’s beginning to roll out Schedule Send, a way for you to schedule texts in Android Messages in much the same way you might schedule an email. Schedule Send is one of several new features Google announced for Android, along with Password Checkup, an improved dark mode for Google Maps, and a few enhancements to Android Auto and Google Assistant. The tech giant designed the new Schedule Send feature to be simple to use – it’s certainly simple to explain. To trigger it, all you’ll need to do is long-press the Send button in Messages. That will open up the scheduling menu, and you’ll be able to pick a date and time to send your message. You’ll need an updated version of Messages to enable this,…

getting started with gesture navigation

Android 11 makes numerous changes throughout the OS, including some tweaks to system navigation. Starting in Android 11, almost all devices will default to Google’s new gesture navigation, which might take a little adjustment on your part. There are a few ways you can make navigation on Android 11 more to your liking in just a few taps. THE QUICK-SWITCH GESTURE Several phones have tutorials that teach you how to use the new gesture nav system, but none of them get around to explaining the quick-switch gesture. This is one of the most useful parts of Android’s gesture nav, allowing you to move between apps instantly. You can always enter the multitasking overview by swiping up and holding, but you can switch to the last-used app simply by swiping left to right on the…

how google turn android into just another subscription

At a time when version updates are becoming less of an issue and major phone makers are finally beginning to guarantee years of updates, Google might have found a way to end Android fragmentation once and for all: by turning it into a service. The signs are there. On 11 February, Google announced that several ‘Pixelfirst’ features in Google Photos – Portrait Blur, Portrait Light and Color Pop – won’t actually be coming to all Android phones as expected. Instead, Google is offering them as a benefit to Google One subscribers, effectively putting them behind a paywall along with what Google calls “other new machine learning-powered effects”. Granted, these aren’t huge features, and most people probably won’t even care whether they have them. Google Photos is a few steps removed from Android.…

this android 12 leak looks an awful lot like ios 14

In just a few weeks, we should get our first sneak peek at the next version of Android when the developer preview builds start rolling out. But we may have just got our first taste of what Android 12 is going to bring, and if you like iOS 14, you’re going to love it. XDA Developers has got its hands on “an alleged early draft of a document that Google made to summarize changes in Android 12”, and there are some obvious UI changes. You’ll immediately see more rounded corners for notifications, a simpler Quick Settings pane, and clear indicators when apps are using the camera or microphone. There isn’t a lot to go on yet, but as you can see in the images, Android 12 is taking a few UI cues…

samsung has out-googled the pixel at guaranteeing android updates

Android updates might be the butt of many a joke, but Samsung is working hard to make sure it’s no laughing matter for Galaxy owners. Just months after promising most new Galaxy phones would be receiving three generations of Android version updates, Samsung has vowed to deliver four years of security updates to nearly every Galaxy phone made since 2019. That’s an impressive promise for a phone company that, just a year ago, wasn’t guaranteeing anything in terms of updates. Most new phone purchases were good for a year or two of updates, but only the Pixel, which is made by Google, and Android One-based phones were on the record about how long you would be receiving updates. Now Samsung is doing one better than Google, which guaranteed only three years…