Android Pay and Fingerprint Sensor: Android M Spotlight

What is Android Pay?

Android Pay will be Google's newest mobile payment app. It will work on devices running Android 4.4 KitKat and up. In Android 4.4 Google introduced  native support for tap & pay mobile wallet apps. In the spirit of open source this was a good thing, it allowed developers the chance to become the next mobile wallet app of choice. The only problem is that mobile payments are extremely complex and the support in Android 4.4 was just to allow apps to work better in instances where multiple mobile wallets were installed and just overall better support. When you create a mobile wallet app you need to have agreements with financial institutions to facilitate those transactions. Android Pay does that by creating a better platform for these apps. It is the same thing as Google Wallet but when something is labeled Android that means it is open source and can be used by other developers where you couldn't do that with Google Wallet. 

The other neat feature that this will allow is for shopping apps. When you go to check out you can use Android Pay instead of entering in all your information. Apple Pay has a very similar (may be the same) implementation and this would essentially allow the user to store their payment information and not have to enter it into every app they buy items from.

App Permissions: Android M Spotlight

App permissions have long been a controversial topic for Android apps, lately there have been numerous articles regarding flashlight apps and the permissions they request. Google wants to make permissions easier for people to use and understand so that they can control their apps the way they want.

How it Works

Typically when you install an app from the Play Store you are provided a list of permissions that the app wants access to. In order to install the app, you must by default, accept these requests or no app for you. With Android M this changes, instead when you install the app you don't have to accept the permissions, instead you grant or deny them when the app actually needs it. For example if you download Facebook Messenger and you go to send a picture, the app will pop up a little window asking if you want to give the app permission to view your files. Same goes for using the camera in Messenger, if you want to take a picture it'll ask you for permission to use the camera first. The ability for users to fine tune their app permissions will go a long way for developers and trust.

Google Now on Tap: Android M Spotlight

Now on Tap

A cleverly worded feature for a equally clever feature. In its extended name Google Now on Tap is a new way to interact with Google Now making the app much smarter. Google Now will become aware of what is on your screen and give you the ability to take immediate action. Thus if you are looking at an email that says something about a location you can hold the home button and Google Now on Tap will show you information about that place. If somebody reminds you to do something Google Now on Tap will detect that and allow you to add that as a reminder. It will even allow you to use pronouns to ask questions, so if you're looking at a picture of an animal and ask Google Now on Tap, "What is that?" it will know you are referring to the image and search for you. When we speak commands to our smartphones users have to be very specific because smartphones typically can't pick up context. This also works with music, the example Google used on stage during I/O '15 was Skrillex. They had a song playing by him and then asked Google, "What's his name?" and Google served a result with Skrillex's real name, it was really cool from a technical stand point. My only question is, will we be able to leverage this feature an any app that happens to be playing music or will the music app need to take advantage of Google Now API's to do that. I'm sure if I watch the workshop video about Now on Tap I could find out for sure.

Why You Should Care

Google Now on Tap is honestly the most useful feature Google has announced for Android M, and although Now on Tap seems extremely gimmicky it is actually unbelievably useful. If I get a text message from my girlfriend asking me to pick something up at the store, I can hold the home button and Google Now on Tap will show up for me to add a reminder to pick something up at the store. The alternative is almost as easy using voice commands but this cuts that part right out of the equation. On top of that if she says she wants to go out to Olive Garden for dinner I can hold the home button and the Google Now card for Olive Garden will show up along with links to call, navigate, get reviews, and reservations. There are tons of uses for Now on Tap and honestly I will probably be writing an entire article about this later. Basically this features gives the average user the ability to take advantage of Google Now and all its features without needing to know what voice commands are required.

Ambient Display Explained

Ambient Display is a feature new to Android 5.0 that allows you to glance at your notifications without lighting up your entire screen. The Moto X (2013) introduced us to this feature which was called Active Display at the time. Instead of the traditional notification LED light that is on most smartphones to indicate a new notification, this feature was made so users could see what they were. The most interesting part of this feature is that it has a low impact on battery, which is why it is so popular.

How it Works

Ambient Display works by using a specialized chip inside the phone's SoC to monitor the phone's movement. This chip is specially designed to only read the sensor information in order to use the least amount of power as possible. Without it, your device would have to use the main processor or application processor as its more formally known as to monitor for motion. Since the application processor is much more advanced we would see a significant drain in battery and our phone would never reach deep sleep mode. 

The magic doesn't just happen within the chip either, for smartphones with AMOLED screens there is even more power savings. AMOLED pixels are unique in that they give off their own light instead of backlights doing it. When a pixel turns black your smartphone actually turns off the pixel completely giving you the blackest black possible. Since the pixel is off it no longer consumes any power and its like your screen is off. When Ambient Display shows notifications it only lights up the pixels it needs and shows everything in a grayscale color scheme. 

Motorola X8 and Snapdragon 800 Series

Snapdragon 805 SoC

Motorola X8 Computing System

The Motorola X8 Computing System was the first chip that utilized the always listening and motion sensing features. Google owned Motorola at the time and likely funded the research and development of this SoC. The reason being was Qualcomm had long been including those low power "contextual" cores for a little while, but for reasons I cannot understand (and even to this day) Qualcomm doesn't write their drivers well or doesn't open source them. What Google had to do was not only show their competitors what those cores we couldn't even use could do and that they could sell phones with it. So with a little bit of time Qualcomm got their act together and suddenly phones were able to take advantage of these cores. The second generation Moto X used a Snapdragon 805 which includes the low power cores for motion and language. Google strategically used Motorola to push innovation and improvement out of their competitors for the greater good of the Android platform. 

How to Enable it

If you have a smartphone running Android 5.0 Lollipop or higher you may be able to utilize Ambient Display. Phones using the Snapdragon 801, 805, 808, and 810 can all utilize this feature. Go into settings, then Display & Lights and look for Ambient Display.

Android or iOS? Android Analysis [Part 2]

In part 1 we had a discussion about the advantages of iOS as it pertains to Android. Now it is time to flip things around and discuss Android. Again, I want to try to keep this as unbiased as possible as well as keep my points as relevant as I can to the average consumer.

Google Android OS

Pros:

• User Defined Default Apps/Customization
• Different "Flavors"
• Always Listening
• Contextual Awareness
• Inexpensive Ecosystem

Customization

I know, you've heard it a million and a half times, you can customize Android more than iOS. However I won't lean on the normal widgets argument because I personally only use one and technically I don't even need it. What I am going to talk about is default apps because people take for granted their ability to choose. Apple's approach to certain apps is that they will give you the very best but you have to use it. There is a perfectly valid argument to support this as well as another that shows how it can be annoying. iMessage is probably the best example of what happens when you don't allow users to choose. With everybody on iMessage, iPhone users can quickly chat using the internet rather than using SMS (the whole green or blue thing). In group messaging this is especially nice because MMS messages take ages to send and receive. As I pointed out in part one iMessage stands as a legitimate reason to use iOS.

Android or iOS? iOS Analysis [Part1]

Some people are going to read the title as Android vs. iOS, but that's not what I am trying to do here. A friend of mine who is way less into technology than I am currently owns an iPhone 5S after owning a Samsung Galaxy SIII for a couple years. The SIII was his first smartphone and Android was his first mobile OS, but unfortunately he had some issues with the SIM card that were a known issue in some of those phones. Subsequently his experience was soured by that which caused him amongst other factors such as owning a Mac to switch to an iOS device. I've taken it upon myself to start a discussion here to convince him to come back to Android. While I will be attempting to persuade him to come to my preferred OS, I have to uphold a certain level of integrity. I will try my best to write this without a bias. I am far more knowledgeable with Android than iOS so if it seems I am more in depth about Android it's for that reason.

iOS and Android - A Discussion

The reason I've waited until now to discuss this is in order to wait for Apple to hold their WWDC '15 conference and for Google to hold I/O '15. Now that we've seen what is in store for both platforms we can hold a discussion with the inclusion of new features to come in the next year. Both conferences introduced some great ideas and features, some more exciting than others, but valuable non-the-less.

Google I/O 2015 Live Stream!!!

Google is holding its annual developers conference on May 28th (this Thursday) and 29th in San Francisco and you can live stream the whole thing right here! Thats right, come here on May 28th at 12:30pm EST to watch Sundar Pichai and the rest of Google's team for the keynote speech. The keynote speech is where we will hear about all the new features coming to Android, Chrome OS, and other Google platforms. The app for the event has also been released, a link will be provided below for you to download the app from the Play Store. I know I am looking forward to this year's event, let me know in the comments what you'd like to see from Google this year.



Google I/O 2015 - Google Play Store

BetterBatteryStats Impression

BetterBatteryStats is an app that me and many other rooted users are very familiar with. I check this app more than any game or even news app that I have. I am a bit obsessed with battery life because personally on any given day I'd like to not have to worry about whether or not my phone will be alive by night. The problem with the stock android battery stats is that it is very inaccurate and doesn't show people what is causing the drain. BetterBatteryStats shows exactly what kept your phone awake or woke it up in the first place. It also give you a better idea as to how good or bad your battery life has really been by showing you how much it drains per hour. Sometimes you might think your battery is draining like crazy but it turns out your phone has been on for twelve hours and is only draining maybe 3%/hr which isn't bad when you consider that means your battery will last about 33 hours.

Why I Root Rant

XDA's exclaimer to users sums up the risks of rooting:

*
 * Your warranty is now void.
 *
 * We are not responsible for bricked devices, dead SD cards,
 * thermonuclear war, or you getting fired because the alarm app failed. Please
 * do some research if you have any concerns about features included in this ROM
 * before flashing it! YOU are choosing to make these modifications, and if
 * you point the finger at us for messing up your device, we will laugh at you.
 *
 */

So why risk it? What are the rewards? Do I get free apps?!

No you don't get free apps and I don't understand why that is the first question everybody asks. You can get apps free (on Android) without rooting, its called sideloading. Regardless this isn't for free apps, I pay for all mine because I believe in supporting the developers. 

So why root? I root because I like to customize my phone. The Android rooting community brought us heads up notifications, lockscreen notifications (actually Apple did but ROM devs did it on Android first), and a whole lot more that has all been added to Android in the spirit of open source and sharing ideas and features. Take a look at the features that have come to Lollipop.

Pushbullet App Impressions

The next app I want to cover that I have on my phone, tablet, and Chrome is called Pushbullet. This is one of those apps that does many things well and be used to make your phone very very powerful. At its core, Pushbullet is an app that allows you to get all notifications on all your devices, including your computer. What makes Pushbullet especially cool is how it ties into notifications well, for instance, any button such as snooze or dismiss that you can select from the notification bar is also available on other devices. Essentially it allows you to completely manage notifications from another device.

Another neat feature built into the app is the ability to send and respond to SMS messages from any device as well. So if you're like me and have moved to hangouts and don't want to mess with Google Voice numbers then this is the best solution. Works flawlessly and doesn't make you switch messenger apps which in my opinion is the best feature.

Quite frankly, the fact that this app works with your existing apps is what makes it special. Instead of compromising by switching to a new SMS app or having a Pushbullet ecosystem, Pushbullet has ways to work with apps, without developers needing to build in the functionality. For instance, one of my favorite features has to be the ability to send webpages from one device to another with ease. I have used autoremote for this but it was inconsistent and since I root restoring autoremote and re-setting it up on all my devices got annoying. Pushbullet ties right into your Google account thus making it simple to sign in and sync devices. By being able to manage notifications I don't need to take my phone out of my pocket to see what is going on, Everything ends up on my desktop or tablet if I happen to be using those.

For more advanced users who have Tasker on their phone there is a Pushbullet plug-in available. This allows you to automate tasks in multiple ways. I personally haven't taken the time to investigate but I've read about some interesting ways people use Pushbullet. I believe for a while somebody was using it to pop breaking news up on their computer when their news app sent a notification. I highly recommend you give this a try with your phone and computer.

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LINK:
Pushbullet: Select Device