In this week’s top stories: The Google Home app adds the usage history of Nest Wifi, loyalty to the Pixel brand decreases, OnePlus Watch does not run Wear OS and more.
Coinciding with the announcement of the second generation Nest Hub, the Google Home app has been updated with greater functionality for the Nest Wifi family of devices. From the update, you can now access a new “speed and usage” section of the network information, with graphics for individual devices and also for the network as a whole.
These Nest Wifi usage charts were previously a major omission for the Google Home app. This information was only available on the old Google Wifi client, which is now about to be discontinued. Last year, Home added advanced Wifi settings and the ability to import existing networks.
A new report came out this week, suggesting that far fewer Pixel owners will buy a Pixel as their next phone, dropping from 84% to 65.2%. On the other hand, in the same report, 92% of iPhone owners interviewed said they would buy another iPhone as their next smartphone.
Honestly, it is not so difficult to see why these numbers have dropped. The Google Pixel line in the past two years has had some tricky points, with Pixel 4’s very low battery life and the confusing line that’s Pixel 4a, 4a 5G and Pixel 5. With the company’s 2020 phones, not really I have great complaints about the quality of the latest phones from Google, but the lack of larger XL models and a stagnant camera, although still competitive, will certainly make some users look elsewhere.
One of the most anticipated wearables this year is the OnePlus Watch, which was rumored to run on Google’s Wear OS platform. Instead, OnePlus’ Pete Lau detailed some aspects of the next watch, including the fact that it would work on “RTOS” instead of Wear OS, because of battery life and more.
Lau also explains that the OnePlus Watch has an “impressive and simple design”, as well as connectivity with smartphones and OnePlus TVs. A report today mentioned that the watch could be used as a remote control for Android-based TVs. Apparently, all of this will have an “affordable” price as well.
Android fans had a lot to look forward to this week, with Google launching the second Android 12 Developer Preview. We carefully collect all the changes, large and small, that can be found in the update, and we also bring together the most important ones in a video.
One of the most immediately noticeable changes over Android 12 on Pixel phones is that the dark theme is significantly lighter than before. On Android 11, the dark theme of Google Pixel phones is “AMOLED black”, but Android 12 is now using a medium gray that looks like the shade used in the dark mode of several Google apps.
Why the sudden change? We are not sure. Google has proclaimed that even gray themes can save battery life on OLED screens compared to white, so it stands to reason that a lighter gray would decrease battery savings. It’s a strange choice, but as I said, I appreciate your appearance.
The rest of this week’s main news follows:
Android |
Android 12 |
Applications and updates |
Made by Google |
OnePlus |
YouTube |
Videos |
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