Androidifying

The pre-stable public builds of Google’s Chrome web browser for Android sometimes show off features that don’t get a lot of attention. It appears that the latest builds for the Chrome Dev and Chrome Canary channels include a way to place the website address bar on the bottom of the browser. See also: The best Android browsers 108 As spotted by Android Police , the new option is available with a flag that’s oddly called “Chrome Home”. This feature can be checked out by pasting  chrome://flags/#enable-chrome-home into Chrome Dev or Canary and then tapping the highlighted select menu. After that, tap Enabled , and restart the browser. This feature is actually very similar to Microsoft’s Edge browser in Windows 10 Mobile, which also has the address bar on the bottom. Many users prefer this layout as it lets them see more of the top part of a webpage. Android Police mentions this feature is still buggy, as the place where the address bar used to be on top is blank. Then again, t

Last week’s poll summary: Out of over 10,500 total votes , 33.8% of our readers said they secure their phones with a fingerprint sensor, while 16.9% said they use a pattern. Coming in third place with 15.5% are the folks who secure their lock screens with a PIN, and just 7.1% use a password. 11.2% of our readers also said they use Google’s Smart Lock. Xiaomi recently took the wraps off its latest flagship smartphone, the Mi Note 2 . While the new device might be a decent, less explosive  alternative to the Galaxy Note 7 , another smartphone was unveiled that might be worth your time – the Xiaomi Mi MIX . Xiaomi Mi MIX hands-on Xiaomi Mi MIX officially announced With a crazy 91.3% screen-to-body ratio, the Mi MIX is truly a sight to behold. It features a 6.4-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 2048 x 1080, and basically no bezels on the top, right or left of the device. Anyone looking for extra screen real estate will certainly have no complaints about this device. It’s n

Samsung ’s Creative Lab Projects, also known as C-Lab, is a Samsung division that aims to let its employees work on more personal projects. Like Google Creative Lab , C-Lab offers a space to develop ideas that otherwise might never see the light of day and Samsung has just teased a few apps and wearables that might be coming out of C-Lab in the future. Let’s take a quick look at them. Hum On! Hum On! Turns a melody you hum into music notation that can be played back and customized. The implication is that you can create a song without actually having any in-depth knowledge of music. This is an exciting idea but also useful for musicians – at least beginners. It could help train your voice, to some extent, as well educate you on music notation principles. You can download the app now in the  Google Play Store  for free but expect some bugs in its early state. Waffle Waffle is a social app based on images. It encourages users to draw doodles and send photos to friends and family

Applications use a lot of permissions including those needed to access the SD card, use the Internet and so on. Google does a great job of displaying what permissions an app uses before installing, but does not go into full detail about what exactly those permissions do. Why does Android have permissions and how are they implemented The sky is the limit when comes to ideas and what is possible with Android apps. Knowing this Google added permissions that need to be defined before the app is allowed to do certain things like access the Internet for example. This stops apps from doing whatever they want without the user’s knowledge. When installing an app from the Google Play Store, a dialog box pops up and the user has to agree that the app can do certain things. Permissions are handled by the Android API framework in the system process. This calls the permission validation mechanism to check that the application has the permission to do what it is trying to do. Some permissions, lik

Twitter is one of the biggest social networks in the world. It currently has over 310 million active users, that love sharing their views on different topics in 140 characters. Although Twitter is in the midst of looking for a buyer , the company still found time to release a new alpha version of its Android app which supports new features available with Android Nougat. The update brings three main new features to the table. The first one is app shortcuts. Users can now place three different shortcuts on their home screen (New Message, New Tweet and Search) that will minimize the number of gestures or taps required to finish a task and save a bit of time in the process. The second feature is multi-window support, which can increase productivity by running an additional app along Twitter in split-screen mode. But please note that it only works with Android Nougat devices. The third and last part of the update is design oriented. In accordance with the design principles of Google’s A

Some Google Nexus 6P owners are reporting a strange battery issue after upgrading to Android 7.0 Nougat . The device stops working under certain circumstances and can only be restarted when plugged into a power source. The issue can be seen in the YouTube video below. The uploader says he is using a recently acquired RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) Nexus 6P running Android 7.0. After taking a few photos with the handset, the Nexus 6P goes black and is completely disabled until the owner plugs the power cable in and waits for the battery icon to appear. Only then can the power button be used to restart the phone. It’s unclear how widespread the problem is, or if it has a definite fix. It’s speculated that upgrading to Android 7.1.1 could solve the issue (though someone else says it’s present there too) and rolling back to Android Marshmallow is also suggested. Many responding to the video on Reddit  said they’d experienced similar problems relating to the battery – most

Thanks to the growth it has experienced in US, as well as in Europe, Huawei is currently the third biggest smartphone manufacturer in the world . The company is confident that it will keep increasing its market share and revenues and hopes to one day challenge Apple for the number two spot . If Huawei has any chance of realizing its goals, it has to offer great devices at reasonable prices. We have already seen a few of these in the past such as the P9, Mate 8 and Mate S. But in a few days time, a new device will see the light of day. On November 3rd, Huawei will announce the long-awaited Mate 9 and even though we are still a couple days away from the event, a few real life images of the device have already leaked. They show the upcoming Mate 9 in the champagne gold variant and, I have to say, it looks quite appealing. The image also confirms a few of the leaks regarding the device . The Mate 9 will sport a large 5.9 screen as well as a Leica dual-camera setup at the back, probab