Android

A highly requested feature, dark mode, is now available in Android Messages. As with the new YouTube dark mode, Android Messages users can eliminate the bright white background, instead switching to a darker interface that is easier on the eyes over longer periods of time. The new mode is available in Android Messages version 3.5, which brings the same Material Design that recently arrived on Google Phone and Google Contacts.

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Google announced today that Gmail's confidential mode has come to mobile devices. The feature launched on desktop earlier this year, and it allows senders to restrict things like forwarding, copying, and downloading the emails they send. Senders can also set emails to expire after a certain amount of time, and, in cases where extra security is necessary, lock a message with an SMS code.

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Over the last couple of weeks there's been a bit more than a normal amount of a rumbling about the Pixel 2 XL and it's apparent slowdown issue. Not all Pixel 2 XL units have the issue, but a significant number of them do find themselves the subject of this slowdown. Fortunate for those few users with this issue, one of their ranks happens to be a rather prolific Android journalist by the name of Artem Russakovskii of Android Police. Google's been to visit him personally to see what's up.

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There's a feature in Android 9 Pie called LOCKDOWN that'll change the way you handle your smartphone. It'll change the way you handle your smartphone after you've been put in a difficult situation, that is to say. What LOCKDOWN (I'll just call it lockdown from here on out) does is to turn on the ability to turn off most options and abilities from the lock screen of your smartphone - effectively locking out ALL parties other than yourself.

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There's an app out for all users right this minute from Microsoft called "Your Phone." This app allows the user to get photos snapped on a phone over to their PC with the greatest of ease. The fact that this app even has to exist should be fairly embarrassing for someone in the smartphone development process ... but so far nobody's stepped forward in shame.

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BlackBerry has always been a name associated with business-smart mobile devices. That is also why you’re unlikely to find a BlackBerry phone in anything but somber hues, like black, silver, or gray. There were some red editions, true, and those were pretty radical as far as BlackBerry is concerned. The upcoming KEY2 LE, a.k.a. KEY2 Lite, will supposedly mix things up a bit and this latest batch of leaked photos show just how much, or how little, it will show off its colors.

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The notch has become an inescapable fact of smartphone life this year but some manufacturers just refuse to live in Apple’s shadow. There’s a certain irony in how Chinese manufacturers often accused of always aping the iPhone’s designs are the very ones trying to differentiate themselves from the crowd. But not everyone wants or can afford elevating cameras and some seem to have a found another path forward. That is exemplified by the “V” style notch on the OPPO R17, OPPO F9, and, soon, the Honor 8X.

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Smartphones are built for the Internet. Almost every functionality and every app seem to be designed with the presumption of an Internet connection always available. Naturally, installing and updating apps also require that. Internet access, however, isn’t available everywhere all the time. And in some cases, it can even be expensive. Google Play used to be indiscriminate about Internet connections. Either you had one or you didn’t, end of story. Fortunately, now it will be more forgiving, allowing users to choose not to download or update apps unless they’re on Wi-Fi.

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Android Go, the special configuration designed for entry-level smartphones, started life last year under the Android 8.1 Oreo release. With Android 9 Pie now out of the oven, it’s only fitting that it, too, should get a Go. But Google isn’t simply bumping up the numbers just have a Pie Go. It is also announcing the results of an even better diet program that makes Android 9 Pie Go even better for devices with as little as 8 GB of storage, maybe even less.

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Google's MVNO service Project Fi has made an announcement that has some subscribers upset: it'll be shutting down text forwarding next month. Subscribers have a little under a month to decide on a game plan, though Google says the service's call forwarding feature will remain. The feature is used by some for business or to maintain boundaries with acquaintances, among other things.

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Google is making a bit of noise about something that users may have presumed has actually been the case even when Wear OS by Google was known by a different name: Android Wear. The Android maker is now giving smartwatch app developers a heads up to tell them that starting next month, all new Wear OS apps are required to undergo a review process before being listed on the Google Play Store. This is to ensure the quality of apps that should really be a primary concern in the first place.

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When the Motorola P30 was leaked earlier this week, all I could see was the latest Android-laden iPhone X. Even though the Essential Phone PH-1 was the first major smartphone with a notch, Apple put one on their iPhone and sold an outrageous amount of units. Since then, several China-based companies have taken to cloning the iPhone X industrial design as best they could. When you're in a place where making a good, cheaper copy isn't looked down upon, it's rewarded, it makes good business sense to make said copy.

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