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We've stopped covering Android's distribution numbers every month for one simple reason. Last year, Google has stopped publishing those monthly figures, a change that some say was its way of hiding how poor Android adoption really is compared with iOS. Android updates have always been a sore point even for the most steadfast Android believer but it's not for the lack of trying. Google has recently disclosed how it plans to improve that situation but has also revealed how Android 10 may have been best-adopted release ever.

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Every year at WWDC, Apple indirectly puts the Android world to shame when it reveals adoption numbers for its supported iOS versions. While things have certainly improved in the last two or three years, there is still much left to be desired. Part of the problem lies in the dynamics between Google as Android maker and manufacturers as Android implementers. The latter, of course, has the final word on when they would push out Android updates, big and small, but Android 11 will more or less force OEMs to fall in line with Google's push for more seamless and faster updates.

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First, they were rectangular boxes. Then they became canisters or pucks. Over the years, wireless speakers have changed their form and now Google seems to be considering yet another revolution in speaker design. Practically confirming an earlier leak, Google has apparently been sending out more or less official marketing material for what may be the successor of the Google Home sporting what can probably be best described as a pillow design.

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Google spoke up today about their future in Android and/or Chrome OS tablets. Only very briefly, of course, and not in a way that definitely guaranteed they'd be making any sort of new hardware any time soon. But still, it has been acknowledged that Google is, indeed, "working on the tablet experience, both for users and for developers" according to a representative of the Android Engagement Team.

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The OnePlus Nord was leaked today in images of both the front and back of the smartphone. This device looks to have a nearly full-coverage frontside display with a pill-shaped punch hole for two front-facing cameras. The back looks to have the 1+ logo in the center with four camera lenses in the upper left alongside a dual-LED flash array. These images seem to match recent slightly more blurry leaks of the device from Amazon India.

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The Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra was leaked in a way that essentially spills all the beans today. Ice Universe, a Samsung leaker of some repute, showed imagery of the Galaxy Note20 Ultra in all its glory. These images weren't created by Samsung, but according to the cat (Ice Universe), they're as close as we're going to get before Samsung's own images leak in the near future.

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The Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 is rumored for launch at the same time as the Samsung Galaxy S20 in the very near future. That device - or that device collection, rather - has an opportunity to provide Samsung with a market-leading product whose only real competitors would be the iPad Pro and the Microsoft Surface Tablet. If you're looking to attain the most futuristic Android tablet in the world by the end of the year, Samsung will very likely have the device you're gong to want to buy.

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Today we're taking a peek at the newest in Google Home and Google Assistant hardware with a leaked smart speaker. This device is likely the successor to the original Google Home speaker, now likely headed for a Google release with new "Nest" branding onboard. The abilities of this device are not known in full, but what we can see and read give us a pretty good idea of what we're going to get.

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For all its benefits in security, performance, and openness, the Linux operating system is still avoided by many computer users because of its software catalog. It's not that Linux lacks app but it lacks the sort of apps that people are used to on Windows and Mac or even on Android and iOS. There is no shortage of projects that try to bring some sort of compatibility with those apps, like WINE for Windows and Anbox for Android. A different strategy, however, is writing apps in a way that makes them run on all or most platforms. That's the premise behind Flutter and it's now coming to Linux, at least on the Ubuntu flavor of Linux.

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Anyone who has experienced the Wikipedia Rabbit Hole will know first hand how dangerous it can be to have quick access to interconnected information. Even worse if such information is related to or contains visual representation in the form of photos and graphs. And yet that is exactly what Google will soon be offering to anyone searching for images on their mobile phones, giving them the information they never knew they wanted right at their fingertips, literally.

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The Pixel 4a is still a no-show. The Pixel 5 is supposedly still at an early stage of design and development. Given that situation, it's not really surprising that uncorroborated rumors and leaks will be popping up left and right. While the fate of the Pixel 4a XL has mostly been sealed, a premium Pixel 5 XL is still expected to show up sometime later this year. Except it might not be premium in all things and some "features" included in these renders raises as many questions as the recent Pixel 5 renders.

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Today Google released Android 11 Beta 2 for a limited number of smartphones. Users can download the app with the full public Beta release system or with the Android Flash Tool. Users can also run the Android 11 Beta 2 on their desktop machine using the Android Emulator inside Android Studio - or with a GSI (generic system image) on supported Treble-compliant devices - so many ways to make it weird!

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