Essential Phone will get Android Oreo update within two months

The Essential Phone just recently launched (you’ve probably seen photos on our Instagram) and the company has great news for those who got the phone, it’ll be getting Android Oreo pretty soon. According to Rebecca Zavin, vice president for software at Essential, the update is coming “in the next month or two.” She made the announcement on a Reddit AMA she had with Essential’s founder Andy Rubin and three other execs from the company.

Aside from that, they announced that, they are working on a high-end audio accessory that comes with a 3.5mm headset jack. Just like its other accessories, this will connect through the two magnetic pins at the back of the device. Now, you might question why didn’t Essential just put the headset jack on the phone in the first place? Dave Evans, the VP of design for Essential, said that would’ve resulted in putting a bigger bottom bezel under the screen, reducing the battery capacity by 10 percent, or having a big bump to accommodate the jack. They weren’t comfortable with the tradeoffs so they didn’t put it in.

Source: GSMArena

Samsung Galaxy S8 & S8+ tipped to get Android Oreo soon

A new report surfaced online claiming Samsung has begun working on Android Oreo for both the Galaxy S8 and S8+. The firmware version could be G950FXXU1BQI1 on the Galaxy S8, and G955FXXU1BQI1 on the Galaxy S8+. There isn’t word on when these updates will roll out though but hopefully it’ll come in the next few months. Other manufacturers like HTC and Huawei have said they’re going to work on bringing Android 8.0 to select devices before the year ends.

Source: SamMobile

Android Oreo might introduce better app integration for Google Assistant

You can do a lot of things with Google Assistant. A simple Google search will bring up all you can do with it. One thing it needs to get better at though is third-party app integration. But it looks like Google is working on that one with its newest operating system iteration, Android 8.0 Oreo. A new string found within the Android Developers website code shows a possibility of interaction by voice as long as the app supports Android 8.0. This means, Google might be opening the ability for other apps to interact with its Google Assistant without the user having to leave the app. On top of that, it looks like Google wants to do the same for other digital assistants like Amazon’s Alexa app and Microsoft’s Cortana app.

Not much is known yet about when this might be coming to users or what sort of activities can be executed. But it does show us what we could expect. But as you might have noticed there are caveats to this, you’ll need to have an Android Oreo powered device and it’ll depend on the developer if they want to start working on the integration.

Source: Android Headlines

New Android 8.0 Oreo feature will help save your phone from bootlooping

Bootlooping, or having your phone stuck in reboot loops, isn’t an uncommon experience. And while certain phones and models are more prone to this, when you’re it with bootlooping, it can be very frustrating and a hassle if you’d have to contact the manufacturer or carrier. That’s why Google is including a feature it calls “Rescue Party” in Android 8.0 Oreo to help you get out of crash loops. Google explains the feature as: “Android 8.0 includes a feature that sends out a ‘rescue party’ when it notices core system components stuck in crash loops. Rescue Party then escalates through a series of actions to recover the device. As a last resort, Rescue Party reboots the device into recovery mode and prompts the user to perform a factory reset.”

There won’t be any activation from your end, Rescue Party will activate itself if its sees that there’s an issue. It’s turned on by default and won’t need any special hardware to work. Each rescue level it goes through will take around five minutes and Google hopes your device will self-recover instead of you needing to get in touch with the phone’s manufacturer or your carrier.

Source: Android Authority