Here’s what happened in the world of Android today.
The week started off heavy, and today just added to it. It was earnings day for all of the major companies, which means we got to see just how hard the Note 7 fiasco hit Samsung ($4 billion, ouch). But we also got to see Alphabet pass the $5 billion income mark for the quarter, and also remind ourselves that LG’s mobile business is still weak and losing money.
Getting away from the financials, T-Mobile has an awesome deal for new Pixel owners, while updates to Nova Launcher and Pushbullet make the experience of using any Android phone more powerful. Read on for our full recap of the day’s news!
Samsung’s Q3 earnings weren’t so hot
Thanks to a massive recall and cancellation of the Note 7, Samsung’s mobile division barely turned a profit in the quarter, leading to the company’s lowest quarterly profits in two years. The hit to the mobile business was over $4 billion in total for the quarter. More
LG has a rough quarter, too — except none of its phones caught on fire
The South Korean company announced its mobile division took a quarterly loss of nearly $400 million — the most it’s experienced in some time. LG’s mobile division has been unprofitable for five consecutive quarters, weighing down its overall bottom line.
T-Mobile has a sweet deal for Pixel owners
If you buy an unlocked Pixel or Pixel XL and bring it to T-Mobile for its new “One” plan, the carrier will refund you 50% of the price of the phone. Now that’s a great way to encourage unlocked buyers to come to your network. More
Moto M breaks cover in leaked photos and specs
The new mid-ranger breaks from the current designs seen in the Moto Z and G series, offering a metal body and rear-mounted fingerprint sensor. Inside, it’s rumored to have a Snapdragon 625, 4GB of RAM and a stupidly large 5100 mAh battery. More
Alphabet is raking in the money
For Q3 2016, Google’s parent company Alphabet had income of over $5 billion. If it weren’t for the speculative “Other Bets” section, that would have been nearly $6 billion. Google’s biggest segments are growing at a 10-20% rate, which is very impressive for a company of this size. More
Pour one out for Vine
The Twitter-owned video sharing app will be shut down “in the coming months” as the service lacked active users and didn’t really have a monetization strategy. Snapchat and Instagram Video really hit Vine hard, it seems. More
Nova Launcher brings more Pixel-y goodness in latest Beta update
The seventh beta update for Nova Launcher 5.0 brings us Android 7.1 shortcuts, which means that when you long-press an icon, you’ll be able to access the new dynamic/static shortcuts if an app has made them available, and if not, you’ll have the same old icon/app options in that new menu style. The update also brings a few more bug fixes, and an option for weather in the search bar.
Make Allo desktop-friendly with Pushbullet
Google’s new Allo messenger is smart, but it’s also mobile. Let’s change that, shall we? Using Pushbullet’s new update, users can now respond to Allo messages on a Windows PC, or on Mac or Linux through a Chrome extension, through Pushbullet’s Notification Mirror feature.
