For it being just another random slow week at the end of June, we sure had some big things happen in the world of Android. We now know what Android N stands for and what its version number will be, welcomed in a US unlocked Galaxy S7 (and S7 Edge), learned about another HTC Nexus, pre-ordered the Moto G4 and G4 Plus, and started prepping for big announcements from Verizon that should come next week.
Over the long weekend, you should probably catch up. In case you hadn’t realized, things are about to get wild around here with the Note 7, Moto Z, and new Nexus devices on the way.
WATCH: Droid Life Show episode 113 – Nougat! | Subscribe
Android N is Android Nougat
Android Nougat is Android 7.0
Poll: Nougat name – love it or hate it?
These are the HTC devices that will get Android Nougat
HTC Nexus “marlin” rumored specs
Samsung releases US unlocked Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge
This is where you can buy the US Unlocked S7 and S7 Edge
Galaxy Note 7: This could be what the software will look like | Specs too
Video: OnePlus 3 software tour
Moto G4 and G4 Plus now up for pre-order in US | Work on all carriers
Deal: This is a crazy good deal on the new Moto G4 at Amazon (with a catch)
Verizon: Big plan changes and features coming to Big Red next week
Google Play beta tab and early access rolling out to all
Apps sales: All the good app deals heading into the holiday weekend
Using Evernote is about to get really expensive
Poll: You still using the 5-year old Google+?
Please!: Google may build an internet speed test into Search
Google builds song lyrics right into Search results
Pro tip: Light and run, light and run.
Related StoriesDon’t Miss These Android Stories: March 13, 2015Don’t Miss These Android Stories: February 26, 2016Don’t Miss These Android Stories: February 20, 2015This Week in the Life of DROID: 8/30/2013
Don’t Miss These Android Stories: July 1, 2016 is a post from: Droid Life
Don’t Miss These Android Stories: July 1, 2016
Sony recently held an investors day in Tokyo, giving us a look at what the company has planned over the coming quarters. Most relevant to our interests is the fact that Sony Mobile has announced that they’re adopting a new regional strategy that “defocuses” on the USA and India. Sony Mobile will be shifting energy previously devoted to these shrinking markets to East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. The company is justifying this new strategy by pointing to shrinking business in India, the USA, China, and Brazil. Indeed, Sony anticipates only a 0.3 percent growth in smartphones for India, China, Brazil, and Indonesia over the coming year. Comparing this to last year’s estimate of 8.1 percent growth really illustrates how rapidly these markets are cooling. 
See also: Sony experiments with ‘soft charging’ to keep batteries alive longer37 Of course, smartphone business is decreasing all across the board as previously fire-hot, tech-hungry markets like China have become increasingly saturated. It makes sense that Sony would want to throw its weight into those markets which appear to demonstrate continued growth. In these new focus regions, Sony is planning on pushing hard in the premium smartphone range (+$250), as the entry-level and mid-tier markets are proving to be ruthlessly competitive.What are your thoughts regarding Sony’s ‘defocusing’ on India and the USA? There are some who might question whether or not Sony was even particularly focused on the USA market in the first place. Give us your opinion in the comments below! 
Next: Sony sees sales boost as mobile advancements renew the CMOS image sensor market33 
For a company that seemed to impress so many with its Optimus G and G2 handsets a few years ago, LG’s mobile market plummet is as pronounced as it is precarious. Last year saw an effort that some felt to be half-baked as the G4 was purely plastic despite rival Samsung’s switch to something more substantial. Even the leather rear covers that some markets had were often dismissed by critics as a last minute decision that “must” have been made to combat the revived Galaxy S series. This year LG has tried something new and markedly different, and sadly its situation is only getting more serious.The Korea Times published a story earlier today that details some stern decisions made over at LG’s mobile division. Specifically, the company has created a Program Management Office (PMO) within its handset division to specifically try and deal with the situation at hand, and as the report indicated, “replaced some executives”.
A spokesperson for LG provided some key insight, stating that “Friday’s announcement is because LG Electronics’ latest flagship G5 smartphone failed to generate sales.” The spokesperson added that the company hopes these internal changes will create “new momentum” within its mobile division. It was also specified that, “the overseas business unit at the mobile division will take a bigger role…The purpose of the realignment was intended to keep LG’s handset business running amid challenging market situations.”With respect to the new PMO itself, The Korea Times specifies:Mobiles chief Cho Juno will oversee the PMO, which has authority to handle strategies for product development, manufacturing, marketing and sales; while Oh Hyung-hoon, a former research lab head, will be its chief, supported by mobile division Vice President Ha Jeong-wook. Kim Hyung-jeong, a senior vice president at LG, has been named head of the company’s mobile research lab.Rounding out the report, LG was quoted as saying that, “the smartphone marketplace is expected to be increasingly competitive in 2016 due to anticipated premium models from competitors and further price competition within the mass tier space.”This news comes amid reports that suggest LG – set to post its Q2 2016 fiscal report – will see the company having yet another consecutive quarter of losses.Far behind the market leaders
Today’s news story also made reference to a Gartner report that has ranked LG as position #7 among all OEMs in terms of global smartphone sales from Q1 2016. LG had less than 4% of the market whereas Samsung was in at #1, Apple at #2, and Huawei – up 59% from last year at 8.3% – was #3.According to an unnamed source who works for an LG affiliate:It’s too risky for LG to launch cash-intensive, aggressive promotional campaigns to up its brand awareness and to remain competitive in terms of cost structure given very challenging situations. It’s too early to say that LG will drop its mobile business. This seems too radical; however, no answers are seen for the time being.LG failed to realize ‘economies of a scale,’ unlike Apple and Samsung Electronics. Cutting fixed costs is a one-time measure. LG’s difficulty in the smartphone business is a structural problem that can’t be addressed without radical measures such as relocating all of its manufacturing lines to Vietnam and other cheap Asian countries.There are an increasingly large number of challenges facing LG Electronics as it has to compete not only with Samsung – its domestic rival – but also with “hostile” offerings from companies like Huawei, Oppo, OnePlus, Xiaomi, and Vivo: These Chinese OEMs are starting to embrace the more premium product as well, yet are doing so with prices often still significantly lower than the profit margin prescribed productions made by the “old guard” OEMs. Meanwhile, they are also dominating in key Asian markets where their low prices for mid-range hardware presents an almost unbeatable deal.
While LG does manufacture most of its handsets in Korea, some of the lower end ones are in fact, made in countries with even lower wages paid to their employees. The idea that a mass effort to migrate all production to developing Asian countries is definitely a bold one, yet may indeed be one possible way to salvage this situation.Wrap UpWith today’s news, LG is clearly trying to get back on the ball yet again. Granted the company does have its fair share of loyal fans, but much like with Taiwan’s HTC, this is simply not enough to win in this increasingly challenging market. Do you think the PMO department will be able to salvage this sinking ship? Leave a comment below! 
For those of you that caught Google’s reveal of Android Nougat on Snapchat yesterday, you might have noticed something a little…odd. In one part of the Snapchat story, a smiling emoji is placed over a woman’s face as she sits on the Nougat statue at the Googleplex. That’s all well and good, the only thing is that it’s an iOS emoji, not Android. So did Google just use an iPhone to announce Android Nougat? 
See also: Android N: new features overview277 First of all, here’s the evidence. You can clearly see the emoji in the image above, screen grabbed from Snapchat by our eagle-eyed tipster Harrison W. If you take a look at the standard list of iOS emoji here you can see that it’s definitely the same smiley. But what if that’s just the default smiley emoji in Snapchat, I hear you ask? Well, as you can see in the image below, the Android Snapchat emoji (on the right) are definitely different.
Before everyone starts freaking out and saying Google has sold out to Apple or whatever, keep in mind that it’s not like that Snapchat story got shared from the phone of Alphabet’s Chairman or anything. Oh wait, Eric Schmidt uses an iPhone too. But in all seriousness, that Snapchat story would have been pushed out by some random PR person at Google. Maybe a social media intern. Or Eric Schmidt.Either way, it doesn’t really matter what phone they used, but it is a little bit funny. Of course, you can substitute emoji in Snapchat, but why would a Googler specifically choose iOS emoji for an Android launch? However it came about, Android history is actually littered with funny episodes like this. You might remember Eric Schmidt was the one caught in the wild with the original Moto X, back when it was a closely guarded secret.Then the Nexus 5 got leaked in the KitKat unveiling video. We also had the retroactive realization that the silhouette of the Nexus 5 had been in the Android 4.3 camera app for months (it was arguably the icon for switching to the front-facing camera). Then we have the yearly merry-go-round of Android name guessing based on notoriously incorrect internal codenames. Remember how sure we all were about Android Key Lime Pie?Did you catch this? What’s your favorite leak or accidental mixup in Android history?
This post was originally published on our sister site, VRSource.com.NBC have teamed up with Samsung to give owners of the Gear VR and unique perspective of the upcoming Rio Olympic Games by offering access to over 85 hours of VR coverage.It’ll only be users of the Samsung Gear VR with Galaxy Android devices that will get access to this content, which will feature 360 video coverage of all the sports.Gary Zenkel, President, NBC Olympics, said Rio will be a showcase for the “cutting-edge” technology.The VR video itself will be captured by Olympic Broadcasting Services, a unit of the International Olympic Committee that provides video feeds to the international broadcasters. This content will then be distributed via the NBC Sports app to Samsung devices. With Samsung as the official partner for the Rio Olympics, it is of no surprise that the company has managed to secure this exclusive deal.The content, which will be presented on delay during the games running Aug. 6 to Aug. 22, will include opening and closing ceremonies, men’s basketball, gymnastics, track and field, and other sports. It will be captured by Olympic Broadcasting Services, a unit of the International Olympic committee that provides feeds to international broadcasters. The content will be accessible to Samsung users with compatible devices via the NBC Sports app.Compatible phones that can be used with the Gear VR include the Samsung Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Galaxy Note 5.VR in sports is changing the way in which the content is consumed, with 360 video being the most popular implementation. The technology offers a wide range of viewing angles to give that immersive experience. When coupled with a VR headset, 360 video can really feel like you’re actually experiencing the event first hand, and sports is a brilliant example of this.It’s great to see Samsung securing these partnerships to raise awareness for VR, albeit its own headset, but showcasing what VR is all about will no doubt create interest in the platform.
According to the Cheetah Mobile Security Research Lab, Chinese hackers are making a whopping $500,000 a day from a group of smartphone trojans dubbed “Hummer.” In just the first half of 2016, Hummer was being installed on 1.4 million devices a day. In China alone there were around 63,000 being infected on a daily basis. These numbers are staggering, and security researchers are claiming that Hummer could be the largest mobile malware family ever.Cheetah Mobile estimates that the “developer” could make five cents a download, getting the $500,000 estimate.Taking a look at the graph, the Hummer infection base has grown significantly since 2015 with its peak being in April of this year.
When a device is infected with the Hummer trojan, it will root the device without the user’s consent and and gain root privileges. Hummer may then proceed to pop up ads on the device and install unwanted apps, including malware. Since this trojan buries itself so deep into the system, resetting the phone will not get rid of it.Cheetah Mobile started looking into where Hummer came from and found some interesting results. The Hummer family used 12 domain names to update the trojan and issue promotion orders. These trojans have as many as 18 different root methods. In a test, a Hummer trojan accessed the network 10,000 times and downloaded over 200 APKs in just a few hours. This used 2 GB of network data in the process.There are a few ways to deal with Hummer. Cheetah Mobile updated their anti-virus apps to help prevent it from being installed and making itself comfortable. The company also released Stubborn Trojan Killer on the Google Play Store, which will then try to get rid of Hummer for you. You can also reflash your phone if everything else fails, which also isn’t too hard.Malware like Hummer is one of the biggest reasons to avoid installing applications from outside the Google Play Store or sources that are absolutely trustworthy. Third party app stores, even legitimate ones, may lack the stringent security measures that Google deploys to minimize the impact of malware. It’s no surprise that mobile malware is rampant especially in China and other countries where alternative app stores – and app piracy – proliferate.