Android Confidential: The Android phones and features that flew and flopped in 2018

collected by :Maya Tony

As it stated in There were extremely many awesome phones in 2018, it's nearly impossible to pick a favorite. extremely for the last Android Confidential column of the year, I decided to tackle the best and worse phones of the year from a different angle. Runner-up: We heard a lot about artificial intelligence and augmented fact in 2018, but aside from Google Assistant, nothing really stood out on Android phones. Best phone in 2018 that refused to follow trendsWinner: Samsung Galaxy Note 9Christopher Hebert/IDGIt didn't come as a surpheight that nearly eextremely Android phone rushed to copy the iPhone X's notch in 2018. (Seriously, Verizon calls it the Palm Palm.)

Google's CEO thinks Android users know how much their phones are tracking them

Google's CEO thinks Android users know how much their phones are tracking themGoogle CEO Sundar Pichai thinks Android users have a good understanding of the volume of data Google collects on them, the time they agree to use the Android mobile operating system. Even on Apple's platform, known to be fairly privacy-forward, apps have been collecting consumer data — including location — and selling it to 3rd parties, as noted by a recent New York Times investigation. Google's defense on the data collection front is similar to Facebook's — that is, Pichai replied that Google provides equipment that put users in control. "It's really important for us that average users are able to understand it," said Pichai, stating that users do understand the consumer agreement for Android OS. In addition, it has become clear that simply "opting out" of Google's data collection methods is not always enough.

With Snapdragon 855 chip, Android phones get iPhone's photo-packing ability

as informed in But that changed last year the time Apple, that supports a specific variant called HEIC, designed to hardware and software to utilize the technology. "You'll be able to capture HEIF photos at really high speed and really low power by burning it into the hardware." The HEIF backing is part of Qualcomm's general push to advance image processing in its chips and to promote computer vision in phones. Another potential challenger is a modernized version of 25-year-old JPEG called JPEG XL. extremely don't count on an ability to view HEIC photos in a browser anytime soon.

Qualcomm: 5G Android flagship phones will storm the 2019 holidays

Angela Lang/CNETGet availiable for lots of 5G phones in time for the holidays next year. By the holidays next year, eextremely flagship handdetermine -- at least the time it comes to those running Google's Android software and using Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor -- going to tap into 5G, said Qualcomm Pinhabitant Cristiano Amon. Offering 5G could give Samsung, OnePlus and other Android vendors an edge over Apple. Qualcomm and Samsung on Tuesday displayed prototype 5G devices running on "live" 5G networks from Verizon and AT&T at the conference. A slide Amon showed during his keynote earlier Tuesday provided a list of hardware companies working by Qualcomm on 5G devices.

AT&T replacing LTE indicator on Android phones in early 2019 to '5G E'

AT&T is getting an early begain by labeling existing LTE Android phones in certain markets by a "5G E" indicator. 5G Evolution is effectively AT&T's branding for LTE Advanced, that is a sepaaverage update to the existing LTE standard. While offering a 2x performance improvement to the existing network, other carriers are just upgrading their services to take advantage of the new speeds. AT&T confirmed to Fierce Wireless and noted the change on its 5G page this day that supported Android devices in certain markets by higher speeds going to see "5G E" instead of LTE. Supported 5G Evolution devices this day include the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S9, LG V30 and V35, and Motorola Z2 Force.