Android

Android head Sundar Pichai might be new to the job of leading Google's mobile operating system, but he's already working at improving the update process for that software.

In a Wired interview published Monday, Pichai acknowledged that update paths to new versions of Android can be difficult, but that he and his team "are thinking about how to make Android handle updates better."

"We see ways we can do this," he told Wired. "It's early days. We're talking with our partners and working our way through it. We need time to … Read more

Airbnb, the company that connects travelers with people looking for temporary tenants, is adding several features to Android in hopes of increasing reservations.

The San Francisco company announced the latest version of the app on Monday, adding two features for hosts -- preapproval options and calendar management -- that are already available to Airbnb's iOS users.

The preapproval options means hosts can preapprove, deny or request more information from a guest interested in staying at their property. Calender management allows hosts to set a listing's availability within the app. Airbnb thinks these changes will help people communicate faster … Read more

Google's hotly anticipated annual developer conference will kick off in just a couple days in San Francisco. And conference-goers and Android fans are excited about the possibility of new products the company may announce and/or give away.

But Android fans may be a bit disappointed if their expectation is brand new hardware. While the 2012 Google I/O conference saw the introduction of the new $199 Nexus 7 seven-inch tablet and the Nexus Q streaming media hub, the 2013 conference is likely to feature no brand new Android hardware. Instead, it's likely that Google will refresh some … Read more

A month after its release, Facebook Home has reached 1 million downloads, according to download numbers at Google Play.

It hit the milestone just days after Facebook's director of mobile engineering told reporters that Home had been downloaded "just about" 1 million times. The app's page was updated Sunday morning to indicate that its download numbers now fall in the 1 million to 5 million range.

While the social network's software suite for Android achieved its first 500,000 downloads in its first 10 days out in the wild, Facebook Home took twice as long … Read more

For a long time, Astrid was considered a go-to task management app for Android users. But with its recent acquisition by Yahoo and the news that it will soon be going away, fans of the app will soon be looking for alternatives. With that in mind, I've put together a list of four of my favorite to-do managers for Android. In some ways they may even outdo the popular Astrid, but feel free to tell us in the comments how you think they stack up.

Wunderlist (free) The beauty of Wunderlist lies in its simplicity. It easily syncs across … Read more

If you're an Android fan with a short temper, please turn back now. Watching this video will just send you into hysterics.

Part of my job here at CNET is to play the devil's advocate, and sometimes that requires me to talk trash about products you love. This time around, I'm going to take a poke at a phone that we love as much as you do, the Samsung Galaxy S4.

You'd be hard pressed to find a smartphone on our site that comes more highly recommend than the S4, but that doesn't mean that … Read more

The Android faithful are getting giddy over what Google goodies could be revealed at next week's Google I/O developers' conference, and the de-shelving of the Nexus 4 at retailers has some wondering if a new pure Android phone is about to replace it.

Two U.K. retailers, Carphone Warehouse and Phones4U, have discontinued sales of the Nexus 4 this week, and the number of U.S. retailers still offering the phone online also seems to be shrinking. Check Google's official retail locator for the latest pure Google phone and the only outlets that pop up in most places (I checked New York, San Francisco, and Denver) are all T-Mobile stores.

Yet, when I checked Best Buy's Web site and clicked on the only Nexus 4 on offer (the T-Mobile version), I got a mysterious "Page Not Found" error. It certainly appears someone thinks the Nexus 4 has run its course and is looking to make room for something new.… Read more

There was a time when the only way you could share files between your Android device and a Windows computer was by using a USB cable. These days, there are wireless options available that make it easier to share files. One such option is ES File Explorer, a powerful Android file manager. ES File Explorer helps you manage the files on your local Android device. Starting with version 3, however, LAN support was added to make it possible to share files with a Windows PC over Wi-Fi. To share files between your Android device and a Windows PC using ES … Read more

Back in March, I read a story by The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg titled "How Apple gets all the good apps." It was mostly about why Apple's rivals -- Google, Microsoft, and others -- have brought their apps to the iOS platform while Apple didn't reciprocate the gesture.

Mossberg described the situation as obviously lopsided in Apple's favor and that it "stemmed from the different business models of the big rivals." Apple, after all, makes the "vast majority" of its money through hardware sales while Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, … Read more