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AfterDawn's official Android app has been updated. The new version, v1.60, is mostly a bug fix release to address the known issues with the app.

Our app's crash-free rate has been constantly above 99.9 percent, but there's always room to improve. We've identified handful of bugs causing the app to crash with various handsets - and have managed to fix all those known issues in our new version.

Our official app lets you read our news and allows you to scan through our news archive ever since 1999 when our site was launched. Yup, all of our news, how-tos and reviews are available there.

And of course, the app is completely free - and doesn't ask you any silly permissions when you install it. And apparently, people like it, too: it has the average rating of 4.4/5.0 in Google Play store.

Give it a try:

Download AfterDawn Android app

Apple has revealed the date of their next product launch, and it is sooner than most expected.

The next event will be held October 30 in Brooklyn, New York. Apple seems to be spoiling OnePlus' special day as their OnePlus 6T launch is scheduled just an hour or so later the same day, also in New York City.

Apple's new iPhones are out already, so what are we expected to see?

Most likely products include some new iPad and Mac models. More specifically iPad Pro is expected to get a refresh, and perhaps the next most obvious upgrade would be to non-Pro MacBooks.

MacBook Pro was already refreshed earlier this year but the regular MacBook and MacBook Air might get updates.

Rumors also have it that Apple's tiny Mac mini might be getting an update that is long overdue.

One could easily argue that Apple is predominantly a software company, even though most people think of iPhones and Macs as hardware products first and foremost when they think about Apple.

Cupertino's own trillion dollar company has been investing heavily in hardware lately, in hopes to gain more control over the components in their hardware as well as, perhaps even more importantly, boost the bottom line.

Now rumors have it that Apple is going to bring in one more main component under their own Apple brand, 9to5Mac reports.

In smartphones, Apple designs their own system-on-chips, the A chips, and now Apple is looking into running Mac computers with their own ARM-based processors.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has noted that Apple wants to relieve itself from Intel's CPU roadmap that can be crippling.

However, even though Apple's ARM-based A chips are powerful they can't compete with top-of-the-line Intel chips designed for computers. Not yet at least.

It is thus no surprise that reportedly the transition will begin with the most portable Macs and slowly work its way up the Mac hierarchy.

OnePlus has confirmed previously that its upcoming OnePlus 6T model will ship with the latest Android Pie operating system. But company also told that the promised Pie updates to previous models have been delayed.

OnePlus got praise from the press and its fans back in July when company announced that it has revised its update policy so that previous models, starting with OnePlus 3, will get Android Pie update by end of the year 2018.

Now, the company CEO told in online chat that while company still intends to update all promised models (OnePlus 3, OnePlus 3T, OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 5T) to Android Pie, the update will be postponed to "early 2019".

Company's current model, OnePlus 6, shipped with Android Oreo but got OTA update to Android Pie in September.

We had a severe problem with our software download section for the past 10 days that caused good portion of downloads from our site to fail.

We have finally identified the culprit and have fixed the problem. It was simply due a human error - a bug in the code that wasn't noticed and managed to slip through our testing process.

Apologies for the inconvenience this might have caused.

Our software database that we've been building for the past 19 years is available at https://www.afterdawn.com/software/ and has served more than quarter of a billion software downloads since 1999.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has died at age of 65. Cause of dead was non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a condition that was diagnosed in 2009 and returned just weeks ago.

Allen is widely considered to be one of the groundbreaking tech pioneers. Paul Allen founded Microsoft together with Bill Gates in 1970s and became one of the first tech billionaires in the World after Microsoft IPO in 1980s. He maintained his position at Microsoft until 2000.

Since Microsoft era, he has been best known for his Vulcan Inc investment company and for the fact that he owns several major sports teams: Seattle Seahawks (NFL), Portland Trail Blazers (NBA) and Seattle Sounders (MLS).

Through Vulcan, Allen invested to various technology projects, including SpaceShipOne, the first privately-funded ship to put a civilian into suborbital space around the Earth. He also funded generously SETI project, a project set to search for extraterrestrial life.

Thank you, Paul. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/SDj5Xp34jj

-- Microsoft (@Microsoft) 15. lokakuuta 2018

The man behind the original Android, Andy Rubin, made a comeback to the smartphone world last year with his new company Essential Products and their first smartphone Essential Phone.

While there were definitely some innovation that really caught the eye of customers, and especially the competitors, it couldn't be exactly described as a hit.

Obviously Essential started a trend, the notched displays, that they might not be as proud anymore, especially after Pixel 3 XL's huge cutout.

Now, Rubin has something new in store and, by the sounds of it, it might be the revolutionary thing we're waiting for.

According to Bloomberg, Essential is developing a smartphone that will evolve machine learning and AI to completely new level allowing the smartphone to complete rudimentary everyday tasks without user input.

The smartphone would learn the users behavior and apply that to automate tasks such as answering text messages.

European Commission investigated Google's monopolistic tendencies during past few years which resulted in July to a massive fine for Google restricting competition on their mobile platform.

Google obviously wasn't happy about the $5 billion (4.34 billion euros) fine, and now it has decided to file an appeal, Financial Times reports.

Not only is it a great deal of money, even for Google, but the decision would affect Google's business model on smartphones immensely.

European Commission argues that Google has broken the law by requiring carriers and manufacturers to include Google's software. In addition Google has blocked the use of other platforms.

This means that device manufacturers haven't had the option to replace Google Play with a third-part app store, or install a competing platform as an alternative to Android.

EU and Google have a long and storied history with fines and court battles. Google got fined nearly $3 billion last year for preferring their own shopping services on Google search. That was appealed as well, and has yet to be resolved.

Every moment after the debacle on YouTube videos on Amazon's Echo Show has lead to this. Now Google has introduced a new smart speaker that plays YouTube videos.

It is called Google Home Hub, and we thought it might have been due already last year.

As expected it features a touch screen, not unlike Echo Show, and because it is a Google device it can play videos from YouTube among other things.

It has all the features of a normal Google Home but also answers your questions with content on the screen. That means that you can ask it to play a song and it'll do that but also shows the music video.

Or you can get cooking instructions now with step by step picture or video to walk you through. To make it more obvious that Google has Amazon beat here, they offer a six month membership on YouTube Premium for free with a purchase of Home Hub.

One of the more interesting software features of Home Hub also comes to the Home mobile app. New Home View combines all the smart home devices to one neat view so you don't have to open different apps for adusting the lights, checking the security camera, and tweaking the temperature on the thermostat.

As anticipated, Google introduced yesterday two new Pixel phones, but perhaps the most intriguing new product was the new Pixel Slate.

Pixel Slate, as leaked prior to launch, is the search company's new try at making a proper tablet. A mobile device that brings in many of the advantages of a full fledged computer.

Thus it is not running Android, instead it is essentially a keyboard-less Chromebook. A Chromelet, let's say.

So inside you have a new version of Chrome OS that now offers an even greater Assistant integration and productivity features, such as split screen multitasking.

Pixel Slate offers both simple, fluid, and fast mobile apps as well as support for Linux apps. Two entirely different takes on computing.

Specs-wise it's an odd one. It includes a 12.3 inch LCD display with 293 ppi, which Google calls best in class, 8 megapixel cameras in the front and back, and laptop-like performance.

Performance comes from an Intel processor, and they range from less than impressive Celerons all the way to a Core i7, up to 16 gigabytes of RAM, and up to 256 GB SSD storage.

Google's this years Pixel event is over now and we have two new Pixel smartphones to feast our eyes on. The upgrades on the surface look very iterative but there's still plenty new there.

The displays are now bigger, 5.5 inches in the regular Pixel and 6.3 inches in the notched Pixel 3 XL. Both are OLED displays that hopefully prove to be better that last year's models in color reproduction as well.

Other than display size, and resolution, there's not much different in the two devices. Pixel 3 XL does have a bigger battery though.

Both of them sport the speedy Snapdragon 845 and perhaps a little underwhelming 4 gigabytes of RAM, which should be enough though, especially considering Google's track record of making buttery smooth smartphone experiences.

Cameras were the standout feature of the Pixel 2, and that shouldn't be any different this year. Front camera has turned into a dual camera with a wide angle lens, and back camera provides even more camera magic with software tricks.

Among the new tricks are a new Super Zoom that uses your hand shake to actually improve zoom quality, Top Shot that chooses the best picture (smile instead of sneeze, eyes open instead of shut, etc) with AI, and an amazing Night Sight that makes a dark scene light up like a Christmas tree.

Intel has unveiled its recent generation of Core processors, as expected. The desktop versions of Intel's latest and greatest offer improved efficiency and, of course, performance.

The unlocked K series got three new CPUs, Core i9-9900K, i7-9700K and i5-9600K. The octacore Core i9-9900K is the top of the line overclocking beast with sixteen threads, clocking in at 3.6 GHz with Turbo at 5.0 GHz.

Core i7-9700K offers the same base clock speed at 3.6 GHz, with a tad slower 4.9 GHz Turbo, and has eight threads. The most affordable of the 9th gen unlocked CPUs is the i5-9500K with six thread computing and 3.7 GHz clock speed with 4.6 GHz Turbo mode.

Prices start at $488 for the top specced i9, at $374 for the i7-9700K, and at $262 for the cheapest of the 9th gen K series chip.

The new K series is compatible with previous 300 series chipsets but the company also revealed a new Z390 chipset which includes support for both 802.11ac Wi-Fi, or as we call it now Wi-Fi 5, and USB 3.1 gen 2 which offers speeds up to 10Gb/s.

When it comes to the new X series CPUs, Intel had a total of seven new offerings to show off. They range from eight cores and 16 threads all the way up to 18 cores and 36 threads. Obviously you'll have to shell out quite a bit more cash for these ones.

Google's effort to steal some of Facebook's audience was introduces now seven years ago. Since it's inception Google+ has evolved quite a bit but it never seemed to gain any traction.

Now Google has finally acknowledged what the internet knew long ago. It is time to give up and just shut down the service from consumers.

The search giant perhaps wanted to be like Facebook too much, services like Twitter and Instagram have succeeded, in the manner that they have, because they offer different kind of experiences compared to Facebook, and Google+ arguably didn't.

But speculations aside, it is finally time to say goodbye to Google+ for good. Well, once Google actually removes it, which is somewhere in the next 10 months.

Google has made sure that you can, however, backup your one post safely, so you'll have time until October 2019 to copy your content to your preferred backup destination.

Google unveiled its WebP image format already back in 2010 but it hasn't taken the world by storm in the manner that the company probably expected, or at least hoped.

Obviously all Google's own products have since been updated to supports its superior web image format but many of the competitors are yet to fully adopt WebP.

Now few of the more influential competitors, including Microsoft and Mozilla, are ready to bring WebP to their platforms. Last week Microsoft revealed that Edge would be supporting WebP content in the future, and now Mozilla has done the same with Firefox, CNET reports.

According to Mozilla, all Gecko-based products will be gain WebP support in early 2019. Gecko is the engine that is running under the hood of Firefox browsers, excluding the iOS version.

After Microsoft and Mozilla have updated their respective browsers, Safari and Apple's platforms remain the only major forces to still reject WebP.

Alongside WebP, video format AVIF, which is based on Google developed VP9, is making inroads in the web community, and is backed by most companies, including Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, and even Apple.

Tomorrow is the big day of the year for Google. The company is debuting its new smartphones and maybe even revealing some other new Pixel devices.

In fact, a new leak suggests that Google is turning back time and unveiling a brand new tablet, first one since 2015 Pixel C.

The new one is allegedly called Pixel Slate and indeed will be revealed tomorrow in New York City as Google updates its Pixel smartphones.

However, except for these pictures, there's not a lot we know about Pixel Slate. It'll likely run Chrome OS and seems to sport a 3:2 aspect ratio, which seems to be a hallmark of Pixel tablets and computers alike.

There's also a stylus and a keyboard cover, as expected. But that's about it.

We'll know more about it tomorrow so stay tuned.