Top Android news of the week: Todoist, Pebble Watch, $5,000 phone
In the world of Android this week: a popular to-do app and the Pebble Watch hit Android Wear; an insanely expensive phone appears; apps can access data on older Android versions.
Todoist is a popular app for managing to-do lists. It's been around on Android for a long time. Users of the app should be delighted to hear it has been released for Android Wear.
Wearables haven't been widely adopted but it's good to see major apps beginning to get released in versions for Android Wear. This should add value to smartwatches and ramp up sales.
One of the first popular smartwatches got its start through crowdsourcing. The Pebble Watch is now sold in retail outlets and owners seem to like it a lot.
This week the makers of the Pebble announced it now supports Android Wear, putting it in firm competition with other smartwatches from Samsung, LG, Motorola, Sony, and others.
$5,000 Android phone for those who have... no sense
It's the holiday season and if you're wondering what to get that person on your list who has everything, there's a fair chance this Android phone will do. That's if you can afford it, as the Android phone costs a cool $5,000.
The Gresso Regal Black Edition has a case of titanium and 18K gold. It is assembled by hand and there will only be 999 of them made.
The Hong Kong Office of the Privacy Commissioner has issued a report that claims "tests have revealed that it is possible to develop an app that can read the memory of Android devices, including photos, files, and any data other apps choose to store in the devices, without the need to inform app users on the permission page".
This is restricted to Android 4.3 and earlier, which is still widely used. Google's response is not very helpful: "one of the improvements we made in Android 4.4 was to provide enhanced notification about access by applications to data on shared storage. We encourage users to update to a newer version of Android to benefit from this and other improvements."
Of course, the problem is device owners usually have no choice to run whatever version of Android they're given.
You may not have heard of Coolpad but it makes a lot of Android devices. This makes the report of a backdoor the company is using on its devices quite disturbing. Researchers at Palo Alto Networks discovered the backdoor, which it calls CoolReaper.
CoolReaper gives "Coolpad complete control over the affected devices, hiding the software from antivirus programs, and leaving users unprotected from malicious attackers."
