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Showing posts from August, 2017

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Receives Unofficial Port of Android 8.0 Oreo

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With the initial rush of developers trying to boot Android Oreo on anything that’ll run it, the next big hitter to receive an unofficial port of the latest OS is the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Snapdragon edition. Android Oreo for the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, ported by XDA Senior Member jhenrique09, is in an impressive position. The only broken features currently include Wi-Fi hotspot, USB tethering, and VoLTE, making this an impressive first port for the widely loved device. The Google App suite also comes pre-installed with this ROM. This Xiaomi device is not the only one to unofficially receive an Android Oreo port, with the Nexus 5 receiving one too, albeit in a much more unstable state at the moment. What makes this port even more impressive are the circumstances the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 is in. Running a Snapdragon 650, there have been no driver updates from Qualcomm to allow it to run on Android Marshmallow or higher. Developers have had to “shim” the blobs, in other words analyzing

New Acer Chromebook 15 Announced at IFA 2017: Coming in October

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Since 2011, Acer has been one of the world’s leading Chromebook brands. The first Acer Chromebook announced at Google I/O 2011 went on to become one of the most popular products ever released by the company. At their IFA 2017 press event in Berlin, where they’ve unveiled a range of new products, Acer announced another offering in their Acer Chromebook 15 line with upgraded internals and new features. Their newest laptop is expected to release in October. On the specifications, this laptop brings at least two different models. One will be powered by an unspecified dual-core Intel Celeron and the other one by a quad-core Intel Pentium processor. While these processors are somewhat underpowered for intensive tasks, they should serve well for general web browsing as well as using most apps. The laptop will also be available with 32GBs or 64GBs of eMMC storage as well as 4GB or 8GB RAM configurations, which should be enough to satisfy most users’ needs. Acer has also promised batte

The Palm Brand is Making a Return Next Year, According to TCL

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Back in the day, Palm pioneered the concept of personal digital assistant (PDA) devices, largely considered the predecessor to smartphones. They’ve entered this market back in 1996 and achieved success with devices like the Palm TX and the Palm Pilot. With the Palm Pre, in 2009, they attempted to take on the rising Android and iOS platforms with their webOS alternative. And while webOS was a compelling platform (which even took rising designer Matias Duarte as their UX head), it failed to actually gain traction in the market. Fast-forward to 2010, and the company was bought by Hewlett-Packard for $1.2 billion, only to be sold again to TCL a mere 5 years later in 2015 (with webOS rights being sold to LG in 2013). However, it’s not all bad news for Palm fans. TCL, who also makes Alcatel and BlackBerry-brandeddevices, has announced that they are going to bring back the Palm brand starting in 2018 . In a statement to Dutch website Android Planet, TCL’s marketing manager Stefan St

What are Your Thoughts on Android Oreo so Far?

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Now that everyone has had time to either check out multiple articles or hands-on impressions, or try out the update for themselves, most of us have began cementing our opinion on Android Oreo. Not all updates are created equal, so it’s common for hype and satisfaction levels to vary from year to year as Android gains new features or thorough refinements. While many consider Android Oreo to not be as feature-packed as Android Nougat, it does come with a salvo of less user-facing improvements, many of which we’ve covered in depth on the XDA Portal. It brings more options to developers, enhances or removes some inconsistencies and expands potential for things like theming, while also adding new useful features like picture-in-picture video. With all of this in mind, we ask you, What are your thoughts on Android Oreo so far? What features do you like the most, and which changes do you like least? Have you tried it on your device? Will you be flashing it to your device or upda

Google is Starting Work on Android P (Android 9.0) in the AOSP Master Branch

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It’s been a little over 5 months since Google introduced the first Android 8.0 Developer Preview and a little over a week since the latest release, now known as Android Oreo, was officially launched. But while only a minuscule fraction of overall Android users have their hands on the tasty Oreo update, we would expect that Google is already starting work on the next major version of Android. And we would be right, as tonight a new tag has opened up in the Android Open Source Project called “master-p” that indicates that commits made to the AOSP master branch will show up in Android P (presumably Android 9.0). The three commits show that Google is now testing Android P on the Google Pixel (sailfish) and Google Pixel XL (marlin). The first one, titled “master is now P”, was just merged to the master branch tonight. In the changes made to the version_defaults.mk file, we can see the new platform code name and version. As you can see, the code name is Android P as compared

Google to Comply With European Commission Demands to Avoid More Fines

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Back in June Google was hit with two and a half billion fine for antitrust issues by the European Commission. The internet search giant, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., was accused of prioritizing its own store over other competing stores within its search engine. If they did not comply and propose a solution within 60 days and implement them by 90 days, September 28th 2017, then they would be fined 5% of daily revenue for each day they do not comply. They have been under investigation since then over its other products, such as Android and its advertising business. Google denied any wrongdoing when it first was accused. Kent Walker, senior vice president of the company, said this on the matter.  “There is simply no meaningful correlation between the evolution of our search services and the performance of price comparison sites. Meanwhile, over those same ten years, a rapidly increasing amount of traffic flowed from our search pages to popular sites like Amazon and eBay as they

BlackBerry is Launching Another All-Touchscreen Phone in October

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Before the advent of Android and iOS, BlackBerry phones were all the rage. After all, their QWERTY keyboard solution was replicated by pretty much every OEM back in the day. They dominated the smartphone market from 2006 to 2008-2009, ahead of when touchscreen smartphones took the world by storm. While BlackBerry tried to compete with their BB 10 platform back in 2012-2013, they couldn’t keep up. So they ended up as another Android OEM. What was the difference this time around? They continued using QWERTY keyboards, which many people prefer over all-touchscreen phones because of convenience. The BlackBerry Priv and the KEYOne are good examples of modern Android phones with QWERTY keyboards, having launched in 2015 and 2017 respectively. But the company is aware that there’s a thriving market for all-touchscreen phones – a market they don’t want to miss out on. At an IFA 2017 briefing in Berlin, TCL’s head of global sales François Mahieu said that two months from now “we w

Google Camera HDR+ Port Updated with Zero Shutter Lag, More Xiaomi Device Support, and Major Bug Fixes

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As we reported earlier this month, Google Camera was ported with working HDR+ to any devices that used a Snapdragon 820/821 or 835 chip (with the exception of the ZTE Axon 7, according to reports from other users). It has also been reported to work on certain Snapdragon 4XX or 6XX devices such as the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, though this requires the devices to have the Camera2 API enabled. Since the initial, rather buggy release, the Google Camera port has received updates to fix major bugs, bring more Xiaomi devices on board, and has also introduced Zero Shutter Lag for automatic HDR+ mode. The Google Camera port seems to make use of the Hexagon 680 DSP in these Snapdragon SoCs, so no equivalent Exynos or Kirin SoC will be capable of using this port (sorry, international Samsung or Huawei/Honor users!) This addition not only has significantly improved pictures in certain conditions on a vast selection of devices, but it has made certain phones major

MiHome Launcher With New Grid Size Option Ported to Other Xiaomi Devices

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MiHome launcher has been ported by XDA-member Dadovvv, who has spent hours working to take the it from the Xiaomi Mi Max and make it available for other Xiaomi phones running on MIUI, Android 7.0. You will need root access and a root enabled file manager such as MiXplorer to download and install the modded application, and also to change your DPI. Your DPI must be below 440. Download QR-Code MiXplorer Developer: Hootan ParsaMega.co.nzMail.ruYandex.ruMyDrive.chMail.ru Price: Free To install the application, you will need to copy the application to the /system/priv-app/MiuiHome and delete the oat folder if it exists. Set the permissions of the file to 644 (-rw-r–r–) and reboot! The application should work and let you change grid sizes. Check out the port down below!

Google Publishes Android Oreo OTA Images for Supported Pixel and Nexus Devices

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Early last week Google finally announced the name of Android Oreo and then shortly afterwards uploaded the source code for the new update. As we were combing through those commits to find some new changes, Google then uploaded the system images for the update for supported Pixel and Nexus devices. Manually flashing those images will wipe the data from your phone though, so last night the company published the OTA images for this new update. Google’s OTA update system can feel incredibly slow if you aren’t picked to be included in the first phase or two of the roll out. At least back in the KitKat days, Google would send a new update to 1% of their users within the first 24-48 hours. During this time, Google checks the return rates, device checkins and error reports (if any). Assuming there aren’t any issues here, the company then sends these OTA update notifications to 25%, 50% and then 100% over the next couple of weeks. Any critical errors they find during this process c

App Categories in Android Oreo Will Allow for Better Organization

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Here at XDA we have been monitoring the Android developer site and the Android Open Source Project for changes and new API additions, and so far we have found many new additions and changes. These include commands to customise battery saver, a command line interface for theming (which led to rootless Substratum on Android Oreo) and now something else – Google has created app categories which are defined within the app’s manifest file. Now, you’re probably familiar with the fact that the Google Play Store already allows applications to be categorized. However, currently this category is only useful to the user before installing the app. Once the app is installed, neither the Android system nor any other third-party app on your device will know what category that app belongs to. But that will change with the addition of app categories to Android 8.0 Oreo. App Categories in Android Oreo This change can be observed on the Android Developer site , added to the Package Manage

OnePlus 5 Receives an Update to OxygenOS v4.5.10, Improves the Camera and More

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Earlier today, OnePlus announced they were starting to roll out a new OTA update for the OnePlus 5. This update will bring your software up to version 4.5.10 of OxygenOS and it comes with a number of changes that will likely make a lot of OnePlus 5 owners happy. There still isn’t any mention of a fix for the jelly scrolling effect that so many customers have complained about, but the update touches on the camera quality, WiFi stability, bug fixes and more. The highlight of this update, similar to its last OTA update earlier this month, is the camera. Camera quality in a smartphone is becoming more and more important these days since the competition is heating up and people want their photos to look as good as possible. This update to OxygenOS 4.5.10 is said to reduce noise in a photograph during what we assume is low-light conditions. The OnePlus 5 camera generally performs well when there is a good light source so this improvement is very welcomed. The changelog also men

Android Oreo Adds Developer Commands for Testing Virtual Reality Apps

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ADB has lots of different commands that help Android developers, and users alike, do all kinds of things on their devices. Google has been pushing forward with Virtual Reality technology ever since they introduced Google Cardboard and later Google Daydream. However, the biggest thing holding these platforms back is a lack of VR application support. Thankfully, Google is working to add more development tools that developers of virtual reality apps can take advantage of to ease the testing process. Android Oreo, for instance, has added a few ADB commands for VR testing. Starting with Android 8.0, Google has added these new ADB commands for VR testing. Now, by using the adb vr command, developers can do things like toggling persistent VR mode and setting custom display propertiess. These can be accessed by using the following ADB command: adb vr [subcommand] To set your device in persistent VR mode: adb vr set-persistent-vr-mode-enabled [true|false] To set custom disp

Android Oreo Apps can Better Integrate with Google Assistant

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There’s a lot of changes happening in the new Android Oreo update and we’ve been covering all the new changes that we’ve been able to find. Some are quality of life improvements, others are features we’ve been asking for, and then there are some that make you wonder what took them so long to add to Android. A new feature that we have picked up on is the ability for Android Oreo applications to launch Google Assistant directly from within the application, providing for better integration between Google Assistant and third-party apps built for Android 8.0 Oreo. Google has been doing a lot of work to expand the functionality of their virtual assistant within and outside of Android. As far as smartphones go, Google Assistant is generally considered the best option available as there are just certain tasks the competition just doesn’t perform well at. However, Google has a lot of work to do in order to get Google Assistant to the level that Amazon’s Alexa is at. There are still so

ASUS Zenfone 5 Receives Android Oreo Alpha ROM

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Android enthusiasts around the world have Oreo fever now that Google has announced the name and released the source code for the new update. Millions of people are now looking to their OEMs for details about when their device will receive the official update. Enthusiasts however, are looking to custom ROM developers and wondering the same. We recently brought attention to a new Oreo ROM for the Xiaomi Mi 3 and Mi 4 (Cancro), and today we want to do the same for the ASUS Zenfone 5. At the time of publication, the Android Oreo ROM for the Mi 3 and Mi 4 had been able to go through multiple revisions. This enabled the developer to iron out some of its kinks and get most of the hardware working the way it should. Sadly, this isn’t the case with the ASUS Zenfone 5, but it still deserves attention as it is the first step to getting a stable Oreo ROM working on it. This has been all thanks to the work of dedicated XDA Senior Member tank0412. This alpha build of Android Oreo for t

Google Introduces Runtime-Only Permissions in Android 8.0 for Better Security

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One of the best security-oriented changes included in Android 6.0 Marshmallow was runtime permissions. Before the advent of runtime permissions, developers would define permissions in their AndroidManifest file that would be granted automatically upon installation. On Android 6.0 and newer, runtime permissions required the user to explicitly grant or deny a permission through a dialog. From a security standpoint, this ensured that certain sensitive permissions like reading text messages or contacts would need to be brought to the user’s attention before the app could use them. But there was one major problem: runtime permissions are only enforced for applications targeting Android Marshmallow or newer. So long as the app targets Android Lollipop or older, any runtime permissions would still be automatically granted upon installation. Lots of applications, most notably Snapchat, still do this in order to avoid dealing with runtime permissions. Finally, with Android 8.0 Oreo,

How to Sync Do Not Disturb Mode Between Android Wear and Your Phone

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Android Wear 2.0 has been a much-awaited update, with watches such as the Moto 360 Sport only now getting it while the update came out in May for the Huawei Watch. With the Wear 2.0 update came many improvements, including the device now being able to install applications directly on your watch and a keyboard to reply to messages. One of the downsides of the update is that do not disturb mode no longer synchronizes between your smartwatch and your phone. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to sync do not disturb mode between your two devices. We gave a shout out to this application back in May, and today we’ll show you how to set it up! Do Not Disturb Sync for Android Wear 2.0 We will be setting up this application on our phone and our watch. You will need to set up adb on your watch . The steps are largely the same for Android Wear, but screenshots of the process are shown below. You don’t actually have to debug over Wi-Fi, but I find it most convenient. Once done, con

MediaTek Unveils the new Helio P23 and Helio P30 Mid-Range SoCs with Dual VoLTE/ViLTE Support

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The smartphone SoC market runs on a few key players. Together, these handful of SoC makers contribute to the vast majority of Android devices sold across the world, cutting across price segments. So while we do love our performance-oriented flagship SoC platforms, the midrange of the SoC market also deserves its share of love. And MediaTek’s latest contribution with the Helio P23 and Helio P30 brings a refresh to an SoC line that has helped shape Android’s popularity in the low and mid ends of the smartphone product space. The Helio P23 and Helio P30 are part of MediaTek’s “mid range” P-series lineup — a set of chipsets that forms an integral part of MediaTek’s portfolio. They succeed MediaTek’s Helio P20 and Helio P25 SoC’s, aiming to offer better performance with a new feature set to bridge the gap towards the flagship Helio X-series SoC. The MediaTek Helio P23 and P30 employ an octa-core Cortex-A53 setup in a dual cluster configuration. The four cores in the performa

Galaxy Note 8 Wins DisplayMate’s Highest Grade Ever, an A+

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Similar to how DxOMark is considered an authoritative figure in the photography industry, DisplayMate has earned similar accolades in the display industry. This isn’t always the case though as many feel OEMs just game the review system that both of these companies provide, but many look two these two organizations to learn about the technologies used in new smartphones. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone but Samsung continues to dominate DisplayMate’s leaderboards with the launch of the Galaxy Note 8. I say it shouldn’t come as a surprise because almost every time a new Samsung flagship is released we see similar headlines, and because they truly are pushing the envelope as well as supplying panels for a multitude of high-profile devices. We reported on this back at the launch of the Galaxy S8 when they announced the device received their highest grade ever, an A+. While the results of individual tests differ from one device to the next, DisplayMate is still giving the Galax

How to Use ADB or Fastboot From Any Directory on your Windows/Linux PC

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If you’ve followed our tutorial on how to setup the adb and fastboot platform tools on your computer, it might be annoying to have to navigate to the folder every time, especially if you use either tool quite frequently. Having to copy files to the platform tools folder is also annoying whenever you want to flash stuff on your device. For me it’s frustrating as I use an SSD and I dislike having to copy my files to my platform tools folder, and then delete them after. However, it’s possible to run the adb or fastboot tools from any directory on your Windows or Linux PC so you’ll never have to change directories to run any commands. What is the PATH system variable? PATH is used by Windows to specify the location of important executables. Usually, these are files located in the system directories, such as C:\Windows and C:\Windows\system32. This is why you can type “calc” in the command prompt to launch calculator, but not “chrome” to launch Google Chrome. This variable is

FREE eBook - Learning Python

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