April 2016 ~ XDA

Saturday, April 30, 2016

Physical Versus Virtual Buttons — it’s More than Just Placement

The beginning of the trend Up until late 2011, hardware buttons were the widely-accepted norm for buttons on a handheld device, with Android’s hardware partners taking advantage of the free rein given...

On Affordable Smartphones: Iterative Improvements Over Time Depend on the Flagship

It’s been hard this week to look anywhere in the technosphere and not see an article proclaiming the death of the Flagship. Fueling these thoughts are years of declining profits and device sales...

RootJunky: How to Bypass Factory Reset Protection on the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge

We here at XDA are big fans of esteemed flashaholic RootJunky who specializes in teaching you how to hack your Android device. If you’re the owner of a flagship Samsung or Motorola Droid device, then you might have seen him on our forums at one point. If you don’t own any of those devices, then you...

KangVIP ROM For The Mate 8 Changes Developer, Updated to B180

After announcing that he was selling his Mate 8 but would continue to try and support the development on his ROM, ajsmsg78 announced today that pappschlumpf had taken over as lead developer. Shortly after this news, the ROM received an update to B180 which comes with ViperAtmos...

Intel Cutting Significant Part, Possibly Entire Atom Lineup

Intel has started to clarify where it is going after the announcement of cutting up to 11% of its workforce last week – and fans of Intel’s Atom lineup are in for some broken hearts. According to information from Patrick Moorhead at Forbes it appears that at least two projects – SoFIA and the previously...

Earlier this week SurveyMonkey released information from its Intelligence division that provides some insight into how many people are using Microsoft Office apps on mobile devices in comparison to Google....

Chrome OS Gets Google Play. MODE Switchable Android Wear Bands. Ultra-Sonic Link Sharing?

Chrome OS is getting full Google Play Store support! Google introduces switchable watch bands for Android Wear with MODE. Finally, share links using ultrasound. These stories and more are talked about by TK as he covers the news from the week ending April 29, 2016 at XDA-Developers.com. Check out...

Chinese OEMs are no stranger to North America, but it wasn’t until a few years ago that they really started breaking into our higher-end smartphone market. Until then, offerings from major brands such...

Fairphone 2’s Open OS is Available to Download

The software inside the Fairphone 2 is based on Android 5.1 Lollipop and this week the company has released it for all to download. You can use if you ever need to reinstall the software on your own Fairphone 2, or you can check out their open source & development website to go through the...

Screenshots Emerge of Google Trips: Google’s Latest Travel Focused App

Google has begun testing Google Trips, an app focused on travelling. Open to select Local Guides volunteers, Trips allows you to view info on reservations, local transportation, local attractions and more. Further, the app also works offline, which is a very good feature for an app focused on trave...

Google Enhances App Security in the Play Store

Google has just announced they have added another layer of app security to Google Play via the Developer Console. After you upload an application, and before it is accepted, the app itself will be scanned for “safety and security.” If there’s something found, Google will alert you and the app will remain...

ZUK Z1 Landing in India as Lenovo Z1, Cyanogen OS in Tow

The ZUK Z1 is coming to India, taking a rebranding as it comes in. The device will be known as the Lenovo Z1, and is “powered by ZUK”. There is mention of Cyanogen OS as well, so it remains to be seen how Micromax/YU react to this, as they did with the OnePlus One....

LG Invests ~$400 Million to Expand OLED Production

With so much money being invested in OLED (from both LG and Samsung), it’s hard to say the technology isn’t the future of displays. LG has just announced they will be investing $395.99 million in their OLED division. The majority of the investment (310 billion won) will go to increase OLED production...

Sony Patents Contact Lens Cam with Zoom, Aperture Control and More

Joining the ranks of Google and Samsung on eye-wearables, Sony has applied for a patent on a contact lens camera. The patent points towards a contact lens with built-in camera, storage and transmission unit. Further, for camera features, the lens would contain autofocus, zoom, aperture control and a...

LeEco Opens a U.S. Headquarters in San Jose

LeEco now has a presence in the United States. The company just opened up their first U.S. headquarters in San Jose right on North First Street and say customers in the country “will never again settle for less.” The campus is about 800,000 square feet and currently employs 250 people with projects...

Amazon’s 1st Appstore Developer Day Happens May 12th

If you’re going to be around Amazon’s UK office on May 12th, you might want to show up at noon to take part in the company’s first Appstore Developer Day. It’s a free, half-day event that will be focusing on mobile app development. You’ll hear from Amazon Appstore Mobile Experts as they talk...

Three UK Partners with will.i.am to Launch Dial

Musician will.i.am has been getting into the hardware business the last few years and his company’s latest device is a wearable called Dial. It’s being described as a “voice-first” device that has its own virtual assistant (similar to Google Now, Cortana, Alexa, etc) that they are calling AneedA....

Zopo Speed 8 is the Cheapest, Top-Benchmarked Smartphone in the World

Zopo recently announced the Speed 8 as the world’s first smartphone with a 10-core SoC and it only costs $300. It has the MediaTek Helio X20 in it, and their screenshots say it was able to obtain an AnTuTu score of 91,931. In this test, the registered devices that beat it were the iPhone 6s, Galaxy...

Rick Osterloh is the SVP of Google’s New Hardware Division

It was March 18th when news hit that Rick Osterloh would be leaving Motorola as Lenovo finalized their reorganization plans. It didn’t take long before someone snatched him up and that someone is Google. Osterloh will be the Senior Vice President of a newly-formed hardware division within Google...

Twitter Helps Bring Fenix Back into the Play Store

We recently reported on the removal of a popular Twitter application, Fenix, but the application is back in the Play Store. Matteo Villa is the developer of the application and he recently announced the application was able to be brought back into the Play Store with help from Twitter themselves....

BlackBerry brings BBM Video to Priv Users in the US

BlackBerry says their users have been wanting a way to do video calling within the BBM application and now the feature is here. The feature comes with the latest BBM app update and it will only be available to U.S. Android users for now. This is a beta run of the feature so be sure to report any bugs...

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 is one of Xiaomi’s trump cards to capture the low-mid end market for 2016, being the successor of one of Xiaomi’s most popular phones, the Redmi Note. Featuring some very enticing...

Android N Style SystemUI for Sony Xperia Z5 and Z5 Dual

If you’re looking to get some Android N flavor onto your Sony Xperia Z5 or Z5 Dual, install this modified SystemUI by XDA Senior Member nreuge!...

Rady Red Theme for Sony Xperia Z5

Rady Red Theme by XDA Member tanto124 employs a combination of black and red in the right proportions to give a new look to your Sony Xperia Z5!...

Control Music From the Edge Panel with Edge Player

XDA Member hymxdev‘s app, Edge Player, lets you make better use of the Edge panel on Galaxy Edge devices by using it for controlling music. The app works with a host of music players, so give it a shot!...

Official Facebook, Messenger and Instagram Apps Coming to Windows 10

Facebook is releasing the suite of official apps for Facebook, Messenger and Instagram for Windows 10. These apps are designed for to run quickly and efficiently on Windows 10, and will be released up-to-date compared to their Android counterparts....

Moto 360 Sport No Longer Listed on Google Store

Mere months after its release, the Moto 360 has been taken out of the Google Store. The device now shows up as “Not Available” on the Store, although you can still purchase the device from other online stores. Also to note, the Moto 360 Sport was very recently launched in India as well, so this could...

Google and HP Collaborate on Chrome OS based Chromebook 13

HP has unveiled the Chromebook 13, a chromebook designed in collaboration with Google and running on Chrome OS. Base models of the Chromebook 13 bear a 1080p display, 4GB RAM, with Skylake Core M processors. The higher end models bump up the display to 3200×1800 resolution, 16GB RAM and better proc...

Motorola Sends Out Invites for Indian Event on May 17th

Motorola has sent out invites for an event in New Delhi, India scheduled for May 17th. While the invite itself does not mention many details, it is expected to be the launch of the Moto G4 and the Moto G4 Plus. To recap, the Moto G3 was launched in July 2015....

Sony’s 2015 Financial Report Shows Revenues Down but Profits Up

Sony is working hard on getting its mobile division back above water but it lost $544 million in the company’s 2015 fiscal year. Overall, Sony was able to bring in around $71.1 billion in revenue and $2.7 billion of that was profit. The majority of Sony’s profit is thanks to their gaming division...

LG’s Q1 Financial Report Shows a 65% Increase in YoY Profits

LG’s quarterly financial report shows a healthy increase in profits, but this was mostly thanks to their entertainment and home appliance divisions. Overall, LG brought in $11.12 billion in revenue with $420 million of that being pure profit. LG’s mobile device Q1 shipments were down 12% compared...

Samsung Working on Standalone VR Headset

The Gear VR is a great, and inexpensive way to get people who already own a Samsung flagship interested in VR but even Samsung understands its limitations. At SDC 2016, the company says they are working on a standalone VR headset much like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. We didn’t get a release date,...

Samsung is Experimenting with a Vulkan Version of its TouchWiz Launcher

A lot of people are getting excited about what Vulkan can bring to the table in terms of graphical power on mobile devices. Samsung, however, is testing to see how power efficient it can make certain apps. At SDC 2016, the company talked about a Vulkan prototype of its TouchWiz Launcher and...

Huawei Announces the Affordable honor 5C

It is unclear if the honor 5C will make it out of China, but the device seems to offer a lot for its price tag. The honor 5C has a 5.2″ 1080p display, Kirin 650 SoC, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage that can be expanded by up to 128GB via microSD. It has 13MP rear and 8MP front cameras, rear fingerprint...

“Contains Ads” Labels in the Play Store Appearing for Users

Toward the end of last year, Android app developers received a message from Google saying they need to designate whether or not their app contains ads. Google said this label would roll out to all applications, both in and out of the Family section, “early next year”. Now, it seems that Google is finally...

FTC Extends Google Investigation into Possible Antitrust Issues

Shortly after the EU formally starts investigating Google for antitrust issues, the FTC has decided to extend the probe they started in 2015. The FTC is basically looking into the same thing as the EU. The FTC has reportedly requested data from at least 2 companies involved, so it seems...

Google Calendar Helps You Find a Time for an Event

If you use Google Apps for Work or Edu, then it just got a lot easier to schedule an event with people on your team. All you have to do is create an event, like a meeting, and then choose the people who will need to attend. When selecting the Find a Time option, it will automatically refer...

Nextbit Releases Factory Images for the Robin’s April Update

We knew the Nextbit Robin was going to be receiving the Android 6.0.1 update sometime in April and today it started rolling out to users. Not many people want to wait for an OTA update, and Nextbit knows this. The company has just released the factory images for the 6.0.1 update and they even...

LeEco Announcement Event Recap

Chinese Manufacturer LeEco has announced the Le Max 2 and some other variants. XDA TV Host TK was in Bejing, China covering the event and all the exciting announcements. TK took a moment to give us his highlights from this event. Check out this video and check out his hands on videos with the Le Max...

Piecing Evidence Together: The Nexus Line, HTC M1 & S1, and an Elusive Tablet

Google I/O 2016 is less than a month away, which means we’ve entered the final bout of new Nexus rumor hype. Today, famed device leaker @evleaks threw the Android enthusiast world into a tailspin with...

Minimal ADB & Fastboot Tool Updated to v1.4

XDA Recognized Developer shimp208 just released version 1.4 of their Minimal ADB & Fastboot tool. This brings ADB and Fastboot up to the latest version 1.0.3.5 release candidates and prepares it for eventual open sourcing of the tool....

How Much Mobile Data Do You Consume, How Much Do You Really Need?

One of the propagating factors that played a symbiotic role in the adoption of smartphones is Mobile Data. Over the years, our consumption of mobile data has spurred the the growth and improvement of Telecom infrastructure which in turns helps adoption and increase in consumption of mobile data. Mobile...

Poweramp Music Player App Review & Giveaway

Today XDA TV Host TK takes a look at the music player app Poweramp. Additionally, we are giving away twenty-five (25) unlock codes for the Poweramp full version. To learn about Poweramp Music player and how to win, check out the video! a Rafflecopter giveaway Be sure to check out other great XDA...

Security and privacy are of the utmost importance when modifying your device or buying from a third party reseller. Of course, nothing will ever beat only buying or downloading from trusted sources...

Android N Preview Now Supported in Android Studio 2.1

The Android team released version 2.1 of the Android Studio and there are significant changes in the release. Primarily the release now adds support for the Developer Preview of Android N. Android’s Jack compiler is now supported and now opens the door to Java 8 language features without additional...

HTC 10 with Unlocked Bootloader and TWRP Cannot Download OTA

XDA Recognized Contributor topjohnwu found out that unlocking the HTC10’s bootloader and installing TWRP makes the device incapable of even downloading all OTA’s in the first place....

Qualcomm Releases Updated Tools for Vulkan

A lot of people are betting on Vulkan to be huge and recently Qualcomm updated their developer tools to help developers. The Adreno SDK now has a directory with sample Vulkan graphics as an Android Studio project. The Snapdragon Profiler will now show how your apps are taking advantage of the Vulkan...

Google Redesigns the Homepage of the YouTube App

If you’re an avid user of the YouTube app for Android then you can look forward to an update that will revamp the homepage that you see when you open it up. There’s more to this update than just large images too. Google says they’ve improved the personal recommendation engine that suggests videos...

Leaked Photos Allegedly Reveal the Samsung Gear Fit 2 & Gear IconX

Evan Blass was able to get his hands on some photos that allegedly show off two upcoming products from Samsung. First up, we have the Gear IconX Bluetooth earbuds that we see both in and outside of its charging case. Then there’s the Gear Fit 2, a successor to the company’s fitness wearable from back...

Even Intel wants to Ditch the 3.5mm Jack in Favor of USB Type-C

There’s been rumors of Apple ditching the 3.5mm jack and LeEco did exactly that with their latest batch of devices they released. Now it seems Intel agrees and transition over to the more universal USB Type-C standard. This idea is already a very polarized topic so it will surely spawn heated debates...

Nextbit Robin Receives Android 6.0.1 Update with Camera and Sound Improvements

A system update for the Nextbit Robin for Android 6.0.1 fixes a few issues with the camera and brings in better sound quality and control. We noted in our review how the Robin’s camera was a bit on the slow side, and this update promises to fix this as well as bring in improvements with image sharpness...

Microsoft’s Xamarin Launches Major Update to Cross-Platform Development Tools

Xamarin, which was acquired by Microsoft in February, has announced major updates to its cross-platform development tools. Notably, Xamarin is open-sourcing its SDK’s for Android, iOS and Mac under the MIT licenses. These SDK’s include the command-line tools for building applications as well as Xamarin’s...

Nintendo Confirms 2 Franchises are Coming to Smartphones

The tweets from Nintendo of America have been taken down, but Engadget was able to preserve the text from it. Earlier today, Nintendo went on Twitter and said “More #Nintendo apps are coming to smart devices, including Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing!” It’s unclear if these will be ports of previous...

Pokemon GO Field Test Invites are Going Out in Australia & New Zealand

Niantic is bringing in more people to test their upcoming game, Pokemon GO. If you live in either Australia or New Zealand, then you have the opportunity to get a field test invite for the game. Invites will be sent out based on which mobile platform you’re using, if you have any experience in...

India Bans Import of Phones Without IMEI From China

In an effort to avoid dumping of low quality products in India, the government of India has banned the import of mobile phones and certain other products from China. The Chinese mobile phone import ban is restricted to phones that ship without an IMEI number (such as unbranded generic feature phones),...

3 Minute Games Discounts all Lifeline Games to $0.10

3 Minute Games is a game developer studio known for their Lifeline series of games. So far, the team has released Lifeline, Lifeline 2 and Lifeline: Silent Night. You can pick up each of these games in the Play Store right now for only a dime a piece. It’s unclear how long this sale will last, so be...

Developer Explains the Future of Talon

With Fenix recently hitting its Twitter token limit, Luke Klinker (the developer of Talon) has been getting a lot of questions about the future of his Twitter application. He says Talon “still has plenty of tokens available” and then goes on to explain that he will continue to support it with updates...

BlackBerry Announces Android 6.0 Rollout for the Priv

After the short beta program, BlackBerry has officially announced the full Android 6.0 Marshmallow rollout. The update is already starting to hit devices that were purchased from BlackBerry’s own web store (ShopBlackBerry) and the company says it will be hitting carrier models starting on May 3rd. With...

Pokémon GO Beta Extended Gameplay Footage

More footage has appeared online for Pokémon GO, Niantic’s newest game which is under beta testing in Japan and Australia. This gameplay footage shows us several mechanics of the game, including how to catch Pokémon, fight a gym battle, and even hatch an Egg. The Pokémon seem to be limited...

Meizu Pro 5 and Lenovo Vibe P1 Get Their Own XDA Sub Forums!

Following the sale announcement for the Ubuntu-powered Meizu Pro 5, XDA sub forums for the same have been created. The Lenovo Vibe P1 also gets in on the fun with its own forum!...

Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact Gets Official Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow

Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow is rolling out for the Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact, bringing with it all the goodies of the latest public version of Android. The Z3 Tablet Compact was the only device in the Z2-Z3 range that was missing its update, and Sony has gotten perfect update coverage in this device...

I’m just going to go ahead and say it. iOS devices are not bad. To be honest, as a huge Android fan, it’s something of a secret I’ve carried for the past few years. I had an iPhone 4S after recoiling...

Part of the beauty of owning a watch with standard wristband sizes is the ability to purchase new bands to swap them out with. If you don’t like the look and feel of a particular band, you can always...

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