XDA Android

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 to be Officially Unveiled on September 11th

Many remember the radical design changes that Sharp introduced with their Aquos devices, but they weren't something that really made people pay attention to. This could have been from a lack of marketing, availability, the brand itself, or something else. However, Xiaomi was able to turn a lot of heads with their announcement the Mi Mix and its similar bezel design. We had heard rumblings of the company working on a successor and now they have confirmed when the Mi Mix 2 will be unveiled.

The Mi Mix really came out of left field as we just didn't hear that many rumors about it before the device launched. It hasn't even been a smartphone that has been widely available, since it was only manufactured in limited quantities. It's unclear if this will be the case with the upcoming Mi Mix 2 though, so we'll just have to wait and see how Xiaomi handles availability. Other than a teaser image and a launch date, Xiaomi hasn't really said much about the device either.

There have been a few rumors surrounding the successor to the Mi Mix but the sources of them have been known to get things wrong from time to time (which is why we hadn't written about them). Current rumors about the Mi Mix 2 say it will come equipped with a dual rear-camera setup and that Xiaomi has been working to reduce bezels even further. There's even been some talk about Xiaomi working on a 3D facial recognition support for the device.

Reported hardware specs from alleged benchmark database entries say it will be powered by the Snapdragon 835 SoC, have 6GB of RAM, and ship with Android 7.1.1 Nougat. The company seems to be wanting to keep the same 6.4″ size display (if current reports are correct), but have its resolution bumped up to 2540 x 1440 pixels. Rumors say it will be made available in 128GB and 256GB internal storage options and it will have a 4,500mAh capacity battery.

Again, these are all rumored details of the device and we'll have to wait until September 11th to see if they are correct.

Source: Xiaomi

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Google Assistant is Coming to New Connected Speakers and Appliances

IFA 2017 technically starts on September 1st and will last through the 6th, but companies tend to want to jump ahead of the frenzy and announce certain products a day early. This is what we're seeing today with the announcement of three new Google Assistant smart speakers and some soon to be released home appliances that will utilize the platform as well. Google has announced that Google Assistant is coming to connected speakers from Mobvoi, Anker, Panasonic, and that appliances from LG will come later this year.

Google Assistant may have had a slow start since it was launched, but the company has been slowly growing and expanding its 3rd-party support. The Google Assistant SDK is really what enables these 3rd-party companies to use the platform in their products and this could result in a surge of new devices using it. At CES earlier this year, Amazon Alexa was in so many connected devices that it truly stole the show and many are hoping Google's solution will have similar results.

As far as connected speakers are concerned, both Mobvoi, Anker and Panasonic have announced they have a few products for fans of Google Assistant. We don't have any information about the Zolo Mojo from Anker, but landing pages are already up for the TicHome Mini by Mobvoi and the GA10 by Panasonic. The TicHome Mini is a portable connected speaker with full Google Assistant support, the ability to play music over WiFi or Bluetooth, and has IPX6 certification so it is splashproof.

The GA10 from Panasonic is a taller, more stationary connected speaker that could blend into a traditional living room setup. It is said to be made available sometime in early 2018 and is being marketed as a Hi-Fi music player with Google Assistant capabilities. The last announcement we have today about Google Assistant being embedded into a number of LG appliances later this year. We don't have a full list right now, but Google does mention a washing machine, clothes dryer, and a vacuum.

Source: The Keyword

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Google to Comply With European Commission Demands to Avoid More Fines

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 expanded in Europe, hardly a sign of our 'favouring' our own ads."

He then went further, citing two studies to show that Google's influence on where consumers shop has been minimal. One study is American, the other German.

Now things have changed according to a report from Bloomberg.

Google Give In

Google had until the 29th of August to tell the European Commission how they planned to fix the issue. A spokeswoman for Google stated that they are sharing their plans with regulators, but did not make the plans public. Google's reluctance to fight the case is interesting, as Intel fought their 1.2 billion euro fine in 2009, with the final ruling to be laid out next year. The case has been delayed 8 years, so the fact Google isn't opting to take the long fight raises questions if they believe the Commission's ruling is just. We'll wait and see what happens, but for now it seems they have accepted defeat and take full responsibility for their search manipulation. That, or it's just not worth fighting it.

Source: Bloomberg

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

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 can delay the OTA update roll out so they can find the issue. This means it can sometimes be favorable to actually wait for the update notification to be pushed to you. However, if you want to manually download and install this new Android Oreo update then you can do so on the Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel C, Nexus 6P, or the Nexus 5X. This process requires you have ADB installed on your computer and that you type in a few commands via the terminal or command prompt.

However, you also might get away with spamming the Check Update button within the system updates section of the Settings application. I discovered this worked when other people were receiving the Android Wear 2.0 update for the Huawei Watch, and it just worked again about 10 minutes ago for my Pixel C. It's not guaranteed to work, but after 5-6 quick retries it just may trigger and prompt you to download and install the update.

Source: Google

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

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.

MiXplorer (Free, XDA Labs) →

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!

MiHome Launcher Port

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

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 contenders to sit with the best mobile shooters around. The OnePlus 3 with this camera can punch far above its own weight in camera ability when using this port, in my opinion.

Since the initial release earlier in the month, there have been a number of major updates to the Google Camera port. The Ukrainian developer B-S-G from the 4pda forum has been working tirelessly to provide the best camera application around. With a new base of version 4.4.020.163412804 and some major changes to how he has implemented HDR+, improvements are seen across the board.

The original Google Camera port that we covered had a broken front camera on the OnePlus 3T, broken burst fire mode, broken 60FPS video recording, broken slow motion video recording and a buggy HDR+ mode which crashed occasionally. Now B-S-G has fixed all of these problems and has also added some improvements. If slow motion or 60FPS does not work for you, take a look at this thread. It's a Magisk module method for enabling it to work, however it worked out of the box for me. What's more, another developer has come to improve upon the original port.

There has been one regression on the latest update, which is when using "no HDR" mode, pictures will sometimes take a very long time to save. We recommend using auto-HDR+ at all times. You may also face rare crashes on the current build, but a lot less than previous builds.

Improvements to Google Camera HDR+ Port, now with Zero Shutter Lag

All images above are shot on a OnePlus 3 with aHDR+ on the newest Google Camera HDR+ port

The Google Camera port has been subject to many changes in the last two weeks, changing how HDR+ works and adding ZSL.

ZSL, HDR+ and aHDR+

B-S-G has added ZSL, but only for automatic HDR+. Automatic HDR+ uses a lighter algorithm than forcing it, and the lighter algorithm uses fewer photos to stitch together. This is why it can use ZSL, as otherwise there would not be enough time to take enough photos. If you use forced HDR+, then you cannot benefit from ZSL.

This is a good thing, however, as automatic HDR+ is all that you will really need. Using forced HDR+ can lead to images looking unnatural, with no shadows. This is what the Google Pixel does too, so again the port is achieving its aim in bringing Pixel-like camera functionality to other devices. This is a massive improvement over the original port, which required forcing HDR+ in all scenarios. This way the camera application itself calculates what it needs to do, rather than a "one size fits all" approach. Many users of the more recent ports agree that there is a huge improvement.

Compatibility with the Xiaomi Mi5s

This camera port was originally for the Mi5s due to the poor camera processing, although it works across a vast amount of devices. If using a Xiaomi Mi5s, this port is completed and other than the non-HDR+ issue mentioned above the application should work perfectly with zero crashes. If you are using any other Snapdragon 820/821 device, then look below.

Snapdragon 4xx/6xx Devices – Xiaomi

After the initial post, it seems that this port actually is working on a multitude of Xiaomi devices, including the Redmi Note 4x, Redmi 4 and Redmi Note 3. You will need to add this to your build prop if you want to use it however.

  persist.camera.HAL3.enabled=1

Alternatively, you can flash this Magisk module. Check it out and see! This may only be working on Xiaomi devices as the port was originally meant for the Mi5s and it may be using Xiaomi specific hardware/proprietary blobs.

Download and Install

Zero Shutter Lag (ZSL) has been a popular mod of Google Camera with Nexus 5X and 6P users, as it added the Google Pixel's ability to take good and quick photos on those devices. B-S-G has worked tirelessly to improve the camera, solving many crashing issues and what's more, introducing a better HDR+ solution. You can download his version 1.4 of his port below from our AndroidFileHost page, or you can also register on the Russian forum 4pda to download his new camera updates as they come.

Download B-S-G's Google Camera v4.4 Mod with HDR+ and ZSL

Optimization for Snapdragon 820/821 Devices

XDA-Member Ivanich has taken it upon himself to fix up some of B-S-G's problems he's had with his camera port. I contacted him to confirm the changes he has made, which are below. He effectively optimized the camera port for the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T, and thus other non-Pixel, non-Xiaomi Mi5s Snapdragon 820/821 devices too. I highly recommend Axon 7 users also give this a try and see if it fixes their issues.

I only made small changes in order to fix some things which were broken on the op3. I also added 60fps recording, so basically here is what I did:
– Added 60fps, thanks to Amir http://ift.tt/2wiiLWF
– Fixed dark video issue in video mode
– And disabled burst which caused camera FC's on our device

Ivanich has also given us permission to re-host his modifications on our AndroidFileHost! Check it out down below!

Download Google Camera v4.4 Mod with HDR+ optimized for Snapdragon 820/821 devices

Keep up to Date

If you are not on the newest version, I highly suggest you upgrade to one of the options linked above. With a much better approach to HDR+, ZSL working slow motion and working 60FPS video there is absolutely no reason not to upgrade!

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BlackBerry is Launching Another All-Touchscreen Phone in October

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 will have a touchscreen solution to show". This isn't much of a surprise, considering that this wouldn't be the first all-touchscreen BB phone. Case in point: BlackBerry Z10, Z30, DTEK50 and DTEK60. But it shows that BB is, indeed, committed to this market too. According to Mr. Mahieu, "we should not be blind to the demand that's out there". TCL has previously promised as many as 3 devices for their 2017 lineup, and this would be the second one.

The phone would likely be some sort of successor to the DTEK50 and DTEK60 phones, launched in 2016, both featuring full touchscreens. BlackBerry is completely committed to both markets, as Mr. Mahieu said that "it will continue to be true in the future that keyboards are definitely a big element of [BlackBerry's] DNA". So it's very likely we'll see another phone with a QWERTY keyboard in the future as well.

TCL wants to resurrect the BlackBerry brand at all costs. Mr. Mahieu declared that they were here to stay, and they were rolling out more BlackBerry products in the coming years, starting this year. So, with or without a keyboard, it's very clear that BlackBerry is coming back hard to the smartphone game.

Source: CNET

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