What are Your Thoughts on Android Oreo so Far?

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 updating as soon as you can?

Discuss in the comments!

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

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 Streit announced that new Palm-branded products are going to be announced in early 2018. Mr. Streit did not go into detail over what kind of products would be announced, but he said that smartphones were included in the possibilities. It's highly unlikely that those products will keep using webOS because of existing competition, and instead they will likely go for Android as their OS of choice.

According to Mr. Streit, Palm will be the fourth brand the company will maintain, right next to TCL, Alcatel and BlackBerry. Each brand is aimed at a target audience. While Alcatel focuses on millennials/young people and BlackBerry focuses on the business market, Palm will be aimed at an older audience looking for the latest in technology. He also said that they've been researching the products that best fit the brand during the past few years. While the brand has been almost completely forgotten by now, we're still excited to see a legend come back to life. We're looking forward to the first half of 2018 to see what Palm has to offer.

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Source: Android Planet

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

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 battery life of up to 12 hours, and the fanless design should allow the laptop to run quietly.

One of the highlights of the Acer Chromebook 15 line is that it's the only Chromebook available with a 15.6-inch display (like most Windows laptops). As such, the 1920×1080 display is one of the biggest selling points of this laptop. It also has two upward-facing speakers for delivering media, and an HD webcam with an 88-degree field of view. On the software side, it includes Chrome OS with Google Play Store support, so you also have access to up to 2 million Android apps.

The laptop also includes two USB Type-C ports, which can also charge the unit. You also have two USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port, a headphone jack, and a speaker jack. Bluetooth 4.2 support and an SD card slot (with support for up to 128GB SDXC) are also in tow.

Interested? This laptop, which should go on pre-order soon, will set you back $300 for the base model. You can read more about it in Acer's press release.

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Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Receives Unofficial Port of Android 8.0 Oreo

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 the blobs, how they interact with the new version of Android via logging and creating a shim to piece it all together and thus enabling the device to function correctly. This is a very intensive process and requires a lot of skill and patience. It can also lead to instability which can be hard for many developers implementing a shim to fix.

With LineageOS on its way (unofficially) to devices, we hope to see it built soon for the Redmi. The Redmi Note 3 is a much loved device by the Android community, and an update to Android Oreo would breathe new life into it and its community. We expect to see this device around for a long time, just like the Nexus 5. With its excellent battery, RAM, and processor, the device should be around for years to come, especially as it continues to receive unofficial updates.

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Creating Your First Simple Android App [Video Guide]

Follow along with Rawad in this new series on XDA TV which takes you through the basics of creating an Android app. In this first video, we see how to setup Android studio and how to create a simple "Hello World" app.

 

 

Download Android Studio

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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.

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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.

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Source: The Keyword

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