ANDROID XDA: December 2015

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Video Previews Some Upcoming Features of Android Wear 1.4.0 on the Huawei Watch

Someone on the Android Wear subreddit was able to obtain a test build of the upcoming update headed to Android Wear. He just published a video that demos some of the new features including an enabled external speaker on the Huawei Watch, Audio Feedback, music playback, call options, emoji picker and more.

WhatsApp Suffers Outage On New Year’s Eve

WhatsApp suffered a brief outage, possibly due to the massive influx of messages sent during New Years celebrations around the world. This outage has caused WhatsApp messages to fail to deliver, and the areas affected include parts of North and South America, Europe, India and Indonesia.

Blackberry to Continue Operations in Pakistan

After turning down the Pakistani government’s request for “unfettered access” to user information (read: backdoor) and deciding to leave the country rather than change its policy, Blackberry has informed that it will continue operations in Pakistan afterall. This comes after talks with the government, which led to the rescission of the previous shutdown order.

Motorola Pushes Kernel Source for Moto X 2014 for Android 6.0

Motorola has released the kernel sources for the Moto X 2014 for Android 6.0 Marshmallow. It’s certainly beneficial for developers, as they can update their custom kernels with the most recent changes and fixes. Prepare your terminal and Git book and head over to the GitHub repo to find out what’s new.

Huawei Reports 35% Revenue Growth as 2015 Comes to an End

With 2015 coming to an end, Huawei has released their official sales numbers for the year. It’s been previously reported that Huawei is now the #3 smartphone manufacturer in the world and these growth numbers show us the why. Huawei saw a 35% increase in revenue for all of 2015 and the company says they also saw a solid increase in profits and cash flow as well.

OnePlus 2 Mini Spotted at TENAA

The OnePlus X has garnered a fair bit of popularity in the smaller phone segment, featuring decent specs in a small package and an inexpensive price tag to play along with it. But as capable as the Snapdragon 801 in the OnePlus X may be, the phone does not bear the latest (and arguably, the best) in the processing department.

To bank upon the lack of spec-heavy competition in the smaller side of the smartphone scale, OnePlus seems to be in the process of releasing their next small phone: The OnePlus 2 Mini. We caught glimpses of the specs when the device hit GFXBench earlier in the month, and now the device has hit Chinese regulatory authority TENAA.

The OnePlus 2 Mini bears a design which is very similar to the OnePlus X, with its glass front and back and metallic frame. On the front of the device is a 5″ FHD AMOLED display, with the overall dimensions of the device being 140 mm x 69 mm x 6.9 mm and weighing 138 grams. Considering that the OnePlus X had a fair few fans for its design language and overall build, the OnePlus 2 Mini is thankfully not trying to fix what is not broken in this department.

On the inside of the OnePlus 2 Mini aka One E1000, we have a quad core processor clocked in at 2.0 GHz. The listing mentions 3GB of RAM, along with 16GB of internal storage and expansion slot for support upto 128GB.

For the camera, the OnePlus 2 Mini will sport a 13MP rear camera with a CMOS sensor, along with a 8MP rear camera. The device will also come with Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, which really hurts its chances of being a recommendable phone unless the Android 6.0 update comes along soon.

The TENAA listing deviates quite a bit from the information we had from the GFXBench device spot. However, being the regulatory authority of China, TENAA listings have a very good track record of being on point with regards specs of the device. To add on to the confusion, the OnePlus 2 Mini shares almost all the major specs with the OnePlus X, with the notable point of difference being the processor, which other Android websites are still mentioning to be Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 on the OnePlus 2 Mini. The TENAA listing skimps on most of the details on the processor, but does mention that the device bears a quad-core CPU, which does not line up with the octa-core Snapdragon 810 unless it refers to the A57 cores only. Also, the name of the device does not show up in the listings, so this could very much be a localized OnePlus X with slightly different hardware.

The OnePlus 2 Mini, if this device is called that, should be the first release of OnePlus in 2016. We expect to hear official information on the device soon.

What are your thoughts on the OnePlus 2 Mini? Is it right for OnePlus to make a slightly better version of the OnePlus X so soon in the X’s product cycle? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Source: TENAA

Read on for related content:

The Free Software Foundation Needs Your Help

The FSF has already raised more than $250,000 toward their goal of $450,000 by January 31st, 2016. They now need your help to raise that last little bit. This of course is an incredibly important charity here at XDA, head over here to find out why.

How to Create a Custom Text Selection Action on Android Marshmallow

Google added a floating text selection toolbar in Android Marshmallow to make text selection and processing much more useful. In addition, Google introduced ACTION_PROCESS_TEXT, giving developers the opportunity to directly process any text selected by the user. If you’re a developer looking to add your own text selection option in the floating toolbar, the Google Developers team has posted an instructional on Medium explaining how to do so.

iFixit Publishes a Teardown of the Nexus 5X

Thanks to iFixit community member Lenka, we now get a detailed teardown of the Nexus 5X from Google and LG. The device is very modular and it is mostly a straight forward process. You will need a heat gun and a sucktion cup if you wish to remove the LCD panel though, as the glue is said to be quite strong.

Chroma ROM Review (Sort of) and Overview – XDA TV

In the past we have, sort of, reviewed many custom ROMs, like CyanogenMod 12s, Oxygen OS, CyanogenMod 12, OmniROM, SlimKat and more. Here at XDA we live for custom ROMs. Whether they be huge community efforts or the tinkering of a single person, custom ROMs help unlock more functionality to our beloved devices. Now that Marshmallow is out, many ROM based on Android 6.0 are now available.

In today’s video, XDA TV Host TK, shows off Chroma ROM on his Nexus 6P. The main features covered and talked about in today’s video are the Android Pay with Root, layers manager, and more. Mostly, this is a simple stock-based release with a few pluses like the PureNexus ROM we recently reviewed. Grab your favorite beverage and check out this video.

Click here for the Chroma thread.

Be sure to check out other great XDA TV Videos.

Please subscribe to XDA TV and Subscribe to TK’s channel.

Kerneller is a Flashable Zip Template to Modify the RAMDisk on Sony Xperia Devices

If you’re a flashaholic, you might have heard of ‘AnyKernel‘ and its successor ‘AnyKernel2.’ These are templates made for kernel developers to create an update.zip file that can be applied to any ROM regardless of the RAMDisk. Kerneller by XDA member someone755 is a new template aimed for the Sony Xperia line, which usually feature the recovery packed into the RAMDisk. Kernel developers can use this template to apply kernel updates without overwriting the recovery.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

India is Now the 2nd Country to Have 1 Billion Mobile Users

Reports indicate that India is now the second country to surpass 1 billion mobile users. The first country to do this was China, which reached this milestone around 2012, and India surpassed the US in terms of numbers around 2008. These types of numbers show you why companies like Google, Facebook and even Cyanogen are doing what they can to get a foothold in the country.

AT&T Acquires Both the Talent and the Assets of Carrier iQ

You may have heard about Carrier iQ, as there are lots of tutorials here on XDA that show you how to remove and/or disable the analytical and diagnostic software on your smartphone. AT&T signed on as a partner some time ago and used it on their phones, but it seems like they have now acquired the entire company including its talent and their assets.

Xiaomi Announces 70-inch 4K Mi TV Smart TV

Xiaomi has a wide portfolio of devices, especially in China. The producer of the Mi Band and Redmi Note has officially announced a 70-Inch 4K TV with Xiaomi-flavored UI. It has some really decent specs and it will cost 9,999 Yuan, which is roughly converted to $1540.

Unofficial CM13 for ZUK Z1

ZUK Z1, a result of a collaboration of a few companies, including Lenovo and Elephone, is set to receive a Cyanogen OS 13.0 update next year. Luckily for its users, XDA Senior Member MrColdbird refused to wait any longer and started to work on CyanogenMod 13.0 for this device. A port is still quite early and contains a list of bugs, but it’s great to see the small Z1’s community thriving.

Leaked Information Reveals Details of the Upcoming LG G5

Evan Blass (@evleaks) has just revealed some details of what could be the upcoming LG G5. We are told the build material will be metal, the phone will have a 5.3″ QuadHD display, a secondary “ticker” screen, dual cameras on the back to give it 135-degree wide-angle capabilities, and have the Snapdragon 820 SoC. The device is also said to have a modular “Magic Slot” and bringing the battery down to 2,800mAh.

Bluboo Announces the Xfire 2, a 5.0-inch Triple-SIM Smartphone

Bluboo has just announced the Xfire 2 and claims it is the world’s first 5″ smartphone with three SIM slots. However, 10 seconds into a Google search I have already read about the GooPhone X1+ (which came out in 2013). The Bluboo Xfire 2 will have a 2.5D “arc suspended” screen, a quad-core MT6580 So, will retail for only $69.99 and launch sometime in January.

Telefonica leaves Firefox OS for Cyanogen OS

One of the very first Firefox OS partners – Telefonica – ditched Mozilla’s system in favor of Cyanogen OS. Telefonica joins such companies as OnePlus, Oppo, ZUK or YU which use or have been using Cyanogen’s OS. The first branded devices powered by Cyanogen have started to sell in Spain and will arrive in countries like Germany and theUnited Kingdom soon. Telefonica aims to launch Cyanogen in different countries in 2016.

KDZ + Flashable Zips for Stock LG G3 (D855) Marshmallow (30B) Update

For anyone with the D855 LG G3 who also doesn’t want to wait for the 30B Marshmallow OTA update to be released in your country, KDZ and flashable ZIP files are now available for you. This is courtesy of XDA Recognized Contributor autoprime and it will work on both the 16GB and 32GB models.

How Your Smartwatch Can Reveal What You’re Typing

A recent discovery made by Tony Beltramelli, a Masters student at the IT University of Copenhagen, shows how vulnerable smartwaches are. Cyber criminals can gather important data like PIN codes by using the gyroscope and accelerometer. Beltramelli even posted a proof of concept video demonstrating how easy such data can be hijacked. More in the article.

T-Mobile Claims They Are Optimizing YouTube, Not Throttling it

T-Mobile Claims They Are Optimizing YouTube Not Throttling Them

YouTube recently accused T-Mobile of throttling users on their network who were watching videos on the service. This week, T-Mobile has come back and said that throttling is a bad way to describe it, and instead the videos are now “mobile optimized”. YouTube never agreed to be part of T-Mobile’s Binge On service and they feel users should have to opt in to enable it.

OnePlus One Gets 12.1-YOG7DAS2K1 OTA

OnePlus One is now receiving an OTA update to version 12.1-YOG7DAS2K1. It most likely is one of the last updates containing Android 5.1. A full changelog isn’t posted yet, but according to user reports, this update brings close integration with Microsoft’s Cortana. XDA Recognized Themer Spannaa has managed to capture a link to the incremental update, so get it now.

Windows 10 Ported Over Nokia Lumia 920

Earlier this month we’ve learned about WPInternals – a tool able to unlock some Lumia phones. XDA Senior Member werty100 decided to make use of it and ported a Windows 10 (10.0.10586.36) ROM to Nokia Lumia 920. The ROM has root access. If you have got this Lumia, it’s a nice chance to give it a new life.

What’s Your Typical Daily Screen-on Time?

It has become common to measure battery life in terms of screen-on time, and while such measurement is inaccurate due to many factors, it’s still one of the most mentioned numbers in reviews and online comments. What is your typical SOT at the end of the day, and, most importantly, how do you think it ranks up (considering your usage)?

ANDROID XDA