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Android Q to warn users running apps targeting Android Lollipop or older
Android Q may warn users that try to run apps that target Android Lollipop or earlier. Android Pie warns on apps targeting Android Jelly Bean or earlier.
It's usually in the best interests of a developer to update their apps to support the latest Android platform features. Each new Android versions offers new APIs and features that earlier versions of Android don't offer. However, each new Android version also adds new restrictions to what apps can do, which some application developers aren't a fan of. For example, many apps avoided bumping their target API level to Android Marshmallow or later so they could avoid having to implement runtime permissions. Google finally started to crack down on this behavior with new restrictions imposed on apps uploaded and updated to the Google Play Store, but they also added a warning in Android Pie to shame apps that still haven't updated past Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. According to a recent commit in the Android Open Source Project, it seems that Android Q will warn users if the app they're running targets Android 5.1 Lollipop or earlier.
Android 4.4 KitKat was released two months ago, and it brought a lot interesting changes like a transparent status bar. But not many of you know that you can get a very similar effect on any ROM, even Gingerbread, and all you need to do is to visit the thread we're going to describe below. With APK tool and good text editor like Notepad++, Gedit, or any UNIX-based notepads, you can easily make your status bar use a gradient background.
One of the key advancements in the mobile industry is the fact that people want to break away from the chains of a desktop (and even laptop) computer. Not having to carry 5-7 lbs of tech on your back is always an interesting point to consider when deciding what you want to get for work/play. However, since our devices are not (yet) fully capable of replacing our computers, the best thing we can do is try to utilize what we have and make ourselves as comfortable as humanly possible. After all, even if it is a pain, being able to use your PC from a distance with wireless devices is not nearly as bad or cumbersome when you are sitting in your most comfortable couch. The only issue with this is that you need to spend money on wireless devices (such as keyboard and mice) to do what you normally do on a PC, and these are not always cheap. If you are reading this article and are on XDA, you more than likely have a wireless-enabled mobile device. Why spend more money when you have something perfectly capable of accomplishing said task?
As our devices become more powerful, larger, and are filled with more and more software from the manufacturers (bloatware and some spyware); some things tend to take a hit that tend to make our experiences with our devices rather short lived. The battery is about the only thing in the entire technological salad that comprises our mobile devices that does not keep up with the rest. In this day and age, you will see similar sized batteries (in terms of capacity) to what you saw 2 years ago for far less power hungry devices. On top of that, as stated earlier, some software packages pre-installed do not help with your battery life either, which is why custom ROMs (particularly those of the AOSP variety) are a blessing as they are not loaded with the extra overhead. These extra apps are not only unnecessary, but many of them have a rather nasty side effect: They prevent your device from fully going to sleep when it has to.
Quick, simple, and dirty. Some of the best hacks around on XDA require very little to get them to work, and make your life easier in the process. Also, these "simple tricks" tend to fix major snafus from some manufacturers when it comes to so-called features that make you ask "What in the world were they thinking?" So is the case for many Samsung Galaxy devices.
Do you wear glasses? Is your vision not as good as it could be? Do you like seeing huge pictures of your friends so you are reminded of what they look like when they call? Do you have “friends” who use iPhones and brag about their awesome answer screen? Well, XDA Senior Member lowveld has a solution for you. Lowveld has created the Ultimate Call Screen HD call screen replacement. What can we say about Ultimate Call Screen HD other than it is, well, ultimate. It allows you to customize each contact’s call screen. You can select a different High Definition picture for each contact. That picture will then be displayed in full screen when he or she calls.
While it may not be Ice Cream Sandwich just yet, Motorola has released an official OTA update for the Atrix 2 that updates the OS to Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread and brings several improvements and bug fixes to this popular dual-core device.
Flashing, upgrading, and more flashing. This is what most people at xda do to try and keep up with the times. This is almost a full time job/hobby for some people and sometimes, not even the devs can put out roms fast enough. Because of this, there are ways to provide junkies or ORD addicts with a faster fix. SVN, which really stands for subversion is a command that allows updates of software giving you the opportunity to easily roll back and update without any major difficulties. Basically, using SVN would allow anyone to update the builds directly from the developer's repo. The advantage of this is that you will not have to download a full new build every time as this will allow you to simply update the builds every time with whatever changes the dev may have made from the previous one. This works great for people who release nighties. If you are curious as to how this is done, XDA Recognized Developer LiquidSolstice has put out a fantastic guide, which is in essence fool proof to get this up and running in no time. The guide is complete with explanations, examples, links to files and programs, and even a full list of repos from devs present in the EVO 3D area. However, this is universal enough to be used with any dev that works with a SVN server.
The wonderful world of NV, EFS, and all the inherent dangers that come from messing with this. For those of you who have no clue as to what I am talking about, there is a dark, really deep and well protected section of your device that is virtually immune to any kind of flashing and manipulation (unless of course you know how to access it). This part of the device contains information such as IMEI (or MEID and ESN in the case of CDMA devices), programming parameters for the device such as your account information (phone number, etc), data provisioning parameters, and a whole bunch of other things that, when not handled properly, can render a device completely useless. All of these are contained in the infamous \EFS folder. XDA Recognized Developer lyriquidperfection just updated an app that he started working on not too long ago, which basically allows you to back up and restore the contents of this folder, just in case. It seems to be rather simple to corrupt this by trying to unlock or change certain "numbers" in it, which is why being able to back up the original thing is rather important. HTC devices are normally associated with tweaking this due to the ease of getting the device in Diag mode via EPST. However, Samsung devices (and really most devices out there) can indeed be put in Diag mode to access this special section.
XDA forum member GameGod72 is an avid user of the Aldiko eBook reader app and recently got himself a tablet. The dev wanted to be able to read his books on both his phone and tablet but could not find anything, and decided to do something about it himself!
For whatever the reason, some people can simply never find what they are looking for and thus, they end up creati.g their own solutions for their problems. This was the case for XDA member xak944 whom apparently wanted to have battery stats regarding power consumption of his Epic 4G Touch. I know what you are thinking, there are tons of apps out there which could provide this information. However, the dev wanted to have one that could be used via shell. As there was none, this pushed him into researching a bit and ended up with a script to monitor the usage via shell. This will only work on the aforementioned device due to several things being hardcoded in the device itself, but according to the dev, it should be fairly easy to adapt this for others as well.
Android device owners who use Tasker, may be interested to learn of a new plugin from XDA forum member intangibleDroid.
A few days ago, XDA member MohamedYousri told us about the latest achievement by the alliance between AlphaRevX & Unrevoked. This tool, called Revolutionary, is the first major collaboration between two development groups. The term revolutionary was due because of some of the mechanisms by which we gain S-OFF. This new tool allows S-Off and NAND write access to a whole slew of modern HTC phones:
The joy of flashing a new kernel has its pros and cons. For starters, the pros are that your device will likely be getting new fixes for hardware support like camera support, wifi, etc, as well as improved device handling capabilities such as overclocking, undervolting, increasing volume levels, adding openVPN support, and so much more. On the other hand, the cons of constantly flashing your devices with new kernels is that it becomes tedious and time consuming. Plus, sometimes newer kernels can sometimes break things that were already working well. If your only reason for installing a kernel is so that you can have new voltage handling scripts as well as a few other tweaks, and if you have an Incredible, then you should really drop by to check out the app created by XDA member chad0989. Incredicontrol was designed to control all the available tweaking parameters of Incredikernel with ease and from a rather friendly user interface. Keep in mind that this is in very alpha stages, so if you are not comfortable with dealing with bugs, you may want to wait until this becomes beta.
How would you like to have an incredibly fast rom, based on the latest of the latest for your EVO? Sure, you can find a few roms that will fit this description and many will indeed offer some speed improvements and enhancements, but in order to make your device truly fly, people fall back on overclocking the processor. As a result of this, most tasks performed by the device become a considerable percentage faster and more responsive. Well, XDA member Virus. has made a major improvement to his already popular Kingdom rom for the EVO 4G. The newer versions of this rom come pre-loaded with what he called God Mode. But wait, what is this God Mode? Leaving all the technical aspects aside (as they are not 100% clear to me), God Mode in essence is a new yaffs2+ext2 partition made in the rom, which drastically improves the I/O performance on a device. While I understand that people don't exactly believe in benchmark results, the EVO 4G (which need I remind you has a 1 GHz Snapdragon on it) yields Quadrant results of well over 1900 without it being overclocked.
We have seen some apps before like Blueput Droid, which can alow you to use your Android device as a touchpad, and this can be quite useful if you are out on the road with a laptop. However, there are many people who can't stand touchpads and for the most part need a mouse. What if I told you that you could use your Android device as a mouse with the help of the sensors and camera? If this does sound interesting, let me introduce you to XDA member MM32 who has created an app to do exactly this. It is currently only available for Windows PC (sorry Linux and Mac users), but the app seems to work quite well. As stated before, it uses the camera, OpenCV, and the sensors to track your movements in space, which get translated into pointer movements. So far, the app can only be used connected to the computer but according to the dev, a BT option is right around the corner. Oh, and one more thing... it can also be used as a touch pad.
As the title states, if you have an old BT mono headset laying around and you want to put it to good use, you could certainly use XDA member bedoig's newest application. BTmono allows streaming of music and sound to BT mono headsets, which are otherwise not fit to serve the same purpose as their stereo counterparts. This is a practical app if you really don't like having wires all around you and yet don't feel like shelling out the money for a stereo headset.
The search for the perfect player will never end. Now, XDA member ajeet17181 told us about the successfully ported MPlayer to Android devices running 1.6 and above. This powerful player features support for all subtitle format, proper audio video sync, uses libfaad2 and libmad for aac and mp3 decoding, and stream URL support.
Looks like XDA member Anderdroid has just posted the apk for the newest version the Google Market. 2.2.7 seems to be a minor update (due to the numbering used). However, according to the dev, this new version aims at fixing rendering problems for people using devices with WVGA devices (800x480). The app may have other small fixes as well, so if you liked the 2.2.6, make sure that you give 2.2.7 a quick shot to see if it does anything else.
XDA member iskapil let us know about this new theme for your device if you are willing to see how WP7 will look like. Windows Phone Android is a Android Launcher (or stand alone) application made to resemble Windows Phone's Metro UI. Some members have reported some problems to make it work, so this app is recommended for 480 x 800 resolution screens. Battery Status and Signal Status code updated to include a wider range of devices and hopefully less f.c. on a lot of devices. Suitable for Android 2.1 and up.