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Profiler is a free, lightweight monitor for CPU, GPU, RAM, and more
Profiler is a nifty little tool that allows users to display their CPU load, GPU load, RAM usage, device temperature, and other stats as charts.
There are many apps out there that allow you to visualize your CPU, GPU, and RAM usage in real time. Kernel Adiutor, one of the most widely used kernel management apps out there, comes to mind here, as well as many other apps available in the Play Store and elsewhere. But if you simply want to visualize your usage in real time, then Profiler will work wonders. Profiler is a lightweight app that allows you to visualize different stats, including CPU and GPU load, RAM usage, network traffic, and temperature, in real time within a floating window, quickly and painlessly.
Theme brings Samsung Experience 10 design to the Samsung Galaxy S9/S8
You can now get a taste of Samsung's new Samsung Experience 10 theme on your Samsung Galaxy S8 or Samsung Galaxy S9 without updating to Android Pie!
We know that Samsung Experience 10 based on Android 9 Pie is in the works. We recently got our hands on a very early build for the Snapdragon Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+, and we're hoping to get an official beta program before the end of the year as well. Samsung's version of Android Pie looks very, very different from what we're used to on Samsung Experience 9.X based on Android Oreo. There are rounded corners everywhere and lots of white cards among other UI changes in the upcoming Samsung Experience 10. If you dig the look, you don't necessarily have to wait until the Android Pie rollout to get it. In fact, you can get it right now with a theme if you have a Samsung Galaxy S9 or Samsung Galaxy S8 on Android 8.0 Oreo.
Android Messages will let you search for Photos and Videos sent by contacts
An Android Messages update will let users search photos, videos, links, and addresses sent by specific contacts in both one-to-one conversations and groups.
With the introduction of the RCS Universal Profile, Android Messages was no longer a simple SMS/MMS client. Rather, it evolved into a fully featured messaging app that, with global adoption, could eventually become a competitor to Apple iMessage and even other messaging apps like WhatsApp or Telegram. While it's slowly improving, it's definitely not yet ready to compete in the big leagues as it's still missing certain key features of basic chat clients. As Google works with OEMs to add Android Messages as the stock messaging app or another RCS-compliant default messaging app, Google continues to polish Android Messages, and the latest update revamps the app's internal search feature.
Huawei Mate 20 Pro can wirelessly charge the Freebuds 2 Pro wireless earbuds
Together with the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, Huawei also wants to launch a pair of wireless earbuds, called the Freebuds 2 Pro, which include wireless charging.
Huawei is preparing to announce the Mate 20 and the Mate 20 Pro next month as they confirmed during their HiSilicon Kirin 980 event last month. As usual, however, we already know quite a bit about the new devices such as the basic hardware specifications as well as the design. The Huawei Mate 20 series should be the first commercially-available Android phones to launch with a 7nm chipset. But the Huawei Mate 20 isn't the only product that Huawei will showcase during its event next month. They're also planning to launch their own take on Apple's AirPods wireless earbuds, which they're calling Freebuds 2 Pro.
Huawei rolled out an update which broke Magisk, but it can be easily fixed
Huawei rolled out an update which soft bricked phones rooted with Magisk. A fix has been found, however. Here's everything we know about the update.
Despite recent troubles in the United States and Australia, Huawei continues to grow their business around the world. The company, which rapidly grew to dominate the Chinese market, now challenges the likes of Apple and Samsung. Their Huawei P20 flagship lineup is a testament to their success, with reviewers largely praising it for its camera, build quality, and features, and they're bound to make waves again with the Huawei Mate 20. The company's sub-brand, Honor, offers devices like the Honor Play and the Honor 10 to compete in the mid-range market. It's because of smartphones like these that many on XDA were fans of Huawei and Honor devices, but as many of you are aware, Huawei decided to stop providing bootloader unlock codes in a surprising anti-consumer move, effectively blocking most development and modding for their phones.
Vivo V11 Pro launches in India with waterdrop notch and in-display fingerprint scanner
Vivo has just launched the Vivo V11 Pro smartphone in India with a near bezel-less design. Here are the specifications, pricing, and availability.
Vivo has had an interesting 2018 largely thanks to the Vivo Nex, a device that managed to strike a rare screen-to-body ratio of 91.24% with some party tricks like a pop-up camera. The phone has sparked a trend of bezel-less phones without a notch: the Oppo Find X, as well as the upcoming Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 and the Honor Magic 2, all feature a mechanical or manually retractable pop-up camera. The newest phone from Vivo, the Vivo V11 Pro, take some design cues from the Vivo Nex and keeps a considerable screen-to-body ratio while cutting some corners in other places.
Honor 7S and LG Q Stylus+ launch in India: What you need to know
The Honor 7S and the LG Q Stylus+ just launched in India. They lack the bells and whistles of other midrange phone, but they're still nice budget offerings.
There are many factors to take into account when buying a smartphone. You might be a camera guy who's likely to go for a high-end flagship because of its unmatched camera capabilities. You might take into account build quality as an important factor, and you could appreciate Samsung's premium-feeling smartphones. Or you might simply prefer raw performance over anything else and go for something like a Xiaomi Poco F1 or a OnePlus 6. Whatever is your preference, you can be sure that there's a smartphone out there for you. Some people, however, just want the basics. Something that will do the job and allow you to text and breeze through your day.
Some users facing 2 month wait times before they can unlock the bootloader on their Xiaomi device
Some users are seeing really long wait times to unlock the bootloader of their Xiaomi devices - up to 2 months of time. It's unclear if this is intentional.
While unlocking the bootloader of a Xiaomi phone running MIUI is possible, it's not as easy as it is on phones like the Google Pixel 2 or OnePlus 6. Excluding the Android One smartphones (Mi A2, Mi A2 Lite, Mi A1), you can't unlock the bootloader of Xiaomi devices with the standard fastboot commands out of the box. Instead, you need to use their Mi Unlock tool. To combat resellers that try to sell devices with modified software, Xiaomi added checks to the bootloader unlocking process which include a waiting time after the initial request is made. Initially, the waiting time was 3 days, but earlier this year the waiting time increased to 15 days. Now, some users are seeing waiting times as long as 2 months.
Paranoid Android's Android Oreo ROM is here for the OnePlus 3, OnePlus 3T, OnePlus 5, and OnePlus 5T
Paranoid Android based on Android Oreo is available for the OnePlus 3, OnePlus 3T, OnePlus 5, and OnePlus 5T, joining several Sony Xperia smartphones.
Many of our readers might remember Paranoid Android. It was once a top contender in the Android ROM scene for many different reasons: Innovative features, a slick user interface, you name it. The ROM lost much of its steam after the Android 4.4 KitKat builds, but they eventually returned with Android 6.0 Marshmallow and later, Android 7.1 Nougat. While they were pretty late to the Android Nougat game compared to competitors like LineageOS, their builds were still really stable and feature-rich. Now AOSPA is back in the game again with Android 8.1 Oreo builds, as we reported previously, and we now have builds for the OnePlus 3, OnePlus 3T, OnePlus 5, and OnePlus 5T.
Poco will support the developer community on the Xiaomi Poco F1
Xiaomi officially announced the Poco F1 and unveiled that they plan on supporting the developer community on the Xiaomi Poco F1. Developers rejoice!
While the specifications and design of the Xiaomi Pocophone F1 left little to the imagination ahead of the device's official launch, Poco still had a few tricks up their sleeves. At its core, the specifications aren't too different from the other Xiaomi flagships here: It has a display notch, it's powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 system-on-chip with 6 or 8GBs of RAM, has a dual rear 12+5MP camera and 20MP selfie camera, and it runs Android 8.1 Oreo-based MIUI 9. But the Poco F1 manages to make its mark with its affordability: Even at a base price of Rs 20,999, the phone makes few compromises. It has an infrared sensor for face unlock, "LiquidCool" technology for sustained performance under load, a 4,000mAh battery, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The phone is knocking on the door of the OnePlus 6 and the Asus ZenFone 5Z given its price point in India. But Poco is also making a few interesting concessions that should draw the attention of smartphone enthusiasts—namely, that they want to support the custom developer community.
August security update on Nokia phones blocks the only bootloader unlock method
The August security update that was recently rolled out to Nokia devices blocks the only bootloader unlock method available, to the disappointment of users.
Bootloader unlocking is an essential part of Android modding. Before you can even consider rooting your device or installing a custom ROM on it, you first need to unlock your device's bootloader so you can boot unsigned boot images. Before you can unlock your bootloader, however, you need to manually go through a series of steps to make sure that you acknowledge the risks of unlocking the bootloader. Some of these steps involve disabling security features and/or requesting a bootloader unlock code which may be granted immediately or, in the case of Xiaomi devices, could take days to receive. Regardless of how many hoops you need to jump through to take control of your own device that you purchased with your own money, some smartphone makers still choose to prevent you from unlocking your device's bootloader. HMD Global is one such device maker, and the company recently rolled out the August security patch to their Nokia-branded smartphones which blocks the only known bootloader unlock method.
OnePlus One, OnePlus 5, and OnePlus 5T get Android Pie ports
The OnePlus One, the OnePlus 5, and the OnePlus 5T all now have official, fully-working Android Pie ports available for download!
Android 9 Pie has only been out for 2 weeks now, yet we've seen an amazing amount of development on our forums already. We've seen stable, working ports for several devices, including phones from Xiaomi, Motorola, and OnePlus—all of them working fairly decently with few remaining bugs. As the days go by, this list only keeps growing. Today, three new devices are joining the list and getting unofficial Android Pie ports: the OnePlus One, the OnePlus 5, and the OnePlus 5T.
Google Phone 23 rolls out Material Theme redesign to match Google Contacts
Google is rolling out a Google Phone redesign in the latest beta, based on Google's new Material Theme guidelines, following the Google Contacts update.
The newest iteration of the Material Design guidelines, known as "Material Theme" or more colloquially "Material Design 2" has generated mixed opinions among Android enthusiasts. On one hand, some appreciate the simplicity in its design, incorporating new elements or changing existing ones without losing the "Material" essence. Others criticize it heavily for borrowing bits of iOS theming with lots of white. Love it or hate it, Google is rolling out their updated design language to all their applications and service, and we may see most, if not all, Google apps already updated by the time the Google Pixel 3 is announced. We previously reported that Google rolled out this design update for Google Contacts just a few days back, and we're now getting a Google Phone Material Theme redesign as well.
Google Contacts 3.0 gets a new Material Design theme
The Google Contacts app has received a facelift inspired by Google's newest Material Design guidelines in its latest version.
The first thing you'll notice after your phone gets updated to Android Pie is its significant UI refresh, which is based on the newest Material Theme guidelines (commonly referred to "Material Design 2"). Love it or hate it, Google is updating their entire apps and services suite to fit these new guidelines which adopt elements such as clear, vibrant colors and rounded corners across the whole interface. Google Maps recently received a makeover based on these new Material Theme elements, and we've already gotten a glimpse on how will they look on apps like Android Messages and desktop/mobile Google Chrome. The latest app to receive a facelift is Google Contacts, and it's quite beautiful.
Samsung mid-range phones to get Android Oreo in 2019 per leaked roadmap
Samsung's mid-range and low-range Android phones will be receiving Android Oreo during the first quarter of 2019, according to a leaked roadmap.
While Samsung flagship phones and tablets are among the best out there, lower-end Samsung devices are arguably not the best choice when in the market for a midrange device. They'll do the job just fine, don't get me wrong, but Samsung just doesn't pay the same attention to their middle-end and low-end devices (Galaxy J line, Galaxy C line, Galaxy On line, Galaxy Tab line) as they do to their flagship phones. Samsung normally skips on some "premium" features that are present in their flagships, making their lower end offerings look, feel, and perform cheaper than other midrange devices on the same price slot. Furthermore, these devices very rarely get updates aside from the occasional security patch, and while platform updates are not unheard of in these phones, they often take several months.
Android Pie (Android 9) source code now uploading to AOSP
Android Pie is now available on the Android Open Source Project, meaning that developers will be able to start making custom ROMs based on Android 9.
Today, Google unwrapped its latest Android dessert: Android Pie (Android 9). Android Pie has been in the Developer Preview state for a few months now and is quite a step up from Android Oreo. It brings a significant UI overhaul based on the latest Material Design guidelines as well as some interesting user-facing features such as gesture navigation (which will be mandatory on the Google Pixel 3), Digital Wellbeing (now in beta), and other features like Slices and App Actions. The final, stable update is currently being rolled out to the Google Pixel and Google Pixel 2 line, as well as to the Essential Phone. Lastly, Google has begun uploading the Android 9 source code to the Android Open Source Project, better known as AOSP.
Xiaomi Mi A2 & Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite are the latest Android One phones from Xiaomi
Xiaomi Mi A2 & Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite, Xiaomi's successors to the Xiaomi Mi A1 Android One phone, are here. Here's the specifications, pricing, and availability.
Xiaomi made headlines last year when they announced the Xiaomi Mi A1. The device was a rebranded Xiaomi Mi 5X, a decent midrange phone, but the actual software running on it was a strong departure from Xiaomi's MIUI. The Xiaomi Mi A1 was Xiaomi's first device in the Android One program which meant the device ran a bloatware-free, no-frills stock Android experience. Now, the company has unveiled the successors to the Xiaomi Mi A1 - namely, the Xiaomi Mi A2 and the Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite. Here are the specifications, pricing, and availability for the Xiaomi Mi A2 and Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite.
Developer turns a wired Android Auto head unit into a wireless one
A developer has managed to turn a wired Android Auto head unit into a wireless one, connecting his device successfully with the help of an auxiliary device.
Although Android Auto is one of the most used software for modern car head units (alongside Apple's CarPlay), it has a lot of shortcomings. One of the biggest ones being that most Android Auto-powered head units don't have the ability to connect to your device wirelessly. This is set to change, but in order to get wireless capabilities, consumers would have to upgrade their cars or their head units, and probably their phones too. This kind of upgrade is out of most people's budget—and that's the main reason why XDA Recognized Developer Emil Borconi is working on a workaround.
How to immediately get OxygenOS updates for the OnePlus 6/5T/5/3T/3
Get the latest OxygenOS updates immediately on your OnePlus 6, OnePlus 5T, OnePlus 5, OnePlus 3T, or OnePlus 3. Skip the OTA line!
One of the most annoying parts of over-the-air (OTA) updates is waiting for the update to be delivered on your device. This varies wildly from device to device, and many factors take part while checking if you're eligible: your carrier, your OEM, your current Android version, and your actual geographical location/IP, just to name a few. It's particularly annoying when your OEM doesn't officially support your country. If you want to skip the wait and immediately get OxygenOS updates on your OnePlus 6, OnePlus 5T, OnePlus 5, OnePlus 3T, or OnePlus 3, then you can use the free Oxygen Updater app to do so.
Huawei announces the EROFS Linux file system intended for Android devices
A Huawei engineer has announced that the company is developing a read-only file system alternative called EROFS, which promises improved performance without compression sacrifices.
A file system is a technology that outlines how data is stored and retrieved. There are many different kinds of file systems, each with their own benefits, to pick from. You've probably heard of file systems like exFAT, F2FS, ext4. Choosing one file system over another can have profound impacts on storage performance and stability, so the decision isn't taken lightly by device makers. Most device makers settle with the popular, well-tested file systems like ext4, but that doesn't mean companies aren't willing to experiment with alternatives. That's exactly what Huawei is doing with an open-source Linux file-system called EROFS, which is intended to be used on Android devices at some point.