Posts From Zachary Wander

Zachary Wander
Zachary Wander

I write articles and develop apps for XDA. I'm also the developer of SystemUI Tuner. Yes, I'm bad at writing self-descriptions.

Samsung Firmware Downloader is a free cross-platform tool to download software updates for Galaxy devices

Samsung Firmware Downloader is a free cross-platform tool to download software updates for Galaxy devices

March 13, 2021
There are a lot of reasons to manually download firmware for your device. Maybe you're trying to root it and need to modify the stock firmware before flashing it. Or maybe you just want to download software updates early. Unfortunately, companies don't often make it easy to actually download that firmware in an easily-installable way. The...
How to code in Android Studio from any device with JetBrains Projector

How to code in Android Studio from any device with JetBrains Projector

March 7, 2021
JetBrains is the company behind some of the most popular IDEs, including IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, and PhpStorm. Even Android Studio, Google's sort-of in-house IDE for Android development, is based on IntelliJ. While IntelliJ's IDEs are popular for a reason (they're good), they can be a little heavy at times. IntelliJ and Android Studio can take up a...
Dart 2.12 has been released, with null-safety and C interoperability

Dart 2.12 has been released, with null-safety and C interoperability

March 3, 2021
With the release of Flutter 2.0, Google is also bringing Dart 2.12 to stable. In case you didn't know, Dart is the language that Flutter uses. It's a TypeScript-based language but comes with some language feature additions, including the ones I'm about to go over. Null Safety Null safety is a pretty great language feature. It forces...
Flutter 2.0 reaches stable and adds support for foldable and dual-screen devices

Flutter 2.0 reaches stable and adds support for foldable and dual-screen devices

March 3, 2021
It's March 3rd, and Flutter 2.0 is here! There are a whole bunch of changes in this version compared to Flutter 1, and this article is going to focus on what changed for the desktop and mobile versions. Desktop For a while now, Flutter for Desktop has been in an alpha stage, which meant changing APIs, bugs,...
Flutter 2.0 introduces production-quality support for building web apps

Flutter 2.0 introduces production-quality support for building web apps

March 3, 2021
Flutter 2.0 has been released to stable, and with it, there is stable web support. This means that Flutter is now safe to use in production-quality web projects. With that said, let's see what Flutter for Web entails. Renderers There are two ways Flutter for Web can display your app in a browser. It can either render it...
Google releases Jetpack Compose beta, with a stable API, accessibility support, and more

Google releases Jetpack Compose beta, with a stable API, accessibility support, and more

February 24, 2021
Here we are again. I wrote about Jetpack Compose, Google's new UI engine, back when it went into alpha, and again when JetBrains ported it to desktop platforms. Today, the beta release of Jetpack Compose is here. In case you aren't caught up on all the new UI technologies in existence (I don't blame you) and you...
Razer Hammerhead True Wireless Pro Review: Good, but expensive

Razer Hammerhead True Wireless Pro Review: Good, but expensive

December 26, 2020
Hello, it's me again, Mr. Earbuds. I've come to you today to review – you guessed it – earbuds! This time it's the Razer Hammerhead True Wireless Pro, which is quite a name. These are Razer's second-gen in-ear true wireless earbuds, with a lot of improvements over the first generation. They're also pretty expensive, coming...
Jetpack Compose for Desktop, a cross-platform UI development framework, adds a Swing interoperability layer and Apple Silicon support

Jetpack Compose for Desktop, a cross-platform UI development framework, adds a Swing interoperability layer and Apple Silicon support

December 2, 2020
If you do any sort of development work, you've probably heard of JetBrains. They're the company behind the huge suite of IDEs that includes IntelliJ (the base for Android Studio), CLion, PhpStorm, and many others. They're also the ones who made Kotlin, the hugely-popular cross-platform programming language. And JetBrains is back at it again. A little...
Zepp E Circle Review: An imperfect, but solid, mid-range smartwatch

Zepp E Circle Review: An imperfect, but solid, mid-range smartwatch

November 21, 2020
It's 2020 and everything is smart (I didn't say everyone). Smartphones, smart fridges, smart earbuds, smart coffee makers, you name it. We've even got smartwatches, and that's what this review is about. The Zepp E is a smartwatch from Zepp, a sister company of Amazfit. It's a mid-range option, priced at $250 in the US....
Google announces new emulator, data analysis, and performance insight tools for Firebase

Google announces new emulator, data analysis, and performance insight tools for Firebase

October 27, 2020
Google's Firebase is a pretty comprehensive set of development tools. Its goal is to make app development and maintenance easier, with features like detailed crash reporting, user analytics, authentication, and storage. And Google is constantly working to make Firebase better. With the COVID-19 pandemic shifting millions of workers to work-from-home status, demand for remote collaboration and...
Google releases Android Studio 4.1 with support for foldables in the Android Emulator

Google releases Android Studio 4.1 with support for foldables in the Android Emulator

October 12, 2020
If you've ever done programming, you probably know just how useful a good IDE can be. Especially on more fragmented platforms, like Android, having the proper set of tools for development is incredibly important. Google's solution to easier Android development is Android Studio, an IDE based on JetBrains' IntelliJ. It includes a whole bunch of stuff...
Flutter 1.22 releases to stable with better Android 11 and iOS 14 support

Flutter 1.22 releases to stable with better Android 11 and iOS 14 support

October 1, 2020
For those not in-the-know, Flutter is a cross-platform application framework made by Google. Based on Google's Dart language, it allows developers to share a single codebase among apps for iOS, Android, web, Windows, macOS, and even Linux. Today marks the release of Flutter 1.22, with a whole bunch of new features. In this post, we're...