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.

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...
Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra “Clear Cover” TPU Case Review

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra “Clear Cover” TPU Case Review

September 26, 2020
We have the shiny new Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra in our hands, a phone that costs a cool $1,300. That much money gets you a very good smartphone, but many users would still like to put a case on it for the added peace of mind on such an expensive purchase. There's no dearth...
Developers can now start building Windows apps with Flutter

Developers can now start building Windows apps with Flutter

September 24, 2020
Flutter is an open-source app development framework made by Google. One of its main goals is to make developing for multiple platforms easier, by allowing developers to share a single codebase across multiple targets. Up until now, you could use Flutter to build a unified application for Android, iOS, macOS, Linux, and the web. If...
Microsoft expands its App Assure program to Windows 10 on ARM PCs with Qualcomm Snapdragon chips

Microsoft expands its App Assure program to Windows 10 on ARM PCs with Qualcomm Snapdragon chips

September 22, 2020
At Microsoft's annual Ignite developer conference, the company announced its latest collaboration with Qualcomm to improve app compatibility for Windows 10 on ARM PCs powered by the latter's Snapdragon compute platforms. Microsoft and Qualcomm have collaborated to expand the former's App Assure program to cover Windows 10 on ARM64 PCs. If you haven't heard of Microsoft...
I rooted my US Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, and here’s what I’m doing with it

I rooted my US Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, and here’s what I’m doing with it

September 20, 2020
This is XDA Developers and, contrary to popular belief, we do actually talk about a lot of stuff concerning development. This article is a little different from the more news or tutorial-related content. In this, I talk about my opinions on root and its utility in 2020 and show you my rooted Samsung Galaxy Note...
Android 11 Features – What developers need to know about the new APIs

Android 11 Features – What developers need to know about the new APIs

September 8, 2020
Android 11 is here, and with it, a whole bunch of changes from Android 10. And those changes mean that developers are going to need to update their apps to take advantage of everything Android 11 has to offer (and everything it restricts). This article goes over the more important API and feature changes and additions...
Tronsmart Apollo Bold Review — Affordable, Premium TWS Earbuds with Qualcomm’s TrueWireless Stereo Plus

Tronsmart Apollo Bold Review — Affordable, Premium TWS Earbuds with Qualcomm’s TrueWireless Stereo Plus

September 6, 2020
Have you ever thought to yourself, "I wish I had some Bluetooth earbuds, but I'm not sure what to buy"? If so you're probably overwhelmed by the number of truly wireless earbuds on the market these days. We've used and reviewed a fair few of them, and today, we're going to be reviewing the Tronsmart...
Google lists which Firebase SDKs require Google Play Services

Google lists which Firebase SDKs require Google Play Services

September 6, 2020
Google is a pretty ubiquitous name in the Android space. Not only does the company own and maintain the Android Open Source Project itself, but it's also in charge of the largest distribution platform on Android: the Google Play Store and the underlying Google Mobile Services (GMS) suite. GMS is the important part here. Firebase,...
PSA: A Firebase Cloud Messaging exploit is likely behind strange push notifications from Microsoft Teams and Hangouts

PSA: A Firebase Cloud Messaging exploit is likely behind strange push notifications from Microsoft Teams and Hangouts

August 27, 2020
It seems we can't go a day without another significant security flaw popping up somewhere in some software or service. This week seems to be the time for Firebase Cloud Messaging to run up against an easily-exploitable vulnerability. Firebase Cloud Messaging is a framework by Google to help make delivering notifications through apps on almost any...