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mardi 15 novembre 2016

Huawei Executive Confirms Lack of Branding as Reason for Declining Pixel Production

The HTC-made Google Pixel and Google Pixel XL are fiercely marketed under the "Phone By Google" campaign. Since Google did exert a heavy influence on the design and continues to put forth large budgets on marketing and advertising the Pixels, mores so than it did for any Nexus so far, we would not blame the average user if they did not know that HTC is actually manufacturing the devices.

And that is exactly why Huawei declined to produce the Pixels. Back in October, reports originated that Huawei was apparently Google's first choice for producing the Pixel duo. Talks originated between Google and Huawei for the production of three devices, but the parties could not come to any agreement on the same. Google then had to approach HTC for the manufacture of the Pixel, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Huawei Executive Colin Giles, speaking to WinFuture, confirmed the reports on Huawei being given the opportunity. He also mentions that the reason why an agreement could not be reached is because it was unacceptable for the company to produce a device with no influence on the branding or promotional material. Huawei wished to expand its brand presence in the US market as noted in earlier reports, so the lack of branding would have created little awareness of the brand within the average consumer. Huawei had also decided some years ago that it would not be a contract-job OEM for other brands to ride on, so Google's demands of a Google-heavy smartphone were not in line with Huawei's vision.

Is this the end of the road for Huawei-Google? Apparently not. Huawei continues to insist on its partnership with Google, and leaks have pointed that the company is in line to produce the hardware for the upcoming 7″ tablet that will feature Google's unannounced Andromeda OS. We will have to see whether Huawei has budged from its position and given in to Google branding, or if Google has relaxed its demands for the partnership.

Would you have preferred a Huawei-made Google Pixel? Let us know in the comments below!

Source: WinFuture

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lundi 14 novembre 2016

TWRP has been released for the Google Pixel and Pixel XL

Let the custom ROM flashing begin!

One of the most common reasons that users come to our forums is to flash custom mods, kernels, or ROMs. Developers pour countless hours into customizing their software for the benefit of the community. But none of this work is feasible without having a means to install these modifications.

The first step required before you can step into the world of Android modding is to unlock your bootloader. For users of the Pixel and Pixel XL, this step is already possible on all variants of the two devices. The next step is to flash a custom recovery image that will allow you to then flash custom ROM or kernel images as well as allowing you to make full system backups in case anything goes wrong. That's where the incredibly popular Team Win Recovery Project (TWRP) comes in.

Available on a plethora of devices from nearly every OEM under the sun, TWRP has been the go-to custom recovery for anyone looking to modify the software on their device. And now, the two Google Pixel phones can soon join in on that fun. XDA Senior Recognized Developer Dees_Troy has just released the first TWRP alpha for the Google Pixel and Pixel XL. Provided that you've already unlocked your bootloader, you can now flash the recovery onto your device. Although, there are a few changes to the way TWRP will be installed that we should note.

Installation

If you've ever manually installed TWRP onto your device, then you might be familiar with the fastboot commands needed to flash the TWRP image to the recovery partition. Due to the partition changes made for 'seamless updates' to work in Android Nougat for the Pixel and Pixel XL, you will NOT be issuing those same commands. Forget everything you think you know, and carefully read the following instructions before you act. In essence, what you will actually be doing to install TWRP is to boot the TWRP image, then using the automated installation script which will handle flashing TWRP to both boot partitions.

First up, if you haven't already you'll need to grab the Google USB driver as well as the fastboot binary (we recommend downloading and extracting Minimal ADB & Fastboot to the directory of your choice). Next, download the appropriate TWRP installation files for your device (Pixel and Pixel XL). You will need to move the .zip file onto your device's internal storage, but leave the .img file on your computer. Then, open up a command prompt and check that your device is recognized by issuing fastboot devices into the command prompt. If you see your device's serial number, then the fastboot protocol detects your device. Finally you'll need to temporarily boot up the TWRP image by issuing this command:

  fastboot boot path/to/twrp.img

Note that "path/to/" refers to the actual directory in which the downloaded TWRP image file is located. Make sure that you are issuing fastboot boot and not fastboot flash, and that the file you are booting is not the zip file. Once you've issued the boot command, your device will retrieve the TWRP image from your computer and temporarily boot into TWRP. You're almost done at this point.

All that you need to do now is to make TWRP survive a reboot by flashing it to both of your device's boot partitions. Thankfully, all of the work there is handled by the automated installation script that you downloaded earlier. Simply use the TWRP interface to navigate to and install the TWRP installation zip just like you would install any custom ROM, mod, or kernel zip. After that, TWRP will be accessible to you no matter which active partition slots are being used.

TWRP Alpha v1

Since this is an alpha release, there are bound to be issues. Right now, Dees_Troy has outlined three issues to be aware of. First up, due to the introduction of File Based Encryption (FBE) in Nougat, data restoration might pose a problem.

File Based Encryption (FBE) can be a tricky. If a restore doesn't work correctly, it can trigger an automatic wipe of your data. I've tested it a little on my Pixel XL, but I haven't had time to test it extensively. Sometimes TWRP will fail to prompt you to enter your password or otherwise fail to set up decrypt properly. If this happens, reboot TWRP. It seems to be some kind of timing issue and I haven't had time to track it down yet.

There's no saying it may happen to you, but it could happen to you. If you don't regularly make backups of your data offline or on the cloud, then don't be shocked when something goes wrong and your entire data is wiped. I've had that happen to me before, and it sucks.

Next, if you are currently using the multi-user feature (including guest features) on your device, then you will want to avoid using TWRP for now.

File Based Encryption means that each user's folders are separately encrypted. To make a proper backup, factory reset, etc, we would have to have the user decrypt for every individual account on the device.

At this time, TWRP only supports single user setups even if you happen to know the encryption password of the other users on your device. Dees_Troy has told us that he has successfully decrypted additional users using a command line tool, but that implementing this feature in TWRP isn't a high priority right now and may instead be released in a future update. Last week our XDA Twitter account polled users on behalf of Dees_Troy asking if they utilize the multi-user feature, and the vast majority stated that they do not use multi-user, so we don't expect this limitation to affect very many people.

But there is one issue that is more relevant to the vast majority of users who will be installing TWRP. Currently, SuperSU will not function alongside TWRP.

Installing TWRP at this time will remove root if you are currently rooted. A SuperSU update will be required to allow TWRP and SuperSU to co-exist.

Dees_Troy explained the reason for this interference to XDA-Developers as such:

Chainfire uses the ramdisk of the bootimage to do his system-less root. This is the same ramdisk that Google intended to be used for recovery. I am pretty sure that Chainfire will be able to come up with a way to make it work with TWRP, but TWRP needs a small change to the init binary to make decrypt work properly and Chainfire needed a different change to his init binary to make his ramdisk work for both normal boot and recovery.

In other words, Chainfire's systemless root method modifies the same binary that TWRP needs to modify in order to get data decryption working. Therefore, when you flash TWRP you are overwriting the changes made to the init binary by Chainfire's systemless root method. While this is a minor setback, thanks to the dual partition nature of the Pixel (and future devices shipping with Nougat), TWRP has some nifty new capabilities.

Pixel devices have 2 "slots" for ROMs / firmware. TWRP will detect whichever slot is currently active and use that slot for backup AND restore. There are buttons on the reboot page and under backup -> options to change slots. Changing the active slot will cause TWRP to switch which slot that TWRP is backing up or restoring. You can make a backup of slot A, switch to B, then restore the backup which will restore the backup of A to slot B. Changing the slot in TWRP also tells the bootloader to boot that slot.

What this essentially means is that you'll soon be able to dual boot on your device. Unfortunately, since custom recovery has just been released, it will take some time for your favorite custom ROM developer to cook up something in the kitchen for your Pixel phone.

Download TWRP for the Google Pixel Download TWRP for the Google Pixel XL

Do you plan on running a custom ROM or kernel on your device, or will you remain on stock firmware? Let us know in the comments below!

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Titanium Backup Team Releases ‘My Titanium’ App to Showcase their Upcoming Apps

Whenever we talk about rooting an Android device and go on to list out the possibilities of what we can accomplish after rooting, one of the top suggestion that flows in is to enable the user to take a backup of their app and its accompanying data. And whenever we talk about backing up, mentions of Titanium Backup are bound to pop up.

And that is not without good reason. Titanium Backup has had downloads in the range of 10 Million – 50 Million from the Play Store ever since it got listed on. It is also one of those apps that has a consistently high rating, getting an average of 4.6 stars from more than 350,000 ratings. It's one of the earliest apps that continues to retain its popularity and fan following. And to top it all off, it is among one of those rare apps that still boasts compatibility with Android versions going back all the way to Android 1.6. Yes, the app looks very dated in terms of UX, but the functionality it offers continues to remain unparalleled.

So, when Titanium Track, the team that handles Titanium Backup, launched a new app, we had to take note.

Enter 'My Titanium', the latest app from Titanium Track that will primarily serve as a showcase to their other upcoming apps and services. By itself, My Titanium is not very exciting from a consumer perspective. The app acts as an information portal, letting us know more about what else the team has in store.

My Titanium gives us an early look at the next two apps that the team is working on: EvGenie and MyTi.cloud. In a gist, EvGenie is a collaborative calendar which helps you plan events and do much more, while MyTi.cloud is a Swiss digital safe, intended to keep your data away from prying eyes of mass-market cloud storage providers. EvGenie stores your events and related data in MyTi.cloud, and so will Titanium Backup, wrapping up the package. You can learn more about these apps from their announcement blog post and from within the My Titanium app.

Pricing of MyTi.cloud and EvGenie are on a yearly subscription model which revolves around the storage slab you opt for, starting at about $21 for 10GB of cloud space and scaling up to around $105 for 10GB. While the pricing is steep, there are pre-order offers thrown in, with the best offer essentially making the bundle a one-time purchase.

What are your thoughts on MyTi.cloud and EvGenie? Let us know in the comments below!

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Google Brings Machine Learning to Google Play Music

Google has just announced a brand new update to their music streaming service, Google Play Music. The new design and features will begin rolling out to Android, iOS and the web starting this week, and Google says it will be made available to 62 countries around the world.

As with most of these app updates though, it will be rolled out gradually to users. So, you can either wait patiently for the update to be pushed to your device, or you can sideload the update when it becomes available.

The first thing you'll notice about this update is its new design. Google wanted to make the application easier to use so it redesigned the home page. So as soon as you launch the Google Play Music application, you'll be greeted with some personalized suggestions about what it thinks you want to listen to based on what you like. The more you use the service, and the more you tell it what you like and dislike, the more useful this home screen will become.

Presenting you with music you like isn't enough for Google though, they wanted to take it a step further. So they have integrated the company's machine learning technology into the service. This means that it will use other pieces of information (if you agree to it) about you to offer some music. For instance, it can offer you a workout playlist when it detects you are at the gym. Or it can offer you a specific genre that it knows you like to listen to while you're at work.

Also, if you subscribe to the Google Play Music service (by itself or via YouTube Red), then it can prepare an offline playlist based on what you were listening to, just in case you lose connection to the internet.

Source: The Keyword

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qeuBot Adds in a Personal Chatbot to WhatsApp

If you are looking for a personal chatbot for your WhatsApp conversations, check out queBot! queBot can perform online and offline operations through WhatsApp, without needing to register or adding any phone number.

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Samsung will Acquire Harman for $8 Billion in Cash

We generally see shifts in trends when it comes to the smartphone market. At one point, most manufacturers were spending money to use the best display available for their device. With devices generally having such good displays now, some OEMs then focused on improving the camera experience.

Now, it seems there is another trend to improve the audio quality that smartphones are currently capable of. Granted, we've seen some companies like HTC focus on audio quality for years, but there are still some who are content with shipping a sub-par audio experience with their product. This year, though, we saw HTC continue their efforts, albeit, in a different way than before with the HTC 10. ZTE showed they were serious about audio quality with the front-facing speakers of the Axon 7. Then we have LG who chose to ship the world's first smartphone with a Quad DAC in the LG V20.

Today, Samsung has announced they will acquire Harman for $8 billion in cash. You may or may not know this company has a lot of brands behind it including JBL, Harman Kardon, Mark Levinson, AKG, Lexicon, Infinity, and Revel. Harman is also the one responsible for licensing brands like Bowers & Wilkins and Bang & Olufsen. At this time though it's unclear if Samsung will go all-in when it comes to audio quality of their future smartphones, but this does give them a huge opportunity, and Samsung is know for leveraging their resources company-wide.

Harman has their hands in a lot of different markets though. They're currently a big player in automobile technologies like infotainment, cyber security, over-the-air updates and telematics. They have a business-to-business platform with the ability to deliver integrated, large-scale audio and visual professional solutions at stadiums, concert facilities and other performance centers. The company even employs 8,000 software designers and engineers who are currently working on the IoT market.

So we can see why Harman is such an attractive acquisition for a company like Samsung. The question is, will Samsung make good use of it? And what does that mean for us smartphone enthusiasts? Let us know what you think down below!

Source: Samsung Newsroom

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