Android 7.0 for the HTC 10 is Rumored to be Stable, Update Coming Soon

As we finish up 2016, OEMs are just about ready to begin rolling out their official Android 7.0 updates. So far, we've seen OEMs like Samsung, LG, Huawei/Honor, and Xiaomi start to beta test Nougat on their flagship devices. Thus far, we haven't yet heard much about HTC's upcoming 7.0 update for their flagships, but the company has assured they are hard at work bringing the latest update to their customers. Thanks to a new batch of leaks, however, we now have a much better glimpse at the impending Nougat update for the HTC 10.

Fans of HTC devices are probably familiar with @LlabTooFeR, who is perhaps the most prolific source of leaks regarding upcoming HTC hardware and software. He's also a Recognized Contributor here on XDA for his work on the MaximusHD custom ROM, available for many HTC smartphones.  LlabTooFer has been posting extensively this week regarding the upcoming Android 7.0 Nougat update for the HTC 10 over on his Twitter account, and he's revealed some interesting details about the unreleased update from the Taiwanese handset maker.

First of all, a new tweet from yesterday states that the Android 7.0 update for the European HTC 10 is currently stable. That's not to say the update will be released anytime soon – but it is indeed a major milestone in the progression of the software update. What this does mean for HTC 10 users is that the Nougat base is essentially ready and what's left is to add any finishing touches, such as additional features, to the HTC Sense UX. Finally, after some internal Q&A, the update would then presumably reach carriers who would determine the official roll-out schedule for their customers.

On HTC's end, though, we have some idea of when they plan on finishing up their internal review process for the Nougat update. LlabTooFeR posted on Twitter about HTC's current schedule for the Android 7.0 update for the European HTC 10. HTC is currently aiming for a release window between the end of November and the start of December, assuming there aren't any major delays. Those dates are rapidly approaching, so if everything goes smoothly, we could see the Nougat update from HTC within the next few weeks.

LlabTooFeR also shared some additional goodies regarding the impending update, in the form of screenshots showcasing Nougat on the HTC 10.

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Source: @LlabTooFeR

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Best Xposed Mods for the Honor 8

We recently released videos about how to unlock the bootloader on the Honor 8, as well as how to root and install xposed framework. If you missed those videos, you should check them out here.

How to Root Honor 8 and Install TWRP and Xposed 

How to Unlock Bootloader on Honor 8 

Today's video is going to be highlighting some of the awesome xposed modules that we have found to work on the Honor 8. Before messing around with xposed mods, make sure you have a full backup in TWRP. We have found that some of the xposed mods can cause crashes and bootloops, so proceed with caution.

Continue to follow the latest development news for the Honor 8 over at the XDA forums.

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CM14.1 Nightly Builds Available for the OnePlus One, Nexus 7 2013, Mi 5 and More

The folks behind CyanogenMod started work on CM14 back in August of this year. We knew we wouldn't see anything immediately made official, but it was nice to know the developer community had begun work on the next version of CyanogenMod. So many custom ROMs are based on CM directly or indirectly, so this might as well be the start of Android 7.0 Nougat coming to smartphones and tablets that had already disbanded by the OEM.

We've seen many unofficial builds released for a number of different devices, but the first official nightlies of CM14.1 were launched a little more than a week ago. These nightlies were made available for devices like the Nexus 6P, Nexus 5X, LG G3 and more, but we were told to not expect every typical CyanogenMod feature included in these early builds. They didn't go into detail about every feature that was missing, but they did say that the CyanogenMod Theme Engine would not be included in the first set of nightly builds.

As time goes on, we're going to see more devices added to the CM14.1 build list, and that's what has been happening this week. Official nightly builds of CM14.1 have been made available for the Xiaomi Mi 5 (gemini), OnePlus One (bacon), OnePlus 2 (oneplus2), 2013 WiFi Nexus 7 (flo), 2013 Cellular Nexus 7 (deb), 2015 Moto G (osprey), Sony Xperia SP (huashan), Sony Xperia T (mint), Sony Xperia TX (hayabusa), and the Sony Xperia V (tsubasa).

The Nook Tablet (acclaim) will also be receiving official CM14.1 nightly builds, but they aren't up yet. The Nexus 6 (shamu) is also up on this list, but there must be something wrong with the build because it downloads as zero MB in size instead of 500.27 MB like it's listed on the website. This will likely get fixed soon, and they will start building CM14.1 for more devices too so be sure to keep your eye out and let us know when new builds are up.

Source: CyanogenMod Story Via: Android Police

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OnePlus Discontinues Sales of the OnePlus 3 in the US and Europe

Earlier this week we saw the official introduction of the OnePlus 3T. OnePlus has decided to release a new phone with improved specs that will likely help keep sales alive until the launch of the OnePlus 4. The OnePlus 3T has a larger battery capacity, an improved front-facing camera (at 16MP), the option for 128GB of internal storage, the Snapdragon 821 SoC from Qualcomm and even some sapphire glass protecting the rear camera.

For anyone who has waited until the holiday season to purchase a new smartphone, the new OnePlus 3T is easily among the best available. Leading up to the launch of the OnePlus 3T, many noticed that the original OnePlus 3 was out of stock on OnePlus' website. Some were hoping that this would be a temporary thing, and that the company would eventually offer both the OnePlus 3 and the OnePlus 3T at the same time.

Android Authority reached out to OnePlus to confirm again if this was the case, and they received some bad news. Depending on where you live, it's been confirmed that the OnePlus 3 will no longer be available for sale again. OnePlus told Android Authority that they would be discontinuing sales in both the United States as well as European market. They were also told that OnePlus didn't have any future plans to bring it back for these specific reasons.

We did report on the OnePlus 3 being discontinued in our own exclusive article. The OnePlus 3 had reached its end of life in terms of official availability. It is good to get more confirmation on the regions immediately affected by this move.

Interestingly enough, they didn't specify any other countries. So the OnePlus 3 could still be made available in countries like India and China. We're also seeing a healthy resale market for the OnePlus 3 over on Swappa right now. The last one was sold in October and went for just over $400. So if you currently own the OnePlus 3, you could put it up for sale on Swappa and use those funds to buy a newer OnePlus 3T device.

Source: Android Authority

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Qualcomm Announces Quick Charge 4.0 Technology

At an event in New York, Qualcomm has taken the wraps off of its latest advancement in charging technology: Quick Charge 4.0. Building upon the success of preceding Quick Charge technologies, Quick Charge 4.0 promises to deliver even faster charge times and greater efficiency levels, so that mobile consumers spend less time hugging the wall.

Qualcomm found that three of the top four concerns for people when looking for a new smartphone were related to either battery capacity or battery charging speed, and they are aiming to utilize Quick Charge 4.0 to continue improving their strong market position, with over 150 companies supporting Quick Charge, by helping assuage those fears.

Quick Charge 4.0 claims to extend smartphone use for flagship smartphones with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chip by 5 hours with only 5 minutes of charging, going "5 for 5" according to Qualcomm. With just 15 minutes of charging time, a 2,750 mAh battery is expected to be able to go from 0% to 50% charge.

Qualcomm is once again improving their Dual Charge parallel charging technology (now called "Dual Charge++") to provide up to 20% faster charging and 30% higher efficiency at up to 5 degrees celsius cooler temperatures compared to Quick Charge 3.0, which itself featured improvements over the predecessor technologies.

Quick Charge 4.0 also features the third release of Qualcomm's INOV (Intelligent Negotiation for Optimum Voltage) power management algorithm. This release of INOV includes real-time thermal management, which Qualcomm says is a technology industry first. INOV 3.0 focuses on optimization by determining and selecting optimal power transfer level for the thermal conditions present.

A major point of focus for Quick Charge 4.0 has been on improving the safety and protection features, with multiple additional layers of protection added to help prevent battery over-charging. Quick Charge 4.0 keeps many of the existing features such as the 3 layers of over-voltage protection, 3 layers of over-current protection, and 4 layers  of over-temp protection, and supplements them with new features such as the ability to detect the quality and condition of the cable being used.

One of the most important changes though is the addition of compatibility with USB Power Delivery (USB PD), which could not have come at a better time, following closely on the heels of Google "strongly recommend[ing]" that devices only support charging methods that are compatible with USB PD in the new Android 7.0 Compatibility Document (with a little hint that Google "might REQUIRE all type-C devices to support full interoperability with standard type-C chargers" in the future).

For the best QC 4.0 performance, Qualcomm is also introducing two new power management ICs, the SMB1380 and SMB1381. These PMIC are engineered for low impedance, with up to 95% peak efficiency, and support for advanced features like battery differential sensing. The SMB3180/1 will be made available by the end of 2016.

Qualcomm's Quick Charge 4.0 fast charging technology will be available in the next generation of Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, starting with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835. The Snapdragon 835 is expected to ship in commercial devices beginning in the first half of 2017.

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What are your thoughts on Qualcomm's Quick Charge 4.0? Let us know in the comments below!

 

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Snapdragon 835 Announced on Samsung 10nm FinFET Process for Early 2017

Despite a lukewarm performance for most of 2015, Qualcomm has largely had a successful 2016 thus far thanks to its Snapdragon 820/821. While the 820/821 struggled against some of its competitors in benchmarks, the current crop of Snapdragon SoCs has largely satisfied the needs of end users.

Devices such as the OnePlus 3 have garnered highly favorable reviews among the XDA team, to say nothing of the immense popularity of the Google Pixel and Pixel XL on the Android community at large. But Qualcomm isn't interested in releasing merely "satisfactory" products, and as such the company has officially announced the successor to the Snapdragon 820 and 821 – the long awaited Snapdragon 835. Although many rumors claimed otherwise, Qualcomm appears to skipping over the Snapdragon 830 name, at least for now.

While not much is yet known about the Snapdragon 835, Qualcomm did at least reveal they would be continuing their partnership with Samsung. The Snapdragon 835 will be built using GlobalFoundries/Samsung's process technology and fabrication plants, and will be Qualcomm's first chip based on Samsung's new 10 nanometer FinFET process. Samsung is quite proud to be the first manufacturer to offer mass production of 10 nm chips, however, TSMC is close on their heels with their own 10 nm process which will be found in the upcoming MediaTek Helio X30. There are also some questions about the validity of measuring process technology by nominal feature size (with Gate Pitch x Metal Pitch being held up as a preferable measurement by Intel, a measure wherein Intel 14 nm ranks fairly closely with TSMC and Samsung/GloFo 10 nm), but that is a topic for another time.

Samsung's 10 nanometer FinFET process is expected to bring a 30% increase in area efficiency and a choice of 27% higher performance at the same power usage or 40% lower power consumption at the same performance level (or somewhere in-between). That 30% increase in area efficiency is a major focus for Qualcomm at the moment, as it will leave OEMs with more room inside their devices to incorporate other parts, such as a larger battery. Qualcomm especially hopes to see manufacturers take advantage of the increased area efficiency by incorporating a larger battery. The company is stressing all across its announcements that they hope to eliminate range anxiety. Qualcomm wants you to charge more quickly with Quick Charge 4.0, consume less power with newer and more efficient chipsets, and create room for larger batteries inside of phones with smaller processors and other components.

In addition to the unveiling of the Snapdragon 835's manufacturing process, it was also previously announced that the Snapdragon 835 will be carrying Qualcomm's new X16 LTE Modem, which is capable of Gigabit download speeds.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 is already in production, and should begin shipping in flagship phones during the first half of 2017, just in time for the much anticipated flagship refreshes (and just as rumors are starting to appear for the Samsung Galaxy S8, LG G6, HTC 11, and various other devices).

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Do you think Qualcomm can leverage Samsung's 10nm process to regain the top spot in CPU performance? Will OEMs follow through with Qualcomm's goals of better battery life, or will they just use the power savings to shrink devices even further? Let us know in the comments below!

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Qualcomm Announces Bug Bounty Program

Bug bounty programs are by no means a new idea for the tech industry. They have proven to be highly successful for many companies, giving them opportunities to employ the power of the crowd to find critical bugs and flaws, and Qualcomm is now looking to get in on the fun too.

Qualcomm is launching their "vulnerability rewards program" with a specific focus on Qualcomm Snapdragon processors (such as the newly announced Snapdragon 835) and LTE Modems. Qualcomm is stressing that their bug bounty is unique and different from those of other major silicon vendors, in part because of their focus on the community. Not only will there be rewards of up to $15,000 USD per vulnerability, but Qualcomm will also be honoring members that make particularly interesting discoveries with recognition through QTI Product Security and/or CodeAuroraForum's Hall of Fame, depending on the vulnerability in question.

The program will start off as a closed program, with only 40 security researchers that have made previous vulnerability disclosures regarding Qualcomm products being invited. If it proves to be successful, it may grow quickly and prove to be a major asset for Qualcomm.

Qualcomm's bug bounty program will be administered with the HackerOne vulnerability coordination platform. For more details, visit http://ift.tt/2gjKVtX and http://ift.tt/2f3Bsl8.

And of course, there won't be any need to wait to disclose bugs until everything gets set up, as the program is effective immediately.

This is a commendable initiative from Qualcomm seeing how we come across more and more exploits surfacing every passing week. A rewards program not only gives them more eyes to examine their hardware and software stacks, it also gives security researchers and enthusiasts an incentive to keep putting the newest technologies and codes to test. The end beneficiary is the user who enjoys a much safer and more secure mobile experience.

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