Realme releases a flash tool for installing ColorOS/Realme UI updates

Realme might have separated from its parent company OPPO, but both of them are internally using a common foundation when it comes to custom Android skin. Realme UI is so far still a fresh coat of paint on top of OPPO’s ColorOS, and it is definitely not close to stock Android as initially promised by Realme’s CEO. In fact, Realme is still utilizing OPPO’s proprietary OZIP file format to pack their update packages. Not only do you have to brute force these OZIP packages to extract the AES key in order to convert them to regular recovery flashable ZIP files, but you also can’t directly use them to perform a clean flash using the standard Fastboot interface.

The custom development community around Realme devices is expanding rather quickly, primarily because of the low-cost revolution they have brought to the smartphone space. Realme does publish kernel source codes and allows bootloader unlocking, which acts as strong catalysts in the aftermarket development scene. The phones themselves, however, can get bricked for a fair few reasons in the journey of porting a custom ROM or trying out a new mod, and the unavailability of an official flash tool makes everything complicated to restore. The lack of a flash tool basically forces users to visit a service center to carry out a simple job of unbricking, which is not at all appreciated by the community.

But now, after teasing their flash tool for a little over a year, Realme has finally come up with something productive. The initial version of the Realme Flash Tool is now available for download, although the Realme X50 Pro is the only compatible device as of yet. Users can flash OFP packages with this tool, which is different from the OZIP firmware listed on the company’s download portal. The flashing process will completely wipe the target device so you should backup your personal data before playing with the flash tool.

As you can see, the UI of the flashing app is remarkably similar to the Mi Flash Tool developed by Xiaomi. However, Realme Flash Tool isn’t programmed to work with Qualcomm Emergency Download Mode (EDL). It is more of a GUI wrapper for the Fastboot binary, thus you have to unlock the bootloader of the target device before flashing. Realme India CMO Francis Wang promised that the broken fingerprint sensor issue on Realme phones after bootloader unlocking should be resolved with the release of the flash tool, although we can’t verify the veracity of that claim at this moment.

It is worth mentioning that downgrading to a lower Android version isn’t supported by this tool, although you should be able to switch to a lower version of ColorOS or Realme UI if the underlying Android layer remains unchanged. Contrary to what Realme claims, the Windows-only tool isn’t specifically tied to the Indian variant of the Realme X50 Pro. You should be able to flash any Snapdragon or MediaTek-powered Realme phone with this flasher, provided you have your hands on the appropriate OFP package. The company is planning to add more phones from its portfolio to the list of supported devices by releasing required OFP files in the coming future.

Download Realme Flash Tool

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Source: Realme Community (1, 2)

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How to restore the missing pocket mode toggle in OxygenOS on some OnePlus phones

OxygenOS from OnePlus provides a heavily customized Android experience and a variety of useful features and options. For example, you can find a built-in “Pocket mode” in OxygenOS that prevents accidental touches when the device is kept inside your pocket. However, a toggle to disable this particular option is apparently missing on devices like the OnePlus 7 and the OnePlus 7 Pro after the most recent OxygenOS update.

OnePlus 7 Forums ||| OnePlus 7 Pro Forums

The OnePlus 7 family recently received OxygenOS 10.3.3 (OxygenOS 10.0.6 for the European variants) that bumped the Android security patch level to May 2020 and brought in features like Dolby Atmos support for the new OnePlus Bullets Wireless Z earphones. Open Beta users, on the other hand, got the same security patch level in the form of Open Beta 14 a few days before the stable channel rollout. It might be a coincidence, but the “Pocket mode” toggle under Settings > Utilities seems to be missing right after these updates.

Although the toggle is visually absent, the pocket mode detection algorithm is always running in the background. It eventually breaks ambient display-related features like double-tap to wake and pickup to show in low light conditions, because the phone believes that it is still in your pocket. Due to the fact that OnePlus tends to re-use a majority of the UI codebase of OxygenOS across their devices, the glitch may affect non-OnePlus 7 (Pro) phones as well.

Hopefully, there is an easy way out, but you have to be rooted in order to apply the fix. All you need to do is add the following text snippet to the end of /system/etc/feature_list file on your phone (just before the last ]).

,
   {
       "featureName": "OP_FEATURE_ENABLE_POCKETMODE_SWITCH"
   }

Reboot the phone after saving the changes and the “Pocket mode” toggle should now be visible under Settings > Utilities. Note that the default status of the option should be “disabled” after adding the above code, thus you may need to toggle it twice to properly turn off pocket mode detection.

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Source: OnePlus Forums

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Exclusive: Google is testing a low-latency gaming mode on its Android TV dongle, possibly for Stadia support

Earlier this month, we published renders from a marketing video we obtained of Google’s upcoming Android TV dongle, code-named “Sabrina.” We obtained the marketing video from a pre-release firmware build. What we didn’t initially realize, though, is that the firmware also contains evidence of upcoming hardware features.

If you’re looking for a recap of what we know so far about the design and software experience of Google’s Android TV dongle, then I recommend either reading my initial coverage or watching the following YouTube video from XDA’s TK Bay.

XDA Recognized Developer deadman96385, who shared the pre-release firmware build for “Sabrina” with us, discovered some of the Android TV dongle’s hardware specifications by examining the “Device Tree Source” (DTS) files contained within the boot image. The files specify which hardware features of the SoC platform to enable when booting.

Since the main DTS file is very long (~4,200 lines) and difficult to parse without knowledge of Linux kernel development for Android, I won’t be posting the full file in this article. At the very top of the file, though, we can see two key details of the “Sabrina” Android TV dongle device: It has 2GB of RAM (sml_sabrina_2g) and is powered by the Amlogic S905X2 system-on-chip (the reference to g12a below and multiple references to the code-name “meson” not shown below confirm this).

The Amlogic S905X2 is fabricated on a 12nm manufacturing process and has a quad-core CPU with 4 ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cores clocked at up to 1.8GHz. The CPU is joined by an ARM Mali-G31 MP2 GPU. The SoC supports video decoding for 4Kp75 10-bit H.265 content, video output at up to 4Kp60 over HDMI 2.1, HDR video playback with HDR10, HLG, and Dolby Vision, and more.

The S905X2 is a very popular SoC for Android TV devices, so we’re not surprised to see it power Google’s Android TV dongle. Here’s a partial list of certified Android TV devices with this SoC platform, thanks to our friend @AndroidTV_Rumor:

Other Android TV devices with the Amlogic S905X2 SoC

Pay TV Provider / Brand	Model	Year	Country	Manufacturer	Code Name	SoC
Amplia	Amplia TV	2020	Trinidad & Tobago	Askey	STI6160d327	Amlogic S905X2
Antel	Vera TV	2020	Uruguay	SDMC	DV8547	Amlogic S905X2
Canal+ Polska	Android TV Dekoder	2020	Poland	Skyworth	HY4001 / HY40A	Amlogic S905X2
Digiturk	AirTV IP Box	2019	Turkey	SDMC	DV8535	Amlogic S905X2
Dish TV	SmartVU +	2020	New Zealand	SDMC	A7070	Amlogic S905X2
EMCALI		2020	Colombia	Coship	N9119M	Amlogic S905X2
Mecool	KM3	2019	China	Videostrong	KM3	Amlogic S905X2
Mecool	KM9 Pro	2019	China	Videostrong	KM9PRO	Amlogic S905X2
Midco	eSTREAM 4K	2020	USA	SEI Robotics		Amlogic S905X2
MINIX	NEO T5	2019		SDMC	DV8553	Amlogic S905X2
MNC Play	PLAYBOX	2020	Indonesia	Skyworth	HP40A / CYBORG001	Amlogic S905X2
Oi	Streaming Box	2019	Brazil	SEI Robotics	ETRI02 (SEI531O)	Amlogic S905X2
RockTek	G1	2020	Taiwan	Elebao	RT-G1	Amlogic S905X2
SK Broadband	B tv Smart 3	2019	South Korea	Foxconn	BFX-AT100 (BFX-UH200)	Amlogic S905X2
TADAAM (Telenet)	TADAAM Box	2020	Belgium	Askey	STI6160	Amlogic S905X2
TCC		2020	Uruguay			Amlogic S905X2
Telecom Argentina	FlowBox-F1	2020	Argentina	Skyworth	HP40A2	Amlogic S905X2
Telekom Malaysia	unifi TV Plus Box	2020	Malaysia	Skyworth	HP40A3	Amlogic S905X2
Telkom Indonesia	IndiHome	2020	Indonesia	ZTE	B860HV5_Telkom	Amlogic S905X2
Transvision	Xstream Box	2020	Indonesia	SEI Robotics	SEI500TR	Amlogic S905X2
United Group	EON Smart Box (OTT)	2019	Serbia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Bosnia	SDMC	SDOTT0202 / DV8519	Amlogic S905X2
Vectra	4K Box	2020	Poland	SDMC	DV8519-Vectra	Amlogic S905X2
Verizon	Stream TV	2019	USA	WNC	JS8V	Amlogic S905X2
Yes	Yes+	2020	Israel	SEI Robotics	SEI500Y	Amlogic S905X2
Youfone	Android TV	2020	Netherlands	SDMC	DV8519 / Amigo7xYUF	Amlogic S905X2

Other hardware features of Google’s Android TV dongle hinted at in the DTS file include Broadcom’s BCM43569 combo chip for Wi-Fi/Bluetooth and Cadence’s Tensilica HiFi 4 DSP.

XDA Recognized Developer deadman96385 also found some other interesting features of Google’s Android TV dongle in a pre-installed system application called “SabrinaService.” Within this application are references to “ALLM,” which stands for “Auto Low Latency Mode.” This is a feature of the HDMI 2.1 specification that allows the device to send a signal to the connected TV to get it to disable any post-processing features that might add latency to displaying the video. A lot of televisions will market this feature as a “Game Mode” because it’s most useful for reducing lag when gaming. To be clear, the user’s television will need to have a low-latency “Game Mode” for this to work, but ALLM support means that Google’s Android TV dongle will be able to toggle this mode automatically.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this feature is being added to support Google’s cloud game streaming service, Stadia. We first reported that Google planned to bring Stadia support to Android TV in 2020, so it would make sense for Google’s own Android TV dongle to be the first device to support the company’s own cloud game streaming service. The latest update to Stadia enables experimental Android TV support, but the setup process is a bit janky at the moment. Very few existing Android TV set-top boxes or dongles support Auto Low Latency Mode, according to our friend @AndroidTV_Rumor. Sony’s 2018 and Philips’ 2020 televisions with built-in Android TV support low-latency gaming modes, though.

Another interesting class in SabrinaService called “GlobalKeyReceiver” hints at the remote having a Netflix button, YouTube button, and a microphone.

There’s code that suggests long-press action support on one of the keys, which could be for the mysterious button with the star symbol that showed up in the render of the remote we published earlier.

Possible remote

Another class in SabrinaService reveals that the dedicated remote likely connects to the device via Bluetooth, which is unsurprising. (DFU in the below screenshot refers to “Device Firmware Update.”)

 

We still don’t know when Google’s Android TV dongle will launch or what it will be priced at, but we’re definitely excited about it coming to market. We’re long overdue for more competition in the consumer Android TV space which is currently propped up by Xiaomi and NVIDIA.

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Thanks to PNF Software for providing us a license to use JEB Decompiler, a professional-grade reverse engineering tool for Android applications.

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[Update: Confirmed] Android 11 may finally remove Android’s 4GB file size limit for video recordings

Update (6/12/20 @ 4:00 PM ET): It’s official: Android 11 finally gets rid of the 4GB file size limit for video recordings.

In 2019, smartphone brands have made huge jumps in camera quality, especially when it comes to zoom and low-light. On the other hand, video quality hasn’t been given the same amount of attention. That could change in 2020 with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865’s improved ISP. Yet, even as Android smartphones are shipping with larger internal storage capacities, have faster modems, and are now supporting 5G networks, an old limitation prevents most of these phones from saving video files that are larger than 4GB in size. However, that could change in Android 11, the next major version of Android that’s set to release in 2020.

I’ll try to summarize the reasoning behind this limitation without going too deep into the technical aspects. Basically, Google decided that Android’s MediaMuxer and MPEG4Writer classes, which are respectively responsible for muxing (combining) video files and saving them as MP4 files, should support outputting an MP4 file with a maximum size of 2^32 – 1 bytes, which is approximately 4GB. This decision was made in early 2014, back when the Google Nexus 5 with its maximum 32GB of internal storage was still on the market, SD cards were still widely in use, and the first phones with 4K video recording had just come to market (Galaxy Note 3). Thus, there wasn’t much demand to save video files over 4GB in size: most phones didn’t have enough storage, SD cards formatted in FAT32 wouldn’t support it anyway, and few phones recorded in high enough quality to even meet that limitation. Fast forward 5 years and much has changed: there are now phones with 1TB of storage, SD cards are now the exception rather than the norm, and 4K video recording is ubiquitous, with 8K video recording soon to reach devices.

Today, if you record a 4K video on the Pixel 4, your video will reach 4GB in size in about 12 minutes; that’s at the default quality settings of 30fps for the frame rate and 48Mbps for the bitrate. After about 12 minutes of recording, the camera app will save the video and immediately begin recording another video – without the user noticing. When you check your phone’s DCIM folder, you’ll notice that what was supposed to be one continuous video recording has instead been split into multiple video files. For example, a 73 minute video recording on my Pixel 4 was split into 7 different files – all of which were seen by Google Photos as separate recordings. It’s not difficult to mux these MP4 files before uploading to Google Photos, but you’ll have to use a third-party app if you want to do so. Most people wouldn’t bother or know how to do so, I would imagine.

A 73 minute 4K30 video recording from my Pixel 4 split up into 7 different files.

Developers have asked for a way to record video files larger than 4GB in size for years now, and it seems that change could finally be coming in Android 11. According to the description of a new commit in the AOSP gerrit, Google is updating Android’s media classes to remove the 32-bit file size limitation. Specifically, Android will now “use [a] 64bit offset in mpeg4writer,” which allows Android “to compose/mux files more than 4GB in size.” During testing, Google successfully composed a file of around 32GB in size, and in a separate test, even managed to fill up the entire storage capacity of the phone with a single recording. A maximum file size of 2^64 -1 bytes is comically large and would never really ever be met, so we expect Google to limit the MediaRecorder API or OEMs to limit their stock camera apps to support a more reasonable maximum file size. However, apps like OpenCamera that use the Camera2API should still be able to arbitrarily set whatever maximum file size they want without having to worry about the 32-bit file size limitation.

OpenCamera’s Video Recording Settings

The commit has not been merged yet, but when it does, we expect the change to be reflected in Android 11 since that’s the next major Android release. The first Android 10 beta went live in March of this year, so expect to see an Android 11 beta in March of 2020 followed by a stable release sometime in August of 2020. With phones from Xiaomi and Samsung expected to support 8K video recording, this change is welcome – albeit way overdue.

Thanks to XDA Recognized Developer luca020400 for the tip!

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Update: Confirmed

Videographers rejoice, Android 11 officially gets rid of the 4GB file size limit for video recordings. Android 11 Beta 1 finally removes the limitation, but you’ll need to use a camera app that supports it. Right now, not even Google’s own camera app supports it yet. The popular app Open Camera does seem to support it already and we should see more apps, including Google Camera, add support too.

Source: Google | Via: Android Police

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Files by Google 1.0.315 tests a “Safe Folder” that hides and protects files with a 4-digit PIN

Files by Google is a file manager app that has become the de facto default file manager for Google Pixel devices on Android 11 as the AOSP Files app is now only accessible from storage settings. The latest version of the APK started to roll out recently, and it was also uploaded to APKMirror. Version 1.0.315 reveals work on a new “Safe Folder” feature that will allow you to hide and encrypt files using a 4-digit PIN.

An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by the developers in a future build.

Strings for this feature were first spotted by 9to5Google earlier today, but we have fully enabled this feature in the Files by Google application. How it works is quite simple: A new “Safe Folder” button appears in the “Collections” section of the “Browse” tab. When you tap on the Safe Folder, you’ll be asked to set a 4-digit PIN. Once you set a PIN, it warns you that you can’t open the Safe Folder again if you forget the PIN. After setting up a PIN, you can move files by selecting one or more of them and then choosing “Move to Safe folder” in the menu.

Under-the-hood, files are stored in a folder called .FilesByGoogle in the root directory of the external storage (located at /data/media/{user}). The contents of this folder are hidden from other applications thanks to a .nomedia file in the directory. The files themselves seem to be encrypted, so there’s indeed no way to recover them if you forget your PIN. If you uninstall the Files by Google app, the contents of the Safe Folder will not be deleted. However, when you re-install Files by Google, it won’t be able to read the old Safe Folder contents again. You can set up a new Safe Folder using the same (or different) PIN, and all new files moved to the Safe Folder will also be saved in the .FilesByGoogle directory.

This feature is not yet available for users in the latest version of the Files by Google app. However, once it rolls out, we will let you know.

Files by Google: Clean up space on your phone (Free, Google Play) →

Thanks to PNF Software for providing us a license to use JEB Decompiler, a professional-grade reverse engineering tool for Android applications.

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Google Calendar enables Google Tasks integration for some users

Google Tasks was launched as a standalone app over two years ago and it has remained pretty barebones. It’s slowly gained more features, like a dark theme, but the beauty of it is the simplicity and Google integration. The company has been working on integration with Google Calendar going all the way back to October of last year. It seems to finally be live for more people.

We first saw this integration between Google Tasks and Calendar late last year. The functionality adds a “Tasks” option when you tap the “+” FAB in Calendar. You can then create a task like you normally would right inside the Calendar app. It works the same way as you can currently create a Goal or Reminder.

Screenshots from previous build of Google Calendar

The Tasks interface in Google Calendar is similar to creating an event. You can give the task a title, add details, choose a time and date, put it under a specific Tasks list, and decide if it should be recurring. This works even if you don’t have the Tasks standalone app installed on your device, so it could mean using one less app. Once included, you’ll see a new “Tasks notifications” section in the General Calendar settings.

This integration is still not official and it seems to be appearing as a server-side switch. However, it does appear to be showing up for more people, so a full release could be coming soon. Check your Calendar app to see if it’s there. Do you use Google Tasks and do you like them showing up on your calendar?

Google Calendar (Free, Google Play) →

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Source: Android Police

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G Suite users can now edit Google Calendar events directly in Gmail or Google Docs

Gmail and Docs on the desktop, along with a bevy of other Google services, features a side panel with shortcuts to Google Tasks, Keep, and 3rd-party add-ons. Google Calendar is another one of these shortcuts and it allows you to view the schedule for a single day, add events, and delete events. Soon, it will allow you to also directly edit events.

The current functionality for the Google Calendar panel is pretty nice, but it’s not the full experience. It’s annoying to be able to do most actions from the side panel but have to go over to Calendar to edit an event. Now, users will finally be able to do everything right from within the side panel. Editing an event includes the date/time, guests, location, and everything else you’d get in the full Calendar app. There’s also the “Find a Time” tool to see others’ calendar availability when scheduling events.

Google will be gradually rolling this feature out over the next couple of weeks for Google Docs and Gmail. It will be available for all G Suite customers, but we’d be surprised if it doesn’t come to consumers as well. A feature like this makes all of Google’s services work better together and that is ultimately the goal. The less you have to leave a Google app (even for another Google app), the better. Keep an eye out for this in the future.

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Source: Google

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