Microsoft Surface Duo will get 3 years of OS and security updates, will have an unlockable bootloader

Yesterday, Microsoft officially announced the Surface Duo, their latest attempt at a mobile smartphone. It is a super cool looking dual-screen device running Android, which will also be known as the first Android device from Microsoft. With Android devices, one of the most important questions has been how many years of Android updates the device will receive, as this is crucial to the overall experience. Until recently, most Android OEMs only provided 2 years of updates. Now, Google and Samsung have promised 3 years of Android updates for their flagship devices. Microsoft is now also joining that three-years-of-update group with the Surface Duo.

Microsoft Surface Duo XDA Forums

Earlier today, a Microsoft representative confirmed to us that the Surface Duo would be receiving 3 years of both OS and security updates. The device is launching with Android 10, which means it should receive up to Android 13 in OS updates. Microsoft did not specify the frequency of security updates, but for the first year, they are required to provide quarterly security updates. In comparison, the most competitive dual screen to the Surface Duo is the LG Velvet, and LG has only committed to 2 years of updates which will historically take years to get released.

Further, Microsoft also confirmed to us that the Surface Duo will have an unlockable bootloader. This means you will be able to easily root it, mod it, or throw a custom ROM on there. Personally, I am waiting for a stereo speaker mod since the device only has a mono speaker. The interest from the community will dictate what custom works are available, which is where the $1,399 price tag might hurt a little. There is no information on whether unlocking the bootloader would void the warranty — but if we had to take a guess, we would say that it would void the warranty. We’ll update the article when we get more information in this regard.

All around, Microsoft is showing it is serious about the Surface Duo and the product line. Committing to three years of updates is a big deal, and is starting to become the standard for flagship Android devices. Hopefully, Microsoft won’t become the next LG in delayed updates Committing to providing the updates is a good first step, and bootloader unlockability will help it gain favor among the enthusiasts and meta-influencers.

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Unofficial Pixel Experience and TWRP are already available for the new OnePlus Nord

Third-party development for the OnePlus Nord is on full-swing on our forums, even though it’s just been over a week since the device went on sale. XDA Senior Member Some_Random_Username has already released a guide to root the device using Magisk and now, developers have released unofficial builds of the Pixel Experience custom ROM and TWRP custom recovery for the device.

OnePlus Nord XDA Forums

How to Root the OnePlus Nord with Magisk

Unofficial TWRP recovery for the OnePlus Nord

XDA Recognized Developer mauronofrio has released an unofficial build of the TWRP custom recovery (v3.4.0-0) for the OnePlus Nord. You can download and flash the custom recovery on your device by following the instruction in the XDA forums thread linked below, after which you’ll be able to flash a custom ROM on the device. However, since this is an early build of the TWRP recovery, some features don’t work as expected. Here’s a list of all the things that you can and can’t do with the current version of TWRP:

• TWRP boots
• Decryption works
• ROM flashing should work
• Backups are broken
• Flash partition is broken for system and vendor
• Don’t wipe or format system and vendor partitions
• Format/wipe data is broken

Download Unofficial TWRP (v3.4.0-0)

Unofficial Pixel Experience ROM

An unofficial build of the Android 10-based Pixel Experience ROM is now also available for the OnePlus Nord, thanks to XDA Member CryllicBuster273. To install the ROM, you’ll first need to root your OnePlus Nord by following the guide linked above and flash the unofficial TWRP recovery on the device. Then you can follow the instructions in the XDA forum thread linked below to download and flash the ROM. The custom ROM comes with Google apps built-in, so you don’t need to flash a separate GApps package after flashing the ROM.

Download Unofficial Pixel Experience ROM

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Xiaomi finally prepares to roll out Android 9 Pie to the Mi Box 3

Launched back in 2016, the Xiaomi Mi Box 3 was a forerunner of today’s Mi Box 4K or the Mi TV Stick. Matter of fact, the “Mi Box” sold in the U.S. is nothing but a rebranded Mi Box 3. The Chinese OEM shipped the device with Android Marshmallow, skipped the promised Nougat update, and directly jumped to Android Oreo. While its successor, the Mi Box S, did pick up the Android Pie update a few months ago, the owners of the Mi Box 3 are stuck with Android Oreo till date. If you are still holding onto the older Mi Box, you will be excited to know that Xiaomi is now pushing out the long-anticipated Android Pie update for the Mi Box 3 to select beta testers.

The initial public beta build (software version R2810) is meant for the MDZ-16-AB variant of the Mi Box 3 and it is coming in at nearly 620MB. The included changelog is hilariously tiny, thus all we know that the OTA brings in Android Pie to the nifty set-top box alongside the support for the Mi Remote app. Despite there is no ETA on when the stable build will land, it would be the third major Android OS update for the device (counting the unreleased Android Nougat build), which is quite impressive for such an affordable certified Android TV box.

Thanks to Reddit user u/Askmetech for the screenshot!

Considering the internal similarities between the Mi Box 3 (code-name: once) and the Mi Box S/Mi Box 4K (code-name: oneday), we hope that the aforementioned Android Pie beta firmware comes with most of the bugfix patches from the latter’s stable Android Pie build. Note that the firmware packages for these two streaming devices are not compatible with each other, so do not try to perform a cross-flash.

The Mi Box 3 supports 4K video playback at 60fps, thanks to the quad-core Amlogic SoC with the Mali 450 GPU and 2GB of RAM inside the device. There’s also support for Dolby Digital Plus audio playback, albeit the beta firmware reportedly breaks HD Audio passthrough for some users.

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Files by Google prepares to add a Favorites folder

Files by Google was launched in November 2017 as a way to let Android Go users better manage storage space on their phones. Formally known as “Google Files Go”, Google later decided to make the app available for all Android phones through the Google Play Store. Since its inception, Files by Google has gone from being a barebones storage space organizer to become a better-equipped file manager that comes preinstalled on Google Pixel and Android One smartphones. It has gained several exciting features over time, including a dark theme, built-in media player, faster offline sharing, and more. In its most recent update, the app received the Safe Folder feature, letting users hide their sensitive files behind a 4-digit PIN. Now, the app is preparing for a new feature called Favorites folder to let you organize your favorite files in one place for quick access.

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.

Our Editor-in-Chief, Mishaal Rahman, has discovered some strings for this feature in the Files by Google version 1.0.325710463. He managed to surface the menu options for the Favorites folder and was able to add a file to it, but the folder itself wasn’t viewable.

The Favorites folder will be a useful addition as it would allow you to access all your favorite and most frequently accessed docs, PDFs, and media files in one place. You won’t have to dig deep into a pile of folders and subfolders every time you want to access that specific file. Just adding it to the Favorite folder will ensure you can quickly reach it whenever you need. A lot of file managers offer this function, so this addition inches along feature parity with the competition.

For now, the feature remains a work-in-progress and isn’t available in the most recent version of the Files by Google app. As and when Google will decide to incorporate it into the app, we’ll sure to let you know.

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

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Download MIUI 12’s new Super Saturn Wallpaper from the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra

Xiaomi officially announced its newest Android skin — MIUI 12 — earlier this year in April. As with all previous MIUI releases, the latest software update from the Chinese OEM included a bunch of new static and live wallpapers. Shortly after the official announcement, XDA Recognized Contributor linuxct managed to port the new Super Earth and Mars live wallpapers to other devices and later added two more options — Hale crater and Evergreen garden — to the list. Xiaomi recently released another set of live wallpapers with its 10th-anniversary special Mi 10 Ultra and you can now download it for your device.

This is Faraway Rings, the Super Wallpaper featured in the Mi 10 Ultra, ported to work on any Android device running Android 8.0 and above! This first video shows the Vertical version of it. pic.twitter.com/Lpq8V5iCxm

— linuxct (@linuxct) August 12, 2020

The new MIUI 12 Super Saturn live wallpapers include two options — Faraway Rings (Horizontal) and Faraway Rings (Vertical) — both of which can now be installed on any Android device running Android 8.0 or newer. As you can see in the embedded tweets, the Faraway Rings (Horizontal) wallpaper gives you a close look at Saturn’s rings in a horizontal orientation, while the Faraway Rings (Vertical) wallpaper aligns the rings in a vertical orientation. Both the wallpapers show a zoomed out version of the ringed planet on the lockscreen and unlocking the device zooms into the rings, with floating asteroids that move when you switch pages.

And this second video shows the Horizontal version of it, just like I showed a few hours ago. pic.twitter.com/dx3cWqSwNT

— linuxct (@linuxct) August 12, 2020

If you’re interested in trying out MIUI 12’s new Super Saturn live wallpapers on your device, you can download the respective APKs from the download link below. Once you have the APK installed on your device, you can pick the new live wallpapers from the stock wallpaper picker on your device. In case the wallpapers don’t show up in the stock wallpaper picker, you can download the Google Wallpaper app from the Play Store to apply the live wallpapers.

Download MIUI 12 Super Saturn Wallpaper port

MIUI 12 Super Wallpaper — XDA Forum Thread

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Tasker’s latest test hijacks Android 11’s power menu to let you do whatever you want

Popular Android automation app Tasker recently received a major update which introduced a ton of new features to the app. The update included a feature that unlocked the app’s ability to read any sensor on your phone to trigger a Task, a feature that will let you automate sending text messages or make calls via any third-party app, full Do Not Disturb customization, the ability to trigger Tasks via links, and much more. Now, the developer behind Tasker has shared a demo for an experimental plugin which will let you customize Android 11’s power menu to trigger any event in Tasker.

In a recent post on Reddit, Tasker’s developer u/joaomgcd wrote: “I’m going away for about 1 month starting next week and since I’m not going to be releasing any updates this close to leaving I started experimenting with some stuff, so I created this simple plugin…Basically it adds an entry to the power menu items on Android 11 which will trigger an event in Tasker.”

As you can see in the attached video, the experimental plugin creates a Tasker button in Android 11’s power menu which can be customized to trigger any Task within the automation app. In case you wish to try out the plugin, you can download it from the Reddit thread linked below. Do note, however, that the plugin only works on devices running Android 11 and you won’t be able to enable it on older versions of Android. This is due to the fact that it makes use of Android 11’s new Device Controls API which lets developers put home automation shortcuts in the Power Menu.

It’s also worth noting that the plugin is currently just a proof-of-concept, but the developer plans on adding full-fledged Device Controls API support in a future release of Tasker. Once the feature rolls out in a stable release, you will be able to trigger any event from the modded power menu.

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Source: Reddit

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Mozilla lays off 250 employees to restructure its business but is reportedly still financially secure

The Mozilla Corporation recently announced that it was laying off approximately 250 employees in an attempt to secure the organization’s financial future. The layoffs were announced by the CEO of Mozilla Corporation and Mozilla Foundation Chairwoman, Mitchell Baker, in a public blog post, which also highlighted the company’s plans for the foreseeable future.

In the blog post, Baker wrote, “Today we announced a significant restructuring of Mozilla Corporation. This will strengthen our ability to build and invest in products and services that will give people alternatives to conventional Big Tech. Sadly, the changes also include a significant reduction in our workforce by approximately 250 people.”

Baker further revealed that the layoffs and restructuring were a part of the organization’s need to adapt its finances in a post-COVID-19 world and focus on commercially viable products that would help the organization generate revenue in the long term. This led some to speculate that Mozilla was facing financial troubles and had failed to renew its search deal with Google, which has historically accounted for 75-95% of the organization’s annual budget.

However, sources familiar with the matter have confirmed to ZDNet that Mozilla is financially sound and the layoffs were just a result of over-staffing in areas that the organization was not planning on prioritizing going forward. The sources also revealed that Mozilla and Google are expected to extend their current search deal for another three years at an estimated price tag of $400 million-$450 million per year. Details about the extended search deal will, most likely, be revealed later this year in November, when the organization is scheduled to disclose its 2019 financial figures.

In a statement to ZDNet, a Mozilla spokesperson said, “Mozilla’s search partnership with Google is ongoing, with Google as the default search provider in the Firefox browser in many places around the world. We’ve recently extended the partnership, and the relationship isn’t changing.”

Going forward, the Mozilla Corporation will prioritize commercialization efforts in the short-term, while work on open standards and protocols will take a back seat. However, Mozilla doesn’t plan to phase out its work in the web development community and will, most likely, pick up where it left off after its subscription-based services ensure long-term business survivability.

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Source: The Mozilla Blog, ZDnet (1,2)

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