Realme Pad will be updated to Android 12 after all

Realme officially joined the Android tablet league with the release of the Realme Pad in September last year. The Realme Pad offers decent hardware at an affordable price stage, featuring a solid build quality, a large design, and capable multimedia capabilities. However many users were disappointed when they learned earlier this month that Realme had no plans for the Android 12 update. But after some backlash, Realme now has a change of heart.

Realme on Wednesday officially confirmed that the Realme Pad would receive the Android 12 update after all. However, users will have to wait a quite bit to get their hands on the new software as the update won’t come out until Q3 2022. But at least your Realme Pad won’t be stuck on Android 11 forever. Realme also says the tablet will get three years of security updates which is great to see considering the fact it’s a budget tablet.

“The Realme Pad will get the Android 12 Update in Q3, 2022 and would also have 3 years of security update. The announcement has been made keeping in mind the requirements of the users,” Realme said in a press release.

Realme says Android 12 will pack features like a revamped lock screen and notification UI, scrolling screenshots, one-handed mode, and updated widgets among other things.

The Realme Pad is one of the best budget Android tablets available on the market. It features a large 10.4-inch LCD display with 2000 x 1200 resolution and an 82.5% screen-to-body ratio. Under the hood, it’s powered by MediaTek’s Helio G80 octa-core SoC, paired with 3GB/4GB RAM and 32GB/64GB flash storage. It has an 8MP rear and an 8MP ultra-wide front camera. The tablet packs a 7,100mAh battery and charges via an 18W fast charger. Other notable highlights include quad speakers with Dolby Atmos support, dual microphones with noise cancellation, Bluetooth 5.0, Face Unlock, and a 3.5mm audio jack. On the software front, it runs Android 11 out of the box with Realme UI for Pad on top.

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Oculus VR is now Meta Quest VR

Late last year, Facebook announced that it’s renaming itself to Meta, inspired by the company’s focus on alternate realities. Now, the Virtual Reality division of Meta has been renamed from Oculus to Meta Quest. It’s not surprising though, since we were expecting the rebrand to happen sooner than later. Apart from being an attempt to establish a brand that’s free from the flak affiliated to ‘Facebook’, the new Meta Quest branding will also help the company emphasize its move towards the metaverse and a future that’s focused on Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.

The Oculus Twitter handle, which doesn’t exist anymore, recently announced this change via a tweet. It consists of a meme that suggests that the brand will now be called Meta Quest instead of Oculus. After the tweet was put out, the account handle was renamed to @MetaQuestVR. At the end of the day, it’s just a rebrand and there’s going to be no change in the products or services offered to existing Oculus device owners.

New Name. Same Mission. pic.twitter.com/USJafAPEdW

— Meta Quest (@MetaQuestVR) January 26, 2022

What this means is that all future VR/AR products from the company will launch with the new branding. The Oculus Quest 2, for example, could be sold as the Meta Quest 2 once existing units with the older branding are sold out. Surprisingly, though, the Oculus app on both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store still hasn’t received an update with the new branding.

Just a few days back, we heard reports of Meta giving up on its own replacement OS for its VR/AR devices. However, it does seem like Meta is quite serious about building an ecosystem of products and services geared towards the metaverse. Another interesting aspect of this is that previously, the Quest was just a series of headsets from Oculus that were standalone VR devices. There were other headsets outside of the Quest series too like the Oculus Rift and Oculus Go. With the rebranding, all new products from Meta in the future will have the Quest tag attached to them.

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OnePlus 9 Pro’s latest update restores GCam auxiliary camera access

OnePlus recently rolled out a new stable channel OxygenOS 12 update to the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro. The update included several bug fixes, improvements, and optimizations, along with the Android security patches for January 2022. And, although the official changelog doesn’t make any mentions of it, the update also restores GCam auxiliary camera access on the OnePlus 9 Pro.

For the unaware, OnePlus started rolling out OxygenOS 12 based on Android 12 to the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro late last year. While the update introduced a bunch of new features to the devices, it also blocked one crucial feature — auxiliary camera access for Google Camera ports. This prevented users from utilizing their phone’s wide-angle and telephoto cameras with the modded camera app.

Shortly after users spotted this issue, OnePlus promised that it will restore auxiliary camera access in OxygenOS 12 for the OnePlus 9 series with a future update. However, the company didn’t provide an exact release timeline. While we expected OnePlus to take its own sweet time to revert this change, the company has already delivered it with the recently released OxygenOS 12 stable channel update (C.44).

Aamir from our team has confirmed that Google Camera ports can now access both the ultra-wide and telephoto cameras on his OnePlus 9 Pro running OxygenOS 12 (C.44). As you can see in the attached screenshots, the modded camera app lets you easily switch between the primary, ultra-wide, and telephoto cameras on the device with a tap. We believe that this should now also be possible on the vanilla OnePlus 9 with the latest OxygenOS 12 update, but we aren’t absolutely sure. In case you own a OnePlus 9, you can check if you have auxiliary camera access on the latest OxygenOS 12 build by installing a GCam mod from our Google Camera port hub.

Thanks to XDA Senior Member Some_Random_Username for the tip!

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Microsoft announces a bunch of new features coming to Windows 11 next month

Microsoft is preparing to roll out some new features to Windows 11 users in February, Windows chief Panos Panay announced today. In a blog post looking at the current state of Windows 11, the head of Microsoft’s Windows and hardware divisions also looked to the future, starting with Android apps.

However, the wording around Android apps is somewhat confusing. Here’s what Panay says in the blog post:

“Next month we’re bringing new experiences to Windows that include a public preview of how you can use Android apps on Windows 11 through the Microsoft Store and our partnerships with Amazon and Intel(…)”

This is strange because Android apps on Windows 11 are already available in preview right now. If you’re enrolled in the Windows Insider Beta or Dev channels, you can install the Windows Subsystem for Android and the Amazon Appstore and start installing apps. With some fiddling, you can even do that on non-Insider PCs. Most likely, this means that Microsoft is going to make Android apps available to all Windows 11 users, but you’ll have to install the Windows Subsystem for Android manually and it will still be labeled as a preview. If that’s the case, we still don’t know when Microsoft plans to consider this a “stable” feature.

In a recent article, our own Rich Woods noted that we’re three months into the experience of Android apps on Windows 11, and not a whole lot has changed. Maybe Microsoft is hoping to make some performance improvements in the future. We did reach out to Microsoft about this and will update this article if we hear back.

Beyond this, Microsoft also announced a couple of new features that Windows Insiders have been able to try for a while. There’s the new microphone mute icon on the taskbar, first seen in Windows 11 build 22494, which is currently only available for the work version of Microsoft Teams. Another Teams-exclusive feature is the ability to easily share a window during a meeting right from the taskbar, which debuted in build 22499.

Additionally, the new Notepad and Media Player apps will also be rolling out next month. The new Notepad app uses a new modern design and supports dark mode for the first time, in addition to including a new interface for the Find and Replace features. The new Media Player app replaces both Groove Music and Movies & TV apps, and it’s set to be the central destination for audio and video playback on Windows 11.

As to when exactly these features will roll out, there’s a good chance they’ll arrive alongside the Windows 11 Patch Tuesday updates in February. We shouldn’t have long to wait to know for sure.

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Microsoft is ahead of schedule on its Windows 11 rollout because people just love it

Today in a blog post, Microsoft talked a lot about the past year in Windows, and what we’re going to see moving forward. The firm said that Windows is now on 1.4 billion monthly active devices, although presumably, that number is limited to Windows 10 and Windows 11. It also said that it’s moving quicker than expected with the staged Windows 11 rollout. The reason is, well, people just love it, no matter what you might have heard.

The company said that people are accepting the free upgrade offer at twice the rate as they did for Windows 10. Of course, that doesn’t translate into more PCs upgrading, as Windows 11 is actually available to a much smaller subset of devices. It’s still impressive though, since with Windows 10, Microsoft spent months installing adware on users’ PCs with the intent of tricking them into saying they want Windows 10, well ahead of the rollout. The Windows 11 rollout has been much more subtle.

But that’s not all. Microsoft says that Windows 11 has the highest customer satisfaction and the highest quality score of any version of Windows, ever. People are spending 40% more time on their PC with Windows 11, although that might also have something to do with the work from home boom that we’ve seen over the last couple of years.

The Redmond firm also said that Windows 11 brings three times more traffic to the Microsoft Store. This bit makes sense, since the store has now been opened up in meaningful ways, and anyone can put an app in the Microsoft Store now.

So, because people just love Windows 11 so much, Microsoft is now entering the final phase of the rollout, so it’s well ahead of schedule. Originally, the company said that the staged rollout wouldn’t be finished until mid-2022.

Windows 11 hasn’t been without issues. There are still known issues, such as with compatibility with VirtualBox. The new OS was fairly rushed when it first shipped, being built in only about nine months. The plan for Windows 10 was originally that it was going to be the last version of Windows, so a major UI overhaul like this would have been a feature update for it. Instead, it became Windows 11, as that capitalizes on the work from home boom and the temporary resurgence of the PC market. Of course, most of the issues present at launch have been fixed.

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OnePlus seems to be back with mid-cycle refreshes as OnePlus Nord 2T specifications leak

The OnePlus Nord 2 is a top-tier mid-range smartphone that you can pick up right now, powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 and packing a full HD 90Hz display. OnePlus also often makes “T” variants of its flagship smartphones as a mid-cycle refresh, though the company skipped that with the OnePlus 9 series (aside from the OnePlus 9RT that launched in India and China). Now it seems that the company is working on a mid-cycle refresh of the Nord 2, as a recent leak has revealed the full specifications of an upcoming “OnePlus Nord 2T” device.

To celebrate my 45th Birthday, I wanted to share a little something with you today… #FutureSquad

Here comes the #OnePlusNord2T specs sheet!

On behalf of @digitindia -> https://t.co/Ld5TbkdGfI pic.twitter.com/M32fFH35MX

— Steve H.McFly (@OnLeaks) January 26, 2022

Steve Hemmerstoffer of @OnLeaks fame shared the OnePlus Nord 2T spec sheet with Digit, though it definitely seems to be a pretty minimal mid-cycle refresh. OnLeaks says that the OnePlus Nord 2T will feature a MediaTek Dimensity 1300 and a full HD AMOLED panel with a 90Hz refresh rate. It’s also expected to have a triple camera array on the back, with a primary 50MP shooter, an 8MP ultra-wide, and a 2MP monochrome sensor. OnLeaks reports that it will launch with OxygenOS 12 based on Android 12. The Dimensity 1300 doesn’t appear to be the same chip as the Dimensity 1300T, which is currently earmarked for tablets.

Finally, this device is tipped to come with a 4,500 mAh battery and 80W SuperVOOC fast charging; the original Nord 2 only supported 65W Warp Charging. The OnePlus 10 Pro that launched in China is currently the only OnePlus/OPPO phone that supports 80W charging, making this an upgrade in some respects over last year’s flagship from the company. It appears that much of this device is the same as the original Nord 2, making this a true refresh of sorts. The only real improvements appear to be in the chipset and the charging speed.

At present, it’s unclear when this phone may launch. Digit speculates that the phone could launch in February, but that’s only speculation and was not provided by OnLeaks. However, one thing is for sure, this could be an exciting device that iterates on the already-excellent Nord 2. The OnePlus Nord 2 launched in the summer of 2021, meaning that this could device could arrive just a few months before the OnePlus Nord 3.

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Magisk v24.0 release introduces Zygisk, brings along Android 12 support, and more

XDA Senior Recognized Developer topjohnwu‘s Magisk started off as a systemless root method and has evolved over the years into a much more diverse and powerful tool beyond just plain root. But even today, if you need root, chances are that the recommended root method for your device mentions installing Magisk for superuser access. The latest major update of Magisk, which corresponds to the twenty-fourth version (v24), has now arrived at the public beta branch, officially bringing full-blown support for all Android 12 devices wide and large.

Magisk XDA Forums

The developer announced the new update on Twitter today. Apart from Android 12 support, the next important thing in this release is the introduction of Zygisk (e.g. Magisk in Zygote). This feature unlocks a plethora of tinkering possibilities, as module developers can now run code directly in every Android apps’ process. To streamline the adaptation, topjohnwu has also published the final version of the Zygisk API v2. The documentation and the relevant module template can be found here.

The new build marks the final retirement of MagiskHide. This is not something unexpected, though, as we have already seen the removal of MagiskHide on the Canary channel. Magisk v24.0 doesn’t come with any kind of root hiding feature out of the box, but you can still use third-party modules to circumvent root detection and pass SafetyNet.

Additionally, the centralized Magisk module repository is permanently gone. As a result, it is not possible to download modules from the repo in v24.0. From now on, the Magisk app will solely look for the updateJson property inside a module and use the corresponding URL to check, download, and install module updates.

Best Magisk Modules: Call Recorder, Font Manager, 1Controller, and more!

Module and root developers are encouraged to read the release notes found over here. The complete changelog of Magisk v24.0 is as follows:

• [General] MagiskHide is removed from Magisk
• [General] Support Android 12
• [General] Support devices that do not support 32-bit and only runs 64-bit code
• [General] Update BusyBox to 1.34.1
• [Zygisk] Introduce new feature: Zygisk
• [Zygisk] Introduce DenyList feature to revert Magisk features in user selected processes
• [MagiskBoot] Support patching 32-bit kernel zImages
• [MagiskBoot] Support boot image header v4
• [MagiskBoot] Support patching out skip_initramfs from dtb bootargs
• [MagiskBoot] Add new env variable PATCHVBMETAFLAG to configure whether vbmeta flags should be patched
• [MagiskInit] Support loading fstab from /system/etc (required for Pixel 6)
• [MagiskInit] Support /proc/bootconfig for loading boot configurations
• [MagiskInit] Better support for some Meizu devices
• [MagiskInit] Better support for some OnePlus/Oppo/Realme devices
• [MagiskInit] Support init.real on some Sony devices
• [MagiskInit] Skip loading Magisk when detecting DSU
• [MagiskPolicy] Load *_compat_cil_file from system_ext
• [MagiskSU] Use isolated devpts if the kernel supports it
• [MagiskSU] Fix root shell if isolated mount namespace is set
• [resetprop] Deleted properties are now wiped from memory instead of just unlinking
• [App] Build a single APK for all ABIs
• [App] Switch to use standard bottom navigation bar
• [App] Downloading modules from the centralized Magisk-Modules-Repo is removed
• [App] Support user configuration of boot image vbmeta patching
• [App] Restore the ability to install Magisk on the other slot on some A/B devices
• [App] Allow modules to specify an update URL for in-app update + install

If you’re interested in trying out the new build on your device, you can download the v24.0 release of Magisk from the link below. In case you face any issues, you can file a bug report on the project’s GitHub repository.

Download Magisk v24.0

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