Recognized contributor wanam has released a version of Xposed that should work on all Galaxy S6 variants and he hopes that it will support upcoming Samsung Arm64 devices. It is still in an experimental phase however has been confirmed as working so far on tested modules.As users of Samsung devices may know, they made significant changes to ART without providing resources, which is why in Wanam’s opinion it has taken a while for Xposed to be made functional.
Downloads and instructions can be found over at the thread here
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June 4th, 2010. As far as dates go, this was a rather normal day for the world at large. But for people who call themselves “smartphone enthusiasts”, this date is of some significance. It is on this day that Dell began sales of the Dell Streak 5, the smartphone with a 5″ display running Android 1.6 Donut (later upgraded to Android 2.2 Froyo). The phone was more of an experiment rather than a product, as it did end up failing in the market with its disappointing sales. While Dell did move on to announce a few more phones going upwards in screen size, they discontinued the humble “little tablet of its time” on August 15th, 2011.
The Dell Streak was indeed rather forward-thinking and ahead of its time as far as screen size is concerned. Dell played a high risk move by releasing a phone with a 5″ display in 2010, at a time when Google’s own offering, the Nexus One, was released with a 3.7” display in January 2010. Market and critical reception for the Streak was poor mainly due to qualms with its price, the screen size as well as its resolution of 480 x 800 which offered a poor pixel density of roughly 187 ppi. The phone was often mentioned as being stuck in the middle of two worlds, for it was quite big for a phone and too small for a tablet.
And thus, the phablet was born!
The category was quickly written off by many a reviewer for trying to do too many things at once – and its mediocre performance in all of them. The tablet boom was in full swing in 2010 and 2011, and phones tried to stick within the range of 3.5” to 4” for their screen size. Android still was in its infancy as far as multi-tasking and actually utilizing a bigger screen was concerned, as Android 3.0 Honeycomb itself was launched much later in February 2011. The phablet was born and quickly forgotten.
It wasn’t until September 2011 that phablets made a comeback, with the Samsung Galaxy Note spearheading their campaign. Samsung decided to take the screen size risk again, but this time, it improved upon the Dell Streaks mistake by going above the market’s expectations in terms of specs. This was very much in the middle of the specs race in Android, so Samsung did a fine job at sending out a mid-year powerhouse. Here is a quick spec comparison between the Dell Streak 5, the Samsung Galaxy Note and the Samsung Galaxy S2 (which was Samsung’s flagship released in the same year):
Dell Streak 5
Samsung Galaxy Note
Samsung Galaxy S2
Release
June 2010
October 2011
April 2011
Screen Size
5″
5.3″
4.3″
Screen Resolution
480×800
800×1280
480×800
Pixel Density (ppi)
186.5
284.8
216.97
Processor
Qualcomm Snapdragon S1;
Single core clocked at 1GHz
Exynos 4210;
Dual core clocked at 1.4GHz
Exynos 4210;
Dual core clocked at 1.4GHz
RAM
512 MB
1 GB
1 GB
Internal Storage
16 GB
16/32 GB
16/32 GB
Battery Capacity
1530 mAh
2500 mAh
1650 mAh
As it becomes clear when you compare the Galaxy Note with both the Streak 5 and the S2, it outperforms both in terms of pure specs. This is understandable as the phone was released much later than both, the Streak 5 and the S2. However, the Note cemented itself in the phablet category by offering the best in terms of specs for the year. It worked on providing users with the best of both smartphones and tablets, and did a very decent job at both. Added to this mix was the S Pen, which improved functionality and gave the Note its most distinctive feature which set it apart from numerous other smartphones in 2011. And to take advantage of the larger body to house the bigger display, Samsung massively bumped up the battery capacity. Some part of the capacity increase was nullified due to the 5.3″ S-AMOLED display taking a decent chunk of it with added resolution to boot, but the fact remained that the Galaxy Note was amongst the few and rare phones of 2011 that could actually last a full day under heavy usage.
The Galaxy Note ticked all the right boxes when it came to being a “power user’s” choice of an ideal smartphone. It had a big and beautiful screen for multimedia consumption, it possessed top of the line specs and a battery to handle the abuse. What’s more, it also came in with some additions in the form of the S Pen as well as a removable battery and a microSD storage, both of which ensured that the device could upscale if the user so desired. And the hungriest of the power users often did want more, meaning the Galaxy Note quickly rose the ranks as a “no-compromise” device. It did cost more than what Samsung’s “flagship” S series cost, but the target audience – the power user – was willing to pay more for a device that could handle his or her needs.
Over the years, the Galaxy Note series evolved to become a flagship lineup by itself. Often released in late Q3 of the year while the flagship S series was released in late Q1- mid Q2 of the year, the Note lineup bumped up the specs of the S lineup, thereby creating a cycle of a fresh powerhouse device from Samsung every ~6 months. It did target a different set of consumers than that of the S flagship line, and the audience set also evolved in terms of what it expected from the Note lineup. Here are some more comparison tables, comparing previous Note releases to that years S flagship (Qualcomm Snapdragon based models have been skipped for brevity):
The specs speak for themselves. The Galaxy S series primarily competed against the iPhone and flagship releases from other Android manufacturers, all of which tried to push the boundaries of acceptable display size little by little. The Galaxy Note series, on the other hand, carved out its own niche in the competitive market, combining the multimedia experience of tablets with the connectivity and usefulness of phones–while still going over and above to please those who wanted more. Samsung even marketed it towards business executives, focusing plenty of its advertisement towards the “business & enterprise” end of the consumer spectrum.
There was a reason why the Note lineup quickly grew to become the premier choice for people who wanted to get more work done on the go, without necessarily carrying another device. The S Pen primarily enhanced the workflow of productive tasks as it allowed a different and more precise interaction with the display. The Note lineup also received love from TouchWiz (surprisingly!), which lent it some nifty multitasking features to better utilize the screen real estate. The faux leather feel on the back did attract its fair share of fans, who preferred the “premium yet durable” feel it gave to the phone. Along with these, the option to increase memory of the phone as well as a removable battery gave the Note lineup a very strong hold on the phablet market.
Once Samsung tasted success with the Note, other manufacturers also tried to jump on the bandwagon. The HTC One Max, HTC Desire 816, LG Optimus G Pro, Sony Xperia Z Ultra and even Samsung’s own Mega lineup failed to impact the mainstream success of the Notes. But with the release of Galaxy Note 5, the top might just be within reach of others.
As was the case with the Galaxy S6, the Galaxy Note 5 is a far cry from the usual fare that fans have come to expect from Samsung products. While we half expected the “glass back” trend to carry over from the Galaxy S6, it is rather disappointing to see Samsung move away from the power user features in a bid to attract consumers who prefer a more premium feeling phone. The new Note ended up sacrificing some of the most crucial aspects of its popularity in its year-on-year upgrade cycle, while stagnating over a few others.
Here is a Note series comparison to showcase this better:
The Galaxy Note 5 can still be looked upon as an overall upgrade to the Note 4 in terms of pure specs. However, it did regress on features that had become synonymous with the Note lineup. For starters, the faux leather back has been entirely replaced by a curved glass panel on the back, thereby bringing the Note closer to the Galaxy S6. The loss of the microSD card slot will also be felt by many power users, as Samsung has informed that there will be no 128GB storage option availableat this time.
Furthermore, the Note 5 opts for a sealed, non removable battery thanks to its new redesign. While the loss of 220 mAh capacity may not make a lot of difference on screen-on time (especially given that the Note 5 features extra optimizations), it does affect the longevity of the device itself as swapping out a degraded battery is no longer child’s play.
The recent decisions taken with the Note 5 point towards Samsung bowing to mainstream consumer pressure for “beautiful” phones, the same user base that would happily trade battery capacity for phone that’s 1mm thinner. This newfound pressure comes with more and more devices moving towards bigger, phablet screen sizes while still retaining the phone moniker. Customers have become acclimatized to bigger screens in their pockets, a far cry from the Dell Streak 5 era.
As a business entity intending to make a profit, Samsung has perfectly executed a ‘bait and switch’ strategy by offering power users a device they did not know they needed… And when they became comfortable (or even addicted) to it and the device was made popular, the company switched it for, in favor of, a more mainstream device to appeal to the new consumer base.
The Note series is no longer a power user device first. For those who are looking for an absolutely no-compromise device and are willing to drop top dollar for it, there is suddenly a void created by the disappointment from the Note 5. Other manufacturers have taken note, but will they be able to deliver to the needs of this crowd?
Will the real Note please stand up?
We’re gonna have a problem here.
Do you think the Galaxy Note 5 is the true successor in the Note lineup? Will any other OEM’s capitalize on the demand for a “no-compromise” smartphone? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
There is a big chance that you have heard about MIUI. This Chinese Android ROM is very controversial but also beautiful. You can find out how MIUI looks like on your phone without even rooting it! With this icon pack, your favorite 3rd party launcher will transform your phone into a MIUI copycat, give it a go!
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Most of us have probably heard about Apple’s “Force Touch” and “Taptic Engine“—both a software gesture and a technology—proudly featured on new MacBooks and Apple Watches and vaunted by Apple as “the most significant new sensing capability since multi-touch.” However, since this is primarily a website for Android (and Windows Phone) enthusiasts, Force Touch remains a curiosity for most of us—certainly not something we use on a day-to-day basis, and most probably something we’ve never experienced, at all. Apple has gone all-in on the new input method, though, and there arewidespread rumorsthat Force Touch will be built into, and play a prominent role in, bothiOS 9and the next iPhone (probably iPhone 6S). And if Force Touch becomes a part of the iPhone brand, it’s probably reasonable to assume that that it’s only a matter of time until it—or a similar gimmick—makes its way to Android, either by individual OEM experimentation or by addition to the next Google Nexus device and Android release.
What is it?
“Force Touch” is really a suite of software features and hardware technologies that come together to create a completely new touch-experience for computers and devices. On the software side, theideais hardly revolutionary—change the response of the software depending on how hard you press the touch pad. Apple has implemented this idea into OS X in various ways, including: adjusting the speed of fast-forward or rewind in Quicktime; looking up a word when you click on it extra-hard in Safari; or signing your name in Preview like you would with a Wacomdigital pen.None of these features are particularly interesting—they’re mostly useful as shortcuts, adding extra convenience. But as is typical with Apple, it’s not necessarily the idea that creates a revolution, but the form and design—the execution of the idea.
It’s in the hardware implementation of Force Touch where the so-called “Apple magic” starts to happen, and once you reallyfeelthe new haptic feature, you begin to see why it could be “the most significant new sensing capability since multi-touch.” Most trackpads are simply planar sheets of plastic with physical or capacitive buttons—corresponding to the left and right buttons of a mouse—off to the top or bottom and capable of sensing touch at multiple points. Apple’s touch pads have typically been a little bit different. Rather than placing physical buttons on the edges, Apple chose to put the trackpad on a hinge, turning the entire trackpad into a single gigantic button—when you pressed down, the whole trackpad clicked. Apple then emulated right-clicks in the software by utilizing the multi-touch capabilities of the trackpad; one-finger clicks were left-clicks, while two-finger clicks became right-clicks. This approach had some drawbacks—namely, because the hinge was at the top, the farther up the trackpad your finger traveled, the more difficult it became to click.
Apple Force Touch trackpad; a large, planar sheet of capacitive glass
The new Force Touch trackpad is something very different. The new trackpad is a large sheet of pressure-sensing, multi-touch, capacitive glass—it’s basically a smartphone touchscreen, except without the display. And like a smartphone screen, there are no buttons—none, at all. Instead, Apple has opted to utilize pressure and touch input to programmatically drive an array of electromagnets acting asactuatorsto simulate clicks. They’re using force feedback to trick your brain into thinking you’ve clicked a button—but it’s a lot more sophisticated than the force feedback in your video game controllers (well, except maybe theSteam Controller), and it feels a hell of a lot better than the little “tick” vibrations that most smartphones, today, respond with when you press a button on the on-screen keyboard. Why? How? Let me explain.
Firstly, the pressure. There are several ways to sense pressure on a touch-surface, and your smartphone probably already implements at least one of them. One such way is to actually sense pressure—that is, how much downward force you’re applying to the screen. A simpler, cheaper way is to emulate pressure sensitivity by instead measuring how much surface area is being touched. Consider that when you tap on a screen, a small part of your finger comes into contact with the glass. When youreallypress down, however, you smush your finger into the glass, and a larger piece of the pad of your finger comes into contact with the capacitive surface. Software will then interpret that larger area of contact as “pressure.” Apple has chosen the former route—direct measurement. Underneath each of the four corners of the trackpad are small strainmeters that directly measure pressure. With one underneath each corner, Apple can tell two things:
Approximately where the trackpad is being pressed by the difference in pressure at each of the corners (a moot point since the trackpad is a giant touchscreen), and
How much total pressure is being applied to the trackpad by summing the pressure on each of the four sensors. So when you push on some area of the trackpad, the location of your touch is known and the pressure you’re applying is known.
With these two knowns, software determines when and where it should simulate a click by switching the “taptic engine”—an array of electromagnets mounted beneath the trackpad—on and off in rapid succession. iFixit does a great jobdemonstratinghow toggling an electromagnet can induce vibrations and haptic feedback in the trackpad, while Wired does a good jobdiscussing the importanceof some old research onlateral-force haptic feedbackat MIT in the 1990’s. In short, though, small, high-frequency horizontal movements under a flat surface can trick our brain into interpreting vertical movements and texture, and the “taptic engine” electromagnets tug and push on a steel bar mounted to the underside of the trackpad to induce small, high-frequency horizontal movements.
But these details don’t tell the entire story. There’s a reason why the tick-tock vibrations we feel when we press virtual buttons and keys on our smartphones aren’t impressive—they’re not localized. When your phone vibrates,the whole phonevibrates. And worse, you can sometimes even feel that the source of that vibration is coming from the top or bottom bezels of your phone, where the little vibrating motors are physically located. The sensation of pressing a key on your screen would feel a lot different if the vibration was actually centered right beneath your finger—this isexactlywhat Apple has done, and it’s why the Force Touch trackpad feels so real.
The Taptic Engine is comprised of four independently-driven electromagnets simulating linear actuators
In July 2009, Apple fileda patent for a“method and apparatus for localization of haptic feedback.”In all the teardowns and explanations of Apple’sTaptic Engine—at least the ones I’ve seen—seemingly no one has asked why there needs to befour independently-driven electromagnets—why not just one big electromagnet? The answer to that is because a single vibration source can only produce simple mechanical waves that propagate outwards from their source; multiple vibration sources, however, can produce complex patterns of wave interference on the trackpad. This is essential for localizing the “click” sensation—you want to feel the “click” right beneath your finger, not off to the side of the trackpad or near a bezel. By using four independently-driven electromagnets, Apple has essentially created aphased arrayof simulated linear actuators (iMore.comthoroughly explainsthe difference between the spinning-weight vibrators most devices use and linear actuators, which you can sort of consider as a kind of electric piston—by the way, the Apple Watch’s Taptic Engine contains an actual linear actuator instead of a simulated one like the Force Touch trackpad, likely due to its small size).
This phased array can produce patterns of interfering mechanical waves on the trackpad such that there is constructive interference beneath your finger and deconstructive interference elsewhere. What Apple is doing, here, is essentially a sort of mechanical-wavebeamforming. In the world of electromagnetic waves,801.11ac routersuse beamforming to produce constructive interference in a virtual bubble around a connected device, resulting in better signal and faster, more reliable connectivity. This is why 801.11ac routers have more than one antenna. But Apple isn’t doing this with electromagnetic waves—it’s doing it with mechanical waves, propagating through a trackpad. If you haven’t heard of beamforming, before, take this opportunity to watch the YouTube video below. It makes it easy to understand.
With the combination of a multi-touch glass surface, pressure-sensing strainmeters under each corner, a phased array of electromagnets acting as linear actuators, beamforming, and some old MIT research that shows that the human brain can be tricked into interpreting horizontal motions as textures and vertical motion, Apple has created a trackpad that can realistically simulate clicksanywhereon its surface. With this new Force Touchtechnology, Apple has implemented the Force Touchgesture, whereupon apps and the operating system can interpret firmer clicks separate from softer ones. And finally, Apple has chosen to provide this gesture with a second, “deeper” click as haptic feedback for a successful “Force Click.”
Why is it cool?
Ok, so the Force Touch technology is quite a complicated endeavor to go through just to add a gimmick to the operating system—pressure-sensitive shortcuts. *What’s the point?* Well, Apple certainly doesn’t think that Force Touch is a gimmick, and rumorssuggestthat it’ll be adding a suite of pressure sensitive features in iOS together with the expected iPhone 6S release (Force Touch a point of interest in Maps to skip straight to turn-by-turn navigation, for instance). But while extra haptic feedback doesn’t seem *that* exciting on a laptop, it could be a real game-changer for smartphones. Imagine if pressing buttons on your phonereally felt like pressing buttons. Because of the way Force Touch works—localized haptic feedbackanywhereon the screen—that could be potentially be a reality. But since the whole concept of Force Touch is relatively new, Apple is limited by its adoption rate. The Force Touch trackpad—and touchscreen, if Apple can successfully translate the tech to smartphones—has substantial potential if you only put your imagination to it.
Imagine how Force Touch could enhance Material Design with textures.
Imagine that every phone, laptop, and desktop in existence had a Force Touch surface (whether it be a screen or a trackpad); no software is limited in its user interface design by consideration for legacy devices without Force Touch. What Apple has created, here, is a surface that can be arbitrarily controlled by software to vibrate precisely at high frequencies, tobeamthat vibration to specific points on the surface, and to simulate touch via combinations of localized vibrations. The future potential of such a technology is incredible, and dare I say,revolutionary. To start, one seemingly-silly thing you could do with a Force Touch surface is turn the whole thing into a rudimentary speaker. In fact, Valve’s engineers didexactly thatwith their haptic trackpads during the development of the Steam Controller. I can’t think of any particularly-useful reason to utilize a Force Touch surface as a speaker—since both smartphones and laptops typically come equipped withmuchbetter speakers—but dual hapticandaural feedback is certainly a potential avenue to pursue for future innovations. A more interesting thing you could do, however, is implement advanced haptic feedback throughout the entire user interface—not just in the context of clicking. TheWired articlelinked to earlier in this discussion actually delved a small bit into this topic as it pointed out something in a recent changelog ofiMovie.
“When dragging a video clip to its maximum length, you’ll get feedback letting you know you’ve hit the end of the clip. Add a title and you’ll get feedback as the title snaps into position at the beginning or end of a clip. Subtle feedback is also provided with the alignment guides that appear in the Viewer when cropping clips.”
Think about some of the user interface innovations in Material Design: Google carefully crafted the Material Design standard to evoke the feeling of paper in three dimensions. Every drop shadow, color gradient, and outline was intentionally designed to communicate this concept. But imagine that, not only can you *see* the paper elements, but you couldfeeltheir edges. Imagine if, when you scroll to end of page of content on your phone, not only do you get that visual bump indicating that you’re reached the end, but you feel it, as well. And consider how amazing it would be tofeelmomentum and weightiness of cards as you swipe them out of your Recent Apps list. This may sound like nuclear fusion—always 10 years away—but it’s not. I don’t intend to turn this discussion into a gigantic fluff piece for Valve, but once again, the Steam Controller purports to do exactly this, andinitial reviewshave been positive:
“Feel the spin of a virtual trackball, the click of a scroll wheel, or the shot of a rifle. Every input, from the triggers to the trackpads, can offer haptic feedback to your fingertips, delivering vital, high-bandwidth, tactile feedback about speed, boundaries, thresholds, textures, or actions.”
The Steam Controller relies on exactly the same fundamental physics as Appls’s Force Touch—pressure-sensitive multi-touch trackpads underlain by an array of linear actuators. If Valve can do it, surely Apple and Google can do it, too.
Who Else is Working On It?
Well, besides Apple, there hasn’t been a peep out of neither Google nor the major OEMs about any similar technology or functionality. The rumor mill has been silent about anything similar, too. Apple has moved into such unknown territory that it could very well be that everyone is in a wait-and-see mode. There may be fundamental issues with trying to implement this tech in smartphones that those of us who aren’t mobile device engineers aren’t privy to. No one truly knows if Force Touch can be successfully implemented in smartphones and tablets; all of the rumors about Force Touch on the iPhone 6S are exactly that—rumors (in fact, the existence of the iPhone 6S itself is a rumor). Further, if Force Touch is never further developed by Apple, its future may very well be limited to that of a gimmick, only activating various shortcuts in iOS and generally being a curiosity rather than a revolution. There is no guarantee of a future where, on a Force Touch surface, we can “feel the spin of a virtual trackball, the click of a scroll wheel, or the shot of a rifle.”
Nevertheless, if the future does look promising for the new tech, there is one OEM who may be in a position to introduce a similar technology—Motorola. I previously discussed the Apple patent on “method and apparatus for localization of haptic feedback.” Apple filed that patent in July 2009. Nearly a year earlier, though, Motorola fileda patentfor an“electronic device with localized haptic response.”Sound familiar? And whereas Apple’s patent primarily used a trackpad as an example, Motorola’s patent specifically uses a touchscreen cellphone with virtual buttons to demonstrate their idea.
And how do the two patents compare? Apple’s patent deals with the localization of haptic feedback by way of generating constructive interference of waves beneath the user’s finger and deconstructive interference elsewhere. As for Motorola, their patent mentions the use of an array of linear actuators to recreate the feeling of pressing a real button on a touchscreen. Though the patent is mum on how, exactly, they intend to use the array of actuators to achieve this, one could probably surmise that it’s probably much the same way as Apple is doing it, given they’re both working with the same hardware.
Conclusions
Force Touch has great potential to be a paradigm shift in how we touch and interact with our mobile devices, but it requires software implementation as innovative and sophisticated as the hardware to really shake up the industry. Advanced haptic feedback, driven by arrays of linear actuators, has the potential to simulate all manner of touch sensations ranging from the click of a mouse the edge of a virtual boundary. However, these are justpotentialcapabilities of the technology—whether or not they’re actually designed and implemented is another matter, entirely. If Apple is content with only presenting Force Touch as gimmick—primarily being used for shortcuts and other insignificant features within iOS and OS X—there are ways to simulate that in Android. XDA membertkgktykbuilt an Xposed module,“Force Touch Detector,”that can detect touch pressure either by actual measurement or via the surface area method (depending on the measurement capabilities of your particular phone), and it’s even more customizable that Apple’s own implementation of Force Touch gestures in OS X.
At the end of the day, though, the lack of advanced localized haptic feedback that makes the Force Touch trackpad so remarkable make the Force Touch gesture unimpressive on all current smartphone hardware. And if Apple never brings anything to the table beyond one-click turn-by-turn navigation or looking up words in a dictionary in Safari with a Force Click, there will be little pressure on Android and Google to innovate and bring their own advanced haptic feedback to the table. Regardless of what happens with Force Touch in the near-term, the technology for advanced haptic feedback is both achievable and demonstrable, and it’s just a matter of time until somebody implements it well enough to show the public how amazing it can be. Though at present the idea offeelingUI elements on a touchscreen seems like a future technology, the future may come up on us quicker than we expect.
What do you think about this upcoming technology? Will it be implemented as a gimmick, or will it shine? Tell us below!
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Most of us here are reasonably content with our phone purchases; after all, we tend to research our upgrades in-depth. But as time passes, we sometimes find ourselves wishing that we had more than what we bought into. Sometimes this means a better camera, a faster processor, or a bigger battery. Sometimes it means something entirely new. If you had the chance to upgrade a hardware component of your current smartphone, which one would it be?
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If 1080p video recording with your OnePlus One’s front camera was not enough for you, XDA Recognized Developer Sultanxda has now added support for 2k (1440p) video recording too. However, only the Snapdragon Camera app that comes with the app supports 2k for front camera, so go ahead and give it a shot!
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A new leak has been posted on Google+, showing a picture of what is reported to be the 2015 Nexus 5. Most of what is shown is consistent with the previous leaks we’ve seen, so this could very well be our first real look at the new Nexus. Follow the source link to check it out for yourself and tell us what you think!
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