This new Lollipop 5.0.x ROM developed by XDA Forum Moderator & Recognized Developer rwilco12 is still in development, but this version is stable, functional and promising. Keep in mind you will need to be on a Lollipop bootloader before flashing this ROM.
Multiple application developers with the term ‘Cardboard’ in the name of their app are starting to have their applications removed from the Play Store. Google has a trademark on the term and if they don’t protect it then they could lose it if they were ever to get challenged in court. Developers are now using ‘for Cardboard’ in the app name to remedy this conflict.
You might recall that back in 2012 we formed a relationship with file hosting site Dev-Host that granted XDA Recognized Developers/Themers/Contributors a free premium membership. It started off good, but then we started hearing about excessive ads that simulate download buttons, fly-by malware APK attacks from Mobogenie, and reused (and potentially dangerous) short URLs. We’ve tried to work with Dev-Host to fix some of these issues, but they haven’t been willing to change their ways. And so we no longer recommend that XDA users (whether RD/RT/RC or not) use this service, and consider the many other (free) file hosting sites such as AndroidFileHost, Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, etc. If you’ve ever made a thread on XDA that includes a Dev-Host link, we strongly encourage you to re-upload it to another file storage provider and repost the link back into the thread. That way, you’ll be helping the community purge these odious links. In a month from now, we will no longer allow new outgoing links to Dev-Host. We are currently in discussion with some popular, reliable sharing hosts to provide the best options for our developers and users. Sorry for the inconvenience.
iFixit has just published their teardown of the latest flagship from Samsung, the Galaxy Note5. We usually see a repairability score with these teardowns but since this is a member-contributed teardown, we don’t have one here. However, we do get a sense of how difficult it will be to teardown this device, especially when trying to remove the display panel from the frame.
XDA Member studenttwok has posted a little trick on improving the memory issues on the Nexus 9. It involves lowering the screen density on to values that the Nexus 9 can handle more efficiently theoretically. Give this a shot if you are being plagued by memory issues on your Nexus 9!
Nuance, the company behind the Dragon range of dictation applications, have announced a collaboration with Pebble to make their voice recognition engines available on Pebble smartwatches, including the Pebble Time, Time Steel and Pebble Round. Nuance’s voice capabilities will also be integrated into Pebble SDK for iOS and Android.
It’s Friday, October 16, 2015, and let’s talk about what happened this week over at XDA-developers.com.
First up, a correction to last week’s video: I misread the XDA article about Motorola’s Marshmallow upgrades, and said that the 2014 Moto G and X, and the Moto Maxx and Droid Turbo wouldn’t be receiving upgrades. It was worded a bit poorly, and I didn’t do my due diligence by checking the original source, so that’s my mistake, sorry about that.
Moving on, LG made the announcement late this week claiming they’re the “World’s First OEM” to roll out Android 6.0 Marshmallow. They’re doing this by way of releasing it to the LG G4 in Poland starting next week, and Europe, Asia, and the Americas should come shortly after.
In some other exciting news for owners of the Asus Zenfone 2, Asus has finally provided an official solution to unlock your bootloader. Just keep in mind, doing this will completely void your warranty, but if you’re alright with that, head on over to their site to download the unlocking tool.
Blackberry put out a bit more info about their upcoming PRIV device, saying that it’s going to have a 5.4″ dual curved display, kinda like the Galaxy S6 Edge, also a physical keyboard, a very nice camera, and a 3410 milliamp hour battery. They’ve also put out a pre-registration system where you can sign up to be notified when it’s available.
As of this week, Google has opened up pre-orders for the Nexus 5X and 6P in India. The 5X starts at just under 32,000 Rupees, and the 6P starts at right at 40,000 Rupees, and depending on where you preorder, they might just come bundled with some additional things, like Amazon gift cards and a bluetooth headset.
Samsung is also launching a new device in India, the Z3, powered by Tizen OS. It’s a bit of a low-end device, but it comes in at around 8,500 Rupees, or $130 US Dollars, so it might be worth a look if you just need a cheap phone and you can put up with Tizen.
ZTE launched another device also, the Axon Mini, which is sort of a mid-to-high end device, but interestingly enough, it has a pressure-sensitive touchscreen, a fingerprint sensor, and an eye-scan sensor for right at 2300 Chinese Yuan, or about $360 US Dollars.
PepsiCo confirmed that they’re licensing their name to an Android phone that’s coming to China, the Pepsi P1. The rumors say it’s going to be a mid-range device, and the jury’s still out on whether it will come with high fructose corn syrup or cane sugar. Personally, I’ll be waiting for the Diet Pepsi P2.
If you’re looking for a Kickstarter project to back, as of this week the BLOCKS modular smartwatch project is now live. As of right now they’ve accumulated over $700,000, and they’ve got more than 30 days left on their campaign. The BLOCKS watch is available for as low as $195 with a plain strap, or $285 with 4 modules to add features like an extra battery, heart rate module, GPS, flash memory, sim card, fingerprint sensor, and more.
Ron from ArsTechnica tested out Android 6.0’s Auto Backup feature. Auto Backup and restore has been pretty terrible on Android, well, forever, but according to his article, as long as the app targets API level 23, backup works really well, saving the app and login data. Unfortunately, that only accounts for a small amount of apps currently available, but that number will grow with time, so that’s one more thing to really look forward to about Marshmallow.
Sony rolled out some Android 6.0 binaries for the Xperia Z5 and Z5 Compact this week, so if you’re looking to make up a build of AOSP for that device, it should be quite a bit easier now.
There were a few notable Marshmallow ports that came out this week as well, for the 2012 Nexus 7, Nexus 4, and even the Galaxy Nexus, though the build for the Galaxy Nexus might have a few minor issues with video recording and NFC.
XDA Recognized Developer xperiacle posted in the forum the way he figured out how to enable multi-window on the 2013 Nexus 7, but it should apply to any device running Marshmallow. Most guides so far have talked about enabling userdebug in build.prop, but he suggests just adding one line to the build.prop file specifically mentioning multi_window, so you don’t get all of the experimental features, just the one you want.
XDA Recognized Contributor sd_shadow put out a guide showing you how to install Google Services on the new Amazon Fire Tablet without needing root, so you can get a pretty awesome tablet from Amazon for just $50 now.
A guide came out on The Exploiteers website showing how you can root the Google OnHub Router. It’s a bit involved, but basically the OnHub is sort of a chromebook without a screen, with software modifications, so it was pretty straightforward to get into developer mode, and they made a video going through the whole process if you’re interested in doing so.
XDA Member DukeMcWood put out a guide on unlocking the Xperia M5’s bootloader using Sony’s unlock program and Flashtool.
XDA Member BreadCrust posted an unofficial build of TWRP for the ZUK Z1, though it only works on the Z1 running Cyanogen OS.
XDA Senior Member RayULove69 put up a guide about unlocking the bootloader and flashing a new recovery on the Huawei Honor 4X.
And finally, XDA Member ZonaRMR put out a guide showing you how to port Lollipop-based ROMs to Mediatek devices running KitKat. Very handy, considering a lot of KitKat MediaTek devices will never have official Lollipop builds.
But you know what? That’s going to be about all from me for today. You can find the links to all the stories I talked about in the video description, as well as the links to my YouTube channels. Make sure to stay tuned for more exciting content coming out soon, give us a “Thumbs up” down below if you liked this video and subscribe to receive our content as soon as it becomes available. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time.
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