For those with the Nexus 5X and 6P on the T-Mobile network, you can look forward to the latest Android update enabling you to connect to T-Mobile’s Band 12 LTE spectrum. It should also be noted that Android 6.0.1 brings the power button double tap shortcut to launch the camera application for the Nexus 5, Nexus 6 and Nexus 9.
HTC’s latest smartphone, the One A9 is all set to go on sale in India at a price of Rs. 29,990 ($450) on December 15 2015. The phone will be available for purchase exclusively via online retailer Snapdeal, and will follow a registration model for sale. Registrations start on 9th December 2015 at 9.00 am IST.
Motorola India took to Twitter to tease fans about the upcoming launch of the Moto G Turbo Edition in the country. The G Turbo features a Snapdragon 615 processor instead of the SD-410 on the normal Moto G 2015, and also comes along with Turbo Charging which promises 6 hours of usage with 15 mins of charge with the included 15W charger.
Android 6.0.1 is not a mystery anymore and Google has dropped the source code for it. Mo Versi from HTC has informed us via his Twitter account that Android 6.0.1 for the unlocked HTC One M9 “is on target for this month”. This somehow confirms the leaks about upcoming update from the last week. HTC One A9 is set to receive an update too, while the HTC One M8 will get a Marshmallow before 1/11/16.
The Kindle Fire HD is a fairly nicely built tablet with some decent hardware that won’t break your bank account. The device runs a modified build of Android called Fire OS and does not come with any Google Play Services. Although you can sideload Google Apps, you’re still stuck on Fire OS. Thankfully, XDA Member spudowiar has released a bootloader unlock method which will hopefully open the floodgates for custom ROM development.
When you get a custom kernel to flash onto your device, in most cases you don’t think about its development process. Developers often use some really complicated tools to make the device boot.
Among them you can find Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitters (UARTs) used mostly for debugging.
One of our favorite OEMs decided to show us how everything looks like.
Sony is the good guy Greg of Android development. We know this fact and we almost always support their decisions. During our last interview with Alin Jerpelea we learned a bit about Sony’s plans regarding AOSP development. To make things even easier for developers Sony decided to release some sort of manual of using UARTs. Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter uses special ports with different locations in selected Sony devices. With instructions provided in this blog post, things should be easier.
Developing a custom kernel and especially porting the drivers (what Sony did with its universal kernel) is a time-consuming task. Developers without proper tools may not be able to get any logs, as the device is not recognized by shell. Using UART is often the only solution to get a log and a chance to fix things to make a device boot and run properly.
Beware, dragons ahead! If you are not a developer or a power user willing to learn, do note that you might turn your expensive phone into an expensive brick. Use the provided information only when you know what you are doing. Unlocking the bootloader and opening the device cover may lead to warranty breach, so also keep that in mind.
Do you think that other OEMs should follow Sony’s strategy? Or is exposing such complicated plans to the public is a risky thing? Let us know what you think in the comments!
from xda-developers » xda-developers | Sony Publishes UART Plans, Makes Kernel Development More Understandable http://ift.tt/1N7Pv60
via IFTTT
What does a big, rich company do when someone creates an interesting and nicely-written extension to their application? You might answer promote it, or at least let it exist. Not always.
There are some brands that prefer foul play. One of them is well known and there is a big chance that you have it in your app drawer or even used it right before reading this article: WhatsApp.
Ever since its initial release, which took place almost 6 years ago, WhatsApp gained much on popularity. It has almost 900 million users that send countless messages every day. Said application is worth billions of dollars, so we, the users, should expect it to be great. WhatsApp is not so great. In the last few weeks, the team behind it showed its true intentions doing some rather questionable moves… again. Ad rem.
No longer than a week ago folks from r/Android discovered that WhatsApp blocks linking to Telegram communicator. This was a first signal that something wrong was going on. We can only assume that it was a mistake or a leftover from some internal anti-spam testing. Unluckily for users, WhatsApp went even a step further.
During the TechCrunch Disrupt London 2015 hackathon a WhatsBot had been created. As its name suggests, it’s a bot that uses some variables to find a best meet-up point for friends.
To be more specific, it uses a combination of (lightweight) “artificial intelligence”, location data and mapping to find a coffee shop between all participants. It can even add some humor to the conversation as developers implemented funny comments and reactions. WhatsApp’s developers found it malicious and decided to ban the bot.
The company’s decision is malicious, mostly to its users. WhatsBot is a brilliant idea that saves loads of time for WhatsApp users that enjoy it. This is not a first time when WhatsApp decided to use its famous Cease & Desist strategy. If you are familiar with XDA forum for more than two years, you might have noticed that XDA received a notice about WhatsApp Plus – a mod that was the biggest extension written by a WhatsApp user. We wrote an analysis of the problem (and the hypocrisy of it), which we recommend reading. It’s not a strategy that pleases power users,but WhatsApp and Facebook don’t think that a few millions of users are worth to change the strategy.
The saddest thing is that you can’t test WhatsBot in its current form. WhatsApp has blocked the number used by the service. It’s very unlikely to see any other modifications like it being allowed to exist freely. We can only hope that WhatsApp will reconsider its standing regarding third party add-ons. We, as XDA would love to see this coming.
What do you think about WhatsApp’s decision? Was banning WhatsBot a good call? We’d love to hear some opinions from you in the comments!
from xda-developers » xda-developers | WhatsGoingOn? – WhatsApp Bans WhatsBot in No Time http://ift.tt/1N7z1KY
via IFTTT
