Vivo’s iQOO brand may soon launch a high-end gaming smartphone in India

Chinese OEM Vivo is known primarily for its mid-range devices. However, the company has previously released some iconic devices featuring innovative technologies, like the Vivo Nex 3 with its extreme curved display, the Vivo V17 Pro with a unique dual pop-up camera module, and the Vivo V17 which features the world’s tiniest hole-punch display. Early last year, the launched a new sub-brand called iQOO aimed at selling premium flagship smartphones. As part of the new brand, the company first launched the iQOO gaming smartphone, which was followed by the iQOO Pro and then the iQOO Neo. However, all of these phones were only launched in China. Now, it seems like the company is prepping up to launch the iQOO brand internationally, starting with India.

As per a recent report from 91Mobiles, Vivo might launch the iQOO brand in India later this year in March. The report cites industry sources who have revealed that the brand will be launched in India as a separate entity and it might feature a flagship Snapdragon 8xx-series chipset. A separate report from India Today sheds more light on the matter, revealing that the company will be launching India’s first 5G enabled smartphone with the Snapdragon 865 chipset. As of now, we have no concrete information about the upcoming device. However, if we consider the brand’s history in China, we can safely say that the device could be a flagship and it might feature special features and hardware for gamers.

Furthermore, Vivo filed trademark applications for iQOO, iQOO Neo, iQOO Pro, and an unreleased iQOO Lite in the country. While these trademark applications should not be interpreted as confirmation that Vivo will launch all of these devices in India, it does indicate that the company has an interest in protecting its brand in the country.

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Source: 91Mobiles, India Today

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Xiaomi may launch the 4G Redmi K30 in India as the POCO X2

Back in August 2018, Xiaomi kicked off POCO as an independent sub-brand and it had a tremendous start with the launch of the POCO F1 — a budget-friendly device with flagship specifications. However, since then, the company hasn’t launched another device. Over the last year, fans of the POCO F1 wondered when the brand would launch its successor and we even got to see a number of leaks here and there, suggesting that the brand was prepping up to launch another banger of a device. But sadly, we haven’t seen any official information from the company regarding this elusive device over the last year. This led people to believe that the brand was essentially dead.

Much to the surprise of POCO F1 fans, the brand came back strong earlier this week with a staged rollout of Android 10 for its users and an announcement that POCO would become an independent brand. Of late, the company has also been posting teasers on social media for a “season 2” and they have done interviews confirming that a new phone is coming. We now have evidence to suggest that this new phone could be a rebranded Redmi K30 4G.

The Redmi K30 4G and Redmi K30 5G were both launched in China late last year in December. The Redmi K30 4G, which is code-named “phoenix”, features a Snapdragon 730G processor, as opposed to the Snapdragon 765G found on the K30 5G. Even before its launch, we saw evidence of a device build code-named “phoenixin”, which suggested that the phone was coming to the Indian market.

Then, towards the end of last year, a third-party reseller put up a listing for the Redmi K30 4G with a “global ROM” pre-installed. This was quite peculiar since Xiaomi hasn’t launched the device internationally and hasn’t released a global ROM for the unit. One of the screenshots in the listing shows the device’s model name as “POCO X2”, suggesting that the global version of the Redmi K30 4G will indeed be launched under the POCO brand name. However, since retailers are known to customize software before selling devices, we weren’t that confident in the legitimacy of this information at first.

Following this string of developments, earlier today XDA Junior Member kacskrz, who is a frequent and trusted Xiaomi tipster, revealed that one of his Polish friends had obtained a Redmi K30 4G (phoenix) with the phoenixin ROM pre-installed. He shared an image (seen below) as well as a screen recording, which also showed POCO X2 as the model name. This fueled our suspicion even further.

Furthermore, Geekbench (which we warn can easily be faked but can still be useful if you use it as corroborating evidence and not as standalone primary evidence) has multiple benchmarks for a POCO X2 code-named phoenixin (seen below).

Examining the full details of one of the listing revealed that there’s nothing off about these benchmarks: the GPU listed is the Adreno 618 (suggesting a Snapdragon 730G device), the build number matches what’s shown in previous images shared above, and the benchmark score matches the K30 4G. Finally, an alleged unboxing video of the POCO X2 was also posted today which, despite being sketchy, adds more fuel to the fire.

On top of all that, a recent report from 91Mobiles revealed a BIS listing of an upcoming POCO device with the model number M1912G7BI. This also lines up the model number of the Redmi K30 4G — M1912G7BC and M1912G7BE. The last letter in the model number is indicative of the target market, with “C” and “E” pointing towards Chinese and European markets, while the “I” points towards the Indian market.

Now if you connect the dots, as we have, you have some reason to believe that the Redmi K30 4G might be launched as the POCO X2 in India, and perhaps globally. However, it’s also worth noting that this move doesn’t really tie into POCO’s recent announcement on separating its brand from Xiaomi. If our speculation stands true, the company is essentially rebranding an existing Redmi phone which doesn’t fit into the new POCO rhetoric of being a separate entity. Instead of rebranding a phone from its parent company Xiaomi, POCO is allegedly rebranding a phone from a sister company, Redmi, which casts doubts on both of their independence from Xiaomi.

As of now, we have no official confirmation from either POCO, Redmi or Xiaomi regarding this turn of events, so it’s best to take the aforementioned information with a grain of salt.

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Magisk Manager gets a dramatically redesigned UI in the latest Canary update

As of 2020, Magisk is the most popular and recommended rooting solution for hundreds of devices. A big part of its success comes from the developer’s activity and consistency of quality updates. Canary, Beta, and eventually Stable channels of Magisk often get updated with exciting new features and better support. The rooting solution’s front-end client, Magisk Manager, also sees improvements from time to time. For example, topjohnwu just announced that its next version will feature a drastically redesigned user interface.

The developer published a one minute video of the new UI, created by XDA Junior Member diareuse, on Twitter. It goes without saying that we will see a more refined version of this interface in the stable version of Magisk Manager. As you can see in the video below, the app now has a lot more icons and colors to go with them. The first screen of the app shows all the basic information like Android and Magisk versions and some donation options. You can switch between activities from the navigation bar at the bottom part of the app. The Superuser section includes MagiskHide options and SafetyNet status. The latter was previously displayed on the first page just below the Magisk and Magisk Manager versions. The third tab in the navbar is for Modules.

pic.twitter.com/GemBStlgEJ

— John Wu (@topjohnwu) January 22, 2020

Now, even though I think that Magisk Manager is in dire need of a redesign, I have some complaints about the new UI. For example, in the main activity, actually informative stuff like package names and version numbers only take about half of the available width, which is not enough in some cases. I also don’t like the idea of making a separate screen for SafetyNet status. Nevertheless, I always welcome implementing modern design principles in useful apps. There are some customizations options such as the ability to change the grid column size and the main theme color, though.

You can download Magisk Manager Canary with a new UI from the thread linked below.

Magisk Manager Canary Thread

Here’s a screenshot gallery showing off most parts of the new UI:

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Google Search Collections get a refined UI and new collaboration features

Google has offered a feature called “Collections” for a while now, but it has always been kinda buried. Essentially, Collections are groups of bookmarks, allowing you to organize things much more easily. Today, Google has announced a refined UI for Collections, along with more prominent placement in the Google app, and a new collaboration feature.

First and foremost, Collections now has its own tab in the bottom bar of the Google app. Collections were previously tucked away in the “More” tab, but now they are front-and-center, taking the place of the “Recent” tab. The UI has also been slightly redesigned to go along with this more focused placement. We previously saw this new UI in testing back in October, but now it’s ready for primetime.

This updated UI features bigger thumbnails for Collections on the My Collections page and a floating multicolor “+New” button. On Collection pages, the title has been moved to be left-aligned, the “Find more” tab is now a floating button across the bottom, and saved pages are more visually appealing. Another big thing you’ll notice is the “Share” button has an icon of a person, and that’s because you can now collaborate on Collections.

The Share button previously only created a link you could send to people. However, now it looks more like the Share menu you might see in Google Drive. You can choose to create a “view only” link or a “Contributor” link. As you might expect, the Contributor link allows the other person to make changes to the Collection. This is an extremely handy feature if you’re planning something with other people. Essentially, this turns Google into a collaborative Pinterest board.

Look for these new features to be rolling out to the Google app starting today!

Google (Free, Google Play) →

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Source: Google

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POCO explains its new market strategy ahead of its next phone launch

Following POCO’s split away from parent-company Xiaomi, the company’s General Manager in India, C Manmohan, has explained POCO India’s new market strategy ahead of its next phone launch. The company will be forced to compete with both the Mi and Redmi series of smartphones, whilst retaining the same philosophy of “everything you need, nothing you don’t” that made its first (and only) smartphone, the Poco F1, so successful. What’s interesting is that, for the time being, C Manmohan will continue to work out of a Xiaomi office, closely with Xiaomi headquarters in Beijing. The company will grow more independent in the future, and will legally become its own entity in time.

“I think, Mi and Redmi have their own standing in the market — in fact, a very strong standing in the market,” said Manmohan in conversation with Gadgets 360. “But Poco has been able to differentiate itself and kind of lived its life for the last one and a half years as well. For the time being, you will see me in Xiaomi’s office, because we are kind of leveraging their resources for the time being,” he said. “Now coming to Xiaomi and Poco relation — how would that work? Poco will get a product team of its own, a sales team of its own, and a marketing team of its own.”

However, the company will still continue to store data on Xiaomi servers and leverage its after-sales service as well. The company’s departure from Xiaomi will not be immediate, and they will continue to make use of the resources of Xiaomi offers, including continued usage of MIUI for Poco. The Poco F1 will still continue to get updates, and future devices shouldn’t be much different from the F1 either. The company will not sell future devices through Xiaomi-exclusive stores, however.

“Some of my Poco fans say that it is much more stock Android-ish,” he said. “So essentially, we are kind of, leveraging that and with our Poco fans feedback and the community feedback, we’ll work towards making it much more better and better. So, that’s the plan right now.”

The company may also aim to copy the “fan” model of Xiaomi, creating its own “Poco fan” community. The company intends on listening to existing and new buyers in order to plan its own expansion, to meet the requirements of users and nothing else. The company hasn’t decided on price segments for its smartphones yet, but Manmohan knows that they will likely be in competition with Xiaomi.

“Whether Xiaomi will be competition, I’m guessing, yes,” said Manmohan. “Of course, it’ll be a competition and so will Xiaomi also face the heat from Poco, right? But having said that, at the end of the day, if customers are winning, everything is hunky dory.”

On Poco F2 news, Manmohan was quiet. All that he revealed was that it will be a direct successor to the F1, offering a high-end chipset and great value for money. He also revealed that it may even debut this quarter, with the company set to evaluate other options outside of smartphones in the future as well. It’s worth clarifying that the Poco brand is limited to India – Pocophone is still owned and controlled by Xiaomi, and will still operate globally as per usual.

“One thing we are very clear about is that the smartphone market in India is something which is extremely important right now,” said Manmohan. “And from me being Poco India General Manager, I will continue to be focussed on that. Now Poco plans globally is something which we are kind of thinking through — it might take some more time for us to kind of validate that.”

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Source: Gadgets 360

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Gboard prepares to let you paste images you copy into multiple social and messaging apps

A basic feature of many operating systems is the ability to copy and paste images. This is something we take for granted when using a PC, but it’s not as simple on mobile devices. A couple of days ago, we discovered a Chromium commit that mentioned adding support for copying images to the Android clipboard. Since then, the commit has been merged and the feature flag is available. Google is preparing Gboard for the feature.

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.

As you can see above, once the flag is enabled, the context menu for images now includes “Copy image.” But once the image has been copied into the clipboard, it’s currently not possible to paste it in an app. In Android 10, only the default keyboard and current foreground app can read the clipboard, so it’s up to them to handle the image. We have discovered that Google is preparing Gboard to be able to handle images in the clipboard in version 9.0.2.

<string name="clipboard_notice_banner_description">A promo to let users know that current application does not support pasting images.</string>
<string name="image_info_clip_description">Image from Gboard Clipboard</string>
<string name="image_share_intent_whitelist">com.android.mms, com.whatsapp, com.facebook.orca, com.viber.voip, jp.naver.line.android, com.android.messaging, ru.ok.android, com.tencent.mm, com.facebook.mlite, com.snapchat.android, com.motorola.messaging, com.google.android.apps.messaging, com.vkontakte.android, com.skype.raider, com.imo.android.imoim, com.samsung.android.messaging, com.zing.zalo, com.google.android.apps.docs, com.twitter.android, com.badoo.mobile, com.google.android.talk, app.buzz.share, com.random.chat.app</string>

The strings above are new to the latest version of Gboard, version 9.0.2. The first string is for a toast notification that will tell the user the current app does not support pasting images. The thirds string shows us a list of apps that could support pasting images if the feature launches. Those apps include:

• AOSP messaging
• WhatsApp
• Facebook
• Viber
• Line
• OK
• WeChat
• Messenger Lite
• Snapchat
• Motorola Messages
• Google Messages
• VK
• Skype
• imo
• Samsung Messages
• Zalo
• Google Docs
• Twitter
• Badoo
• Hangouts
• Helo

We were able to enable the feature flag in Chrome and copy an image but were not able to paste it in Twitter. So the feature does not appear to be live in Gboard at this time. This is a feature that many people may not have even realized is missing from their phone, but it makes a lot of sense when you realize it. We hope to see it soon.

Thanks to PNF Software for providing us a license to use JEB Decompiler, a professional-grade reverse engineering tool for Android applications.

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Realme will launch its 5G phone globally at MWC 2020

In 2019, 5G was said to have become a reality. The reality, however, was that only a few 5G phones were launched in the market. The 5G ecosystem was in its nascent stages, which meant that the first 5G launches were all $1,000+ flagship phones with limited market availability. The modem and carrier support was also immature, as the first-generation Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 modem was not a global 5G modem in the true sense. The newer Snapdragon X55 modem only found its way to smartphone launches in December. 2020, therefore, looks to be the year where 5G goes mainstream, at least in developed markets. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 and the Snapdragon 765/G were launched last month, and they will be power the majority of 5G phones this year. Realme, one of 2019’s success stories, has launched its first 5G phone, the Realme X50 5G, in China earlier this month. Now, the company has announced that it will hold a global 5G launch event on February 24, 2020 at MWC 2020.

The company’s event description states: “Realme will host the first global launch event in 2020. In the 5G era, Realme will be dedicated to be the popularizer of cutting-edge technology, promoting the popularity of 5G networks worldwide and bringing new 5G phones with power and style to global users.” This means that the company will launch at least one 5G phone at the event.

This will likely be the Realme X50 5G as it’s the only 5G-capable phone in Realme’s device portfolio. The phone could be re-branded for international markets, however. It’s also possible that Realme will launch a 5G flagship phone powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865. Such a hypothetical phone would be the successor of the Realme X2 Pro (review), which was launched in October. It’s more likely, though, that Realme will start its 5G journey by first launching a mid-range phone. The Snapdragon 765G has the benefit of having an integrated Snapdragon X52 5G modem, whereas the Snapdragon 865 must be paired with a discrete and more powerful 5G Snapdragon X55 modem, as it has no integrated modem. A third possibility is that Realme launches both the mid-range Realme X50 5G as well as a Snapdragon 865-powered flagship.

If the Realme X50 5G does end up being launched globally, it could be one of the cheapest 5G phones in the market as its base variant was launched in China for the equivalent of $360. The phone has an upper mid-range list of specifications including the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G SoC, 6GB/8GB/12GB of RAM with 128GB/256GB storage, 6.57-inch FHD+ IPS LCD with 120Hz refresh rate, 64MP Samsung ISOCELL GW1 primary camera, 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera, 12MP telephoto camera with 2x optical zoom, 2MP macro camera, 16MP + 8MP (regular + wide-angle) punch hole front cameras, and a 4,200mAh battery with 30W VOOC 4.0 charging. The phone’s specifications and overall design are similar to the 5G version of the Redmi K30, which has only been launched in China so far. There is still a month before MWC 2020, but it’s becoming clearer by the day that 5G will be the defining focus of the conversation.

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Source: Realme

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