xda android

jeudi 20 février 2020

Google bans nearly 600 apps from the Play Store for disruptive ads, including many from Cheetah Mobile

The Google Play Store hosts a significantly larger number of apps than its iOS counterpart. This is partly due to the fact that Apple’s app submission process is arguably more rigorous than what Google has in place. Because of Google’s lax policies, the Play Store is chock full of sub-par apps. In a bid to clean up the app store, Google keeps removing apps that violate its policies or raise concerns about user policy. Back in April last year, we learned that a number of popular apps on the Play Store were abusing permissions and committing ad fraud. These included apps from publishers like DO Global and Cheetah Mobile. At the time, Google removed the offending apps from the Play Store and banned DO Global. However, the ban doesn’t seem to have had much effect on Cheetah Mobile.

According to a recent report from BuzzFeed News, Google has now removed close to 600 apps from the Play Store and banned their developers for ad fraud and disruptive mobile ads. Among the banned developers is the infamous Cheetah Mobile. Following the previous accusations on Cheetah Mobile, Google had removed one of its offending apps from the Play Store but allowed the developer to continue offering the rest of its app. However, in the latest string of bans, Google has removed all of Cheetah Mobile’s apps from the platform and the apps no longer offer advertising inventory for sale in Google’s ad networks.

In a statement regarding the ban, Google’s senior product manager for ad traffic quality, Per Bjorke, told BuzzFeed News that the removed apps, which have been installed more than 4.5 billion times, targeted English-speaking users and were mainly from developers based in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and India. While Bjorke declined to name specific apps or developers, he did mention that many of the banned apps were utilities or games.

In a blog post on the matter, Google revealed that it has developed new technologies to protect Android users from apps that serve disruptive ads. Most recently, the company deployed an innovative machine-learning based approach to identify apps that show out-of-context ads. This new approach helped the company fish out the 600 apps that have been banned in the latest wave. However, Google hasn’t shared the full list of apps/developers that were banned. It’s also worth noting that the ban on Cheetah Mobile, which is a publicly-traded company in China, has resulted in a 5.9% decline in the value of its shares.

Source: BuzzFeed News, Google Blog, Seeking Alpha

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Download: OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro get OxygenOS Open Beta 9 with January 2020 patches and more

Update 1 (02/21/2020 @ 01:00 AM ET): OnePlus is also rolling out OxygenOS Open Beta 9 to the OnePlus 7. Download links have been added at the bottom. The original article as published on February 13, 2020, is preserved as below.

OnePlus has started rolling out OxygenOS Open Beta 9 for the OnePlus 7 Pro, its 2019 flagship smartphone. The last OxygenOS Open Beta for the phone, Open Beta 8, brought a one-handed mode and December 2019 security patches. This update enhances the one-handed usage for the dialer app and brings the January 2020 security patches. There are also a few other optimizations. For one, the network has been optimized for a better gaming experience. The weather app crashing issue has been fixed, and the Zen Mode 1.5.0 app now supports OnePlus Account login, synchronization of badges and historical data. Finally, the system stability has been improved and general bugs are said to have been fixed.

It’s worth noting that OxygenOS Open Beta 9 for the OnePlus 7 Pro as well as other OxygenOS updates were initially delayed because workers were given extended stays to avoid the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (Covid-19). Workers across China are now heading back to work, with many working from home as the lockdown in Hubei province continues.

The full change-log of the update is noted below:

Changelog

System
- Enhanced one-hand usage for dialer app
- Optimized network for a better gaming experience
- Updated Android security patch to 2020.01
- Improved system stability and fixed general bugs
Zen Mode V1.5.0
- Supported OnePlus Account login, synchronization of badges and historical data

Weather
- Fixed the weather app crashing issue

OnePlus 7 Pro users running Open Beta 8 should have started getting the OTA for Open Beta 9. Users still on Android 9 must update to Open Beta 5 first as they can’t directly upgrade to any newer beta versions after Open Beta 5. OxygenOS stable users can change to the Open Beta update track by following OnePlus’ instructions.

Download Links for OxygenOS Open Beta 9

OnePlus 7

OnePlus 7 Pro

Thanks to XDA Senior Member Some_Random_Username for the download links!

The post Download: OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro get OxygenOS Open Beta 9 with January 2020 patches and more appeared first on xda-developers.

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Google is testing multi-colored Quick Settings icons in Android 11

Google’s first Android 11 Developer Preview was just released yesterday, but a lot of its best features are hidden away from public view. We’ve detailed some of the upcoming major UI changes already, and I’m personally a fan of all the ones we’ve seen so far. While continuing to dig into the Android 11 system dump from the Pixel 4, I discovered a new class called “QSColorController” in SystemUI. This class is responsible for overriding the color of tiles in the Quick Settings panel, and through some debug commands referenced in the code, it’s possible to individually change the colors of each Quick Setting tile.

As you can see above, the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb, Auto-rotate, and Battery Saver icons have colors that are different from the current theme on my Pixel 2 XL. My Pixel 2 XL is running the stock theme with dark mode enabled in Android 11, which means that the color of each Quick Setting tile should be blue like the Flashlight icon. However, using the debug commands, I changed the colors of some of the icons to yellow, red, and green. The colors that you can pick currently include blue along with the aforementioned yellow, red, and green, though Google may add more colors in the future. The functionality of each Quick Setting tile doesn’t change—just the icon color.

I’m not entirely sure what Google intends to do with this feature; it’s possible that Google will expand the Pixel Themes app in Android 11 with this added functionality, but it’s also possible that Google will let developers set the color of their own Quick Settings tiles. XDA’s Zachary Wander got this feature working on the Android 11 emulator in Android Studio, so it doesn’t seem like this feature will be Pixel-exclusive. I’m personally not a fan of this multi-colored Quick Settings panel, but I wouldn’t mind having the option there for people who want it. I don’t know if this feature, like the other UI tests we spotted, will be enabled in the stable release, but we’ll continue tracking this feature as Google releases more Android 11 previews.

Android 11 News on XDA

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“Search Chips” help refine searches in Gmail for G Suite users

Gmail is a nearly ubiquitous method for communication, which is a good and bad thing. You can contact pretty much anyone if you have their email address, but that also means anyone can contact you if they have your address. This can lead to an inbox full of thousands of emails, which is why search is so important. Gmail for G Suite users is getting more powerful search thanks to “Search Chips.”

Previously, you could narrow down a Gmail search by typing in filters like “label:work” or “from:email@address.com.” To narrow things down even further you could combine these filters. However, it’s not super convenient to type these in and a lot of people don’t know how to use them. “Search Chips” are intended to make these filters easier to use.

Search Chips appear underneath the search box in Gmail as clickable suggestions. In the example above you can see the user started typing “Mike” in the search bar. Search Chips for “From Mike Chang” and “Exclude chats” start appearing. You can click these suggestions to narrow down your search. It’s sort of like Smart Reply, but for search.

The update with Search Chips has already started rolling out to Gmail for G Suite users, but it may take up to 15 days to arrive for everyone. Google plans to bring this feature to regular Gmail users sometime after the G Suite rollout.

Source: Google

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[Update: Registration Open] Google I/O 2020 will take place from May 12-14

Update (2/20/20 @ 4:30 PM ET): Google has opened ticket applications for Google I/O 2020.

Google is known for using cryptic puzzles as a way to announce the date of its annual Google I/O developer conference. Back in 2017, the search giant published an online brain teaser containing the dates of Google I/O 2017. The next year, the company shared a puzzle through the Google Developers Twitter account, which redirected users to the Google I/O 2018 website that had been turned into an escape room-style Google Maps Street View experience in a Google campus building. Last year, the company released another cryptic message to announce the dates for Google I/O 2019 and for 2020 they had the “A Collaboration of the Cosmos” puzzle. Once solved, Sundar Pichai, took to Twitter to announce the dates for Google I/O 2020.

Cosmos aligned. We’ll be back at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View for this year’s #GoogleIO on May 12-14! pic.twitter.com/3bZqriaoi1

— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) January 24, 2020

Pichai, who was appointed as the CEO of both Alphabet and Google towards the end of last year, shared a short GIF on the micro-blogging platform along with the dates for Google I/O 2020. As per his tweet, Google I/O will be held at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California from May 12-14. At this year’s I/O developer conference, we expect Google to showcase the next major Android release — Android 11. Much like last year, the company is also expected to share new features and updates for its vast portfolio of apps. The company might also release new hardware, including an update for the Pixel 3a series which was showcased at the event last year.

Update: Registration Open

Registration is now open for Google I/O 2020. Prices remain the same as previous years: general admission is $1,150, while academic pricing is $375. To qualify for the deeply discounted student ticket, you will be required to prove you are an active full-time student, professor, faculty, or staff member at a high school or college.

The ticket application window will be open from today until February 25th at 5 PM PT. It does not matter when you submit your application as Google will “randomly select applicants from among all of the qualified applications and notify those selected via email on February 28th.” Good luck!

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Google may turn Android 11’s Power Menu into a Control Center for favorite shortcuts

When Google released Android 11 Developer Preview 1 yesterday, we found mostly surface-level changes in our initial hands-on. It seems that Google will once again leave the bulk of the user interface changes and new features for a public beta after an announcement at Google I/O 2020. However, we discovered several in-development user interface tweaks that suggest big changes are coming for the Android OS in 2020. We discovered that Google may put a media player in the Quick Settings panel, separate the notification shade from the Quick Settings panel, and now, we’ve found that Google may be tweaking the power menu to accommodate user-selected shortcuts.

On my Pixel 2 XL running Android 11 DP1, I managed to activate a new UI for the long-press power menu, as shown below. The existing power menu icons, including Emergency, Screenshot, Restart, and Power off, shift to the top of the screen, leaving a lot of empty space underneath. In addition, a new “Home” text appears above the icons. The icons shifting upward suggests that Google plans on adding something to fill up the empty space, which we initially assumed was in preparation for the new Quick Access Wallet feature that’s now in Android 11. However, the presence of the “Home” text raises the question of why it’s there—could Google be in the process of creating categories in the power menu for different kinds of actions?

Digging into the code, we discovered multiple classes in SystemUIGoogle related to a feature called “Controls.” The code suggests that the user can set shortcuts as “favorites” to show up in this menu, which are stored by the system in an XML file with the shortcuts’ IDs, titles, types, and components. There are new activities in SystemUIGoogle related to Controls: ControlsFavoritingActivity and ControlsProviderSelectorActivity. Launching the former raises a permission denial as it’s an unexported activity and we don’t have root access while launching the latter brings up the following UI:

Unfortunately, this UI is empty at the moment, so we aren’t able to add our own favorite shortcuts to the power menu. We found references to a new permission called “android.permission.BIND_CONTROLS” and a new service called “android.service.controls.ControlsProviderService” that suggest that third-party applications will be able to create a “Controls” service that the Android System can bind to and show in this list, much like with Quick Settings tiles. That there are no third-party applications that support the “Controls” API would explain why the activity shown above is empty at the moment.

It looks like Google is taking cues from the iOS Control Center here, though we aren’t entirely sure why Google is working on this feature in the first place given that the Quick Settings panel already exists, and it can be filled with custom shortcuts. We’ll keep track of the development of this feature in case anything changes in future Android 11 Developer Previews.

Android 11 News on XDA

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Google is testing new double tap gestures on the rear of Pixel phones to launch Camera, Assistant, and more on Android 11

Google released the first Android 11 Developer Preview yesterday, and I’ve spent a few hours going through the update on my Pixel 2 XL to search for any changes I can find. We’ve already found a lot, but as always, there’s more hidden in the code that’s just waiting to be uncovered. While looking through the latest SystemUIGoogle APK, the app responsible for the SystemUI component on Google Pixel phones, we found references to a mysterious new gesture system code-named “Columbus.” When activated, the new gestures will allow you to double-tap the back—yes the rear of the phone—to initiate certain actions such as launching the Google Assistant, launching the default camera app, playing/pausing media, and more.

We know this new gesture feature is intended for Pixel phones rather than all devices running Android 11 since Google has kindly stuck to their tradition of prefacing each class with “com.google” rather than “com.android,” a naming scheme they’ve followed for other gesture systems including Active Edge and Motion Sense. What’s interesting about these “Columbus” gestures, in comparison with Active Edge and Motion Sense, is that they seemingly don’t require any special hardware—just your phone’s gyroscope and accelerometer. In fact, we managed to get several of the new gestures working on not only our own Pixel 2 XL but also XDA Senior Member cstark27‘s Pixel 4 XL, both running Android 11 Developer Preview 1. 9to5Google also independently enabled one of the new “Columbus” gestures, though they only showed it launching the Google Assistant.

We can confirm that the following gestures are available through the new “Columbus” feature:

Dismiss timer
Launch camera
Launch Google Assistant
Play/pause media
Collapse status bar
Silence incoming phone calls
Snooze alarms
Unpin notifications
Perform a “user selected action”

In order to prevent this feature from activating too haphazardly, Google has also added “gates” to prevent double tap actions from taking effect. Some of the currently implemented gates include camera visibility, charging status, keyguard, and more.

The code for “Columbus” references a currently non-existent class in SettingsGoogle called “COLUMBUS_GESTURE_TRAINING,” so we believe that the Settings app will contain gesture training activities that are presented to the user during the SetupWizard. We also believe it’s likely the Pixel’s Settings app in Android 11 will have pages to configure the new double-tap gesture, especially to perform the “user selected action.” If the user does not have an action set, it seems that “Columbus” defaults to launching the Google Assistant. Since there currently isn’t any code for “Columbus” in SettingsGoogle or any other system application for that matter, there’s likely more for us to uncover about the feature.

Android 11 Double Tap Gesture Demos

Here’s a video (courtesy of Kieron Quinn) showing the double-tap gesture playing/pausing media on a Pixel 2 XL running Android 11:

The reason Kieron Quinn is using an ancient BBC app is that KeyEvent 85, which is the keycode for the play/pause media key, isn’t being received by most of the music app’s receivers that we tried. An examination of the logcat reveals several warnings that background execution is not allowed, preventing media apps like Google Play Music, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Spotify, VLC, and many other apps from receiving the intent.

Here’s a video of me launching the Google Camera app on my Pixel 2 XL running Android 11 DP1:

Lastly, here is a video of me launching the Google Assistant:

Although this feature works just fine on older Pixel devices, we don’t know if Google will enable it for all Pixel devices running Android 11. Google may launch it as an exclusive feature for the Pixel 4a or Pixel 5 before rolling it out for other Pixel devices in future updates. Alternatively, we could see the future roll out in a future Pixel Feature Drop.

Many thanks to Kieron Quinn, also known as Quinny899 on the XDA Forums, for helping us test this feature!

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