Android 11’s “Share to Print” feature will make it easier to print images and PDFs

Back in 2017, Google introduced a built-in print service on Android Oreo for printers that support the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP). Before that, users had to search for third-party print services on the Play Store in order to print something from their Android device. This change was brought about by technology contributed to AOSP by the Mopria Alliance, which was founded by Canon, HP, Samsung, and Xerox. Mopria Alliance has since played a major role in improving printing on Android devices, bringing support for WiFi Direct Printing in Android Pie. Now, an engineer from the Mopria Alliance has submitted code to AOSP which suggests that Android 11 might include a new ‘Share to Print’ feature that will simplify printing images and PDF files.

Google just merged a new commit to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) to enable “share to print” — a feature that will give developers the ability to send an intent to the Print Service to directly print images or PDF files without the user having to manually choose a print service from the share menu. As of now, it doesn’t look like this code change will add a dedicated print button to the share menu as, in its current form, the feature is just a way to bypass the share menu and enable apps to directly send images/PDFs to the default printing service.

The code suggests that in Android 11 developers will be able to add a “print” button to their apps that directly sends an image or PDF to the user’s default printing service. This “print” button should be constructed to send an intent targeted to either the activity “com.android.bips.ImagePrintActivity” or “com.android.bips.PdfPrintActivity”, and with the action “android.intent.action.SEND”, category “android.intent.category.DEFAULT”, and data with the image or PDF file.

According to the commit description, this feature “makes[s] it easier for apps to print to any supported printer via a normal share intent.” The PrintManager handles sending content at an appropriate resolution for printing to any installed and enabled Print Service. The commit further reveals that image content “is downscaled to a good DPI for preview (screen DPI) or delivery (300 DPI).” The fit or fill options are “activated by the user’s landscape vs. portrait print attribute selection,” and photos “default to a locale-specific default photo media size.” As of now, there’s no official information from Google regarding the matter, but we expect to learn more in the weeks leading up to the first Android 11 open beta release.

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Source: AOSP

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[Update: Confirmed] Realme’s next flagship phone with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 could launch soon

Update 1 (02/07/2020 @ 12:45 AM ET): Realme has essentially confirmed that its next flagship phone will feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC. Scroll to the bottom for more information. The article as published on January 23, 2020, is preserved as below.

Earlier this month, Chinese OEM Realme launched its first 5G enabled smartphone — the Realme X50 5G — in China. The device packed Snapdragon’s latest mid-range 765G processor, coupled with up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. Earlier this week, the company revealed that it will hold a global 5G launch event on February 24, at MWC 2020. Now, according to a recent report from Android Authority, the company may also launch a Snapdragon 865 powered flagship 5G device, alongside the Realme X50, at the event.

The report showcases a leaked screen of the highest score posted to the popular AnTuTu benchmarking app yet. The screenshot is from a Realme device with model number RMX2017 and with a score of 574,985 points, the Realme RMX2071 blows away the previous high score of 560,217 allegedly posted by the upcoming Xiaomi Mi 10. The screenshot also reveals that the device will be powered by the Snapdragon’s flagship 865 chipset with the Adreno 650 GPU. While Realme wasn’t among the companies to confirm a Snapdragon 865 powered device at the Snapdragon Tech Summit late last year, it’s great to see the Chinese OEM doubling down in the flagship space.

For the unaware, Realme is primarily known for its budget and mid-range devices. The company launched its first true flagship — the Realme X2 Pro (review) — back in October last year. The device featured top-of-the-line specifications at an affordable price and we expect the company to continue this trend with its upcoming flagship.

Source: Android Authority

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Update: Realme confirms its next flagship will feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865

Realme’s CMO Mr. Xu Qi Chase has essentially confirmed that the company’s next flagship will come with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865. In a Weibo post, Mr. Chase mentions “Realme new machine. Keywords: 5G flagship, LPDDR5, coming soon”. While this does not explicitly mention Snapdragon 865, the only 5G flagship SoCs which support LPDDR5 are the Snapdragon 865 and the Exynos 990. The Exynos 990 will debut on the Samsung Galaxy S20 series, and there’s practically no chance that Realme gets to use the SoC for its own flagship. So the other logical choice remains the Snapdragon 865.

Source: Weibo

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Popular skin maker ‘dbrand’ is selling products in-store for the first time

Pretty much all of us have heard of dbrand, largely thanks to their social media presence and YouTube sponsorships. The premise of dbrand is simple – you can “debrand” (i.e. remove branding) your smartphone with stickers that coat your device, giving it a fancy new look that at a glance, looks like it’s the actual design of the phone. The company’s products have slowly grown in popularity over the years, and now their products can be bought in-store for the first time. Where? The Samsung Experience Store in dbrand’s home city of Toronto.

First @dbrand store??? LEGIT! pic.twitter.com/rjQ1xj9NZK

— Karl Conrad (@KarlConrad) February 6, 2020

While there’s no official confirmation of a deeper partnership in the works, it’s not hard to connect the dots that there may be more coming in the future. The only other third-party company that Samsung has partnered with is AKG, which is actually a subsidiary of Samsung. It’s possible that we may see dbrand products pop up in more Samsung stores as time goes on.

However, dbrand products are notorious for their difficulty in applying. When you purchase a dbrand skin, you need to be really careful when applying it, as it’s very easy to make a mistake and then you need to start again. That’s why when you purchase a dbrand skin in store, it will also be applied directly to your device for you – for free, as well. It does appear to be a Samsung exclusive only for now though, and it probably wouldn’t be too surprising if you couldn’t buy a dbrand skin online for a random device and ask a salesperson to apply it for you.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this potential partnership in the future. With the Samsung Galaxy S20 on the horizon, it’s possible that we could see dbrand skins available at launch.

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“Sunfish” is the Google Pixel 4a with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 730

For the past few weeks, we’ve been tracking three code-names we suspect relate to in-development Google Pixel devices: sunfish, redfin, and bramble. Thanks to the extremely-reliable @OnLeaks, we know that Google is working on a follow-up to the Pixel 3a that’s unsurprisingly expected to be called the Pixel 4a. Although we recently stumbled upon evidence that ties the sunfish, redfin, and bramble code-names to the Pixel 2020 mid-range series, we lacked definitive evidence that linked these code-names to specific marketing names.

Renders of the rumored Google Pixel 4a. Source: @OnLeaks x 91Mobiles

Now, however, I discovered code that directly links the name “Google Pixel 4a” to the “sunfish” code-name. Since we know that “sunfish” is based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 730 mobile platform, we now expect the Pixel 4a to be powered by that SoC. Unfortunately, I can’t share the specific evidence that we used to come to this conclusion since the source we inspected contains a lot of other useful information that I would rather not lose access to. This already happened when we first publicized our discovery of the three suspected 2020 mid-range Pixel code-names we found in AOSP.

In any case, what our latest discovery means is that we know the Google Pixel 4a will have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 730 SoC, so it won’t support 5G connectivity. There’s still a possibility that either redfin, bramble, or both code-names end up as part of the Pixel 4a series with the 5G-enabled Qualcomm Snapdragon 765. However, apart from those two code-names, we haven’t seen any definitive evidence for the existence of another Pixel 4a model.

We will, of course, continue tracking these code-names to find out more information. Thanks to @OnLeaks, we know that the Pixel 4a will have a 5.7-5.8-inch single hole-punch display, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a USB Type-C port, a rear fingerprint scanner, and a single rear camera. The Pixel 3a was hugely successful for Google, and if Google plays its cards right, the Pixel 4a could prove to be another success.

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Google’s Automatic Call Screen feature is now available on all Pixel phones

Call Screen is a feature that was introduced on the Pixel 3 back in 2018. It essentially allows Google Assistant to act as your literal real-world assistant, taking the call for you and asking questions on your behalf. Late last year, Google rolled out Automatic Call Screen to the Pixel 4, and now it’s available on all Google Pixel devices.

As the name implies, Automatic Call Screen is the same great Call Screen feature, but it works automatically. Google will identify an unknown caller or a robocall and automatically screen the call before it rings your phone. If it turns out the call was not a robocall, your phone will ring a few moments later with some context about the call displayed on the screen. If a call is successfully screened automatically, you’ll see a transcript in the Dialer app.

Google mentioned that this feature would eventually come to all Pixel devices. It started appearing on the Pixel 3 and Pixel 2 this week, and now Google has announced it will be coming to everyone. That includes the original Pixel and the Pixel 3a series. We don’t know the exact rollout schedule, but as mentioned, it does appear to be arriving on devices now. Also, this is most likely still region-restricted to the US. You can find it in the Dialer app Settings under “Spam and Call Screen.” Google has set up a nice step-by-step guide here for enabling Automatic Call Screen.

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Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, and Huawei are reportedly teaming up to provide a Google Play Store alternative

Chinese smartphone brands have become a gigantic phenomenon in recent years. Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, and Huawei are now some of the biggest smartphone brands in terms of raw shipments and sales, with all four brands accounting for over 40% of all smartphone shipments globally. And their presence in the Asian, European, and South American continents have risen to all-time highs. But these companies are, for the most part, forced to bend the knee to Google whenever possible as the Google Play Store and Google Mobile Services are essential parts of the Android experience. It seems, however, that these brands are now seeking some independence from Google as they are working together on an “app store alliance” of sorts.

Reuters’ report on this matter talks about a “Global Developer Service Alliance” or GDSA, where developers will be able to upload an app simultaneously on these brands’ respective app stores. While the report doesn’t immediately talk about a single Play Store alternative, all 4 app stores having the same content and backend would essentially make them the same app store. These 4 brands already have their own app stores up and running, as devices launched in mainland China don’t have Google Play Services, so this move would simply unify them. This move may have been fueled by Huawei’s US sanctions: the company is banned from doing business with US companies and therefore they can’t use Google services at all, forcing them to seek alternatives.,

As we said before, all of these companies are huge by their own right, so having them join forces could potentially mean trouble for Google’s grip on Android in overseas markets. Oppo and Vivo are both owned by BBK Electronics, which also owns OnePlus and Realme–the report doesn’t say whether these 2 brands would be joining the alliance, with OnePlus strengthening their US carrier presence and Realme putting heat under Xiaomi’s feet in India.

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Source: Reuters

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Bliss OS, a custom Android build for x86 PCs, gets updated with more fixes for Android 10

After releasing their first experimental Android 10 build in November, Team Bliss has now released a new Android 10 beta of Bliss OS for x86 PCs. This new build, called Yantra, is a separate version of Bliss OS. Unlike the standard Bliss OS builds, which are strictly based on AOSP with a touch of Pixel additions, Yantra includes commits from many popular ROMs such as LineageOS, Paranoid Android, Omni, and more.

The Bliss OS Yantra v12.2 brings tons of improvements and new features. Some of the notable changes include:

• Added more fixes for sleep. Sleep from the power menu is currently missing. Access it using Ctrl+Alt+Del or the three-dot menu from Taskbar.
• Added sleep options like double-tap to sleep from statusbar or lockscreen
• Added Blissify app for customizations
• Generic Kernel updates for the “kernel-4.19” build
• Fixes for sound and volume on many devices
• dkSome upstream updates from Android-x86 project’s q-x86 branch

The update fixes some of the compatibility issues users were facing when trying to run universal apps —apps that support multiple CPU architectures— in the previous alpha releases. On the Yantra v12.2, universal apps should work just fine however you won’t be able to run native ARM apps. 

The team notes that the default Android 10 navigation gestures don’t work properly and may crash on some devices. To address this issue, future releases will come preloaded with XDA’s Navigation Gesture app to provide users with an alternative option.

If you’re interested in trying out Android on your PC and learn more about the project, head over to the Bliss OS x86 development thread from the link below. Keep in mind that installing Android on a PC is not as straightforward as flashing a ROM on your phone. Make sure to do your research and carefully read through the installation instructions before getting your hands dirty. 

Bliss OS Yantra v12.2 Announcement Thread

Bliss OS (x86) for PCs XDA Forums

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