Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro v11.0.5.0 update fixes Widevine L1, HDR related bugs

Xiaomi launched the Redmi Note 9 Pro and Redmi Note 9 Pro Max in India early last month, featuring Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 720G chip, impressive quad-camera setups, a massive 5,020mAh battery, and support for up to 33W fast charging. Tushar from our team had the opportunity to review the Redmi Note 9 Pro and in his review, he encountered a bug that affected FullHD playback in OTT apps like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix.

Redmi Note 9 Pro XDA Forums || Buy the Redmi Note 9 Pro on Amazon India (starting at ₹13,999)

Upon checking the DRM certification on the device, he was surprised to learn that the Note 9 Pro delivered contradicting results for the Widevine security level test. Instead of offering Widevine L1 support, the device displayed Widevine L3 certification in Netflix’s playback specification and it alternated between Widevine L1 and L3 in the DRM Info app. On top of that, the device didn’t offer any HDR certification.

At the time, Xiaomi had acknowledged the bug and had said that it would be rectified in a future OTA update. Sticking true to its word, the company has now started rolling out an update for the device which addresses the Widevine L1 and HDR related bugs. The OTA update (v11.0.5.0) is now rolling out to the Redmi Note 9 Pro and we’ve already received it on our review unit. While the update changelog only mentions ‘Optimized system performance’ and ‘Improved system security and stability’, we can confirm that it also includes a fix for the Widevine L1 and HDR issues on the device.

Following the update, the Netflix playback specification correctly displays Widevine L1 certification and the device is able to play FullHD videos without any issues.

As far as HDR support is concerned, the device now supports HDR playback in Amazon Prime Video, however, it still doesn’t offer HDR support in the Netflix app. In case you haven’t received the update on your device yet, you can download the update package from the links below.

MIUI 11.0.5.0 for the Redmi Note 9 Pro (Full OTA / Incremental update over MIUI 11.0.4)

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Rogue Games shuts down Vainglory servers, game moves over to Community Edition with free skins

We haven’t written about Vainglory here at XDA-Developers before, but some of us here have been long time players of the game. The game has found mentions in our reviews, as recent as the POCO X2 review and as early as the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 review. Vainglory gained popularity as a free-to-play Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) that focused on being mobile-first and then added in support for desktop later on, and eventually brought over cross-platform play across Android, iOS, Windows and Mac. Unfortunately, the game is now at a pivotal junction of its life, as its publishers Rogue Games have decided to shut down Vainglory servers outside of China, forcing the game developers to move the game over to a Community Edition model.

Vainglory was developed by Super Evil Mega Corp (SEMC) and was unveiled back in 2014 to demonstrate the iPhone 6’s gaming prowess through then-new graphic APIs. The Android version of the game arrived in 2015, with the aim to provide a MOBA experience similar to a LAN-party for League of Legends or DOTA 2. This goal was by-and-large successful, with the end result being a game that was decently enjoyable and not at all bogged down by annoying IAPs. The game achieved monetization through skins for the selectable heroes and these skins were merely cosmetic changes — you could still very much enjoy the game and its grind even if you did not put in any money into it. The reason Vainglory also made its way as a subject in reviews because it was one of those games that could work well across a wide range of hardware — from budget devices to proper gaming flagships. In fact, Vainglory also consistently features in the list of games that support 120Hz refresh rate on smartphones like the Razer Phone, the ASUS ROG Phone II, and even the upcoming OnePlus 8 series.

In November 2019, SEMC announced that it was entering a publishing partnership with Rogue Games, effectively giving Rogue Games the responsibility of operating and managing Vainglory outside of China, while freeing up SEMC to focus on their other projects (namely, Project Spellfire).

While the announcement does sound like good news sprinkled with a lot of optimism, things haven’t exactly gone that way. In a post on the Vainglory subreddit, SEMC CEO Mr. Kristian Segerstrale acknowledged that Vainglory is going through a rough patch. Rogue Games has decided to cease support for Vainglory and shut down its servers outside of China, killing the game for a brief period. SEMC has worked to regain control of these servers and these have now been brought back up, but with some drastic changes. For one, in-app purchases outside of China have been completely turned off, which has the side-effect of making available all hero skins to all players for free. Several in-game features like friends, chat, leaderboards etc. are now broken. The game has switched to a “client authoritative” mode (instead of server authoritative), meaning that instead of everything being handled by expensive servers, all matchmaking information will be stored on your device. This means that if you uninstall and reinstall, you will lose that information. Account import features will be added later.

Why are all these changes not affecting servers in China? That is because SEMC has a different publishing partner for that region: NetEase. This region is unaffected, so the servers and the game will continue as normal.

As perceivable, these changes do effectively kill what was a good game. Running game servers is expensive, both in terms of money as well as for resources, and SEMC expressed its inability to do so in the long run. Consequently, the company is exploring handing over the reins to the community — allowing the community to host servers directly, collect statistics, enter its own tuning values, and more. SEMC has talked about a 4-stage plan for transitioning the current Vainglory game to Vainglory: Community Edition, with the eventual goal being community-hosted servers that players can join. But this “Vainglory: Community Edition” remains a plan that has no defined ETA, and its difficult to not be pessimistic about this in our current timeline. It’s practically running the game in what is a “maintenance mode” for lack of a better word — so expect no new heroes, no new items, no new maps, and no more updates.

The SEMC team remains optimistic though, so if you are interested, you can check out the questions that they answered in their AMA.

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Vainglory (Free⁺, Google Play) →

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Google to surface locations of food and night shelters across Maps, Search and Assistant in Indian cities

On March 25th, a 21-day lockdown commenced in India as a preventive measure against COVID-19. While this measure ensures safety for the majority of the Indian population, all commercial activity has also come to halt abruptly. The closure has led to the efflux of migrant and daily-wage workers from bigger cities, where they work, to their villages and hometowns while others are left stranded and without adequate resources or food because of suspended incomes. To mitigate this, local authorities are organizing food camps and shelters for these workers and the information for these camps will now be available through Google Maps, Search, and Assistant.

Google recently announced that it is working closely with the local governing bodies and the Indian government at the nation-level to list information about food distribution centers and night shelters on its services. The service can currently be used to search for information about these shelters in 31 Indian cities and the information about more is being added. The information can be accessed directly in Google Maps by tapping on the dedicated shortcuts under the search bar.

This feature is currently live in 30+ cities. We’re working towards adding more locations, and will shortly roll this feature out in Hindi and other languages. pic.twitter.com/oGm9xeDvcA

— Google India (@GoogleIndia) April 6, 2020

It is understood that the majority of these workers might not own a smartphone (due to low wages). But, the service can also be utilized through Google Maps, Search, and Assistant on the Reliance JioPhone as well as on other smart feature phones. The latter includes a wide range of Nokia-branded 4G feature phones running on KaiOS.

Even though the feature is of minimal utility to prosperous users, we urge you to help those out who may be in need of food or shelter during these challenging times. The lockdown in India is slated to end on April 15th, following which the governments in different states are expected to ease the restrictions in a “staggered” manner. The country might even see an extension to this lockdown if there’s no decline in the rate at which new cases are being reported. So remember, your help could be vital to someone in need.

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Google Fit update revamps the activity overview, adds new WearOS tiles, and more

Google’s fitness tracking app Google Fit last received a redesign back in 2018, when the company rolled out a new all-white Material Theme for the app with a couple of new features. Since then, the app hasn’t seen many design changes, other than the addition of a new dark mode and sleep charts last year. As per a recent report from Android Police, Google is now rolling out a new design for the activity overview in the app, along with new Wear OS Tiles, and more.

The design changes were recently announced by the company in a post on the Wear OS support forums which details all the changes that will make their way over to Google Fit in the coming week. As per the post, Google is bringing the step counter in the app back to the forefront, which was previously sidelined in favor of Heart Points and Move Minutes in the previous redesign. While the Heart Points metric still retains priority on the app, it’s now accompanied by the step counter in a circular graph instead of the Move Minutes metric. Move Minutes has now been moved next to the calorie and distance measurements and all of these changes are accompanied by subtle redesigns to the text and colors. All these changes are expected to make data more visible to users.

With the redesign, Google is also improving the Heart Point measurements and has added more extensive tracking and guides to help users reach the 150 points per week that has been recommended by the American Heart Association and the World Health Organization. However, this change is currently limited to iOS and Wear OS devices with no information from the company regarding the Android rollout. In terms of Wear OS enhancements, Google Fit is adding two new Tiles — one for starting a workout with a tap and the other for checking your daily/weekly progress. The new Tiles will join the existing activity graph in the app. Google has already started rolling out these changes to the app, but it will take close to a week for them to reach all users. In case you’re not on the latest version of Google Fit, you can download the update from the Play Store link below to check if the redesign is available for you.

Google Fit: Health and Activity Tracking (Free, Google Play) →

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Source: Google

Via: Android Police

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POCO is working on its own truly wireless earphones

Audiophiles may not like the recent trend of omitting the headphone jacks from flagship smartphones, but the practice certainly boosts the sale of truly wireless earbuds. Chipmakers, such as Qualcomm and Samsung have invested heavily in improving the battery life as well as the audio quality of the next-gen TWS earbuds. The potential of the market attracts many OEMs to launch affordable earphones, and it looks like POCO has jumped on the bandwagon.

POCO India General Manager C. Manmohan kickstarted the rumor-engine by running a poll on Twitter, asking fans about what product category they would want POCO to launch next. From among the four options (TWS earphones, Headphones, Fitness Wearable and Gamepad), TWS earphones saw the highest share of votes at 38.2%.

Hey guys, the home quarantine situation has offered me the luxury to sit back and think. For one – do you guys think POCO should launch other cool tech products apart from smartphones? If so, what do you guys suggest? Vote below!

— C Manmohan (@cmanmohan) March 26, 2020

POCO went one step further and organized a virtual fan meet, which saw more than 500 fans tune in. The interactive meet featured an exhaustive Q&A round with the POCO team, which might have served as a preliminary market survey. A recent tweet from POCO India has now put an official seal on the speculations, confirming that the company would indeed be launching a new pair of truly wireless earbuds soon.

Here’s the big news, POCO fans!

In the recently concluded poll by our GM @cmanmohan, the ‘True wireless in-ears’ got the highest vote share. Today, we want to confirm that it is in the works and will be coming to India.

RT to welcome the new category in the #POCO fam! #POCOTWS pic.twitter.com/pL8yPbFuPd

— POCO India (@IndiaPOCO) April 7, 2020

It is quite natural for POCO to explore different areas of the market outside of smartphones, especially when their competitors are following the same route. Despite being an independent brand, POCO still has access to Xiaomi’s R&D, which essentially gives them the freedom to pick existing TWS earbuds and rebrand them with minimal efforts. Given that the POCO X2 is itself a rebranded Redmi K30 4G and the Redmi K30 Pro might be launched in India under POCO branding, the company can utilize the first or second-gen Mi True Wireless Earphones or the cost-effective Redmi AirDots as the base of the design for their upcoming earbuds.

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Featured image: Mi True Wireless Earphones

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WhatsApp tightens restrictions on forwarded messages, limiting it to only one chat at a time

Facebook-owned WhatsApp is the world’s most popular messaging app, with over two billion users around the world. And while the app has played a major role in connecting people globally, it has also proven to be a hotbed for fake news. In a bid to curb the spread of fake news on the platform, WhatsApp first introduced a new forwarded message label on the app all the way back in July, 2018. The idea behind the Forwarded label was to help users easily identify forwarded messages and exercise good judgment before sharing the message with others. Soon thereafter, the platform also imposed a limit on forwarded messages, restricting users from sharing a message to more than 20 other chats.

A year down the line, WhatsApp improved upon the Forwarded message label and added a new feature called ‘Forwarding info’ that let the original senders see how many times their message had been received and read. When none of the aforementioned features seemed to have worked out, the company introduced a new feature for group administrators to disallow sending frequently forwarded messages in groups. However, despite all these measures, the rampant spread of fake news on WhatsApp doesn’t seem to have stopped to date. Now, in order to further tighten restrictions, the platform is imposing yet another limit on forwarded messages.

As per a recent blog post from the company, the new limit applies to frequently forwarded messages that are marked by a double arrow icon and prevents users from sharing these messages to more than one chat at a time. The company claims that its previous limits on forwarded messages led to a 25% decline in message forwards globally and the new limit will help the platform curb the spread of misinformation even further. With this new feature, WhatsApp also aims to make the platform a place for personal conversation, instead of it being a platform where people just share forwarded messages that don’t originate from a close contact. Sadly though, WhatsApp hasn’t revealed any threshold for when a forwarded message becomes a “frequently forwarded” message. Therefore, we can’t comment on how effective this measure will be in preventing the spread of fake news in the long run.

In addition to this change, WhatsApp is also working with NGOs and governments, including the World Health Organization and over 20 national health ministries, to curb the spread of misinformation regarding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and also help connect people with accurate information. The platform has helped these authorities send hundreds of millions of messages directly to people requesting information and advice about the pandemic.

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Source: WhatsApp Blog

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ASUS ZenFone 6 Developments: Custom ROMs, Kernels, Mods, and more

The ASUS ZenFone 6 is among the few pocket-friendly flagship killer devices. Besides its powerful Snapdragon 855 processor, the ZenFone 6 is known for its 180º flipping rear camera. When it comes to software, the phone offers a really clean user experience for its target audience, primarily comprising gamers and power users. On top of that, ASUS is also supportive of custom development and had even sent multiple units of the ZenFone 6 to some developers in the XDA Community. Over the past several months, the efforts of ASUS and these developers in the community have come to fruition, resulting in an abundance of custom modification options for prosumers. This article features a long list of custom ROMs, custom kernels, custom mods such as a fully functional Google Camera mod, and more for the ASUS flagship killer.

ASUS ZenFone 6 XDA Forums

We have covered some of these articles in the past so we’ll do a quick recap. Make sure to visit individual threads on XDA Forums for more information.

ASUS ZenFone 6 Custom ROMs

LineageOS 17

LineageOS is easily the most discussed option in the custom ROM scene. The phone has received an official Lineage treatment with LineageOS 17 based on Android 10. If you’ve been using the unofficial LineageOS 17 build, you should definitely give the official build a try but make sure to clean flash if you’ve already updated to LineageOS 17.1.

XDA Forum Thread: Official LineageOS 17 for ASUS ZenFone 6

BlissROMs

BlissROMs offers a great deal of customization and focuses on great design and performance. Above that, BlissOS is also available for tablets and PCs running on x86 CPU so that you can rekindle life into an old Windows, Linux, or ChromeOS machine. You can also sync your settings across various devices that run on operating systems by Bliss.

XDA Forum Thread: BlissROMs for ASUS ZenFone 6

Havoc OS

Havoc OS is a custom ROM with a user interface inspired by the Google Pixel phone but with a slew of extra features. Havoc OS for the ZenFone 6 comes with G Apps and Substratum support inbuilt.  You can dabble in a wide variety of options to modify UI elements like the status bar, quick settings panel, animations, lock screen, etc.

XDA Forum Thread: Havoc OS for ASUS ZenFone 6

OmniROM

OmniROM is a custom ROM that focuses on stable and dependable user experience. The ROM comes with nano GApps preloaded to let you sign up using the Google account while setting up the phone. You can download the other Google apps you need from the Google Play Store.

XDA Forum Thread: OmniROM for ASUS ZenFone 6

AICP

Short for Android Ice Cold Project, the AICP custom ROM focusses on a clean user interface with a smooth performance. It is based on AOSP but borrows some of the features from LineageOS 17 without completely duplicating it.

XDA Forum Thread: AICP for ASUS ZenFone 6

Custom kernels

Kirisakura-Kernel

The custom kernel is designed to offer smoother performance and improved memory management. It includes patches for Safety Net so you can keep on using banking and DRM apps even after flashing the kernel.

XDA Forum Thread: Kirisakura-Kernel for ASUS ZenFone 6

Proton Kernel

Proton Kernel provides a balance between battery life and performance. Besides performance improvements, you can also overclock the display to enable a 72Hz refresh rate on the display.

XDA Forum Thread: Proton Kernel for ASUS ZenFone 6

Custom recoveries

Official TWRP

A custom recovery is one of the earliest steps in installing custom firmware or mods on your smartphone. TWRP is among the longest-running and most reputed custom recoveries and is also officially supported by the smartphone.

XDA Forum Thread: Official TWRP recovery for ASUS ZenFone 6

Unofficial TWRP

ASUS recently released the Android 10 update for ZenFone 6 but the official recovery still limited to Android 9 Pie. For flashing Android 10-based custom ROMs, you can utilize the unofficial TWRP.

XDA Forum Thread: Unofficial TWRP recovery for ASUS ZenFone 6

Custom Mods

Google Camera Port

Google Camera ports bring the best of Google’s computational photography algorithms to non-Google devices. XDA Senior developer Arnova8G2 developed the first fully functional build of GCam for the smartphone even before the phone went on sale in India and the U.S. The latest build based on Google Camera 7.3 developed by XDA Senior member Urnyx05 supports latest features like the Astrophotography mode and exposure slider.

XDA Forum Thread: Google Camera Mod for ASUS ZenFone 6

Enable VoWiFi

If you’re running a custom ROM which does not support Wi-Fi calling (aka VoWiFi) natively on the smartphone, you can use the fix linked below. Do remember, you’ll require root access to enable the feature.

XDA Forum Thread: VoWiFi Mod for ASUS ZenFone 6

Root and Xposed modules on stock ROM

Many of the ROMs listed above come pre-rooted but if you’re satisfied with the features offered in the stock ROM and still want root access to enable and install Xposed modules, you can use the guide in the forum linked below. For this method, you will not require any custom recovery and can utilize the stock recovery so long as you have access to a PC for running ADB commands.

XDA Forum Thread: VoWiFi Mod for ASUS ZenFone 6

All-in-one tool

If you’re new to custom Android mods or just want to save some time otherwise lapsed by typing or executing commands manually, you can use the All-in-one tool for the smartphone by XDA Senior member mauronofrio. Using this tool, you can flash stock ROM, unlock or relock bootloader, flash recovery or root the phone with just one click.

XDA Forum Thread: TOOL ALL IN ONE for ASUS ZenFone 6

How to Unbrick ASUS ZenFone 6

If you’ve bricked your smartphone while fiddling with it and it does not seem to respond to any of your actions and only boots in EDL mode, don’t worry you can fix the phone. Download the resources in the forum thread linked below and follow the instructions listed inside.

XDA Forum Thread: Unbrick ASUS ZenFone 6

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