AOSP - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

May

Sony Posts Android Open Source Project Code For The Xperia Tablet Z To GitHub

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Android OS, News, Sony, Xperia Tablet Z

There's a lot to like about Sony's latest generation of Android devices. One od the things that most people don't like is the custom interface that Sony puts on pretty much everything. If you want to do away with it and get some sweet, clean Android Open Source Project code running on your shiny new Xperia Tablet Z, Sony is happy to oblige. They've posted an AOSP 4.2 build for the Tablet Z to GitHub, following their surprisingly open approach to other devices, most recently the Xperia Z flagship.

Sorry ROM aficionados, there's no flashable ROM package posted. Developers will need both the AOSP code and the binaries for their specific device (which you can find here) to build a working ROM, and end users need an unlocked bootloader, with the voided warranty that comes with it.

May

Will A Samsung Galaxy S4 "Google Edition" Be Unveiled At I/O 2013?

Posted by Ryan Whitwam in Galaxy S4, News, Samsung

Among dedicated Android fans, there is a consensus that stock Android is the best experience. That being said, not everyone is smitten with the Nexus hardware. A new option for conflicted users is rumored to be dropping tomorrow at Google I/O. A version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 – dubbed the Google Edition – could be released with the latest version of stock Android on board.

If this is indeed true, it wouldn't be the first time Google has created a new variant of a Samsung product. Back at I/O 2011 Google handed out a special edition Galaxy Tab 10.1 with stock Honeycomb.

May

Google Finally Completely Redesigns The AOSP Site To Look About A Googol Times Better

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, Google, News

While the Google Developers site received its massive redesign quite a while ago, its sibling AOSP one at source.android.com has remained an ugly duckling. Until about an hour ago.

The difference is huge - it's like it went from Cupcake days to Jelly Bean in the blink of an eye. It would be nice if you could update Android the same way, wouldn't it?

Here are some images of the old (visible at archive.org) and new sites side-by-side (can you guess which one is which?):

Source: AOSP

Apr

Paranoid Android Says Hello To Halo – 'This Is How You Do Multi Windowing On Android'

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Development, News

After some teasing, Paranoid Android has unveiled (in a lovely promo image) their plan for multi-window functionality on Android, which they promise to "get right," – Halo.

The premise is simple, yet extremely ambitious in scope – allow apps to give you notifications right on top of your screen, which allow you to pop into that app without leaving the one you're in (no matter what it is), take care of business, and resume your experience uninterrupted. The general concept, which rejects the notion of a distracting notification shade, and shuns implementations like "whacky s-multiwindow," is no doubt inspired by Facebook's admittedly awesome Chat Heads functionality, perhaps the most compelling feature of its new Home app.

Apr

Sony Releases Pure AOSP For The Xperia Z To Its GitHub, Encourages Developers To Hack Away

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Development, News, Xperia Z

Back in August of '12, Sony teamed up with Google to make the Xperia S an officially supported AOSP device. The project initially got off to a decent start, but after an issue with some proprietary software binaries that couldn't be released by either Sony or Google, the project was canned on the official side and moved to Sony's GitHub, where it can still be found today.

Now, the company is doing something similar with the Xperia Z, minus Google's interaction from the get-go. It has released full AOSP for the Z to its GitHub, along with most of the proprietary binaries needed to get things going.

Apr

Google Pushes New Android 4.2.2 Code To AOSP (JDQ39E, 4.2.2_r1.2) - Here Is The Developer Changelog

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, Development, Jelly Bean 4.2, News, Nexus 4

Earlier today, Google started pushing some new open source code to AOSP (Android Open Source Project) marked with 2 new tags: android-4.2.2_r1.1 and android-4.2.2_r1.2. The build number corresponding to the 4.2.2_r1.2 release is JDQ39E.

^{The dates you see here are commit dates, not dates the commits were made public (which is today, April 17th 2013)}

What's New?

After weeding out the changes from the commit logs, it looks like all of them are, as expected, very minor. We've seen these _r1.X releases before, and the last one didn't fix much at all.

Here are the aforementioned changes between 4.2.2's tags 4.2.2_r1 (JDQ39) and 4.2.2_r1.2 (JDQ39E).

Mar

[Achievement Unlocked] Google: Nexus 4 And Nexus 7 Are The First Ever AOSP Devices That Have 100% Of The Proprietary Binaries Available

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, Google, News, Nexus 4, Nexus 7

As an addendum to the announcement of Google completing AOSP rollout for Android 4.2.2, I wanted to highlight a big milestone for the Nexus program - something that has never been the case before today.

After asking JBQ (not to be confused with JDQ39) a follow-up question, I was able to get some clarity on his earlier post and confirm that as of today, with the release of Android 4.2.2 binaries, we have for the first time ever Nexus devices that have 100% of proprietary binaries available. These devices are the Nexus 4 and the Nexus 7.

Previously, even Nexuses marked as AOSP-supported were missing at least one driver that needed to be ripped out of live devices in order to build a fully working ROM.

Feb

Android 4.2.2 (JDQ39) Source Has Started Pushing To AOSP [Updated]

Posted by David Ruddock in Development, Device Updates, Jelly Bean 4.2, News

It's begun - the newest version of Android, 4.2.2, is being pushed to AOSP right now. We saw the accompanying Nexus OTA rollout start last night, with update files slowly springing up thereafter. Right now, 4.2.2 builds can be downloaded for the Takju Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7 (Wi-Fi), and Nexus 10.

The build number is JDQ39 and the tag in AOSP is android-4.2.2_r1. Here are a few of the many directories that have been updated:

While the push has just started this morning, source will likely continue to show up throughout the day, and we'll update this page as that happens.

Feb

Google Pushes New Android 4.2.1 Code To AOSP (JOP40G, 4.2.1_r1.2) - Here Is The Developer Changelog

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, Development, Jelly Bean 4.2, LG, News, Nexus 4

Earlier this week, we got wind of a new OTA build JOP40G possibly hitting the Nexus 4 soon. I thought this update would finally be the elusive Android 4.2.2 that we've been hearing about, but it looks like that's not the case.

Yesterday, Google pushed some new open source code to AOSP (Android Open Source Project) marked with 2 new tags: android-4.2.1_r1.1 and android-4.2.1_r1.2. The build number corresponding to the 4.2.1_r1.2 release is - you guessed it - JOP40G (with mentions of JOP40F and JOP40E along the way too) - the same one we thought would be 4.2.2.

^{The dates you see here are commit dates, not dates the commits were made public (which was Feb 1st 2013)}

What's New?

Nov

Android 4.2.1 (JOP40D) Live In AOSP [Updated]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, Development, Jelly Bean 4.2, News

Last Updated: February 12th, 2013

Earlier today, both the Nexus 4 and the Nexus 10 started receiving small ~1MB OTAs to Android 4.2.1 with fixes to the missing month of December in the People app, among other things. The corresponding open source files are being pushed by Google to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) as we speak, Android release engineer Jean-Baptiste Queru just announced in the Android Building group.

The build number is JOP40D and the tag is android-4.2.1_r1. From what I can tell, a lot of the code is already up - here are some links to get you started: