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Here's How Cyanogen Inc Wants The CyanogenMod-Enabled N1 And The First Hardware Partnership With Oppo To Work
Here's How Cyanogen Inc Wants The CyanogenMod-Enabled N1 And The First Hardware Partnership With Oppo To Work
Oppo and Cyanogen Inc are going to announce a partnership next week - this much is clear from the video posted earlier today by the official Oppo channel and featuring the man himself, Steve "Cyanogen" Kondik. It will be the first deal of its kind between the newly announced company and a hardware manufacturer, and after speaking with multiple people familiar with the matter, I now have a pretty good idea of how the CM team wants it to work. Not everything is set in stone yet - in fact, a lot is still up in the air, so Steve is en route to China to actually finalize the negotiations and work out the details.
Earlier today, Google announced that the new LTE Nexus 7 was now available for purchase from the Play Stores in 9 countries: Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, France, UK, Japan, Korea and U.S. For some reason, the company has neglected to mention Italy, which just got the Devices (Dispositivi) section added to the Play Store for the first time ever.
When Google launched the Android Device Manager in early August, I applauded the initiative because we finally got a much-needed security solution that was built into every Android devices that ships with Google's services. Rather, it was a good start, since the functionality was so limited: location, remote wipe, and alarm.
Earlier today, Google started slowly rolling out an update to Maps with version 7.2. This is a point release, up from 7.1, so I expected more than just minor changes. While not as big as the quiet Drive update yesterday, Maps 7.2 brings a few notable changes to the table that Google has not yet (or won't ever) itemized in the changelog. Upon getting my hands on the APK, which you can find at the bottom of this post, I hopped onto the teardown couch and dug in.
Google started a staged update to Google Drive earlier today with version 1.2.352.9 and a completely useless changelog that just said "Bug fixes and other improvements."
A Google Play Music update v5.2 just popped up in the Play Store, though it's being slowly rolled out, as is the case with many big Google apps nowadays. The previous version is 5.1, and indeed I'm seeing quite a few changes inside that would warrant a point release.
MIUI.us, an unofficial U.S. site for a popular Android custom ROM called MIUI (pronounced Me, You, I) developed by Chinese company Xiaomi, was hacked and defaced by a hacker who goes by the nickname Federal. All of the content on the homepage as well as the main forum page, was replaced with this:
Earlier today, Google released a relatively minor update to its keyboard application with only one really useful change: numbers in the top row on tablets. While the update itself is indeed not too significant, it did manage to bring several interesting half-baked under-the-hood bits which aren't quite ready for consumption. These are exactly the kinds of bits we like here in the AndroidPolice teardown kitchen.
Google Launches 2013 Nexus 7 On The Play Store In France, Germany, Japan, Spain, and United Kingdom - Ships In 1-2 Days
Google Launches 2013 Nexus 7 On The Play Store In France, Germany, Japan, Spain, and United Kingdom
The recently refreshed ASUS Nexus 7 is now available directly from Google's Play Store in Europe in France, Germany, Japan, Spain, and UK as well as in Asia in Japan. Both 16GB and 32GB Wi-Fi-only variants are being offered - we're still counting down days till the launch of the LTE version.
The Google Search 2.7 APK teardown is now officially the longest one in the history of Android Police. We find a bunch of interesting things, post about them, continue digging, and what do you know - keep running into new stuff. I'm fairly positive there won't be part 4 this time around, as we've squeezed out every last drop from v2.7, but as they say - never say never.
Just when you thought we were done with the already rather extensive Google Search teardown, another wild teardown appears. Yup, still the same good old Search 2.7, but this time, we found a hidden feature that you will really want, even more than custom hotwords. At least I think you will.
Given the major Keep update to v2 today, I got excited when I saw that Hangouts was updated as well a short time after. Unfortunately, it seems like it's a very minor bump: from 1.1.1.753199 to 1.1.2.778356.
After about a month of beta testing and several updates, SwiftKey 4.2 has entered the Play Store for both phones and tablets. Without a doubt, the most significant feature in today's update is cloud sync that synchronizes your personal dictionaries between multiple devices.Cloud sync uses your Google account for authentication and, in addition to syncing predictions, can also periodically download currently trending phrases as well as data from Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, and RSS feeds. Multiple accounts are supported, and it only takes a single tap to set up Gmail and Facebook learning thanks to native API integration - both nice and welcomed touches.Another nice touch for those who may have been worried - SwiftKey Cloud syncs between tablets and phones just fine, despite the existence of two independent versions of the software. That's because sync is tied to your Google account and not an APK's package name.All data in SwiftKey Cloud is subject to the company's data security and privacy policies. That means SSL, AES-256 encryption, node isolation and access restrictions to the backend, and other things that should inspire at least some confidence in today's NSA-aware world.
If your device hasn't gotten the YouTube v5 update today yet, and you're just itching to see the new navigation and UI, and experience the in-app multitasking first hand, we have your fix down below. Simply flash this verified APK to your phone or tablet, and your YouTube app will suddenly look better than ever before.
Google has started rolling out a staged YouTube for Android update, and it's probably the biggest redesign the app has seen yet. We've gotten a hold of the APK with exact version 5.0.21 (the previous version is 4.5.17), and after playing with it for about 30 minutes so far, I can definitively say that it's hugely improved.
Earlier today, Google announced a pretty significant update to the Google+ app for Android. Version 4.1, which follows 4.0.2, brought the following new features:
About a week ago, Google released a fairly major update to the Play Store with version 4.3.10. The update brought combined update notifications, the new Recently updated section of My apps, and a bunch of other tweaks. Today, a minor update with version 4.3.11 is rolling out. As always, you can download and install it manually using one of the links below.
The great Nexus 7 ordeal of 2013 is now over after Qualcomm apparently agreed to the release of the factory image and all necessary drivers, only a day after lots of hubbub had been made about this touchy and unpleasant situation. Awesome, so now we have access to the factory image, meaning we can restore the tablet back to stock no matter what happens to the software on it.
Google is rolling out an update to the Android Play Store with version 4.3.10. The new update follows version 4.2.9 which was discovered on July 25th, only a week and a half ago, and brought several very minor changes. Unlike the previous update, 4.3.10 is more significant in user-facing features (yay, new stuff!).