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Android modding isn't the hot scene that it used to be, mostly because Android phones have gotten good enough that few people feel the need to modify them. But a brave new world for tinkerers just opened up, right when a decent chunk of people might need it. A developer has released a basic tool for gaining root access on a Roku TV, dongle, or set-top box, and it's ready to try out.
How to install the OnePlus 8T Cyberpunk 2077 theme on your phone (APK Download)
All aboard the hype train
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The OnePlus 8T Cyberpunk 2077 Edition may be limited to China, but that shall not stop you from experiencing its theme on the phone you already own. @linuxct is back at it with ports that works on any handset running Android 8 or higher. Here are a few APKs you'll need to become a samurai.
Magisk gets its biggest update in months, bringing features like Android 11 support and a brand new UI to stable
Rooters are rejoicing
For advanced Android enthusiasts, Magisk is one of the most popular tools for achieving systemless root access to a device. Since each yearly Android release introduces new underlying code changes, there's usually a lot of work to be done before Magisk can be made compatible. Developer John Wu started with the first canary builds back in April, and now it looks like Magisk version 21 is officially ready for Android 11 — as well as a completely rewritten version of Magisk Manager.
The spirit of DJ Roomba lives on in 2019. Although this one might not swear, enterprising developer Eddie Zhang has found a way to install an open-source Spotify client on his first-gen Xiaomi robotic vacuum cleaner. Thanks to the slightly garbage built-in speaker, an off-brand DJ Roomba 2.0 was born.
We're primarily an Android blog, but we also cover plenty of smart home gadgets for our readers. And today, we've got something special. Some guy on the internet (Michael Reeves over on YouTube) tweaked a Roomba to swear when it runs into things stuff shit.
What makes the camera on Google's Pixel phones so good has more to do with the software than the hardware. Google's image processing is far ahead of its rivals, which is why it can boast a competitive Portrait Mode with only a single camera. Thanks to the Camera NX mod, it's possible to get similar results on many other phones, including non-Google ones.
Portrait mode became one of the most popular features for cameras in 2017. Apple's iPhone lineup, the Galaxy Note8, the OnePlus 5T, and even the Essential Phone have it in their camera apps. However, owners of older phones were left out of the fun. Luckily, serial Google Camera modder Charles Chow has created a modded Google Camera APK with portrait mode on board for the first-generation Pixel and Pixel XL, the Nexus 6P, and the Nexus 5X.
We get a kick out of hardware mods here at Android Police. They're fun to see, and occasionally fun to do, especially when they make up for a product's shortcomings. Enter the Google Home Mini, a device which we mostly liked (when it wasn't bugging out). It did have one slight deficiency, though, and that was volume. It just didn't get very loud. But the folks at YouTube channel SnekTek took that as a challenge and installed an audio output jack for external amplification.
Google has a habit of keeping its launchers exclusive for its own hardware line. The Google Now Launcher was exclusive to the Nexus 5 for quite some time, and the Pixel Launcher is still only available on the Play Store to Pixel devices. Yes, installing the APK off sites like APK Mirror was an option, but not all of the features were intact.
The last generation of Nexuses (Nexus? Nexsi?) were unfortunately plagued with hardware problems. The Nexus 6P suffered from early shutdowns due to a faulty battery sensors, and the 5X had the famous bootloop bug (which my own 5X eventually fell victim to). The 6P suffered from bootloops as well, to an extent, but now there's a possible fix for the problem on both phones.
It's been eight months since the Pixel Launcher was unveiled alongside the Pixel phones, but it's still exclusive to Google's latest and greatest. Sure, you can download it from sites like our very own APK Mirror and it'll work for the most part, but you still miss out on a lot of the Pixel-exclusive niceties, namely the Google Now pane. However, a developer by the name of AmirZ has come along and made something pretty sweet: a modified Pixel Launcher APK with all of the cool little extras that the Pixel comes with.
Can't wait for Android O? Neither can we, but you can at least make use of one feature a little early if you've got a mostly stock Nougat phone. The good people at XDA found that navigation bar customization was present in Nougat, and you can even use it without root. One enterprising developer has already pushed an app called Custom Navigation Bar that can make the necessary modifications.
Bless you, Xposed Framework. Thou art the last refuge of power users whose hardware has been forsaken by manufacturer and ROM developer alike. The root-enabled tool has a new module that back-ports a bunch of Android Nougat features to earlier versions of the OS. It's called AndroidN-ify, and the latest update includes a tweak that exposes Google's fancy new voice-controlled Assistant search tool to users on Android 6.0. An earlier build.prop tweak allowed Android 7.0 users to try Assistant on non-Pixel phones, which won't be officially supported when the new hardware launches.
Allo And Duo APKs Leaked But Inoperable, So One Modder Used A Custom Xposed Module To Peek Into Allo
So Allo has some people in the Android world quite excited, even if it is Google's third chat standard in four years and leaves the future of Hangouts somewhat nebulous. It's going to be several months before the public gets access to Allo in all its Assistant-infused glory, but there are already APKs leaking out to the Internet for both the standard Allo and the new Duo video chat app. At least a few users were able to grab the apps off the Play Store despite them being in pre-registered mode, and both of them were posted to our sister site APK Mirror.
The community over at XDA-Developers is a little less voracious these days. There are a lot of reasons: an ever-expanding selection of Android phones means it's harder to make a modding nexus for each one, general improvements in hardware and software make rooting less necessary, et cetera. But those tinkerers can still get some fantastic results. Case in point: it turns out that it's totally possible to get the unlocked HTC 10, currently being sold free of contracts and carriers from the HTC web store, to operate on Verizon.
It was a nice surprise when Samsung announced that its new flagship phones would be running Android 6.0, and that they were bringing back the much-requested expandable storage was icing on the cake. The news that the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge would not support adoptable storage, Android Marshmallow's ability to take an SD card and partition it as semi-permanent device storage, was met with less enthusiasm. But all is not lost, expandable storage fans: long-time modder and ROM developer Paul "MoDaCo" O'Brien has got this covered.
If you have an LG G Watch R, you're probably aware of the Wi-Fi drama following Android Wear 5.1.1's release for the watch. While Google had announced Wi-Fi support for the platform's update in general, it turned out that the G Watch R didn't have the certifications necessary to boast that function, although technically the hardware was very capable of it. LG then let us know that it's working on a patch to enable Wi-Fi (and presumably on getting all the right certifications) but that it wouldn't be released before July.
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If you're going to do any serious modding on your Android smartphone, your first step is going to be unlocking the bootloader. This is a simple procedure on Nexus devices and a few other handsets, but many of the top OEMs have added security measures to prevent regular users from mucking about with their stock software. For these devices, there's a tool called Sunshine by recognized developers Justin Case (jcase), beaups, and friends. Version 3.0 just came out, and it can unlock the bootloader and acquire S-Off with almost every modern Motorola and HTC smartphone on the market.
Last month we posted an article examining some very significant changes to the way SD cards could be accessed and how Google's partner OEMs had begun enforcing these restrictions with Android 4.4. There can be no doubt, a lot of people were displeased to see their expandable storage crippled. While some have vowed to never update to KitKat, and others have turned to custom ROMs that don't enforce the same rules, there are still many people that still want to have the best of both worlds. Thanks to SDFix by developer Tod Liebeck, it's possible to restore the SD card to its former glory on a rooted stock ROM in just a few seconds.
Dear Barnes & Noble: bless you, ladies and gentlemen, for making the Nook Color. Without it, the Android modding scene might be less vibrant than it is now. On that note, the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight (a Kindle-style e-ink reader, also running Android) has received another price drop. Now you can pick one up for a cool - not bad for a device that launched at the already-low price of $139.