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Android 12's latest wallpapers include a Nexus throwback
Along with plenty of landscape and macro shots
Your wallpaper choice might be the most crucial setting in Android 12 — no joke. With Material You built to pull a group of colors from your backdrop, everything from icons and widgets to the tinted background shown behind menus relies on that single choice alone. If you’re looking to freshen up a stale wallpaper, Google’s included an all-new category with today’s Android 12 update for your visual enjoyment.
Android hardware has come a long way in the last five years, and as we come up on that Pixel time of year, I've been thinking back on earlier Android handsets and the path we've taken to get here. In a useful coincidence, I was convinced into using a Nexus 5 for a week as my only personal phone with no backup — I like to take that sort of risk once in a while. This time I was pleasantly surprised, the Nexus 5 has aged a lot better than I expected it to.
CyanogenMod is virtually the best-known custom ROM out there, and for good reason: it brings the newest version of Android to devices that would otherwise have to wait much longer to receive it, or would never receive it at all. This week, quite a few popular devices have received CyanogenMod 14.1, which is based on Android 7.1 Nougat.
Cyanogen Inc. may be dying as a company, but the voluntarily-maintained CyanogenMod ROMs are still alive and kicking. Case in point: seven more devices are joining CyanogenMod 14.1, which is based on Android 7.1 Nougat. Six of these Android-powered machines have builds already up, but one doesn't yet.
The idea of a smartphone that magically turns into a full PC has been something of a pipedream for a while now. Motorola tried it with its Atrix laptop dock, Canonical is trying something similar with its Ubuntu Unity phone OS that can dock into a monitor. Even Microsoft is giving it a go with Windows Phone devices that can dock into a slimmed-down ARM Windows environment. The latest attempt with an Android base comes from "Maru OS," the brainchild of developer Preetam D'Souza.
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- Well-known developer Francisco Franco says that his custom kernel franco.kernel solves this problem in a flash. (Sorry, sorry.)
The incremental security updates that Android gets are generally regarded as a good thing, but with every software update comes the chance that something could get borked. That's doubly true with faster updates, and it seems to be the case with the latest Marshmallow release for the Nexus 5. According to our own readers, commenters on XDA and Reddit, and not least users on the official AOSP issue tracker, the original Nexus 5 is encountering some serious problems with volume control on the latest build, MOB30P.
The latest factory images and OTA ZIPs bringing July's security patches to Nexus devices are ready for download. Thing is, those files are beefy, and they can take a while to download. Want to take a quicker route? Try downloading an incremental OTA ZIP instead.
Right on schedule on the first Monday of the month, Google's latest security updates for Nexus devices have arrived. Both factory images and OTA update zips for June 2016 are available for the following devices, Android version 6.0.1, listed below with build numbers for your convenience.
Nexus phones tend to last a while, at least in terms of software - thank Google's spot as the gatekeeper of Android for that. I'm still using my Nexus 6, and will probably continue to do so when the 2016 models come in and it passes the two-year mark. The previous phone, LG's Nexus 5, is coming up on three years old, but it still has access to the latest version of Android with new security releases every month. It's still a great budget phone, especially for enthusiasts and developers.
Need a Nexus device on the cheap? Well, then you clicked on the right article. Daily Steals has refurbished 32GB Nexus 5's on sale in black for $140 and white for $160. Yeah, the phone did come out in 2013, and yeah the battery life is not great, but hey, it's still running the latest Android software and $140 is less than a fourth of what you'll pay for a Nexus 6P.
My first computer was an old laptop with a dead battery and a dial-up modem. It ran Windows XP, but I didn't have the money to buy expensive software like Microsoft Office or PhotoShop. I discovered OpenOffice.org, AbiWord, and GIMP. I used Firefox, Thunderbird, and Pidgin.Back then free cloud services weren't yet around, and I didn't have a strong enough Internet connection even if they were. Without an understanding of what open source software was, such applications gradually formed the majority of what I used. When I later went to college, I embraced Linux, and my appreciation for open source software grew.The last time I wrote one of these things, I was using a Chromebook Pixel as my primary computer. I considered this an experiment with a commercially viable Linux distribution. It was fun, but I ultimately didn't like some of the changes Google made to the experience in order to push its online services. I knew I was giving up some control just by buying a Chromebook, but these instances made me feel even more powerless over my machine.Android has put me through some of the same emotions. During my time at Android Police, I've watched applications and services come and go, again and again. Some have undergone such drastic changes that they are hardly recognizable. Many solutions have shifted to the cloud, where they're particularly impacted by the need to turn a profit, acquisitions, and corporate decisions. Then there are all the data breaches. And even when things are working as planned, it's all still dependent on having Internet access.Being from rural America, and still having family there, I continue to find myself in a situation where Internet access isn't guaranteed enough for me to trust my computing in the cloud. The connection is great where I live and in the area around me, but I don't have to drive far before I find myself back in the sticks.So, at the beginning of this year, I returned back to my free and open source software-using ways. I've made some changes to my workflow that mark a return to my comfort zone. I am again in a position where I feel empowered, productive, and in control. And frankly, the software I use now reminds me that computing can be fun.With that out of the way, let me show you my stuff.
The Nexus 5 was a watershed moment for the Nexus program. It was the first device from Google that didn't feel like it was making any extraordinary sacrifices in the name of value or openness. More than two years later, many people are still using the N5 (judging from AP site statistics). If you are not among them, you can pick up the venerable Nexus 5 on eBay today for just $139.99, which seems like a great deal.
Google recently dropped the starting price of the Nexus 5X to $349.99. If you think $299.99 is a more reasonable price, you had your chance on Black Friday when the phone was available at that price, an $80 discount at the time. Presumably you didn't get to place an order back then. Well, here's the second chance you've been waiting for.
I don't need to give you much background for this one. The Nexus 5 has been around since the fall of 2013. Folks who bought this device early have experienced KitKat, Lollipop, and now Marshmallow. This is the end of the line in terms of over-the-air updates, but with such solid internals, those who install a custom ROM will likely get quite a few more major Android releases out of this one.
If you want frequent Android updates but don't have the cash to pick up a 5X or 6P, then the Nexus 5 may still be your best option. Right now you can buy a refurbished 16GB model for just $150 on Daily Steals. The 32GB model is also available for just $30 more.
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Google is making good on its promise to release monthly security patches to the Android Open Source Project that fix some issues and patch up potential vulnerabilities to the system. Now that we've turned the calendar to a new month, the corresponding updates should be almost upon us and indeed, we've spotted a few hints of them online.