mardi 13 décembre 2016

Google releases Android Wear 2.0 Developer Preview 4 with Seamless Authentication, In-App Billing, and More

Those of us with an Android Wear smartwatch aren't reluctant to share the opinion that the operating system could do better.

Currently, the most commonly used functions of Android Wear smartwatches revolve around notifications, fitness tracking, or weather and time keeping. The more industrious among us would argue that the possible uses of an Android Wear smartwatch is limitless thanks to the power of Tasker plug-ins such as AutoWear. But for the average user, it's difficult to justify the added expense of a smartwatch.

Indeed, smartwatches have been struggling in the market and given the fact that Huawei, Motorola, and LG declined to upgrade their smartwatch line-up during the second half of 2016, it's difficult to see how those numbers will climb. Though Asus bucked the trend and released a compelling upgrade to its ZenWatch program, it appears that Android Wear has a difficult road ahead.

Fortunately, Google itself has yet to give up on the fledgling Android platform. The company has pinned its hopes on a massive upcoming update to Android Wear. Initially announced during Google I/O 2016, the Android Wear 2.0 update promised to introduce support for standalone Wear applications, a full keyboard, and a much more streamlined user interface. Future Developer Previews of Android Wear 2.0 have introduced highly anticipated features such as customizable wrist gestures as well as smart replies and a Wear-based Play Store. Today, Google is continuing to enhance its smartwatch platform with the introduction of Android Wear 2.0 Developer Preview 4.

Android Wear 2.0 Developer Preview 4

In order to enhance the standalone application experience on Android Wear 2.0, Google is introducing support for a seamless two-factor authentication experience, in-app billing, cross-device promotion, and the return of swipe-to-dismiss.

First off, Google will allow Wear-based apps to tap into existing credentials on the paired smartphone so users signing into apps on their smartwatch will forego the pain of entering their username and password for various services. Developers can utilize the OAuth API for Android Wear to allow watch apps to authenticate with server side APIs directly. Apps requesting Google Account credentials will feature one-click sign-in, bypassing the need to access the smartphone entirely.

Seamless Authentication on Android Wear 2.0. (Source: Google)

Next, Android Wear 2.0 will now allow developers to implement in-app purchases directly into their Wear app. Users will not have to defer to smartphone control to authorize purchases. Instead, the user can enter a 4-digit Google PIN to immediately authorize a purchase.

Developers who were wary of developing separate Wear applications because the user experience on a standalone watch app would be sub par will no longer have to worry. Google is introducing two new APIs, PlayStoreAvailability and RemoteIntent, to help users navigate their device to the Play Store, or any custom URL of their choosing, to install the smartphone component of their Wear app.

Google has been listening to developer feedback during the course of the Developer Previews, and will be bringing back a key Android Wear 1.0 feature that it had scrapped in the last preview build. For some odd reason, Google decided to change the swipe gesture behavior in the third Developer Preview. The company instead opted to make the power button work as a back button, which developers could intercept. However, the previous functionality which allowed swipe gestures to dismiss activities will now return.

Finally, apps built with Android Wear 1.0 in mind can now be installed on devices running Wear 2.0. When installing an app on your smartphone with a Wear 1.0 component, the system will throw a notification asking if you would like to install the Wear component. If declined, the user can opt to install the app at a later time by navigating the Wear-based Play Store for a section called "Apps you've used."

Google has also outlined a few more minute changes to the Wear 2.0 platform, but that covers the most major changes to Wear 2.0. We'll have to wait and see whether or not the final release of Android Wear 2.0 will make Android Wear a compelling platform for smartwatch manufacturers. But introducing new, highly anticipated features and listening to developer feedback is certainly a nice start.

Source: Android Developers Blog

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Google announces updates to its Internet of Things (IoT) Platform

Fascination with technological advancements is a facet that we all likely share here at XDA.

With each new generation of Android devices, most companies push incremental changes to their hardware line-up. Some, however, take a leap of faith and introduce new devices that test our imaginations to their very limits. One innovation that has captured the minds of generations of consumers since the days of The Jetsons is known as the Internet of Things (IoT).

Although the term is rather ill-defined, what most consumers who are familiar with the term think of when they see IoT is the smart, connected home. To the more skeptical among us, IoT represents a potentially terrifying future avenue of privacy violations. Television shows such as USA Network's Mr. Robot play into those fears (Warning: Season 1 spoilers). But for others, the Internet of Things represents a shift towards automating the most mundane aspects of our lives.

Companies such as LG, Samsung, Apple, Huawei, IBM, Qualcomm, and Google are investing billions into IoT research. During Google I/O 2015, the company announced Brillo, the Android-based OS designed specifically to run on home appliances. Furthermore, Google laid the foundation for Weave, the communication layer that would allow smart devices (regardless of whether or not they run on Brillo) to inter-communicate. Many were skeptical that Google would continue supporting Brillo, especially since the company did not mention any updates to the program during Google I/O 2016. However, Google has finally announced their plans for the Internet of Things. It includes a re-branding of the initiative as well as the first preview of the operating system in action.

Meet 'Android Things'

What was previously known as 'Brillo' will now be called 'Android Things'. Google has announced that developers can preview the newly re-branded Android Things on either the Intel Edison, NXP Pico, or Raspberry Pi 3. Android Things will support running on custom designed versions of these single board computers so companies can quickly scale their testing to suit their particular needs. Much like the Developer Previews available for Nexus devices, Google will provide several updates to the Android Things Developer Preview over the coming months.

Furthermore, Google is incorporating several familiar Android development related tools to work with Android Things such as Android Studio, the Android SDK, Google Play Services, and Google Cloud Platform. In conjunction with these updated tools, Google is also updating the Weave communication layer to allow for easier access to cloud content and to even allow for interaction with services like Google Assistant. Eventually, Google will merge its Weave with Nest Weave to take advantage of the existing integrations available through the popular Nest home products, and to ease the development transition of existing products.

Google mentions that several popular smart home devices such as the Philips Hue light bulbs and Samsung's SmartThings already implement Weave, so developing for the platform should be a no-brainer. The Weave Device SDK already supports cloud communication layer code for devices such as the aforementioned light bulbs, switches, and thermostats but will be updated in the future with support for additional appliance types. In addition, the company will provide a mobile application API available for Android and iOS developers – so even smartphones and smartwatches will be able to interact with smart home devices.

Source: Android Developers Blog

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Google Keyboard rebrands as Gboard with integrated Google Search

Back in May of this year, Google launched a new keyboard application called Gboard. At the time, the application was only available on iOS, but we were told that this functionality would eventually be coming to Android in the near future.

The application gave you a quick way to do a Google search without leaving the current application. One example of the keyboard in action that Google loved to tout was searching for the address to a restaurant while in the middle of a messaging conversation. Of course, you can use Gboard for all sorts of searches such as figuring out flight times, finding relevant news articles, and even searching for images to immediately paste into the conversation.

Until Android 7.1 Nougat, the platform did not have an API allowing for keyboards to inject rich media into an application. This Gboard update adds support for what Google calls an images keyboard, and it does not require you to be running Android 7.1. However, it does require the developer to update their application before it can accept media from Gboard. The update also lets you search for the exact emoji that you want (so you don't have to hunt it down in the sea of categories), and it also comes with support for multiple languages as well (with the ability to have up to three active at once). Finally, the application also finally brings the ability to place a dedicated number row on the top of the keyboard.

Interestingly, it seems like Google has decided to rebrand Google Keyboard to Gboard instead of releasing it as an separate application on Android. You can download said application directly from the Play Store here, but if the update is not yet live for you, you can download the 32-bit or 64-bit version of the application from APKMirror.

Source: Ausdroid

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Homescreen Critique 11: Minimalist Edition

Homescreen Critique is back with another special episode. This video will go through some of the awesome submission from the XDA community and find the best homescreens with minimalist designs. Here are the homescreens featured in this video:

beespoison

Icons: Simpax icon pack
Launcher: Nova Launcher
Widget: Parrot for Zooper Widget

Check out the homescreen here.

Jackdafish

Launcher: Nova Launcher
Revolution Icon Pack

Check out the homescreen here.

Roods_Burger

Lines Free – Icon Pack
Check out the homescreen here.
Launcher: Nova Launcher

Check out the homescreen here.

mctosima

CandyCons – Icon Pack

Check out the homescreen here.

Submit your own homescreen in this thread to be featured in the next video.

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Motorola Launches the Moto M in India for Rs. 15,999 (~$240)

We first heard about rumors of the Moto M back in August of this year. At the time, it was rumored to be a smartphone with a 4.6″ display, but that isn't the device that made it to market. A few weeks later we saw the Moto M receive TENAA certification in China and giving us a different idea as to what type of hardware we should expect with the device. A month later, it was rumored that the Moto M would be launching with some Microsoft applications pre-installed on it.

In August, both Microsoft and Lenovo signed a deal that would give Lenovo access to some Microsoft patents in exchange for some applications being pre-installed on Lenovo products. With Motorola and the Moto brand being part of the Lenovo company, this made sense. At the time, we had only seen photos of the device thanks to the TENAA website, but then some leaked photos gave us a hands-on look at what the 5.5″ Motorola smartphone would look like.

Today, Motorola has officially launched the Moto M in India, and will begin selling the device one minute before December 15th. The Moto M will sport a 5.5″ 1080p display with 2.5D glass, the MediaTek Helio P15 SoC, microSD card slot, two SIM slots (Nano-SIM), Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, USB Type-C, 3.5mm audio jack, a 3,050mAh capacity battery, 16MP rear camera with PDAF and an 8MP front-facing camera.

There will be two variants of this device and both of them will be sold exclusively at Flipkart. There will be a base version with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage that will be priced at Rs. 15,999 (~$237). Then, Motorola is also launching a variant that will have 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage with this one being priced at Rs. 17,999 (~$266). Lenovo will also be offering a Rs. 1,000 discount on Citibank and Rs. 2,000 off when you trade in your old smartphone.

Source: NDTV Gadgets 360

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Makers of the CoWatch Have Been Acquired by Google

Cronologics was founded in 2014 by Lan Rcohe, Leor Stern, and John Lagerling. All three of these people had previously worked at Google in business development, but then decided to leave the company. They formed this new company and for the past two years have been working on a way to build "compelling wearable hardware". Then, in April of this year their team launched an Indiegogo campaign for their first product.

The wearable was dubbed the CoWatch, and its main selling point was its integration with Amazon Alexa. It was marketed as the "world's first Amazon Alexa-enabled smart watch", with the campaign being funded on June 3rd. The team was able to crowdfund over $293,000; overshooting their goal by 281%. The team did see an official product launch too, when they started selling it on Amazon in September for $280.

This week, it's been confirmed that the Cronologics team has been acquired by Google. While the details of the acquisition have yet to be revealed, we're told that the folks at Cronologics will now be working at Google's Android Wear division. Google has had to delay the launch of Android Wear 2.0 so this injection of new talent might be enough to get the project back on track. We'll just have to wait and see if there ends up being any CoWatch DNA found in Android Wear 2.0 and beyond.

The team at Cronologics had said they wanted to bring its CoWatch technology to other devices (like iOS). But it seems clear that the CoWatch era is over and plans to do anything with it are likely scrapped. The team had the backing of some major investors though, including CoinDesk, Student.com, Shakil Khan and the head of Spotify's special projects. So bringing this team back under the Google umbrella can do wonders for Android Wear's future given their potential.

Source: Cronologics

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CyanogenMod 14.1 Joins OnePlus 3T’s ROM Roster as Development Picks Up

The development scene on the OnePlus 3T is picking up, even for a device that has its predecessor as a partial competition in past sales. Due to the very nature of open source that promotes collaboration, and OnePlus's decision to release the kernel sources and the device tree of the OnePlus 3T, the device is on track to compete with its predecessor in the third party scene as well. The most surprising aspect is that all of these works have popped up in a matter of few days!

In addition to our previous story of the OnePlus 3T getting Sultanxda's custom CyanogenMod 13 builds, the device is seeing substantial developer interest for a phone that is barely a month old and just about getting into the hands of the consumers. Just a few hours ago, the device reached another community development milestone when it received its first public release of (unofficial) CyanogenMod 14.1 based on Android 7.1.1, courtesy of XDA Senior Member PeterCxy. For a first build, the ROM is pretty impressive as it shares several resources from OnePlus 3's CyanogenMod 14.1 builds, thereby having identical bugs (read: nothing major as the ROM works well, just some stability issues with the new OS).

But that is not all. In addition to the ROMs, custom kernel releases are also making their way to the device. XDA Recognized Developer franciscofranco also brought his famous franco.Kernel project to the OnePlus 3T. Franco kernel joins the rank with a few other notable kernels like XDA Recognized Contributor eng.stk's Blu Spark kernel and XDA Recognized Developer jcadduono's Kali NetHunter kernel.

There's still more. Here are the rest of the works currently available in our forums:

You can view all of that and more in our OnePlus 3T device forum and development subforum.

What are your thoughts on the OnePlus 3T's development scene? Let us know in the comments below!

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