[Update: Rolling Out] Google tests Scheduling and Taking a Break from Focus Mode in Digital Wellbeing

Update (11/4/19 @ 11:10 AM ET): As discovered last week, Digital Wellbeing is getting schedules for Focus Mode and it’s rolling out now.

Back at Google I/O earlier this year, Google unveiled new features for Digital Wellbeing, the company’s digital wellness tool that’s now required on all Android devices. The most notable of the two features is Focus Mode, a toggle that blocks access to selected apps to eliminate distractions. In its current implementation, Focus Mode is fairly basic as it can only be manually toggled from within Digital Wellbeing or from a Quick Settings tile. However, we’ve enabled two new enhancements to Focus Mode in the latest Digital Wellbeing beta that should make it more useful.

An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by the developers in a future build.

Scheduling

As we spotted late last month, Google is working on a scheduling feature for Focus Mode. Once this feature goes live, you’ll be able to choose a start and end time as well as the days of the week during which you want Digital Wellbeing to automatically enable Focus Mode. About a minute before entering Focus Mode, Digital Wellbeing will post a notification asking if you’re “ready to focus.” You can either wait a minute to let Focus Mode automatically start, or you can tap on the “wait” action to postpone Focus Mode for 10 minutes. Once Focus Mode starts, the notification text updates to tell you when it’ll automatically turn off. The Focus Mode Quick Setting tile also shows scheduling information in the subtext.

Taking a break

If you noticed in the last screenshot above, there’s a new “Take a Break” action in the Focus Mode notification. This feature, as we previously covered, was first spotted by Jane Manchun Wong through her analysis of Digital Wellbeing. The “take a break” action lets you take a 5, 15, or 30 minute-long break from Focus Mode. There’s not much of a point in taking a break when manually toggling Focus Mode, but it may come in handy when you’ve set up a schedule that you generally want to stick with but simply can’t at the moment.

Neither feature is currently live in Digital Wellbeing on any of the other devices that I have. Since these features are fully implemented, it shouldn’t take long for them to rollout. We’ll let you know when that happens.

Thanks to PNF Software for providing us a license to use JEB Decompiler, a professional-grade reverse engineering tool for Android applications.

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Update: Rolling Out

As we discovered in the APK teardown last week, Digital Wellbeing is getting new schedules for Focus Mode. You can schedule Focus Mode to be enabled at certain times. And because sometimes you’ll need to get through Focus Mode for a brief moment, you can “Take a break” (temporarily disable Focus Mode) for 5, 15, or 30 minutes. This can be done from within Digital Wellbeing or the notification shade.

Google is positioning Focus Mode as a way to block distractions to focus on a task, but this mode can also be used as an app blocker. There are 3rd-party apps in the Play Store that allow you to block apps during specific times of the day. For example, maybe you want to block social media apps on the weekend so you don’t use your phone as much. Focus Mode’s schedules make that possible on the system level.

Join the beta for Digital Wellbeing to get these features, or download version 1.02752 from APK Mirror.

Digital Wellbeing (Free, Google Play) →

Via: Android Police

The post [Update: Rolling Out] Google tests Scheduling and Taking a Break from Focus Mode in Digital Wellbeing appeared first on xda-developers.

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[Update: Rolling Out] Google tests Scheduling and Taking a Break from Focus Mode in Digital Wellbeing

Update (11/4/19 @ 11:10 AM ET): As discovered last week, Digital Wellbeing is getting schedules for Focus Mode and it’s rolling out now.

Back at Google I/O earlier this year, Google unveiled new features for Digital Wellbeing, the company’s digital wellness tool that’s now required on all Android devices. The most notable of the two features is Focus Mode, a toggle that blocks access to selected apps to eliminate distractions. In its current implementation, Focus Mode is fairly basic as it can only be manually toggled from within Digital Wellbeing or from a Quick Settings tile. However, we’ve enabled two new enhancements to Focus Mode in the latest Digital Wellbeing beta that should make it more useful.

An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by the developers in a future build.

Scheduling

As we spotted late last month, Google is working on a scheduling feature for Focus Mode. Once this feature goes live, you’ll be able to choose a start and end time as well as the days of the week during which you want Digital Wellbeing to automatically enable Focus Mode. About a minute before entering Focus Mode, Digital Wellbeing will post a notification asking if you’re “ready to focus.” You can either wait a minute to let Focus Mode automatically start, or you can tap on the “wait” action to postpone Focus Mode for 10 minutes. Once Focus Mode starts, the notification text updates to tell you when it’ll automatically turn off. The Focus Mode Quick Setting tile also shows scheduling information in the subtext.

Taking a break

If you noticed in the last screenshot above, there’s a new “Take a Break” action in the Focus Mode notification. This feature, as we previously covered, was first spotted by Jane Manchun Wong through her analysis of Digital Wellbeing. The “take a break” action lets you take a 5, 15, or 30 minute-long break from Focus Mode. There’s not much of a point in taking a break when manually toggling Focus Mode, but it may come in handy when you’ve set up a schedule that you generally want to stick with but simply can’t at the moment.

Neither feature is currently live in Digital Wellbeing on any of the other devices that I have. Since these features are fully implemented, it shouldn’t take long for them to rollout. We’ll let you know when that happens.

Thanks to PNF Software for providing us a license to use JEB Decompiler, a professional-grade reverse engineering tool for Android applications.

---

Update: Rolling Out

As we discovered in the APK teardown last week, Digital Wellbeing is getting new schedules for Focus Mode. You can schedule Focus Mode to be enabled at certain times. And because sometimes you’ll need to get through Focus Mode for a brief moment, you can “Take a break” (temporarily disable Focus Mode) for 5, 15, or 30 minutes. This can be done from within Digital Wellbeing or the notification shade.

Google is positioning Focus Mode as a way to block distractions to focus on a task, but this mode can also be used as an app blocker. There are 3rd-party apps in the Play Store that allow you to block apps during specific times of the day. For example, maybe you want to block social media apps on the weekend so you don’t use your phone as much. Focus Mode’s schedules make that possible on the system level.

Join the beta for Digital Wellbeing to get these features, or download version 1.02752 from APK Mirror.

Digital Wellbeing (Free, Google Play) →

Via: Android Police

The post [Update: Rolling Out] Google tests Scheduling and Taking a Break from Focus Mode in Digital Wellbeing appeared first on xda-developers.

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Master Cloud Virtualization With This $20 VMware Training Bundle

Many companies over a certain size need to run apps on multiple operating systems. This would normally require multiple servers, each working at a fraction of full capacity. Virtualization provides a neat alternative, placing apps in separate containers on the same server. VMware is the leading virtualization solution, and the Ultimate VMware Mastery Bundle helps you learn the platform with 26 hours of video training. You can pick up the bundle now for $19.99 via the XDA Developers Depot.

With each passing year, cloud computing is becoming more popular. Virtualization is an important part of this forward progress, allowing companies of all sizes to run custom cloud architectures. If you want to climb the IT career ladder, it’s a good idea to learn the technology.

This bundle provides an in-depth guide to virtualization and VMware, with four highly-rated courses. The training takes you through the basic concepts before diving into VMware, virtual machines, and other important topics.

Along the way, you discover how to install VMware vCenter (the server management hub) and administrator vSphere setups (flexible virtualization software). These skills are invaluable for any aspiring engineer.

The courses are worth $399, but you can grab them now for just $19.99 with lifetime access and a certificate of completion included.

 

The Ultimate VMware Mastery Bundle – $19.99

See Deal

The post Master Cloud Virtualization With This $20 VMware Training Bundle appeared first on xda-developers.

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Master Cloud Virtualization With This $20 VMware Training Bundle

Many companies over a certain size need to run apps on multiple operating systems. This would normally require multiple servers, each working at a fraction of full capacity. Virtualization provides a neat alternative, placing apps in separate containers on the same server. VMware is the leading virtualization solution, and the Ultimate VMware Mastery Bundle helps you learn the platform with 26 hours of video training. You can pick up the bundle now for $19.99 via the XDA Developers Depot.

With each passing year, cloud computing is becoming more popular. Virtualization is an important part of this forward progress, allowing companies of all sizes to run custom cloud architectures. If you want to climb the IT career ladder, it’s a good idea to learn the technology.

This bundle provides an in-depth guide to virtualization and VMware, with four highly-rated courses. The training takes you through the basic concepts before diving into VMware, virtual machines, and other important topics.

Along the way, you discover how to install VMware vCenter (the server management hub) and administrator vSphere setups (flexible virtualization software). These skills are invaluable for any aspiring engineer.

The courses are worth $399, but you can grab them now for just $19.99 with lifetime access and a certificate of completion included.

 

The Ultimate VMware Mastery Bundle – $19.99

See Deal

The post Master Cloud Virtualization With This $20 VMware Training Bundle appeared first on xda-developers.

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Samsung is reportedly ending its ‘Mongoose’ custom CPU designs

Samsung chooses to use its own Exynos SoC in its flagships for the international market, while the same flagships use a Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC in select markets like the USA. Within Exynos, Samsung has utilized custom Mongoose cores since 2016, starting with the Samsung Galaxy S7. A new report from Statesman suggests that Samsung is looking to lay off 290 employees, effectively shutting down its custom CPU department and indicating the end of its Mongoose custom cores.

Samsung has filed a WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) letter with the Texas Workforce Commission, announcing its intent to lay off 290 employees and shut down the CPU project at the Samsung Austin Research Center, its Texas R&D facility. This WARN letter also includes the Advanced Computer Lab division in San Jose, California, though it is unclear how many layoffs are expected in Texas and how many in California.

Samsung issued the following statement to Android Authority:

Based upon a thorough assessment of our System LSI (large scale integration) business and the need to stay competitive in the global market, Samsung has decided to transition part of our U.S.-based R&D teams in Austin and San Jose.

The report from Statesman mentions that there will be no impact on the Samsung Austin Semiconductor manufacturing facility, which employs around 3,000 people.

Analysts suggest that Samsung will now license CPU core design from ARM and not just the IP. This means that the company is retiring only the custom Mongoose cores and not the entire Exynos SoC, and will instead adopt the ARM’s CPU cores or use them to create semi-custom versions, as Qualcomm does. This development will be good news to those who wished to achieve better performance and efficiency with the Exynos SoC as against their Snapdragon counterparts, and we can finally expect to see comparable performance on the same phone that gets sold in different regions.

---

Source: Statesman
With additional inputs: Android Authority

The post Samsung is reportedly ending its ‘Mongoose’ custom CPU designs appeared first on xda-developers.

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Samsung is reportedly ending its ‘Mongoose’ custom CPU designs

Samsung chooses to use its own Exynos SoC in its flagships for the international market, while the same flagships use a Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC in select markets like the USA. Within Exynos, Samsung has utilized custom Mongoose cores since 2016, starting with the Samsung Galaxy S7. A new report from Statesman suggests that Samsung is looking to lay off 290 employees, effectively shutting down its custom CPU department and indicating the end of its Mongoose custom cores.

Samsung has filed a WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) letter with the Texas Workforce Commission, announcing its intent to lay off 290 employees and shut down the CPU project at the Samsung Austin Research Center, its Texas R&D facility. This WARN letter also includes the Advanced Computer Lab division in San Jose, California, though it is unclear how many layoffs are expected in Texas and how many in California.

Samsung issued the following statement to Android Authority:

Based upon a thorough assessment of our System LSI (large scale integration) business and the need to stay competitive in the global market, Samsung has decided to transition part of our U.S.-based R&D teams in Austin and San Jose.

The report from Statesman mentions that there will be no impact on the Samsung Austin Semiconductor manufacturing facility, which employs around 3,000 people.

Analysts suggest that Samsung will now license CPU core design from ARM and not just the IP. This means that the company is retiring only the custom Mongoose cores and not the entire Exynos SoC, and will instead adopt the ARM’s CPU cores or use them to create semi-custom versions, as Qualcomm does. This development will be good news to those who wished to achieve better performance and efficiency with the Exynos SoC as against their Snapdragon counterparts, and we can finally expect to see comparable performance on the same phone that gets sold in different regions.

---

Source: Statesman
With additional inputs: Android Authority

The post Samsung is reportedly ending its ‘Mongoose’ custom CPU designs appeared first on xda-developers.

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Google Home 2.15 rolls out with new UI and features announced at ‘Made by Google 2019’

The Google Pixel 4 and the Google Pixel 4 XL were the highlights of the Made by Google 2019 event, but they weren’t the only releases. Google also took the opportunity to release the Google Pixelbook Go, the Google Nest Mini, the Google Nest WiFi, and the new Google Pixel Buds. On the software side for its ecosystem products, Google also teased a new UI for the Google Home app, giving it a cleaner and simpler look, as well as showing off a new Home Feed that will show a recap of the events from your Nest devices. This new UI and new features are finally rolling out with Google Home v2.15.

The latest update to Google Home, in the form of v2.15, cleans up the landing interface by getting rid of the “Add” button and using new icons for the others. The tabs on the bottom now point to Home and Discover, as the account switcher has been shifted to the top right, complete with the swipe down gesture for quicker switching. The Discover cards also come with different color backgrounds instead of the simple white backgrounds in earlier versions. The Home App’s Settings now come with two additions, Notification Settings, and Home History.

In addition to this, some users have the Play button on the Google Home landing screen replaced with a Media button, as reported by AndroidPolice. If you do get the Media button, you also get the new Cast UI with large album art and media controls, as was leaked earlier. The above image gallery showcases the older Cast UI still being present on the new app version, so the rollout for this feature is likely controlled by a server-side switch.

If you would like to try out the new UI, you can wait for the update to reach you through the Google Play Store. The new Google Home APK has not yet made its way to APKMirror yet, but once it does, you can also sideload it easily onto your device.

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Google Home (Free, Google Play) →

With additional inputs: AndroidPolice

The post Google Home 2.15 rolls out with new UI and features announced at ‘Made by Google 2019’ appeared first on xda-developers.

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