Latest Action Launcher beta adds support for Android 10 gesture navigation

Google introduced its own take on navigation gestures with Android 10 to replace Android Pie‘s awful two-button navigation system. However, the new navigation gestures had their own set of issues. One of the most annoying things about the gestures was the lack of third-party launcher support. Due to this, users had to rely on the navigation buttons if they wanted to use a third-party launcher on their device. Several launcher developers raised their voice against the shoddy implementation and Google released a fix earlier this year in October. Sadly, the fix only worked on the Pixel 4 series at first. With the Android security patches for December 2019, Google finally rolled out navigation support with third-party launcher for older Pixel devices. Now, the latest beta update for Action Launcher brings native Android 10 gesture navigation support to the app.

Action Launcher’s Chris Lacy recently took to Twitter to announce the rollout of Action Launcher public beta v45 which comes with support for Android 10’s gesture navigation, live wallpaper support in Quicktheme, and more.

The first public beta of Action Launcher v45 with Android 10 gesture navigation support () is rolling out to the beta group.

Do let me know how you go with it (DMs open)!

APK: https://t.co/bZszfjpigY
Join beta: https://t.co/bLcmDkKSiW

— Chris Lacy (@chrismlacy) December 18, 2019

Our Editor-in-Chief Mishaal Rahman reached out to Lacy regarding the latest beta release. When asked about what it took to get Action Launcher to work properly with gesture navigation, Lacy said, “Frankly, a fair bit of effort. Supporting Android 10’s gesture exclusion zones was relatively straightforward. The main problem was related to the way Action Launcher behaves after a settings change. Like all launchers, Action Launcher just ‘kills and restarts itself’. Turns out, depending on the Intent flags passed in when an app kills and restarts, you can get the Android 10 SystemUI to a point where it will simply fail to recognize gestures. Identifying this and working around it took time.” Interestingly this bug where gestures stop working even happens with the stock launcher in Android 10. You can replicate it by changing the locale in your device Settings.

Lacy further added that he also had to do “some work cleaning up gestures that had been assigned to the Home button (for example, Action Launcher allowed users to assign a trigger/shortcut when double-tapping the legacy home button).” If you’re interested in checking out the latest update for yourself, you can enroll in the beta by following this link. You can also download the public beta APK from the link below to try it out on your device. Along with the gesture navigation support, the latest beta update brings a couple of other new features to the app. Here’s the official changelog for Action Launcher v45.0-beta3:

• NEW: Android 10 gesture navigation compatibility.
• NEW: Quicktheme supports live wallpapers (requires Android 7.1 or later).
• NEW: Startpage search engine support.
• NEW: Add Action Launcher 2020 Supporter Badge. Bonus goodies this year include 5 traffic wallpapers.
• FIX: Bug where Quicktheme colors would cease working after a time when using Muzei.
• FIX: Fix ActionDash notification icon displaying on Quickbar.

Download Action Launcher v45.0-beta3

The post Latest Action Launcher beta adds support for Android 10 gesture navigation appeared first on xda-developers.

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Latest Action Launcher beta adds support for Android 10 gesture navigation

Google introduced its own take on navigation gestures with Android 10 to replace Android Pie‘s awful two-button navigation system. However, the new navigation gestures had their own set of issues. One of the most annoying things about the gestures was the lack of third-party launcher support. Due to this, users had to rely on the navigation buttons if they wanted to use a third-party launcher on their device. Several launcher developers raised their voice against the shoddy implementation and Google released a fix earlier this year in October. Sadly, the fix only worked on the Pixel 4 series at first. With the Android security patches for December 2019, Google finally rolled out navigation support with third-party launcher for older Pixel devices. Now, the latest beta update for Action Launcher brings native Android 10 gesture navigation support to the app.

Action Launcher’s Chris Lacy recently took to Twitter to announce the rollout of Action Launcher public beta v45 which comes with support for Android 10’s gesture navigation, live wallpaper support in Quicktheme, and more.

The first public beta of Action Launcher v45 with Android 10 gesture navigation support () is rolling out to the beta group.

Do let me know how you go with it (DMs open)!

APK: https://t.co/bZszfjpigY
Join beta: https://t.co/bLcmDkKSiW

— Chris Lacy (@chrismlacy) December 18, 2019

Our Editor-in-Chief Mishaal Rahman reached out to Lacy regarding the latest beta release. When asked about what it took to get Action Launcher to work properly with gesture navigation, Lacy said, “Frankly, a fair bit of effort. Supporting Android 10’s gesture exclusion zones was relatively straightforward. The main problem was related to the way Action Launcher behaves after a settings change. Like all launchers, Action Launcher just ‘kills and restarts itself’. Turns out, depending on the Intent flags passed in when an app kills and restarts, you can get the Android 10 SystemUI to a point where it will simply fail to recognize gestures. Identifying this and working around it took time.” Interestingly this bug where gestures stop working even happens with the stock launcher in Android 10. You can replicate it by changing the locale in your device Settings.

Lacy further added that he also had to do “some work cleaning up gestures that had been assigned to the Home button (for example, Action Launcher allowed users to assign a trigger/shortcut when double-tapping the legacy home button).” If you’re interested in checking out the latest update for yourself, you can enroll in the beta by following this link. You can also download the public beta APK from the link below to try it out on your device. Along with the gesture navigation support, the latest beta update brings a couple of other new features to the app. Here’s the official changelog for Action Launcher v45.0-beta3:

• NEW: Android 10 gesture navigation compatibility.
• NEW: Quicktheme supports live wallpapers (requires Android 7.1 or later).
• NEW: Startpage search engine support.
• NEW: Add Action Launcher 2020 Supporter Badge. Bonus goodies this year include 5 traffic wallpapers.
• FIX: Bug where Quicktheme colors would cease working after a time when using Muzei.
• FIX: Fix ActionDash notification icon displaying on Quickbar.

Download Action Launcher v45.0-beta3

The post Latest Action Launcher beta adds support for Android 10 gesture navigation appeared first on xda-developers.

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OnePlus 7/7 Pro get OxygenOS 10.3.0 with notch hiding and improvements to RAM management and app launch speed

OnePlus runs three different channels for OxygenOS updates: closed beta, open beta, and MP/official stable builds. The OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro just received new treats in the Open Beta channel with the rollout of Open Beta 7, which brings over a new, optimized charging feature, and a Chromatic reading mode. Users in the stable branch are also getting some new goodies in the form of OxygenOS 10.3.0, bringing over notch hiding options for the OnePlus 7 (which has a notch), optimizations to RAM management, a bump up in security patch to November 2019, and camera improvements.

OnePlus 7 XDA Forums || Buy OnePlus 7 from Amazon.in

OnePlus 7 Pro XDA Forums || Buy OnePlus 7 Pro from Amazon.in

Changelog for OxygenOS 10.3.0 for the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro are as follows:

• System:
  • Added the notch area display option in the Settings (Settings – Display – Notch display – Hide the notch area)
  • Improved the launching speed of some apps
  • Optimized the RAM management
  • Optimized the black and white screen issues with some apps
  • Improved system stability and general bug fixes
  • Updated Android security patch to 2019.11
• Camera:
  • Improved the image quality

Readers might notice that OnePlus has jumped up a bit in its versioning, as the last stable update to the device pair was OxygenOS 10.0.3. The last update to the OnePlus 7T and OnePlus 7T Pro, on the other hand, was OxygenOS 10.0.7 and 10.0.5 respectively, which was then numbered 10.3.0 for users in India. OxygenOS 10.3.0 also began its rollout for the OnePlus 6 and OnePlus 6T. So this jump up in number is not unusual, but irregular nonetheless. Users outside of India might receive the same update under a different number.

Download: OxygenOS 10.3.0 for the OnePlus 7/7Pro

OnePlus 7

Download Incremental OTA: OxygenOS 10.0.3 to OxygenOS 10.3.0

We’ll update the article with other download links as we soon as we get out hands on them.

---

Thanks to XDA Senior Member Some_Random_Username from the Oxygen Updater team for the download links!

The post OnePlus 7/7 Pro get OxygenOS 10.3.0 with notch hiding and improvements to RAM management and app launch speed appeared first on xda-developers.

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Google talks possible 120Hz refresh rate on Pixel 3, High Brightness Mode, Pixel 4 haptics, and more

The latest episode of the Android Developers Backstage podcast was released recently. This time around it featured Michael Wright from the Android Framework Team, Chet Haase from the Android Developer Relations team, and Romain Guy from the Android Toolkit team. In this episode, the developers focused on a couple of interesting topics, including the possibility of a 120Hz display on the Google Pixel 3, high brightness mode, Pixel 4 haptics, and more. Here’s a rundown of all the key issues the tackled in episode 129:

Google Pixel 3 with High Refresh Rate Display?

With the launch of the Pixel 4, Google jumped onto the high refresh rate display bandwagon and packed in a 90Hz display on both the devices. But did you know that Google contemplated including a 120Hz refresh rate display on the Pixel 3? According to Wright from the Android Framework team, the smaller Pixel 3 wasn’t supposed to get an OLED display for various reasons, which is why Google considered using a Sharp 120Hz display on the device. Wright said, “So it was like ‘well, if we don’t have OLED, what do we do?’ and so one of of the considerations was ‘well maybe we do a 120Hz LCD.'” Sadly, Wright didn’t reveal why the company finally chose a P-OLED panel over the 120Hz LCD.

What did Google do to make high refresh rate applicable to the whole ecosystem?

In the episode, the developers also shed some light on how Google managed to make high refresh rate applicable to the Android ecosystem as a whole. The company introduced a dynamic refresh rate switching feature in Android 10 to automatically switch between 90 and 60Hz for power saving. The company acknowledges problems in earlier builds (likely referring to the brightness fiasco) but says that they’re now in a much better place.

Touch Sampling

One of Wright’s big issues with the Pixel 4 is that it uses 120Hz touch sampling. The company agreed to use 120Hz because switching between 120Hz and 180 Hz touch sampling was challenging and had a big power cost. Wright suspects that this will change in the future as the company figures out how to get the power cost down and handle that much more input. 90Hz refresh rate and 120Hz touch sampling aren’t an ideal combination because the 120Hz touch sampling means that an input comes in every other frame.

To deal with this issue, Google used resampling which was introduced with Project Butter in Android 4.1 to interpolate/predict touch events. Google is also investigating a new technique called late-latching, in which they will resample events at the last possible moment right before rendering. This new technique is expected to improve the experience during scrolling lists.

Brightness

During the podcast, the developers also revealed that Google considered adjusting the brightness based on applications in Android 10. The reasoning was that since most people turn up the brightness for photos and videos it would make sense for Android to do this automatically. As it turns out, that was a really bad idea because people hated this loss of control. Therefore, it wasn’t implemented.

However, having higher brightness is important for viewing HDR content, so Google uses High Brightness Mode (HBM) only for HDR content. On the Pixel series, HBM bumps up the brightness to ~600-700 nits depending on the panel. Wright added that you need about 700 nits to be sunlight-readable in all cases, but the Pixel does not use HBM in sunlight. The reason HBM is not in use outside of HDR video is primarily because of burn-in concerns rather than power.

Pixel 4 Haptics

Finally, the podcast shifts focus to the haptics on the Pixel 4 series. In case you own a Pixel 4, you might have noticed that the devices vibrate smoothly with audio from ringtones and alarms. In previous versions of the Pixel series, Google had to create a haptic config for each ringtone and alarm sound to achieve this effect, but this changed with the Pixel 4.

With the Pixel 4, Google introduced audio-coupled haptic feedback. Now there is a channel in the audio container that is actually a haptic signal because the haptic signal looks like a really low-frequency audio signal. However, this is only available with pre-included ringtones and alarms. The devices have no on-the-fly coupling for third-party ringtones and alarms. There’s no documentation for third-party developers to do this on their own audio yet since audio-coupled haptic feedback isn’t available on all devices.

You can listen to the entire episode on Google Podcasts by following this link.

---

Thanks to XDA contributor Dylan Raga for help in putting this recap together!

The post Google talks possible 120Hz refresh rate on Pixel 3, High Brightness Mode, Pixel 4 haptics, and more appeared first on xda-developers.

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OnePlus 7/7 Pro get OxygenOS 10.3.0 with notch hiding and improvements to RAM management and app launch speed

OnePlus runs three different channels for OxygenOS updates: closed beta, open beta, and MP/official stable builds. The OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro just received new treats in the Open Beta channel with the rollout of Open Beta 7, which brings over a new, optimized charging feature, and a Chromatic reading mode. Users in the stable branch are also getting some new goodies in the form of OxygenOS 10.3.0, bringing over notch hiding options for the OnePlus 7 (which has a notch), optimizations to RAM management, a bump up in security patch to November 2019, and camera improvements.

OnePlus 7 XDA Forums || Buy OnePlus 7 from Amazon.in

OnePlus 7 Pro XDA Forums || Buy OnePlus 7 Pro from Amazon.in

Changelog for OxygenOS 10.3.0 for the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro are as follows:

• System:
  • Added the notch area display option in the Settings (Settings – Display – Notch display – Hide the notch area)
  • Improved the launching speed of some apps
  • Optimized the RAM management
  • Optimized the black and white screen issues with some apps
  • Improved system stability and general bug fixes
  • Updated Android security patch to 2019.11
• Camera:
  • Improved the image quality

Readers might notice that OnePlus has jumped up a bit in its versioning, as the last stable update to the device pair was OxygenOS 10.0.3. The last update to the OnePlus 7T and OnePlus 7T Pro, on the other hand, was OxygenOS 10.0.7 and 10.0.5 respectively, which was then numbered 10.3.0 for users in India. OxygenOS 10.3.0 also began its rollout for the OnePlus 6 and OnePlus 6T. So this jump up in number is not unusual, but irregular nonetheless. Users outside of India might receive the same update under a different number.

Download: OxygenOS 10.3.0 for the OnePlus 7/7Pro

OnePlus 7

Download Incremental OTA: OxygenOS 10.0.3 to OxygenOS 10.3.0

We’ll update the article with other download links as we soon as we get out hands on them.

---

Thanks to XDA Senior Member Some_Random_Username from the Oxygen Updater team for the download links!

The post OnePlus 7/7 Pro get OxygenOS 10.3.0 with notch hiding and improvements to RAM management and app launch speed appeared first on xda-developers.

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Google talks possible 120Hz refresh rate on Pixel 3, High Brightness Mode, Pixel 4 haptics, and more

The latest episode of the Android Developers Backstage podcast was released recently. This time around it featured Michael Wright from the Android Framework Team, Chet Haase from the Android Developer Relations team, and Romain Guy from the Android Toolkit team. In this episode, the developers focused on a couple of interesting topics, including the possibility of a 120Hz display on the Google Pixel 3, high brightness mode, Pixel 4 haptics, and more. Here’s a rundown of all the key issues the tackled in episode 129:

Google Pixel 3 with High Refresh Rate Display?

With the launch of the Pixel 4, Google jumped onto the high refresh rate display bandwagon and packed in a 90Hz display on both the devices. But did you know that Google contemplated including a 120Hz refresh rate display on the Pixel 3? According to Wright from the Android Framework team, the smaller Pixel 3 wasn’t supposed to get an OLED display for various reasons, which is why Google considered using a Sharp 120Hz display on the device. Wright said, “So it was like ‘well, if we don’t have OLED, what do we do?’ and so one of of the considerations was ‘well maybe we do a 120Hz LCD.'” Sadly, Wright didn’t reveal why the company finally chose a P-OLED panel over the 120Hz LCD.

What did Google do to make high refresh rate applicable to the whole ecosystem?

In the episode, the developers also shed some light on how Google managed to make high refresh rate applicable to the Android ecosystem as a whole. The company introduced a dynamic refresh rate switching feature in Android 10 to automatically switch between 90 and 60Hz for power saving. The company acknowledges problems in earlier builds (likely referring to the brightness fiasco) but says that they’re now in a much better place.

Touch Sampling

One of Wright’s big issues with the Pixel 4 is that it uses 120Hz touch sampling. The company agreed to use 120Hz because switching between 120Hz and 180 Hz touch sampling was challenging and had a big power cost. Wright suspects that this will change in the future as the company figures out how to get the power cost down and handle that much more input. 90Hz refresh rate and 120Hz touch sampling aren’t an ideal combination because the 120Hz touch sampling means that an input comes in every other frame.

To deal with this issue, Google used resampling which was introduced with Project Butter in Android 4.1 to interpolate/predict touch events. Google is also investigating a new technique called late-latching, in which they will resample events at the last possible moment right before rendering. This new technique is expected to improve the experience during scrolling lists.

Brightness

During the podcast, the developers also revealed that Google considered adjusting the brightness based on applications in Android 10. The reasoning was that since most people turn up the brightness for photos and videos it would make sense for Android to do this automatically. As it turns out, that was a really bad idea because people hated this loss of control. Therefore, it wasn’t implemented.

However, having higher brightness is important for viewing HDR content, so Google uses High Brightness Mode (HBM) only for HDR content. On the Pixel series, HBM bumps up the brightness to ~600-700 nits depending on the panel. Wright added that you need about 700 nits to be sunlight-readable in all cases, but the Pixel does not use HBM in sunlight. The reason HBM is not in use outside of HDR video is primarily because of burn-in concerns rather than power.

Pixel 4 Haptics

Finally, the podcast shifts focus to the haptics on the Pixel 4 series. In case you own a Pixel 4, you might have noticed that the devices vibrate smoothly with audio from ringtones and alarms. In previous versions of the Pixel series, Google had to create a haptic config for each ringtone and alarm sound to achieve this effect, but this changed with the Pixel 4.

With the Pixel 4, Google introduced audio-coupled haptic feedback. Now there is a channel in the audio container that is actually a haptic signal because the haptic signal looks like a really low-frequency audio signal. However, this is only available with pre-included ringtones and alarms. The devices have no on-the-fly coupling for third-party ringtones and alarms. There’s no documentation for third-party developers to do this on their own audio yet since audio-coupled haptic feedback isn’t available on all devices.

You can listen to the entire episode on Google Podcasts by following this link.

---

Thanks to XDA contributor Dylan Raga for help in putting this recap together!

The post Google talks possible 120Hz refresh rate on Pixel 3, High Brightness Mode, Pixel 4 haptics, and more appeared first on xda-developers.

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OxygenOS Open Beta 7 for the OnePlus 7 series brings new optimized charging and Chromatic reading mode

OnePlus runs three streams of software for its devices: Closed Beta, Open Beta, and the MP/official stable builds. As the name implies, the closed beta builds are available to only a closed group of testers, while the Open Beta extends pre-release software to a wider audience. This allows the OnePlus team to iron out any bugs and test out features with a wider audience, before rolling out changes to the stable release channel. After Open Beta 6, OnePlus is now rolling out OxygenOS Open Beta 7 for the OnePlus 7 series, bring over some new optimizations to charging, and changes to the reading mode.

Changelog for OxygenOS Open Beta 7 for OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro is as follows:

• System:
  • Added an optimized charging feature to improve battery performance based on usage (Settings – Battery – Optimized charging)
  • Optimized the RAM management
  • Fixed the issue with auto-record toast messages in the contact app
  • Fixed the wrong time format in the status bar
  • Improved system stability and general bug fixes
• Reading mode:
  • Added the Chromatic effect option to adapt color range and saturation intelligently for a better reading experience (Settings – Display – Reading mode – Turn on reading mode – Chromatic effect)

The update should be rolling out as an OTA in the next few days to users who are already running Open Beta 6 on the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro.

Download: OxygenOS Open Beta 7 for the OnePlus 7 /7 Pro

If you can’t wait, you can sideload the update using the links given below.

OnePlus 7

Download Incremental OTA: Open Beta 6 to Open Beta 7

OnePlus 7 XDA Forums || Buy OnePlus 7 from Amazon.in

OnePlus 7 Pro

Download Incremental OTA: Open Beta 6 to Open Beta 7

Download OxygenOS Open Beta 7: Full OTA zip

OnePlus 7 Pro XDA Forums || Buy OnePlus 7 Pro from Amazon.in

---

Thanks to XDA Senior Member Some_Random_Username from the Oxygen Updater team for the download links!

The post OxygenOS Open Beta 7 for the OnePlus 7 series brings new optimized charging and Chromatic reading mode appeared first on xda-developers.

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