XDA

mardi 31 mars 2020

POCO X2 Custom Development Update: Paranoid Android, arter97 kernel, Google Camera port, more

Earlier this year in January, Xiaomi India set up POCO as an independent brand and, shortly thereafter, the newly-formed brand launched the POCO X2 into the market. Since the POCO F1 was quite a big hit among custom ROM enthusiasts and developers alike, POCO sent out a couple of units of the new POCO X2 (review) to custom ROM and kernel developers in order to help kickstart third-party development for the device. Development on our forums has been on high gear ever since and here’s our first custom development roundup for the POCO X2.

POCO X2 XDA Forums

Buy the POCO X2 from Flipkart (starting at ₹15,999)

POCO X2 Custom ROMs

Paranoid Android

The popular Paranoid Android custom ROM is now available in alpha for the POCO X2. The ROM, which is based on Android 10, comes with the arter97 kernel, Magisk, and Open GApps nano preinstalled. It’s packed to the brim with personalization features, however, since it’s still in the early stages of development, there are some major issues. Other than the device-specific issues mentioned in the forum post (linked below), the ROM is quite unstable and often leads to the device becoming unresponsive after it’s left unused for some time. Regardless, it’s great to see such a popular custom ROM already up and running on the POCO X2 so soon.

Paranoid Android Quartz for the POCO X2

Unofficial LineageOS 17.1

Much like Paranoid Android, LineageOS is among the most popular custom ROMs that you can get on any device and fans of the ROM will be glad to know that it’s now available for the POCO X2. You can flash the unofficially build of LineageOS 17.1, based on Android 10, on your POCO X2 by following the instructions in the forum post (linked below). Based on the comments in the post, most of the ROMs features work flawlessly, however, it does have some minor issues. If you’re a fan of the stock Android look, then I would highly recommend taking this custom ROM for a spin.

Unofficial LineageOS 17.1 for the POCO X2

Pixel Experience ROM

If you’re a stock Android enthusiast and want to experience vanilla Android just like on Google’s own Pixel devices, then you should definitely check out the Pixel Experience ROM on your POCO X2. The ROM, which is based on Android 10, comes with all Google apps and Pixel goodies, like the launcher, wallpapers, icons, font, and boot animation. Do note that the ROM doesn’t support custom kernels, so make sure you’re using the stock kernel on your device before you go ahead and flash the ROM.

Pixel Experience for the POCO X2

Xiaomi.eu ROM

For those of you who really like MIUI, but wish to get access to a few additional customization options, there’s the Xiaomi.eu ROM. Based on MIUI 11, the custom ROM has been localized for the European markets and does away with the bloatware and advertisements that are known to plague stock MIUI. If that sounds interesting, then you should head over to the Xiaomi.eu forums linked below and follow the instructions in the comments to get the ROM up and running on your device.

Xiaomi.eu ROM for the POCO X2

POCO X2 Custom Kernels

Arter917 kernel

XDA Recognized Developer arter97, who was among the list of developers to receive a POCO X2 from the company, has now released his custom kernel for the device. The kernel brings several improvements to the POCO X2, including better memory management, UFS optimizations, and WireGuard support among other things. To try out the kernel for yourself, you can follow the instruction in the forum post linked below, but make sure you install it on a supported custom ROM or you may face some unwanted issues.

arter97 kernel for the POCO X2

Optimus Drunk kernel

Along with arter97, the POCO X2 was also sent out to XDA Recognized Developer GtrCraft who has now released the Optimus Drunk kernel for the device. The kernel is compatible with MIUI and includes improvements like WireGuard support, Wakelock blocker, Westwood TCP and more. Try out the kernel on your POCO X2 by following the instructions in the forum post linked below.

Optimus Drunk kernel for the POCO X2

POCO X2 Mods

Google Camera Port

Fans of the Google Camera mod will be glad to know that a port is now available for the POCO X2. The port, which is based on Google Camera v7.3.020, reportedly works quite well with little to no issues. As per the forum post (linked below), you’ll be able to enjoy all Google Camera features on your POCO X2 using this port, however, you might encounter some issues while recording slow-motion video.

Google Camera Port for the POCO X2

Unofficial TWRP

If you wish to install any of the aforementioned custom ROMs or kernels on your POCO X2, you’ll first need to flash a custom recovery on your device. Thankfully, an unofficial build of the popular TWRP custom recovery is now available for the device and you can flash it by following the instructions in the forum post linked below.

Unofficial TWRP recovery for the POCO X2

Buy the POCO X2 from Flipkart (starting at ₹15,999)

The post POCO X2 Custom Development Update: Paranoid Android, arter97 kernel, Google Camera port, more appeared first on xda-developers.

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POCO X2 Custom Development Update: Paranoid Android, arter97 kernel, Google Camera port, more

POCO X2 XDA Forums

Buy the POCO X2 from Flipkart (starting at ₹15,999)

POCO X2 Custom ROMs

POCO X2 Custom Kernels

Arter917 kernel

arter97 kernel for the POCO X2

Optimus Drunk kernel

Optimus Drunk kernel for the POCO X2

POCO X2 Mods

Google Camera Port

Google Camera Port for the POCO X2

Unofficial TWRP

Unofficial TWRP recovery for the POCO X2

Buy the POCO X2 from Flipkart (starting at ₹15,999)

The post POCO X2 Custom Development Update: Paranoid Android, arter97 kernel, Google Camera port, more appeared first on xda-developers.

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NewPipe lets you watch higher quality YouTube videos in India

Most of us are staying at home due to the Coronavirus pandemic. While it means more work for some and leisure for others, the burden on the internet has increased multi-fold as people seek new ways to keep their spirits high while in quarantine. This anticipation of the burden on the internet has led stakeholders and content providers to throttle the quality, especially of videos, to forestall the internet from collapsing. Following the nationwide lockdown announced in India last week in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, we noticed that YouTube also started restricting the quality of videos on smartphones to 480p in the country irrespective of the nature or quality of the internet connection. If you dislike this forced change, an unofficial and ad-free YouTube client called NewPipe is a great alternative to watch YouTube in the maximum quality supported by your phone.

NewPipe works without the YouTube API or Google framework libraries so you can install it on any Android device, even those without Google Mobile Services. You don’t even need a Google account to use NewPipe – in fact, there is no method to log in. You can simply subscribe to the creators you like within the app and enjoy without any restrictions or ads.

As can be seen in the screenshots above, NewPipe allows playing the same video at 1080p 60fps which has been restricted to 480p on the official YouTube app. Trying with different videos yields the same results. NewPipe supports video playback at up to 4K but the highest available resolution may be limited depending on the resolution to your phone’s display – and that’s 1080p in my case.

Other than using NewPipe, you can also use a VPN to watch YouTube videos in higher quality. But note that doing so will cost you a lot of data, so only use a VPN if it either has a reasonably fair usage limit or unlimited bandwidth.

Features that NewPipe offers include direct import of YouTube subscriptions, picture-in-picture (PiP) video playback, and background playback even when the display is off. Additionally, the video player interface supports swipe gestures for volume, brightness, and double tap for play or pause. You can also import your YouTube subscriptions manually to have the same experience with NewPipe.

The latest version, released recently, also gets Feed Grouping for stacking similar channels in a single folder. It also introduces a new mute button which saves you the effort of lowering the volume step by step.

Download NewPipe from GitHub

The post NewPipe lets you watch higher quality YouTube videos in India appeared first on xda-developers.

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NewPipe lets you watch higher quality YouTube videos in India

Most of us are staying at home due to the Coronavirus pandemic. While it means more work for some and leisure for others, the burden on the internet has increased multi-fold as people seek new ways to keep their spirits high while in quarantine. This anticipation of the burden on the internet has led stakeholders and content providers to throttle the quality, especially videos, to forestall the internet from collapsing. Following the nationwide lockdown announced in India last week in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, we noticed that YouTube also started restricting the quality of videos on smartphones to 480p in the country irrespective of the nature or quality of the internet connection. If you’re not liking that, an unofficial and ad-free YouTube client NewPipe is a great alternative to watch YouTube in the maximum quality supported by your phone.

NewPipe works without the YouTube API or Google framework libraries so you can install it on any Android device even without Google Mobile Services. You don’t even need a Google account to use NewPipe – in fact, there is no method to log in. You can simply subscribe to the creators you like within the app and enjoy without any restrictions or ads.

Download NewPipe from GitHub

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Discord alpha hints at upcoming Pokémon GO collaboration, and surfacing COVID-19 channel

Discord began its journey in 2015 as a chat service that primarily focused on gamers, providing VoIP services to supplement real-time strategies in MOBAs. Over the years, the service has solidified its place as a chat platform, and it has also emerged as a good alternative to IRC. Discord as an app and service allows users to create different servers for a dedicated umbrella topic, and then create different channels within the server for further topic bifurcation. Users can then talk to each other within these channels, and you can keep track of the expected conversation topics within the channel. Discord has been growing in popularity recently, adding in features like displaying game activity to friends, AMOLED dark theme, temporary muting, slash commands, QR Code logins, and more. The latest Discord alpha reveals that the app is working on a collaboration with Pokémon GO, as well as surfacing helpful COVID-19 channels to more users through the Discover feature.

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.

Pokémon GO – Discord Collaboration

Discord v16 alpha 7 is working on a possible collaboration with Pokémon GO, as these strings suggest:

<string name="invite_pokemon_go_announcements_label_long">Get latest announcements for Pokemon GO raids in Los Angeles!</string>
<string name="invite_pokemon_go_announcements_label_short">Get latest announcements</string>
<string name="invite_pokemon_go_friendship_label_long">Make new friends who are also passionate about Pokemon GO in your area!</string>
<string name="invite_pokemon_go_friendship_label_short">Make new friends</string>
<string name="invite_pokemon_go_strategy_label_long">Share tips and strategy so you can train the strongest Pokemon!</string>
<string name="invite_pokemon_go_strategy_label_short">Share tips and strategy</string>

Pokémon GO is working on bringing the ability to explore the virtual map and participate in Raid Battles from your home, in light of the health advisories issued for COVID-19. This proposed change presents an interesting problem for Niantic to tackle. Pokémon GO, so far, has avoided implementing any means of P2P communication within the game (which in our opinion is a good thing if the Ingress COMM experience is any benchmark). Thus, players had to rely on bumping into other players at Raid Battles, and then sharing contact/IM details with each other at their discretion.

With the Raid Battle experience moving from outdoors to indoors, this opportunity to communicate and work with other local players will be lost. 4-star and 5-star Raid Battles need teamwork to complete as they cannot be successfully completed by a single player working alone. If the strings found in Discord’s latest alpha are any indication, Discord is collaborating with Niantic to provide an IM medium outside of the game for players to communicate with each other. The strings suggest that the feature will first see a test in Los Angeles, where Niantic has an office. The Discord server will be local in nature, focusing on Raid Battle coordination primarily.

The thought to collaborate Pokémon GO with Discord is actually very good. Discord has plenty of VoIP features, which can help during short-manning Raid Battles. Users also need not share their personal identities on Discord, as the service uses usernames and numeric identifiers, unlike currently-popular alternatives like WhatsApp. It remains to be seen how Pokémon GO will handle Discord and its servers — whether there will be any integrations within the game, whether Niantic will create location-based regional servers or if users will be able to create regional servers and then submit it to Niantic. Niantic has not confirmed any aspect of this collaboration, but they did hint at something in their announcement post with this statement: “we’re enhancing our in-game virtual social features to enable players to stay in touch when they can’t meet in real life“. The final implementation remains to be seen.

COVID-19 – Server Discovery

The latest alpha also contains these new strings:

<string name="guild_discovery_covid_body">Visit the community-run Coronavirus Discord to talk about COVID-19, and head to [CDC.gov](%1$s) for more information.</string>
<string name="guild_discovery_covid_button">Visit COVID-19 Discord</string>
<string name="guild_discovery_covid_title">Stay safe and informed</string>

These strings indicate that Discord will be making use of the Discover feature to direct users to visit the community-run COVID-19 server, where they can find more information on the topic.

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

The post Discord alpha hints at upcoming Pokémon GO collaboration, and surfacing COVID-19 channel appeared first on xda-developers.

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Discord alpha hints at upcoming Pokémon GO collaboration, and surfacing COVID-19 channel

Pokémon GO – Discord Collaboration

Discord v16 alpha 7 is working on a possible collaboration with Pokémon GO, as these strings suggest:

<string name="invite_pokemon_go_announcements_label_long">Get latest announcements for Pokemon GO raids in Los Angeles!</string>
<string name="invite_pokemon_go_announcements_label_short">Get latest announcements</string>
<string name="invite_pokemon_go_friendship_label_long">Make new friends who are also passionate about Pokemon GO in your area!</string>
<string name="invite_pokemon_go_friendship_label_short">Make new friends</string>
<string name="invite_pokemon_go_strategy_label_long">Share tips and strategy so you can train the strongest Pokemon!</string>
<string name="invite_pokemon_go_strategy_label_short">Share tips and strategy</string>

COVID-19 – Server Discovery

The latest alpha also contains these new strings:

<string name="guild_discovery_covid_body">Visit the community-run Coronavirus Discord to talk about COVID-19, and head to [CDC.gov](%1$s) for more information.</string>
<string name="guild_discovery_covid_button">Visit COVID-19 Discord</string>
<string name="guild_discovery_covid_title">Stay safe and informed</string>

These strings indicate that Discord will be making use of the Discover feature to direct users to visit the community-run COVID-19 server, where they can find more information on the topic.

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

The post Discord alpha hints at upcoming Pokémon GO collaboration, and surfacing COVID-19 channel appeared first on xda-developers.

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Samsung Galaxy S20 has a hidden 96Hz display mode: Here’s how to enable it

Samsung recently unveiled their Galaxy S20 lineup of smartphones. They have all of the bells and whistles you would expect from a Samsung flagship by now, including decently-performing cameras as well as top-of-the-line internals, but they also have one notable key feature, which is a high refresh rate display. The Samsung Galaxy S20 series has a display that supports a maximum resolution of 3200×1440 (WQHD+) and a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. Despite some limitations, such as the fact that the 120Hz mode is limited to an FHD+ resolution (WQHD+ is limited to 60Hz, so you either have one or the other), it was a first and a major milestone for Samsung.

120Hz will clearly make your phone look really smooth, but with one downside: battery life. In display settings, you can choose to make the Galaxy S20 run at 2400×1080 (FHD+) and/or 60Hz: unlike many other smartphones from other manufacturers, there is no midway 90Hz option, leaving 60Hz and 120Hz as your two only options. 120Hz refreshes your display twice as quickly as 60Hz does, taking a toll on your battery life in the process. However, we recently discovered that these aren’t the only modes that the display supports: there are other hidden display modes you can set in the Galaxy S20s.

XDA Forums: Galaxy S20 || Galaxy S20+ || Galaxy S20 Ultra

If you run the shell command “dumpsys display,” you’ll find that the Galaxy S20’s display actually supports the following modes:

[{id=1, width=1440, height=3200, fps=60.000004}, 
{id=2, width=1440, height=3200, fps=48.0}, 
{id=3, width=1080, height=2400, fps=120.00001}, 
{id=4, width=1080, height=2400, fps=96.00001}, 
{id=5, width=1080, height=2400, fps=60.000004}, 
{id=6, width=1080, height=2400, fps=48.0}, 
{id=7, width=720, height=1600, fps=120.00001}, 
{id=8, width=720, height=1600, fps=96.00001}, 
{id=9, width=720, height=1600, fps=60.000004}, 
{id=10, width=720, height=1600, fps=48.0}]

Here, we can see that there are several resolutions and refresh rates that are not accessible to the user: 1600×720 (HD+) resolution, 96fps, and 48fps. Despite the fact that these modes are not toggleable through the phone’s Settings, though, the fact that they show up here means that the phone supports these modes, and as such, we can force the Galaxy S20 to run in one of these modes.

By changing the value of Settings.System.peak_refresh_rate and Settings.System.min_refresh_rate to 48.0 or 96.0, you can set the refresh rate of your Galaxy S20 to one of these hidden values. Setting your phone to 96Hz will give you a slight bump in battery life as your display won’t refresh content as often, while still getting the advantages of having a high refresh rate on your display: it’ll still look considerably smoother than 60Hz. It will still not work with WQHD+, though, as that combination is not listed as one of the supported display modes.

Buy from Amazon.in — Samsung Galaxy: S20 || S20+ || S20 Ultra

To save you the hassle of running shell commands, though, XDA Senior Member sathishtony has put together a simple app that lets you change between 96Hz and 120Hz. The app even adds two Quick Setting tiles to toggle between the refresh rate modes. The app is open source and extremely simple because all it does is change the peak_refresh_rate and min_refresh_rate settings values for you. You can confirm if the change is working by going to testufo.com.

Check out the app on XDA Labs right now!

S20 Refresh Rate Controller (Free, XDA Labs) →

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