XDA

lundi 3 mai 2021

Samsung removes the Galaxy S8 from its security update schedule

While on the one hand, Samsung is doing a great job of rolling out the latest security updates to its newest devices. On the other, the company is removing older phones from its security update bulletin. In February this year, Samsung removed four phones from 2017 from its security updates list — the Galaxy J3 Pop, Galaxy A5 2017, Galaxy A3 2017, and the Galaxy A7 2017. Its flagship phone from 2017, the Galaxy S8, is now getting a similar treatment.

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S8 in March of 2017, featuring Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 or the Exynos 8895 SoC, a 5.8-inch AMOLED display, a single 12MP primary camera, and a 3,000mAh battery. The phone launched with Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box, but it received two OS upgrades. Samsung rolled out One UI based on Android 9.0 Pie to the device in 2019, and it was demoted from the monthly update schedule to its quarterly update schedule last year.

Samsung recently updated its security bulletin once again (via Droid-Life), and it has now removed the Galaxy S8 series from the list entirely. This marks the end-of-life for the Galaxy S8 series, but you can still experience the latest Android release on your device using custom ROMs. Developers on our forums recently rolled out official builds of the Project Sakura custom ROM based on Android 11 for the devices, and you can flash it on your phone by heading over to this link. If you don’t like the ROM, you can check out many others on our Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ forums (linked below).

Samsung Galaxy S8 XDA Forums || Samsung Galaxy S8+ XDA Forums

Before you go ahead and flash a custom ROM on your device, make sure you take a complete backup of your data. You’ll also need to unlock your device’s bootloader, if you haven’t already, and install a custom recovery like TWRP to flash a custom ROM on your phone.

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Apple pushes iOS 14.5.1 security update after WebKit flaws were found

It’s a given that pretty much no device is completely exempt from security flaws. It’s a constant cat and mouse game where software developers keep patching bugs and hackers keep finding new gaps and flaws to exploit. No code is perfect, and Apple’s certainly isn’t. Last week, Apple started rolling out iOS and iPadOS 14.5 to compatible devices far and wide around the world, but they had two gaping zero-day vulnerabilities that allowed hackers to execute malicious code on devices that are fully updated. Now, Apple has released iOS 14.5.1, fixing these vulnerabilities.

Both patched vulnerabilities resided in WebKit, Apple’s browser engine that powers Safari and all iOS and iPadOS web content alike in apps like Mail and even the App Store. Both vulnerabilities, CVE-2021-30663 and CVE-2021-30665, kicked in when the WebKit engine processes “maliciously crafted web content”, and it would lead to arbitrary code execution, according to Apple’s patch notes for version 14.5.1 of their mobile operating system. Apple also recently patched CVE-2021-30661, another WebKit-related vulnerability, last week.

Apple gave no information on who is using or being targeted by the exploits, but they did say that they were aware of “a report that this issue may have been actively exploited.” Researchers from a China-based security firm Qihoo 360 discovered CVE-2021-30665. The other flaw was found by an unidentified source. These two flaws are also fixed in macOS 11.3.1 for Mac computers, which was released right around the same time as this update.

But that’s not everything that the iOS 14.5.1 update (via: Ars Technica) brings, as Apple also took the opportunity to bake other bug fixes as well. For example, the new update also fixes problems with a bug in the newly released App Tracking Transparency feature, which was rolled out in the previous version, although your mileage may vary as some users have reported that the feature is still having issues even after the update.

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Yet another key Stadia executive has left Google

By the time 2021 began, it became clear that Google’s ambitions for Stadia weren’t materializing the way they wanted them to do so. By February, they had announced their intentions to close down their in-house Stadia game studios, which were to produce unique games as Google Stadia exclusives. While Google announced that this didn’t change a thing regarding their commitment to Stadia, something started to smell bad, as executives started to leave. Today, yet another key Stadia executive made the decision to leave Google.

We’re talking about Stadia’s Vice President and Head of Product, John Justice. In that role, Justice oversaw the consumer experience for Stadia and teased new features coming to the service. Justice had been with Google since the start of 2019, and according to a scoop by The Information, he recently made the decision to leave the company, and when asked for comment by 9to5Google, a spokesperson said that “we can confirm John is no longer with Google and we wish him well on his next step.”

Game streaming has seen a slight surge thanks to the ongoing lack of most gaming hardware in store shelves, particularly PC parts and new-gen consoles like the PS5 and the new Xbox, thanks to multiple factors, and Stadia recently started rolling out a couple of key changes, including a revamped UI with a search bar and library sorting. So while you might think Stadia is doing well given the context, we can’t help but worry as more and more key people leave the ship probably looking for tidier waters.

Plus, we also have to have in mind that this is Google we’re talking about, and Google is known for suddenly killing products when they start to do less-than-stellarly. Will this happen to Stadia? I don’t know. Maybe, or maybe not. These kinds of news, however, do hint that things are not really that good internally.

Together with this news, this scoop also gives out more details about internal reorganizations over at Google, particularly the Search team. In a step away from the conventional engineer-oriented structure, Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan, who oversees Search, Ads, Maps, and other major services, is giving product managers under his purview “more authority.” Engineers and product managers will have to answer to the same individual instead of having their own hierarchy.

So who knows? This might be just part of internal shakeups at Google, or it could be bad news for Stadia. We’ll have to wait and see.

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Yet another key Stadia executive has left Google

So who knows? This might be just part of internal shakeups at Google, or it could be bad news for Stadia. We’ll have to wait and see.

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More Bluetooth peripherals need Google Fast Pair

With Bluetooth peripherals becoming more and more common, they haven’t necessarily become easier to set up and configure. Often the pairing process can be clunky, and for people who may use two phones at the same time for work or other reasons, the constant pairing and unpairing process can grow tiresome. I frequently need to switch my earphones and smartwatch to another device, and it can be cumbersome to do so. The best solution I have seen to the problem yet is Google’s Fast Pair, and more Bluetooth peripherals need to use it.

First and foremost: Google’s Fast Pair is a proprietary system that is part of Google Play Services and, therefore, is on pretty much every Android smartphone. It uses Bluetooth Low Energy to detect nearby Bluetooth accessories that are looking to pair and will pop up a photo of the accessory and a connect button if they’re discovered nearby on your Android smartphone. Fast Pair-enabled peripherals are registered to your Google account and work with Google’s Find My Device if you lose them by displaying their last registered location. You can also see battery info for your Bluetooth earphones on any device that they’ve been previously paired to. Even better, this support works on Chrome OS too, and any paired devices from your Android smartphone will also be pairable with your Chromebook.

Google’s second-gen Pixel Buds support all of Fast Pair’s features. Credits: Rich Woods.

Having used both the OnePlus Buds and the OnePlus Buds Z, I can say that one of my favorite features of these earphones was Google Fast Pair support. While it certainly makes the pairing process a breeze, there are very few devices on the market that actually use Fast Pair, and despite there being fitness trackers like the Fitbit Sense supporting it, the overall list of accessories that support it is primarily comprised of earphones. One other downside I have found is that it’s somewhat a complicated process to remove previously-paired Fast Pair devices from your Google account. You need to go to your Google settings, device connections, and then click “saved devices” to access a menu to remove them from your account. This can make it annoying for reselling, though is also an upside if they’re stolen.

As smartwatches grow in popularity and headphone jacks slowly disappear, the Bluetooth pairing system needs a major revamp. The replacement for the headphone jack, assuming that the technology is going that way, needs to be a whole lot easier to use in order to win over the masses. Some of the Bluetooth accessories on the market today are incredible, but I’m sure we’ve all run into pairing problems at one point or another. Fast Pair aims to standardize the process for Android phones, and it’s a shame that not many devices actually use it. The only other alternative I’ve seen that does a similar job is the ability to pair via an NFC tag, like on the Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones that I use daily. While it still doesn’t pair across multiple devices, the idea of pairing via an NFC tag is neat in that it’s also extremely quick and painless and doesn’t require fiddling with your device settings. The fact that Fast Pair doesn’t work with Wear OS watches is a missed opportunity, too.

Fast Pair is such a useful feature, and the fact that it can help to locate lost devices along with streamlining the entire pairing process makes this a must, in my opinion, for future Bluetooth peripherals. Here’s hoping that we see more and more device manufacturers take it up in the future!

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XDA Basics: Can I use an external monitor with the M1 iMac?

Apple’s new iMac is here, complete with pretty colors and an M1 processor. We called the MacBook Air with M1 the best affordable laptop for Apple users, and the iMac should deliver that level of quality for desktop users. But before you order, you’ll need to know if you can still use your sweet multi-monitor setup. The answer is that it depends on how many monitors you want to use.

The 24-inch iMac with M1 supports one external monitor with up to 6K resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate (which coincidentally is a specification that perfectly matches with the Apple Pro Display XDR). That does not mean that you can use multiple lower-resolution screens. If you attempt to use more than one external screen, it will just start mirroring the display. You also won’t find success by trying to connect displays to separate ports.

This is a limitation of all M1-powered Macs. Apple’s own documentation says that you can’t increase the number of supported monitors by using a dock either. The only exception is the Mac mini, which lets you connect one display on the USB 4 port and one on the HDMI port. The 24-inch iMac does not have an HDMI port.

It’s worth noting that while the MacBook Air is one of the best laptops with Thunderbolt 3, it’s actually not delivering on one of the Thunderbolt promises. Thunderbolt 3 should support dual 4K monitors on one port.

For comparison, the Intel-powered 27-inch iMac has a wide array of external display options. You can connect dual 4K displays or one 6K display on one Thunderbolt port. If you’ve got a model with an AMD Radeon Pro 5700 or Radeon Pro 5700 XT, you can connect dual 6K displays.

The short answer is that as long as you’re looking for a dual monitor setup, you’re good to go with the 24-inch M1 iMac. Of course, one of those two displays is going to be the iMac itself. If you need three or more screens, you’ll have to go with another solution. For example, DisplayLink’s Graphics Connectivity driver promises a solution to the problem. You’ll need an adapter as well, and we’ll test this out once we have a unit.

If you’re looking to go for a higher refresh rate but lower resolution monitor, we’re still exploring which combinations are possible — apparently, Apple does not have a clear answer either.

24-inch iMac with 4.5K display

Apple's new all-in-one has a 4.5K display, an M1 chipset, and comes in pretty colors

See at Amazon

StarTech.com USB 3.0 to Dual DisplayPort Adapter

See at Amazon

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Mobvoi TicWatch 3 Pro LTE receives another system update, but it’s not Wear OS H-MR2

Mobvoi’s TicWatch Pro 3 is one of the best Wear OS smartwatches available right now, largely due to its internal hardware. It’s still the only Wear OS device with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon Wear 4100 chipset, making the TicWatch Pro 3 the best-performing smartwatch with Google’s wearable software. Mobvoi is now rolling out an update to the LTE version of the watch, supposedly with more fixes and performance boosts in tow.

Mobvoi released the Wear OS H-MR2 system update to the TicWatch Pro 3 GPS (non-LTE) last month, which included new software features (like additional tiles and brightness options), performance tweaks, and a newer security patch level. The LTE version of the same watch is still waiting on that upgrade, but in the meantime, Mobvoi is rolling out a smaller update.

The full changelog (sent to us by Mobvoi) for the LTE TicWatch Pro 3’s upgrade is below:

Enable the notification sound
New screen brightness layout
Improved speed of the tilt-to-wake screen
Improved performance on Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100 platforms
Improved the smoothness of sliding
Improved pairing speed when pairing with Android phones
Support turning off the essential screen’s auto backlight
Optimized the accuracy of off-body detection
Updated security patch

There aren’t many independent reports of the update reaching devices yet, so it seems we’re still in the early stages of the rollout. Even though this isn’t the full-blown Wear OS H-MR2 update, it does have some of the same changes as that upgrade. The security patch level has been updated (though Mobvoi didn’t say what the exact month is), and the new screen brightness layout was also part of the LTE TicWatch’s upgrade.

It’s not clear yet when the TicWatch Pro 3 LTE will receive its Wear OS H-MR2 update, but the TicWatch series likely won’t be the only Wear 4100 watches for much longer. eBuyNow is planning to release three Motorola-branded watches sometime this year, and at least one of them will have a Wear 4100 chipset.

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