Android

Hi!

My friend is looking for an Android tablet that has an unlockable bootloader and also has a custom ROM. I've checked a lot and every one of them is problematic. Usual brands here are Samsung, Lenovo, Huawei, Honor, TCL, Xiaomi. Apparently Huawei and Honor is out of question since they don't allow unlocking bootloader. TCL is new so no ROMs. Xiaomi seems possible but unlocking a Xiaomi device recently became even more pain.

Do you know a decent model from these brands? Preferably 10-12 inch screen.

Google Photos for Android is adding more granular customization options for the main grid of images and videos...

There are times I'd like to get a measurement of a room's layout. I know there are some apps that do this, but a lot are just full of premium pay wall stuff.

I'm just trying to get the dimensions of my office (it is an odd shape) so I can okay around with potential furniture layouts.

How can I get Weather widget on Lock Screen? I have been trying add weather updates directly on my lock screen on Android. I heard there’s some widget thing you can use but I’m not sure how to set it up or even where to find it. Is it something I need to download or is it already there on my phone?

After users widely complained about the change, Google Maps has reverted a change that centered the map on Android Auto.

An update to Google Photos for Android today tones down the UI of this Gemini-powered search capability. Google started testing...

Eufy says that, despite deleting references to its products, it will still be releasing Find My Device trackers for Android.

Blackmagic Camera 2.0 is now available for Android phones and, for the first time, selected Android tablets.

Gemini on Android is now a much better phone assistant. The latest update lets you access Gemini Extensions from the Android lockscreen.

Google Prompt is a pretty good 2-factor authentication (2FA) option for most users, with Google now adding fingerprint or PIN...

Criteria and absurd wishlist

Affordable, might find it used in a shop in the u.s. or from a reputable source online

Full Root

"Secure"

Quality build

Removable battery/sim/storage

Headphone jack

Tablet or phone

Runs something better than Android 7

Google’s post recapping Play Store and Android protections in 2024 is live, while highlighting new Play Protect features, like during calls.

After introducing a “Government” badge last year, the Google Play Store is adding one called “Verified” for consumer-facing VPN apps.

There are some builds here or there posted on XDA, but they all have dead links. I’m still looking around to see if the files can be found on any live hosts, but if anyone has the files to custom ROM any of these… they’re decent hardware and shouldn’t have to be tossed in the ground just because the manufacturers are too greedy to give new Android versions for them.

The D415 is already rooted; none of the others have had any mods done yet. I’m hoping to find potentially a decent build of maybe CyanogenMod, Lineage, Havoc, Pixel, or any of the other quality builds.

I already ran the Droid bootloader code check and Motorola’s site says this one is not eligible to be unlocked. Must have been the typical control-freak contract that Verizon usually does. I guess at that time they wanted to nickel and dime every bit they could with this model. Quite a few Verizon phones were able to be unlocked, though, so with that unit there still could be a possibility. I’m not expecting so, though.

Is it true that the VPN apps distributed via Play Store are worse than those from F-droid with respect to security?

Over the last day, Android devices have encountered a ‘Google Play Store keeps stopping’ system warning...

Hello! I recently faced an issue trying to upload big file to Android tablet. It doesn't detect with MTP so I tried to push it via ADB. But I get this error:

$ adb push myfile /sdcard
adb: error: 65544-byte write failed: Success

How can I fix it? Why is this happening? Storage space is enough:

EDIT: I want to use it for app devlopment, so I need ADB or quick MTP for app installing.

The Phone by Google app is adding filters to the “Recents” tabs that lets you sort your call history list...

A while back, people here kindly explained how typical commercial Android apps get push notifications. Quick version: notifiications are sent through Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM), which communicates with Google Message Services (GMS), an always-on Android client app preinstalled on most Android phones. There's a FOSS alternative to GMS called MicroG but it's still an FCM client, and FCM is an evil Google service that client apps that use it have to enroll with even if you escape GMS on the client side.

Right now I'm interested in sending myself push notifications from a self-hosted service that I run on a VPS. Of course I don't want to deal with FCM. I also prefer to not have to develop an Android app as opposed to running something like an XMPP client.

It looks like there are some alternatives like Iris and Unified Push (unifiedpush.org). It looks to me that UP becoming the preferred solution, is that right? UP has its own always-on client that can receive messages from a UP server that you can self-host. This sounds ok to me in principle.

My main question is whether UP is somehow worse than GMS, in terms of being a background app that keeps a network connection open. Is GMS anything special in that regard, besides being preinstalled by Google? Would GMS use less battery power or anything like that?

I may also have to look into how XMPP works, if my server program is going to send messages through it. I actually have an unrelated reason to be interested in XMPP. But does that approach sound reasonable? Are there XMPP clients that are non-bloaty, don't eat battery energy in the background, etc.? I'd like a loud audio alert if I get one of these notifications from my server. Can I usually easily set up XMPP clients to allow that only from my own service, while not making sounds for anything else? I'm luddite enough that I still use IRC for online chat, but maybe I have to catch up with the ~~20th~~ 21st century about this. Is there a good community to discuss XMPP development and self-hosting? I.e. I'd want to self-host the XMPP server and use it to send messages to my phone from my own (also self-hosted) server app.

The simplest alternative I can think of is for my server program to just sometimes send me SMS messages through Twilio or similar. The alerts will be infrequent enough that I don't mind going this route. Does that sound easier? It's less in the self-hosted spirit but it gets rid of a lot of software on both the server and the phone, I guess.

Thanks!

(also see https://www.androidauthority.com/kiwi-browser-shutting-down-3519510/ )

A while ago Mull/Mulch (and DivestOS) died, and now this.. I wonder what I'll use now.

Hello, SmartPack Kernel-Mamager shows information about the battery. But the capacity (4370 out of 4500mAh) has never changed. My phone was refurbished and had its battery changed. I am wondering if the capacity might be spoofed by the refurber.

Still in testing, Google Messages has made a small color tweak to the upcoming redesign of RCS read receipts that makes them bolder.

I'm working with limited battery duration but Launchy would be immensely useful for my home screens. I don't want to use it, though, if it is heavy on the battery.