Android's eSIM transfer tool is here! This tool was first announced by Google at MWC 2023, and it lets you scan a QR code to transfer eSIM profiles between your Android phones, like between a Galaxy S24 Ultra and a Pixel 8 Pro.
Full details over on this Android Police article.
Full details over on this Android Police article.
Android Police
Android now lets you transfer eSIMs between your phones
Android's long-awaited QR code-based eSIM transfer tool is finally here, letting you move eSIMs between your phones
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Samsung has heard your pleas: You can now hide the gesture bar in One UI 6.1 on the Galaxy S24!
Samsung is rolling out an update to NavStar, the Good Lock module that lets you customize navigation, that brings back the setting to hide the gesture hint. Here's a before and after with the setting disabled/enabled. Not only do you reclaim space at the bottom, but Google's Circle to Search gesture still works!
Here's how to hide the gesture bar after updating Nav Star:
1) Open NavStar's settings and toggle "enable extra gesture settings".
2) Open the Settings app and go to Display > Navigation bar > More options.
3) You should now see a "gesture hint" option. Toggle this to hide the gesture bar!
Glad to see Samsung address feedback so quickly. The removal of the "gesture hint" setting from One UI 6.1 was one of the changes that I noticed a lot of people complain about, so this should be a welcome addition. Hopefully it's brought out of NavStar soon.
Thanks to @RydahDoesTech for the tip!
Samsung is rolling out an update to NavStar, the Good Lock module that lets you customize navigation, that brings back the setting to hide the gesture hint. Here's a before and after with the setting disabled/enabled. Not only do you reclaim space at the bottom, but Google's Circle to Search gesture still works!
Here's how to hide the gesture bar after updating Nav Star:
1) Open NavStar's settings and toggle "enable extra gesture settings".
2) Open the Settings app and go to Display > Navigation bar > More options.
3) You should now see a "gesture hint" option. Toggle this to hide the gesture bar!
Glad to see Samsung address feedback so quickly. The removal of the "gesture hint" setting from One UI 6.1 was one of the changes that I noticed a lot of people complain about, so this should be a welcome addition. Hopefully it's brought out of NavStar soon.
Thanks to @RydahDoesTech for the tip!
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Forwarded from Google News | En
Official Google's demo video of Assistant with Bard.
The arrival of Bard on Android seems to be just around the corner, as Google has prepared a special page in the Pixel Tips app to explain the features of the Bard-enabled Assistant. It also features a demo video of the UI in action.
From the video, you can see that Bard will be able to be invoked like a regular assistant, while it will also have a shortcut in the list of apps. Once invoked, you are given a choice of 3 actions: enter a query using the keyboard, speak the query with your voice, or insert an image and complete it with a query.
Since this page already exists in the Pixel Tips app (but is not yet available to users), it looks like Bard on Android will appear as early as one of the next Pixel Feature Drop.
Previously, 9to5Google has already demoed the Bard UI here and here.
😎 Google News | En
The arrival of Bard on Android seems to be just around the corner, as Google has prepared a special page in the Pixel Tips app to explain the features of the Bard-enabled Assistant. It also features a demo video of the UI in action.
From the video, you can see that Bard will be able to be invoked like a regular assistant, while it will also have a shortcut in the list of apps. Once invoked, you are given a choice of 3 actions: enter a query using the keyboard, speak the query with your voice, or insert an image and complete it with a query.
Since this page already exists in the Pixel Tips app (but is not yet available to users), it looks like Bard on Android will appear as early as one of the next Pixel Feature Drop.
Previously, 9to5Google has already demoed the Bard UI here and here.
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Google News | En
Official Google's demo video of Assistant with Bard. The arrival of Bard on Android seems to be just around the corner, as Google has prepared a special page in the Pixel Tips app to explain the features of the Bard-enabled Assistant. It also features a…
Assistant with Bard has appeared a bit early in the Pixel Tips app, giving us another look at how the upcoming feature will work.
But it also reveals when it'll arrive and on what devices it'll be available on. This is early info and could be wrong, but here's what I found:
1) The Assistant with Bard tip's "publication date" is 202403, which means this should go live in March alongside the March 2024 Pixel Feature Drop.
2) The Assistant with Bard tip is blocked from appearing on every Pixel device except for the Tensor-powered Pixel phones. The Pixel Tablet (tangorpro), Pixel Fold (felix), and rumored Pixel Fold 2 (comet) appear on the denylist. The tip is also blocked from appearing on devices running Android builds with IDs that start with UP1, UD1, and UQ1, which means it won't appear unless you're running the QPR2 beta (which starts with AP1) or the upcoming stable QPR2 release.
But it also reveals when it'll arrive and on what devices it'll be available on. This is early info and could be wrong, but here's what I found:
1) The Assistant with Bard tip's "publication date" is 202403, which means this should go live in March alongside the March 2024 Pixel Feature Drop.
2) The Assistant with Bard tip is blocked from appearing on every Pixel device except for the Tensor-powered Pixel phones. The Pixel Tablet (tangorpro), Pixel Fold (felix), and rumored Pixel Fold 2 (comet) appear on the denylist. The tip is also blocked from appearing on devices running Android builds with IDs that start with UP1, UD1, and UQ1, which means it won't appear unless you're running the QPR2 beta (which starts with AP1) or the upcoming stable QPR2 release.
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Google is preparing a new "Storage Area Encryption" feature for a future release of Android that gives apps the ability to create "storage areas" that are accessible only after the device has been unlocked.
Storage areas are "transparently encrypted directories protected by screen lock bound keys" that provide "a level of protection above that of the Credential Encrypted storage which is the default for app data." These directories will be in a new top-level data directory, /data/storage_area. (Credential Encrypted storage is only available to apps after the initial unlock following a boot.)
It's a bit difficult to guess "why" they're adding this API just from the code changes in AOSP, so I'm throwing this out there to see if any security researchers might have an idea. One researcher guessed it could allow for SDKs to create their own dedicated place to store files or preferences that couldn't be accessed by apps integrated said SDK, but it doesn't look like this API makes that possible.
The code changes haven't been merged yet, so I'm not sure if this Storage Area Encryption API will make its way to Android 15 or Android 16.
Storage areas are "transparently encrypted directories protected by screen lock bound keys" that provide "a level of protection above that of the Credential Encrypted storage which is the default for app data." These directories will be in a new top-level data directory, /data/storage_area. (Credential Encrypted storage is only available to apps after the initial unlock following a boot.)
It's a bit difficult to guess "why" they're adding this API just from the code changes in AOSP, so I'm throwing this out there to see if any security researchers might have an idea. One researcher guessed it could allow for SDKs to create their own dedicated place to store files or preferences that couldn't be accessed by apps integrated said SDK, but it doesn't look like this API makes that possible.
The code changes haven't been merged yet, so I'm not sure if this Storage Area Encryption API will make its way to Android 15 or Android 16.
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Google announced last July that they would integrate the Message Layer Security (MLS) protocol into Google Messages and "support its wide deployment across the industry by open sourcing [their] implementation in the Android codebase."
Back in November, Google added the (Rust) crates for building OpenMLS, a Rust implementation of MLS, to AOSP. And last week, Google started work on a new Android Jetpack library (
MLS is a protocol for encrypting messages in group chats that is "designed to be efficient, practical and secure" and, according to Google, "enables practical interoperability across services and platforms, scaling to groups of thousands of multi-device users." It has been approved by the IESG and is published as RFC9420.
Back in November, Google added the (Rust) crates for building OpenMLS, a Rust implementation of MLS, to AOSP. And last week, Google started work on a new Android Jetpack library (
androidx.security:security-mls) to support building apps on top of the MLS protocol.MLS is a protocol for encrypting messages in group chats that is "designed to be efficient, practical and secure" and, according to Google, "enables practical interoperability across services and platforms, scaling to groups of thousands of multi-device users." It has been approved by the IESG and is published as RFC9420.
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Car crash detection is a potentially life-saving feature available on Pixel phones and recent iPhones, but so far no other OEM has implemented it.
There are hints that the Samsung Galaxy S24 and Z Fold 5 could be getting a feature like this, though.
There are hints that the Samsung Galaxy S24 and Z Fold 5 could be getting a feature like this, though.
Android Police
Your Galaxy S24 could soon detect when you're in a car crash
A virtual composite sensor in Samsung's recent flagships suggests car crash detection could be in the cards
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Google is working on a new Android Jetpack library (androidx.pdf:pdf-viewer) that lets apps add PDF viewing support.
Android already offers classes for rendering PDF documents, but from what I hear, it renders the PDF as images that you then display as pages, which sucks for accessibility. Most developers either don't bother with adding PDF viewing support and just prompt the user to open the document in another app or they integrate a third-party library like barteksc/AndroidPdfViewer or PSPDFKit's Android PDF Library.
In Android 15, this is coming natively to devices through an update to the MediaProvider Mainline module which will now include a PDF viewer. This means that Android 15 will have a native, updatable PDF viewer that apps can integrate via new platform APIs, while older devices can still be supported via this new Jetpack library.
Android already offers classes for rendering PDF documents, but from what I hear, it renders the PDF as images that you then display as pages, which sucks for accessibility. Most developers either don't bother with adding PDF viewing support and just prompt the user to open the document in another app or they integrate a third-party library like barteksc/AndroidPdfViewer or PSPDFKit's Android PDF Library.
In Android 15, this is coming natively to devices through an update to the MediaProvider Mainline module which will now include a PDF viewer. This means that Android 15 will have a native, updatable PDF viewer that apps can integrate via new platform APIs, while older devices can still be supported via this new Jetpack library.
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Android 15 will require that UI rendering be done using the Vulkan Graphics API instead of OpenGL.
The Android 14 CDD currently states that device implementations are "STRONGLY RECOMMENDED to use SkiaVk with HWUI" but this code change suggests that'll become "MUST" in the Android 15 CDD.
I think Pixel has already been doing this since Android 10, but I don't know what other devices enable this. It's enabled on my Galaxy S24 Ultra (
The Android 14 CDD currently states that device implementations are "STRONGLY RECOMMENDED to use SkiaVk with HWUI" but this code change suggests that'll become "MUST" in the Android 15 CDD.
I think Pixel has already been doing this since Android 10, but I don't know what other devices enable this. It's enabled on my Galaxy S24 Ultra (
ro.hwui.use_vulkan is set to true).👍70❤🔥16❤6🤔2
Mishaal's Android News Feed
Last month, Google announced that the Android Virtualization Framework (AVF) will be available on "upcoming select Android 14 devices." Here's a list of devices that support it, according to the Google Play Console: * ASUS Zenfone 11 (I know, not released…
It turns out if you boot a GSI (Generic System Image) on a Galaxy S24 that Android Virtualization Framework (AVF) works!
Here's an Alpine Linux 5.17 image booting up on a Galaxy S24. This S24 is a European model with the Exynos chipset, running Linux 6.1.
On devices that support AVF, you need root access to be able to access the crosvm binary, but you could still have some fun with this.
Waiting for someone to figure out how to get Windows on ARM booting on their phone using AVF😁
Here's an Alpine Linux 5.17 image booting up on a Galaxy S24. This S24 is a European model with the Exynos chipset, running Linux 6.1.
On devices that support AVF, you need root access to be able to access the crosvm binary, but you could still have some fun with this.
Waiting for someone to figure out how to get Windows on ARM booting on their phone using AVF😁
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Mishaal's Android News Feed
Google has published the Android Security Bulletin (ASB) for December 2023, detailing the vulnerabilities addressed in the 2023-12-0X security patch level (SPL). Patches are available for Android versions 11-14. There are 3 vulnerabilities in AOSP components…
The technical write-up for CVE-2023-45779 has been published by Tom Hebb of Meta's Red Team X, revealing that several Android OEMs such as ASUS, Fairphone, Lenovo, Microsoft, Nokia, Nothing, and Vivo, were signing some of their APEX modules with the test keys publicly available in AOSP.
This would have allowed a user or attacker (with shell privileges) to forge an APEX update to "gain near-total control over [the device]."
This issue was fixed by most affected OEMs with the December 2023 security patch, though, and it's quite hard to exploit by actual attackers - still, the issue reveals deficiencies in the Compatibility Test Suite (CTS) and AOSP documentation that are being resolved in response.
Google says they've added a test to their Build Test Suite (BTS) to warn of vulnerable APEXes and that changes to CTS are coming (but the latter won't be public until Android 15's release).
This would have allowed a user or attacker (with shell privileges) to forge an APEX update to "gain near-total control over [the device]."
This issue was fixed by most affected OEMs with the December 2023 security patch, though, and it's quite hard to exploit by actual attackers - still, the issue reveals deficiencies in the Compatibility Test Suite (CTS) and AOSP documentation that are being resolved in response.
Google says they've added a test to their Build Test Suite (BTS) to warn of vulnerable APEXes and that changes to CTS are coming (but the latter won't be public until Android 15's release).
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2024 may be the year of Bluetooth LE Audio as we see many new products release with support for it.
To prepare for this, Google's working on an audio sharing page in Android 15 that makes it easier to start or connect to Auracast streams!
To prepare for this, Google's working on an audio sharing page in Android 15 that makes it easier to start or connect to Auracast streams!
Android Authority
Android 15 prepares to let you share media audio to nearby devices
Headsets with support for broadcasting audio are coming this year, so Google is preparing to add a dedicated audio sharing page in Android 15
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Google is making it easier to transition your online accounts to passkeys. Google Password Manager on Pixel devices (Pixel 5a and later, including Pixel Tablet) is rolling out a passkey upgrade experience that helps you discover which of your accounts support passkeys and then helps you upgrade with "just a few taps."
This is available now on the aforementioned Pixel devices but will be coming to "other platforms" in the future. Currently this works with Adobe, Best Buy, DocuSign, eBay, Kayak, Money Forward, Nintendo, PayPal, Uber, and Yahoo! Japan but will be coming soon to TikTok as well.
This is available now on the aforementioned Pixel devices but will be coming to "other platforms" in the future. Currently this works with Adobe, Best Buy, DocuSign, eBay, Kayak, Money Forward, Nintendo, PayPal, Uber, and Yahoo! Japan but will be coming soon to TikTok as well.
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Samsung is rolling out an update to its Quick Share app on Galaxy devices that adds support for Google's Nearby protocol, which will allow for other Android devices with Nearby Share (soon to itself be renamed Quick Share) to appear in Samsung's Quick Share service.
This updated version of Quick Share is already preloaded on the Galaxy S24 series, but it's now rolling out to older Galaxy devices. However, users who have received the update report that sharing with Nearby Share-enabled devices doesn't actually work yet despite what the changelog says. Also, Google's Nearby Share still appears as an option in the share sheet, but this should be disabled like on the Galaxy S24 series once Samsung's Quick Share update widely rolls out and the new functionality goes live.
The update also increases the upload limit per file when creating QR codes and using share to contacts (from 3GB --> 5GB).
Image credits: @gepetto888
This updated version of Quick Share is already preloaded on the Galaxy S24 series, but it's now rolling out to older Galaxy devices. However, users who have received the update report that sharing with Nearby Share-enabled devices doesn't actually work yet despite what the changelog says. Also, Google's Nearby Share still appears as an option in the share sheet, but this should be disabled like on the Galaxy S24 series once Samsung's Quick Share update widely rolls out and the new functionality goes live.
The update also increases the upload limit per file when creating QR codes and using share to contacts (from 3GB --> 5GB).
Image credits: @gepetto888
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This is the best evidence yet that Amazon is shifting Fire TV away from AOSP: An Amazon job posting for a SDE asks the candidate to "implement and deliver features on the Fire TV client codebase as it transitions from FOS/Android to native/Rust and React Native."
Great find by Elias Saba over on AFTVnews. Last year, Janko Roettgers reported on his newsletter called Lowpass that Amazon is ditching AOSP for an in-house operating system code-named Vega.
Great find by Elias Saba over on AFTVnews. Last year, Janko Roettgers reported on his newsletter called Lowpass that Amazon is ditching AOSP for an in-house operating system code-named Vega.
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Mishaal's Android News Feed
This is the best evidence yet that Amazon is shifting Fire TV away from AOSP: An Amazon job posting for a SDE asks the candidate to "implement and deliver features on the Fire TV client codebase as it transitions from FOS/Android to native/Rust and React Native."…
I wouldn't be surprised if we get at least one more major version of Fire OS based on AOSP, potentially Android 14.
An Amazon engineer has been submitting patches to AOSP fixing issues with SD cards and introducing a new stylus-related setting, the latter of which was just submitted, so it's possible they're cooking up Fire OS 9 based on Android 14 as potentially their last AOSP-based release. Maybe for new devices that were planned before the transition? Or this could just be abandoned, who knows.
An Amazon engineer has been submitting patches to AOSP fixing issues with SD cards and introducing a new stylus-related setting, the latter of which was just submitted, so it's possible they're cooking up Fire OS 9 based on Android 14 as potentially their last AOSP-based release. Maybe for new devices that were planned before the transition? Or this could just be abandoned, who knows.
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