Google releases Android 15 update to AOSP

Android 15 is finally available for AOSP (Android Open Source Project). However, Google has NOT yet rolled out Android 15 stable for its own Pixel smartphones. It's likely delayed due to platforms bugs and is expected to roll out next month,
mid-October.

The Android 15 update brings several new features and changes like Private Space, which creates a separate profile that users can hide apps in, a screen recording detection API, predictive back gesture, changes to background activity launches etc. You can view full list of changes in Android 15 here.

Android 15 won't seem like a major update as many features will get shipped with QPRs releases such as Audio Sharing, a revamped Desktop Mode, the Tiny Taskbar, lock screen widgets etc. However, apart from Google, most OEMs don't incorporate platform changes in QPRs into their updates.

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Android 15 will make it harder for thieves to bypass FRP

Android has a security mechanism called Factory Reset Protection (FRP) that is activated when you first associate a Google account with your device. It kicks in when the device undergoes an untrusted factory reset, such as a factory reset triggered from recovery mode, asking user to sign-in to google account to confirm identity.

Android stores a key in a persistent data block that survives factory resets, so even if another factory reset is forced on the device, FRP will still kick in. However, there are ways for thieves to bypass it entirely. Thus, Google is making changes to FRP, making it much harder to bypass.

1. Enabling the OEM unlocking setting will NO longer prevent FRP from activating.
2. Adding a new Google account is blocked.
3. Setting a lock screen PIN or password is blocked.
4. Installing new apps is blocked.
5. Bypassing the setup wizard will NO longer deactivate FRP.
Click HERE to read about it in detail.

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Google Goes All-In with TSMC

Google tensor G4 chip manufactured by Samsung Foundry on its 4nm process. However, it was a minor upgrade over the Tensor G3 in the pixel 8 series as reflected by benchmarks & even the G4 itself is codenamed 'Zuma Pro' while G3 is 'Zuma'. G4 still utilizes Samsung's older FO-PLP packaging instead of the newer FO-WLP, which played a key role in resolving heating issues in the Exynos 2400—unlike its predecessors.

Now with Tensor G5, Google is not only switching to TSMC, but it will made it on the latest 3nm node & will also utilize TSMC's InFO-POP advanced packaging.
Tensor G6 to power Pixel 11 series, likely codenamed 'malibu', will also be manufactured by TSMC only on its latest 2nm process

FunFact: Apple Apple Foundational Models, both on device and server, for Apple Intelligence were fully trained on Google TPU clusters instead of NVIDIA.
Google's Axion, its first custom Arm-cores based TPU v5p for datacenters, is also made on TSMC 3nm N3E node

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Tiny little UI experiment in Android 15 that I enabled:

When music is playing, the three-dot menu button in the volume slider can turn into a waveform.

This obviously hasn't rolled out yet, but what do you think of it anyways?

Oh wow, I did NOT expect Google to launch this yet!

Android 15 QPR1 Beta 2 enables desktop windowing support, and it runs directly on tablets just like I said it might!

Although the Pixel 9 Pro is already available to purchase in many countries like the US, however, atleast in India, Pixel 9 Pro will go on sale in November.
( 3 months late from the August release)

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The Wear OS 5 update is finally here for the Pixel Watch 1 and Pixel Watch 2!

The September 2024 update that's rolling out now brings Wear OS 5 based on Android 14. With the update, you'll get a new grid-view app launcher, improved Camera controls, and the Pixel Recorder app from the Pixel Watch 3.

Here are the build IDs:

Pixel Watch 1: AW2A.240903.005.A2

Pixel Watch 2: AW2A.240903.005.A1

Here's a first look at Priority Modes, the supercharged version of Do Not Disturb mode in Android 16!

You can create custom modes and toggle them from a new Quick Settings tile.

🔗 Screenshots + details on Priority Mode can be found in my latest article.

Google is preparing to let you run Linux apps on Android, just like Chrome OS

The company is working on a Terminal app that downloads, configures, runs, and interfaces with an instance of Debian in a VM.

🔗Full details in my latest article over on Android Authority.

Here's a demo of Android's in-development Terminal app for running Linux apps!

The Terminal app currently doesn't automatically download and configure the Linux VM for you, so the developer who sent me this had to use the LinuxInstaller app to download Debian.

(I sped the video up a bit in the middle because it takes some time to boot the VM for the first time.)

Google is testing a new version of Chrome for Android with extensions support

The new Desktop Android project brings browser extensions support to Chrome for Android, but there's a catch: It's not intended for mobile devices at the moment.

More details on this new project can be found in my latest article on Android Authority.

BREAKING: Google Tensor G5 Specification Leaked

Google’s Tensor G5 to power the Pixel 10 series next year will be designed internally by Google themselves without relying on Samsung for the bulk of the work. It will be manufactured on TSMC 3nm node process.

Tensor G5 CPU: codenamed 'Laguna'
SLC: 8MB
RAM: LPDDR5X (8533 Mbps)

• 1x Cortex-X4
• 5x Cortex-A725
• 2x Cortex-A520
Sadly Google is NOT using ARM's latest X925 cores which debuted with MediaTek Dimensity 9400 recently.

TPU:
The TOPS value is 18 / 9 TOPS (INT8/FP16), making it 40% larger compared to Tensor G4 but it will be around 15% faster only. The improved TPU also comes with a few new features for Google’s developers, such as small embedded RISC-V cores to allow running operations that are not implemented in hardware, as well as support for on-device training.

GPU:
This is the MOST disappointing part of the whole G5 chip. That's NOT because Google is ditching Mali GPU, but because Tensor G5 will feature PowerVR GPU from Imagination technologies — IMG DXT-48-1536 clocked at 1100MHz.

These GPU are mostly used by UNISOC in their chips for smartphones. The only reason why Google switched to PowerVR GPU is due to virtualization support. It also supports Ray tracing, however, the GPU will just have 2 CU (compute units) only in 2025 for 1000$ flagship phone

Now, to get your an idea of how fast would be the GPU, some crazy people calculated the expected benchmarking value of OpenCL compute & it will score around ...... well ........ 🤫 Let it be a surprise for Pixel fanbois.

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