Tag: android 12

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Google working on fix for Duo audio bug disrupting calls for Android 12 users

Android 12 brought several major changes to Google mobile OS, and several bugs too. Aside from the various problems plaguing Google’s new Pixel 6 and 6 Pro smartphones, other devices running Android 12 have experienced issues. For example, there’s an audio bug messing up Google Duo for several Android 12 users.

Both 9to5Google and XDA Developers have reported on the problem, which has picked up steam with posts on the Duo help forums. A Google community manager has confirmed that the company is aware of the issue and is working on a fix:

“We have discovered that users on Android 12 devices sometimes don’t hear audio when answering a Duo call from an incoming call notification. We are working on a fix, but in the meantime, a workaround is to try the call once more but have your Duo app open so you can answer the call from within the app instead of via the notification alert.”

The problem, if you haven’t experienced it yourself yet, happens when you answer an incoming Google Duo call. The bug prevents the caller from being able to hear the recipient’s voice, but that person can hear the caller. The bug goes away when the recipient ends the call and re-opens Google Duo.

Frustratingly, common fixes like clearing the app’s cache or re-installing it from the Play Store don’t help.

According to the post from the Google community manager, the bug may have something to do with answering Duo calls from the notification rather than from within the app. The current recommended workaround is for people to open the Duo app and answer the call in the app rather than using the notification.

9to5 also points out that not everyone running Android 12 has experienced the Duo bug. I can’t say that I have, but to be fair, it’s been a while since I last used Google Duo for anything.

Regardless, there are clearly issues with Duo on Android 12. If you’ve been plagued by the audio bug above, at least there’s a fix on the way soon (and hopefully the workaround can help out for the time being).

Source: Google, (2) Via: 9to5Google, XDA Developers

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‘At a Glance’ update showcases doorbell camera preview on Android 12

Google’s Pixel Launcher’s ‘At a Glance’ widget has received a new update.

The company recently overhauled ‘At a Glance’ with Android 12, but not it’s getting even more features, according to the former editor-in-chief of XDA Developers, Mishaal Rahman, via tipster Nick Cipriani.

Further, the update offers an At a Glance widget that includes a new doorbell preview, according to Rahman, who discovered the upcoming feature in a server-side update. The leaked information also indicates that At a Glance will sport a new settings menu layout that looks more up-to-date.

The new doorbell preview will work with compatible smart home security accessories without checking the Google Home app. You’ll also get a quick notification that allows you to check the front door, alongside a small preview.

Additionally, the new At a Glance settings redesign is reminiscent of other ‘Material You’ that came along with Android 12. Like other menus, it changes alongside the colour of your background theme.

Rahman says that the doorbell alerts are the only features working as part of the server-side update and that he isn’t seeing any information about other connected devices or the personal reminder when the flashlight is turned on.

Source: Mishaal Rahman, Android Police

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Honor announces new 7.9-inch foldable Magic V flagship

Honor’s latest flagship device, the Magic V was announced today, and what makes it unique is that it’s the first foldable device to feature Qualcomm’s latest 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset.

The Magic V folds inwards like a book, similar to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 3 and features a huge 7.9-inch primary OLED display (120Hz) and a 6.45-inch curved OLED cover panel (90Hz). The foldable features a unique waterdrop hinge mechanism which the company says is the slimmest among similar devices on the market.

On paper, the foldable sports an impressive triple camera setup, including a 50-megapixel main sensor, a 50-megapixel ultra-wide shooter, and a 50-megapixel colour spectrum lens. On the front, the device features two 42-megapixel selfie cameras, one hole-punched on the primary screen and one over the cover panel. How these cameras work is yet to be seen, but as mentioned, the Magic V’s specs seem decent.

Diving deep into the internals, all Magic V models feature 12GB of RAM as standard, with storage options ranging from 256GB to 512GB. The device has a chunky 4,750mAh battery — which is bigger than the Fold 3’s 4,400mAh battery — and supports 66W charging. It also runs Honor’s in-house Magic UI 6 built on top of Android 12 with support for split-screen and multi-window.

According to Honor, the Magic V will be available for purchase in China starting January 18th for CNY 9,999 (CAD $1,987.60) and CNY 10,999 (CAD $2,187.03) for the 12GB+ 256GB and 12GB+512GB models, respectively. The device will be available in Titanium Silver, Black and Burnt Orange colourways.

As always, we don’t know when and if the foldable will release for the international market.

Image credit: Honor

Source: Honor

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Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 receives Android 12 update in Canada

Android 12 is now available on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3 in Canada.

According to Rogers’ update schedule, the update is still “coming soon,” and it doesn’t even appear on the Telus update schedule; however, my unlocked Z Fold 3 on Koodo’s network just received the update.

While I don’t have a Z Flip 3 to check for the update, Android 12 was released simultaneously on both devices in other countries. Additionally, the Z Fold 3’s update page shows images of the Z Flip 3 as well, though we’ll reach out to Samsung for confirmation.

One UI 4.0 adds new theming options, a refreshed keyboard and new privacy settings. There are also more emojis, GIFs and stickers available directly from your keyboard, and new home screen icons, menus, buttons and backgrounds.

Samsung says that it’s also adding new privacy and security features to its devices with One UI 4.0. For example, you’ll be notified when an app attempts to access your camera or microphones.

The South Korean company seemed to have quite a few issues rolling out Android 12 to its smartphones. After several delays, Canadian Samsung Galaxy S21 series devices finally received their One UI 4.0/Android 12 updates on December 7th. The expected release date was November 15th.

Samsung started rolling out the update to its third-gen foldables on December 6th in other countries but paused it and had to roll out another version of the update at the end of December.

One UI 4.0 will also be on the following devices: Galaxy S20, S20+, S20 Ultra, S20 FE, Note 20, Note 20 Ultra, S10, S10e, S10+, Note 10, Note 10+, Z Fold 2, Z Flip, Z Flip 5G, Galaxy A82, A72, A52, A52s, A42, and Galaxy Tab S7 and Tab S7+.

If you purchase Samsung’s new Galaxy S21 FE, the phone will sport Android 12/One UI 4.0 pre-loaded.

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Android 13 toggle could disable Android 12 battery saving feature

Google may allow Android users to turn off a new battery-saving feature that kills background processes to preserve battery life in a future update, like Android 13.

XDA Developers’ former editor-in-chief Mishaal Rahman spotted the change in the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) code. The change introduces a toggle to Android’s ‘Developer Options’ settings menu that would disable ‘phantom processes.’

For a bit of background, Android 12 introduced a ton of visual changes to Google’s smartphone operating system (OS). However, it also brought several under-the-hood changes that aren’t as obvious. The ‘phantom processes’ are one such under-the-hood feature — dubbed ‘PhantomProcessKiller,’ the new bit of tech kills background tasks, call phantom processes, that use too much power.

Although the PhantomProcessKiller will generally help most users by restricting background tasks and saving battery, it also might not be a good fit for others. For example, some apps may not place nicely with the new system. Power users may also want to turn it off.

Whatever the reason, it does look like a toggle will make its way to users at some point. That should be good news to anyone who relies on apps that don’t play nice with the system. The downside, however, is that it might be a bit of a wait before the toggle becomes available.

Rahman notes that toggle might not roll out until Android 13 arrives next year. Android Police agreed, arguing that because the toggle was only recently introduced, it likely won’t go live for a while. That said, there could be a chance the feature will arrive with Android 12L too.

Source: Mishaal Rahman (Twitter) Via: XDA Developers, Android Police

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Surprising pretty much no one, OnePlus pulls its OxygenOS 12 update

It’s become too common for OnePlus’ public updates to feel like betas, and unsurprisingly, the company has once again been forced to suspend its OxygenOS 12 update’s release until it can fix several issues.

At this point, it feels like every second beta and a few stable releases a year, are pulled back within the first week — even after that, I still find OnePlus to be exceptionally buggy compared to Google Pixel devices and especially Apple’s iPhone. The situation has gotten so bad that I struggle to find a reason to recommend OnePlus’ smartphones to anyone because I’m concerned the person in question will encounter a frustrating bug.

Overall, the move to Android 12 and from OnePlus’ software to ColorOS has proved too much for the company. In the form of posts on OnePlus’ official forums regarding the update, people are outraged over the new look and feel of the OS and the sheer amount of bugs within it. While I have yet to swap back over to the OnePlus 9 Pro as a daily driver, I managed to download the update and I’ve been running the beta since it launched.

Though I have yet to encounter significant bugs, I’m disappointed with the weird implementation of ColorOS. It feels like a reskinned update stuck between ColorOS 11 and 12. It also steps back some aspects of OnePlus’ design that it released last summer, which I find a little disappointing since, at that time, I thought OnePlus was in a good place to step up as a significant player in the smartphone space.

Since then, the company has rolled back some of my favourite parts of the update on its own, but the ColorOS rebuild is even worse. At this point, if OnePlus and Oppo are going to run the same version of Android, why try to rebrand it as OxygenOS at all? When the two companies publically announced that they planned to merge, one of the key goals was to provide OnePlus users with faster and more stable updates. So far, the opposite has occurred, and I’m hesitant to believe that OnePlus running its own tweaked version of ColorOS is the right move.

I still really like the OnePlus 9 Pro, and in particular, its camera systems and hardware quality, but my trust in the brand has been beaten down over the years as its software never appears to get better — just buggier in different ways.

Via: Android Police 

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Niagara Launcher’s latest update adds new Android 12 features

One of the best-looking Android launchers just got updated to support Android 12 and several of the new features that go along with it.

Niagara Launcher has subtly moved to adopt the ‘Material You’ guidelines so it matches Android 12 on Pixel phones. For anyone else, the launcher adapts reasonably well to your wallpaper colour, but the illusion is broken once you enter into an app.

Material You works out much better on a Pixel 4a (5G) since the wallpaper and the Niagara elements tie together more cleanly. At one point, Niagara and Android 12 on my Pixel both seemed to be drawing different shades of red to match an orange wallpaper I was using. I’m not sure if this is a bug or just something that I might have to get used to as more devs start to take advantage of Material You.

I’ll also mention that to get the weather section of the Agenda Widget to appear, I needed to restart the launcher from within its own settings.

The Niagara team also chose to avoid stylized icons in this build since they’re so inconsistent and only really work with Google’s apps. However, the team did add support for the new Android 12 location access system. This allows users to set an approximate location for the weather widget since the temperature and forecast don’t change much within a 2km radius.

The developer also decided to cut the corners off of all squared widgets to help them fit in with the rounded corners that are prevalent in Android 12. This looks nice when it works but it doesn’t work perfectly across all widgets. For example, the Sonos widget gets compressed down so much that the bottom of the play button gets cut off. I still think this looks a bit nicer than the standard square widgets, but this will be hit and miss until Sonos and other apps update their own widgets to fit better with the new Material You guidelines.

If you want to download the update before it goes live to the Play Store in two weeks, you can do so here. A few weeks ago, I also put together a video explaining Niagara Launcher if you’re unfamiliar with the Android home screen replacement tool.

Source: Niagara Launcher

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Android 12 and One UI 4.0 update finally hits Samsung Galaxy S21 series in Canada

After several delays, Samsung has finally released Android and One UI 4.0 for the Galaxy S21, S21+and S21 Ultra. The update was expected to hit on November 15th, but was delayed to November 23rd and then again until December 6th. 

One UI 4.0 adds new theming options, a refreshed keyboard and new privacy settings. The update also adds more emojis, GIFs and stickers available directly from your keyboard, and new home screen icons, menus, buttons and backgrounds.

Samsung says that it’s also adding new privacy and security features to its devices with One UI 4.0. For example, you’ll be notified when an app attempts to access your camera or microphones.

One UI 4.0 will also be on the following devices: Galaxy S20, S20+, S20 Ultra, S20 FE, Note 20, Note 20 Ultra, S10, S10e, S10+, Note 10, Note 10+, Galaxy Fold, Z Fold 3, Z Flip 3, Z Fold 2, Z Flip, Z Flip 5G, Galaxy A82, A72, A52, A52s, A42, and Galaxy Tab S7 and Tab S7+.

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Amazon’s Appstore doesn’t work on Android 12

A benefit of Android is that you can use third-party app stores if you don’t want to use Google’s Play Store. Unfortunately for fans of Amazon’s Appstore, the Android 12 update broke functionality, and it’s been over a month with no fix in sight.

Reports from PiunikaWeb and Liliputing, highlighted by 9to5Google, point out the issue was brought to Amazon’s attention nearly a month ago. On November 14th, an Amazon staff member acknowledged the problem on the company’s forum, noting that the “technical team is aware of the issue” and “are still working on the resolution.”

Liliputing notes that the issue appears to be related to Amazon’s DRM. Some users reportedly had success downloading apps from the Appstore on another device, editing the APK file to remove the DRM and then moving it to an Android 12 device, where the app would run fine. Unfortunately, that temporary workaround is too technical for most people (including myself).

9to5 also notes that Amazon added a notice to its Appstore app earlier this week, warning users that it’s “working through some issues.”

Image credit: PiunikaWeb

For now, the issue likely only impacts a small group of people with Android 12 (at this point, that’s probably just Pixel owners). However, the problem is bound to get worse as more manufacturers push Android 12 updates out — notable, Samsung, which has started rolling out Android 12 to its recent S21 series phones (or, will start soon in Canada).

If you’re a big fan of Amazon’s Appstore, you’ll likely have to wait a little longer for a fix.

Source: Amazon Via: 9to5Google, Liliputing, PiunikaWeb

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Code suggests several Android brands will support Android 12 dynamic colours

One of the highlights of Android 12 is the new Material You dynamic theme engine, which can pull colours from users’ wallpaper and implement them into system and app UI elements.

Dubbed ‘Monet,’ the system currently works on Pixel phones. That could change in the future, however — several Android phone manufacturers now appear in Google’s Material Components library.

Mishaal Rahman, former editor-in-chief at XDA Developers and now the senior technical editor at Esper, spotted the list and posted the information on Twitter. In short, code included in the Material Components library lists manufacturers that support dynamic colour. You can read the full list below:

  • Oppo
  • Realme
  • OnePlus
  • Vivo
  • Xiaomi
  • Motorola
  • Itel
  • Tecno Mobile
  • Infinix
  • HMD Global (Nokia)
  • Sharp
  • Sony
  • TCL
  • Lenovo
  • Google
  • Roboelectric

It’s also worth noting, as Android Police points out, that the core software behind extracting colour from the wallpaper and the appearance model are already part of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), while the colour palette generation algorithm is Pixel exclusive. That’s set to change with Android 12L, since Google is expected to push that code to AOSP.

Unfortunately, it’s possible the above manufacturers could implement their own versions of dynamic theming, particularly the palette generation portion, designed specifically for their Android skins. Android Police notes that Samsung likely already went this route. The company supports dynamic colour theming in the One UI 4 beta, but it’s probably a proprietary solution since the company doesn’t appear in the above list. Likewise, Oppo has its own dynamic colour implementation in ColorOS 12.

Hopefully these brand-specific takes on dynamic colour theming properly leverage the Material Components library since third-party apps reply on it for the colour extraction. If not, colour theming could be limited to the system UI of each manufacturer’s skin if app developers don’t manually add support for each one.

Source: Mishaal Rahman (Twitter), Android Police