Mishaal's Android News Feed

🏫Google extends Family Link School-Time Controls to Android Phones, Tablets Google has unveiled new supervision tools for parents in Family Link. Here's what new controls are available for Android phones and tablets👇 https://www.androidfaithful.com/family-link-school-time/

Google I/O 2025 is happening May 20-21, 2025!

Google I/O 2025 is happening May 20-21, 2025!

🗺This app lets you use Samsung's tracker tags with any Android phone Tired of poor performance with Google's Find My Device network? The new uTag app by Kieron Quinn lets you use a Galaxy SmartTag with any Android phone. More details👇 🔗https://www.androidauthority.com/smarttags-non-samsung-3523131/

The OnePlus Watch 3 is launching next week! OnePlus has confirmed its next flagship smartwatch is launching next Tuesday in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The OnePlus Watch 3 will have class-leading battery life (up to 120 hours in Smart Mode, up to 16 days in Power Saver Mode) thanks to its large 631mAh Silicon NanoStack battery and Dual-Engine Architecture (Snapdragon W5 chipset for performance plus BES2800 MCU for efficiency). It'll come in two colors: Emerald Titanium and Obsidian Titanium. It'll have a stainless steel casing, a titanium alloy bezel with PVD coating, and a 2D Sapphire Crystal display. The OnePlus Watch 2 was my favorite smartwatch of 2024, and it's still the one I wear today. If OnePlus just improves on the formula, then the Watch 3 will probably be my favorite watch of 2025.

Android 16 may give you a heads up when your phone's time zone changes Google is working on a "time zone alerts" feature that notifies you when your phone's time zone has been automatically updated. 🔗https://www.androidauthority.com/android-16-time-zone-alerts-3524074/

⌨️ Android 16 could finally let you remap keyboard shortcuts Google's working to let you reassign the key combinations that perform Android system actions. More details 👇 🔗https://www.androidauthority.com/android-16-customizable-keyboard-shortcuts-3524017/

✨Google Photos will now add an invisible watermark to images edited with Reimagine Photos will start using SynthID, a technology that embeds imperceptible digital watermarks into images, to mark images edited with Reimagine. 🔗https://www.androidfaithful.com/google-photos-reimagine-watermark/

The supported Linux kernel versions for Android 16 have been revealed. They include: Upgrades: - android11-5.4 - android12-5.4 - android12-5.10 - android13-5.10 - android13-5.15 - android14-5.15 - android14-6.1 - android15-6.6 - android16-6.12 New launches for devices with chipsets not under GRF: - android15-6.6 - android16-6.12 New launches for devices with chipsets under GRF: - android13-5.15 - android14-5.15 - android14-6.1 - android15-6.6 - android16-6.12 --- Yes, this means that there could be new Android 16 devices shipping with a kernel/vendor software built for Android 13.

One Googler says that "AVF is mandatory starting from Android 16." AVF, if you aren't aware, is the Android Virtualization Framework. It provides a set of APIs for system apps to run payloads in an Android or Linux virtual machine. It's also notably what enables the new Linux Terminal app in Android 16. Almost every OEM has devices supporting AVF, with the lone exception of Samsung (possibly due to conflicts with Knox). I thought this would change with the launch of the Galaxy S25 series, as they launch with vendor software built for Android 15, and AFAIK, VSR-15 still has a clause mandating that devices launching on API level 202404 support AVF. So I'm not sure what happened here, but hopefully the requirement is actually real in Android 16, at least for newly launching devices.

📏Android 16 is getting more personalized with new regional preference options Android 16 may let you set your preferred measurement system and region independent of the system language. Here's why that's important👇 🔗https://www.androidauthority.com/android-16-region-measurement-settings-3521970/

🛜Quick Settings on Android could revert to expanding tiles the old way Google is testing a change that brings back the old Quick Settings tile expansion behavior from Android 5.1. It's far from finished, but here's a video showing the current state👇 🔗https://www.androidauthority.com/android-quick-settings-expansion-3521878/