Mishaal's Android News Feed

Pixels aren’t the only Android phones getting new features today! Other phones are getting: - Expressive Captions - Upgraded Image Q&A in Lookout - QR codes in Quick Share - Auto-enhancements in Google Drive - New pizza emoji combos! Details on these new features can be found in this article.

Google's Gemini app is getting a bunch of new features, including: - New Spotify extension - ‘Utilities’ & other extensions to make phone calls, send text messages, etc - ‘Saved info’ for tailored responses - New languages for Gemini Live Details on these Gemini updates can be found in this article.

The next Pixel Drop is here, bringing a TON of new features! - Pixel Screenshots app now auto-organizes screenshots - Pixel Recorder adds a Clear Voice mode - Now Playing history FINALLY shows album art - Widgets on lock screen for Pixel Tablet More details can be found here.

Samsung's One UI 7 beta brings support for Google's Identity Check feature. Google teased this feature back in October, but it now seems to be going live for the S24 series in the One UI 7 beta. How Identity Check works: When your phone is in an untrusted location, biometric authentication will be required to make any changes to important security settings. This is similar to Stolen Device Protection on iPhones. New devices launching with Android 15 or higher that support biometric authentication are required to preload a certain version of Google Play Services in order to ensure the Identity Check feature is available, so we'll see more and more devices soon with this feature.

The One UI 7 beta is finally live! It's available for the Samsung Galaxy S24 series in Germany, India, Korea, Poland, the UK, and the US. You can sign up for it via Samsung Members. I don't have an S24 myself to test it, so follow @jspring86az on Threads for the details. Links: [1] Samsung One UI 7 Beta Starts To Roll Out Showcasing the Glimpse of Future of Mobile AI [2] Samsung One UI 7 Enhances Security and Privacy in the Age of AI, Giving Users Greater Transparency and Choice

🔘Samsung may finally let you long press the power button to launch Gemini The side button on Samsung devices can currently only launch either Bixby or the power off menu when held down, but this could change in One UI 7. More details can be found in this article.

📄Native PDF support is coming to Chrome for Android, and you can try it now Google Chrome is adding support for Android's new, enhanced PDF reader library, allowing it to open PDF files without the use of third-party apps. Details + how to enable it can be found in this article on Android Authority.

📱Huawei's Harmony OS Next doesn't natively support Android apps, but that hasn't stopped some people A new tool called 'EasyAbroad' lets you run various Android apps like YouTube, Gmail, and more in a container. It seems to work surprisingly well!

Google has announced that it's hardening Play Integrity API verdicts so they're less spoofable but also faster and more privacy-friendly. - Improved device integrity verdicts on Android 13+ will require the use of hardware-backed security signals using Android Platform Key Attestation, making them much harder to bypass. Google will adjust verdicts when it detects "security threats across Android SDK versions, such as when there is evidence of excessive activity or key compromise." - The Play Integrity API will now have the "same level of reliability and support across all Android form factors." - Because these new verdicts reduce the number of device signals that need to be collected and evaluated, Google says verdict latency can improve by up to 80%. Developers can opt in to use these new verdicts today or wait until May 2025 which is when all API integrations will automatically transition. In addition: - The "meets-strong-integrity" response is being updated to require a security patch level within the last year on devices running Android 13+. - A new device attributes field lets apps adjust their behavior based on the user's Android SDK version. - All optional verdict signals are being standardized across apps, games, SDKs, and more.

I got the Linux Terminal app working on my Pixel phone! I regret to inform you that, unfortunately, there's no GUI, so I couldn't run Doom 😭 Any Linux gurus have suggestions on things I should try installing/running?

Google announced at I/O that Health Connect on Android would let apps sync more than 30 days worth of data (historical reads) as well as read data in the background (background reads). Both of these features are already live in the version of Health Connect that ships with Android 15 as well as Android 14 devices with SDK Extension version 13. However, apps need to be updated to take advantage of these features. Version 1.1.0-alpha09 of the Health Connect Jetpack library added support for the background reads feature, while -alpha10 added support for the historical reads feature. Once apps add support (likely will start happening after v1.1.0 exits alpha), then you'll be able to manage their access to historical/background data through the Health Connect app, as shown above.

The latest alpha release of the Jetpack PDF support library (version 1.0.0-alpha04) expands PDF Viewer support to devices running Android 12, 12L, 13, and 14 with SDK Extension level 13. I haven't seen any apps integrate this new PDF Viewer library yet, but that's bound to change as this support library exits alpha (and adds Jetpack Compose support as mentioned in the changelog). Android 15, if you'll recall, brought substantial improvements to Android's PdfRenderer APIs, letting apps incorporate advanced features. These features are being backported through Mainline updates and developers can simplify adding these capabilities to their apps through the Jetpack support library.