Mishaal's Android News Feed

Google Messages is rolling out a new UI for sending pictures! The new UI unifies the camera/gallery and also adds a button to change the media quality. The default quality is compressed but you can send in original quality, finally! 9to5Googlereported on the rollout of this new UI last night, after which I checked and saw that I had it on my device.

Sony might be one of the few OEMs that'll actually implement Google's Private Space feature in Android 15. Most other OEMs will just stick with their current takes on this feature, like Samsung Secure Folder, Xiaomi Second Space, OnePlus Hide Apps, etc. It's a shame because these other implementations can't be integrated into third-party launchers and also a lot of apps treat them like a work profile is installed.

📲Android 16 could add a feature that lets Gemini execute functions within your apps This could basically let Gemini become an AI agent for your phone, accomplishing what the 'new Google Assistant' from 2019 was envisioned to do. More details can be found in my latest article on Android Authority.

It seems the uptick of leaked keyboxes has finally caught Google's ire: I've seen a number of keyboxes leak online, and they're being used to defeat hardware attestation signals used by the Google Play Integrity API. Basically, these leaked keys let devices with unlocked bootloaders act as if they're locked, which is normally nearly impossible to do because of hardware attestation. To rectify this, Google is revoking these keys, but this may impact some regular end users whose devices will be unable to run certain apps. Google says it's working with impacted OEMs to update these keyboxes so users won't be impacted, but I suspect this isn't the end of these leaks.

Google is testing a new UI for the Now Playing screen in YouTube Music for Android. Here's a comparison between the old/current UI and the new one in testing. As you can see, the placement of the media controls has changed. Which do you prefer? (H/T JING for the screenshots!)

Source: Google has canceled the Pixel Tablet 2, not the Tab 3 Google is pulling the plug on its next Pixel Tablet, citing fears the product wouldn’t sell very well. More details can be found in my latest article for Android Authority.

🧘Health Connect is adding support for saving your yoga and meditation sessions The next version of Health Connect, currently available in Android 16 DP1, adds support for a new category of data called Mindfulness. More details on what this means can be found in this article.

Android 16 DP1: The even dimmer feature that I first told you about has taken a step closer towards launching in Android 16 DP1. Of the two flags that control it, one of them has been enabled by default now.

🗓 Did Google releasing Android 16 DP1 yesterday surprise you? What if I told you that Google actually planned to release it last Thursday? That’s right, Google originally planned to release Android 16 DP1 on the same week as Android 15 QPR2 Beta 1, but it got delayed. Whew.

Google has rebranded its Data Restore Tool app to Android Switch. There's also a new icon! I'm normally not a fan of minimalist icons, but I think this one is quite clever: The blue bubbles change to green bubbles. H/T Jason Lim

🔒Android 16 DP1 automatically hides some sensitive notifications from the lock screen I discovered that Android 16 automatically redacts the content of notifications that have OTP codes in them from appearing on the lock screen. Details + images can be found in this article.

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?