Cyanogen launches ‘MOD’ platform to give developers Google-like access to Android OS

Above: Cyanogen has introduced 'MOD' for its version of Android OS.

Image Credit: Cyanogen

BARCELONA, Spain — If Cyanogen had any say, all those apps cluttering your smartphone would go the way of the dinosaurs.

Of course, that’s not going to happen anytime soon. But the Palo Alto-based company has announced a new version of its Android-based operating system called ‘MOD’ that will give developers an ability to integrate their apps into a phone’s OS that is normally reserved for Google.

“We believe this is truly disruptive,” said Vikram Natarajan, Cyanogen’s senior vice president of global partnerships and distribution. “Every developer wants to know how to access the phone’s OS on a deeper level.”

MOD is the latest salvo from a company that has raised $110 million in venture capital to develop a distinctly different version of Android — one that undercuts Google’s advantage in giving away the free operating system. While Google doesn’t directly make money from Android, many of its own apps (Gmail, Google Now, Search, etc.) are embedded in each version of the OS at a deep level.

Previously, Cyanogen’s OS let users install a version of Android that removed the apps that typically come pre-installed on an Android phone, whether they came from Google, Samsung, or some mobile phone carrier.

Now, with the MOD platform, developers will be able to go one step further and build their apps directly into the Androids OS, rather than having them sit on top as separate program.

“Normally this access is reserved for Google and Apple,” said Stephen Lawler, Cyanogen’s vice president of engineering. “We’re democratizing that.”

In the initial version, for example, Cyanogen has partnered with Microsoft so that Skype and Cortana can be built right into that phone. That means, in the case of Skype, that a user doesn’t have to tap on a Skype app button to launch the service.

Instead, Skype is built into the phone’s main caller, so a call may be happen through Skype or through the regular phone itself.

With Cortana, Microsoft’s voice-activated personal assistant, users can use their voice to control basic phone functions, like asking the camera to take a selfie. This means users are not just limited to the features within the Cortana app.

These types of partnerships will necessarily be limited, since Cyanogen can’t bake hundreds of app-like services into the OS. But because this kind of access will be so fundamental, Cyanogen will negotiate with developers to take a small slice of whatever types of revenue they derive from these built-in services.

Execs will also sell carriers and phone manufacturers on the idea that this deep integration offers a version of Android that will stand out from the hundreds of other Android-based phones sold around the world.

“In an ocean of sameness in Android, you want to stand out,” Natarajan said.

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Android Marshmallow Review: The Best Mobile Platform

Google delivers another EPIC update in the form of Android Marshmallow, a truly huge and awesome platform for phones and tablets

Last year, with the arrival of the Nexus 5X and the Nexus 6P the Android world was all about Android Marshmallow 6.0. The new build, previously known as Android M, built on Google's earlier advances with Android Lollipop, continuing the wonderful new Material Design ethos, but importantly it introduced a number of new and powerful features, as well as further enhancing performance optimisations with the 64-bit architecture and, a BIG deal for many users, some excellent built-in power saving features. After all, we all want our phones to run for longer, don't we?

We've got Android 7.0 to look forward to this summer, and you can already bet it'll be called Android N. In the meantime though, let us take a look at what's hot (and maybe what's not) about the current version...

Android Marshmallow: App Permisions

A seemingly small and unexciting change at first glance, app permissions inside Android Marshmallow have been extensively tweaked. Why's this a good thing?

Well ok, if you're a long-time Android user you'll be familiar with this scenario: you download and install an app from Google Play and it gives you a wall of text saying these are the app permissions you need to grant - it's weird, and confusing, and a bit of a hassle.

Android Marshmallow takes a different route, with app permissions being individually bundled up and distributed to you as and when you use a certain feature that requires it. Itnow lets users reject or approve permissions from individual apps and individual functions within the app itself. You won't be hit with a big wall of permissions when you install an app anymore, instead when you use a feature, say the voice message recording inside WhatsApp, it'll ask you for permission then, rather than up-front.

You can still go into permissions for any given app and tweak them at any time, however. This pretty much streamlines app installation and use, and for features you never use, you'll never get asked to grant permission!

Android Marshmallow: Web Browsing & Chrome

It wouldn't be new Android without at least some attention given to the web experience via the Chrome browser. Most notably Google has added "custom tabs" which allow Chrome to open up links to web content inside an app as an overlay, rather than jumping you out of the app entirely and into the full-blown browser, as has been the case until now.

This feature will allow app developers to customise the tabs to fit the look and feel of their own app design language, but will be directly linked to Chrome on that device and a logged-in user account, preserving things like remembered passwords and login details - allowing for a seamless experience.

Again, this is more streamlining from Google and it's very welcome too, as it was a bit laborious being booted out of an app and into Chrome for every bit of shared content or hyperlink.

Android Marshmallow: Fingerprint Scanner

Between the inclusion of fingerprint scanners on a range of Android phones (including the new Nexus devices) and the rollout of Google's own Android Pay it was inevitable that some attention be given to fingerprint scanning and biometric security. Google's gone for standardised, built-in support for fingerprint authentication, allowing developers to make use of the feature for unlocking devices, logging into apps and content, and purchases via web stores or points-of-sale in bricks n' mortar retail outlets.

Android Marshmallow: Android Pay & Mobile Payments

Android Pay is now rolling out and is a natural evolution of Google Wallet — the Big G’s first attempt at mobile payments. Android Pay has been redesigned and rejigged with 2015/16’s market in mind. In order to use it you will need Android handset running Android KitKat and above and NFC — bad news for OnePlus 2 owners, then! Unlike Apple Pay, Android Pay does not require a fingerprint scanner, despite many new Android handsets shipping with one. If you don’t have a fingerprint scanner on your phone you can authenticate a payment using a PIN, pattern or password.

Android Marshmallow: Battery Optimisations

Doze is designed to make your Android Marshmallow handset suitably more power efficient. How it works is simple: sensors detect when you’re not using your phone, say while watching a movie or reading a book, and put it into a kind of sleep mode so it uses less power. This is an excellent addition to Android and one that adds in a bunch more hours to a handset’s idle performance. You’ll even notice the difference on older hardware like the Nexus 5.

Material Design: New App Drawer & New Animations

Digsby

IM, Email, and Social Networks in one easy to use application!

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It's not a big visual overhaul but Material Design has been tweaked a little, most notably the new animations designed to make everything even more visually integrated, intuitive, and seamless. On top of this a new app drawer design is much cleaner, features vertical scrolling, discretely colours itself the same way as your wallpaper, and prioritises your most-used apps at the top. Lastly, Google has added a more seamless homescreen rotation functionality, and options for toggling this on or off.

Android Marshmallow: Android RAM Manager

No this isn't a kind of shepherd. The Android RAM Manager keeps a close eye on your phone's Random Access Memory and shows you a much more detailed background of which apps are most hungry for your phone's grey matter.

Android Marshmallow: Adoptive Storage

Adoptive Storage allows the Android system to "adopt" an external memory device such as a microSD card and treat it as onboard storage. Excellent stuff! Now we just need OEMs to start including microSD-support again and everything will be good again!

Android Marshmallow: Dark Theme

Digsby

IM, Email, and Social Networks in one easy to use application!

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Pretty much does what it says on the tin; there's a dark theme now if you want it!

Android Marshmallow: Google Now

Plenty of attention has been focused on Google Now, generally with the intention of making it smarter, faster, more responsive and accurate, and overall easier to use and get exactly what you need out of it.

Google says the Google Now suite understands context better than ever before, so for example, if you have a route set up in your Maps already you can ask "how far is it?" and Google Now will know you are referring to the current route's end destination - you don't have to be so specific any longer.

Android Marshmallow: Voicemail

Google has expanded voicemail functionality to include a lot more useful details at a glance and allowing you to control your message playback via a slider, pause, delete and much more, rather than having to go through the annoying process of pressing number keys to perform these functions when prompted.

Digsby

IM, Email, and Social Networks in one easy to use application!

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This functionality will need to be enabled on a carrier-by-carrier basis, but support is expected to become widespread.

Android Marshmallow: Status Bar Customisation

The settings menu has been expanded to allow you to directly customise which icons appear in the status bar - don't want to see a Bluetooth indicator? Toggle it off or on as you wish.

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Play Store v6.2 Adds App Recommendations From Our Itineraries In Gmail [APK Download]

There's a new version of the Play Store floating around in the wild, taking us up to v6.2. If you haven't read the title already–which might be possible–you probably want to know what this update includes. There's really only one immediately visible feature, and it's not big, but it's there: the Play Store can now use your Gmail messages to give app recommendations. There are also a couple of minor changes to the navigation drawer and even something we already knew about that will get a teardown mention. Let's be honest, you're here for the apk, so just jump to the link at the bottom and start downloading.

What's New

Recommendations from Gmail Itineraries

The notable addition in this version is a new toggle in Settings that gives Google the permission to provide app recommendations based on itineraries found in your Gmail account. What does that mean? You're probably going to see some pretty obvious stuff, like the app for an airline after you book a flight. Maybe you'll get language learning and translation apps if you're headed to a foreign country. Who knows, maybe a dinner reservation will earn a link to Yelp.

I think this is a pretty great idea, if for no other reason than it should lead to some recommendations based on something more useful than what our friends liked. I've had this version of the Play Store installed for a little over a day and I've yet to see a recommendation based on my email, so I'm not sure if this feature is actually active yet, but I also don't have a lot lined up for the next couple of weeks. Somebody with more immediate plans might have a better chance of seeing some results.

Obviously, some people will feel like this is an invasion of privacy, so they can turn the option off if they like.

Minor Nav Drawer Tweaks

Left: previous version. Right: latest version.

I doubt–even hope–that nobody cares about this, but we saw this and don't want to get too many tips about it. There are two trivial changes to the navigation drawer: "My wishlist" has been shortened to "Whishlist" and it has traded places with "Redeem." There's really nothing more to it, I've checked. Nevertheless, if you're actually using either of these options enough that you have some kind of muscle memory built up for where they are situated, this little change is gonna drive you nuts.

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Google Engineer Shows Off Android Smart Mirror Prototype

We now live in a world where your bathroom mirror can show you the time, temperature, and news headlines as you're brushing your teeth in the morning. Well, one Google staffer can, at least.

In a recent blog post, Google software engineer Max Braun said at some point late last year he realized he wanted his basic bathroom mirror to be smarter — like the one from that 2000 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie The 6th Day. After searching online, he couldn't find what he was looking for. So, he built it.

Using a two-way mirror, display panel, controller board, other components, and arts and crafts supplies, Braun rigged up something pretty fantastic. Now, when he's looking at his mug in the morning, Braun can glance over to the right and see the time and date displayed directly on his medicine cabinet mirror or look left for the current weather, a 24-hour forecast, and recent news headlines.

The code behind the user interface leverages some simple Android APIs like TextClock for the date and time, as well as Forecast for the weather and the Associated Press for news. He's also playing around with adding traffic and reminders to the interface.

"The idea is that you don't need to interact with this UI," he wrote. "Instead, it updates automatically and there's an open-ended voice search interface for anything else."

Braun said the project involved "quite a bit of experimentation and some dead ends" and his prototype is still a work in progress. The thing is currently powered by an Amazon Fire TV Stick, which runs an Android API that drives the UI. But Braun also experimented with using Chromecast and Nexus Player before putting together his "finished — yet by no means final" product.

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New Mobile Malware for Android Discovered

Malware developers continuously find newer methods for infecting people's gadgets. Some of the methods are so effective that the resultant malware threats cause immense harm. A very recent group of malicious programs, a discovery of Symantec, attacks Android devices being used inside China. This malware family has been dubbed Android.Spywaller, softpedia.com reports, December 28, 2015.

Android.Spywaller is unique because when it infects, it hunts for the widely-used security application Qihoo 360 that Chinese Android-operators use. When the malware hunts as well as registers its presence on the Android gadget, it uses identical Unique Identifier (UID) that Qihoo 360 uses. After this, it plants the DroidWall binary, which is an edition of UNIX iptable a bundled program, customized for easy execution on Android gadgets.

One popular firewall utility, the iptable bundled program is designed for Linux running computers. Moreover, DroidWall is the creation of Rodrigo Rosauro an independent security investigator, who after sometime gave away the binary to AVAST for a price during 2011. For some years, the application worked like an open source, and because of that malware developers may yet obtain it through GitHub repositories or Google Code.

Similar as with Android.Spywaller, DroidWall too is usable for locking security applications so they can't interact with their servers, which may be cloud-based e-threat analyzers. Consequently, the security applications become unusable thus letting the malware run without any obstacle, while the device becomes safely accessible to the criminals.

Symantec researchers explain the spyware pretends to be one Google Services application followed with utilizing an authentic security program, which's embedded on the device, for hijacking other security software which could have defended the device. At this point victims become lured since authorized Google utilities such as Google Play aren't available inside China. Consequently, the spyware causes the damage by loading its payload having the malicious program, inside the gadget's memory.

The application, says Symantec, hunts data that it exfiltrates. The data include GPS readings, SMS, call logs, e-mails, system browser information, contact lists, images and radio items. Moreover, the application even garners data from QQ, Coco, Oovoo, BlackBerry Messenger, Talkbox, Skype, SinaWeibo, Wechat, Voxer, TencentWeibo, Zello and WhatsApp.

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How to Set Up Android's Daydream Screensaver

A cool, hidden feature called Daydream in Android turns your phone’s display into a mosaic of images, news headlines or random colors. Debuting as part of Android 4.2, Daydream remains a feature in Android Marshmallow, as an interactive screensaver that switches on when you plug in your phone — so long as you've enabled it.

Here’s how to get Daydream working and turn your phone into a vacation picture slideshow or just make things more interesting when you’re charging up your device.

1. Open Settings by swiping down from the top of the screen with two fingers or swiping down once and touching the top bar.

2. Tap Display.

3. Tap Daydream to see a list of apps that integrate with Daydream.

Daydream's default option is Clock. To see what it looks like, touch the overflow button (three vertical dots at the top) and select Start Now. You end the Daydream session by tapping your phone's screen.

Here's how to access more customization options.

1. Touch the overflow button, followed by the When to Daydream option that appears.

2. Set the Daydream to begin when the device is docked, charging or either one.

You can also select which of your photos to display in a Daydream session. Here's how.

1. Select Photos from the Daydream screen, then select the wrench next to it.

2. Choose specific albums or groups of photos to cycle through next time you launch Daydream.

3. Touch the Back button, then launch Daydream. 

You’ll see the selected images appear as a screensaver on your display.

Your options for what appears on your screen will expand over time. As you install new apps that integrate with Daydream, they’ll be added to a list of apps that you can select within Settings to appear when you've turned on Daydream.

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Android N: Google Might Use Online Poll To Decide The Dessert Name

Google might conduct an online poll to zero-in on the dessert name for Android N, according to CEO Sundar Pichai.

Around same time last year, Android fans were waiting for Google to reveal the dessert name for the coveted “M” in Android M. After a long delay, Marshmallow was finally picked as the OS name. Now, it’s time of the year to find out the name of the next-generation OS Android N. However, this time, the search giant might involve users to find the perfect name.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently visited India to kick start initiatives specific to the country, as India is one of the crucial markets for the search giant. Some of the initiatives include enabling India’s train stations with Wi-Fi connectivity, to assist in getting better 2G connections, a unique connected bike concept and a new Google campus in one of the major cities Hyderabad, Android Authority reported.

Meanwhile, Gadgets 360 said that Pichai also participated in a Q&A session at an Indian College. During the Q&A session, Indian students apparently asked -- When will the Android OS be named after an Indian dessert? Needless to say, the entire crowd cheered and Pichai chipped in humorously by saying he plans to get suggestions from his mom. However, he admitted that he was never a dessert-loving person as a child.

He also added that, Google might consider the idea of “online polls” to let people vote for their favorite dessert as the name of Android N. Pichai said, in case, a good number of people voted for an Indian dessert that could very well be the OS name.

This is good news for Android fans across the globe as many readers have been suggesting names in tech portals from the time Google started naming its OS after desserts. By conducting an online poll, Google is indirectly making its users contribute to their favorite platform. Millions of dedicated Android fans will be more than happy to be part of such an initiative with their favorite dessert name in tow.

So far, the following names have been getting a lot of traction from across the globe: Android Nutella, AndroidNankhatai (Indian dessert), Android Nougat, Android Nut Brittle, Android Nutrageous and Android Nerds, Pocket Lint reported.

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