Which Past Phone Did You Like for its Innovation?

The recently released Xiaomi Mi MIX has opened up to a lot of appreciation for its bold approach in imagining what the smartphone future would look like, while still maintaining commercial sense (even if SHARP has done similar things before). With a nearly bezelless display, and all the innovation that went into making the phone possible, the Mi MIX is a breath of fresh air in the world of ordinarily rounded rectangles.

But the Mi MIX is not the first one to have experimented. There have been a lot of phones, both smart and feature phones alike, that stood out of the pack. They chose to redefine what the smartphone experience of the future would be like, albeit not all tasted the same success. So we ask you,

Which phone from the past did you like for its innovation? What did the phone bring to the market that was not considered ordinary at that time? Was it a new set of features, or was it a new software experience? How popular did the phone get, and how did it influence the future that we are living in today?

Let us know in the comments below!

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Alphabet Brings in Over $5 Billion in Profit During Q3 2016

To round off the week, Alphabet has just published their 3rd quarter financial earnings for investors and the media. We can see that June, July, August and September were good for the internet tech giant. Overall revenue for the quarter increased to $22.4 billion when compared to the same quarter last year (which was at $18.6 billion). This quarter's revenue is up from $21.5 billion when you compare it to the second quarter of this year.

Google has reported that they were able to net $5.7 billion in total profit for the quarter, which is up from $4.7 billion compared to the same quarter of last year. This was mostly attributed to the profits that were brought in from the Google division. Google themselves saw their overall revenue go from $18.5 during the third quarter of 2015 up to $22.2 billion this year — with net profit increasing from $5.8 billion during the quarter last year all the way up to $6.7 billion from June through September of this year.

Naturally, Alphabet lost some of its profits thanks to their other bets/moonshot projects that they currently invest in. Alphabet's other bets consist of projects like Nest, Fiber, Verily, and more. They were able to increase overall revenue from $141 million during the third quarter of last year to $197 million this year. However, these other bets also cost Alphabet a total of $865 million and this is actually down from the operating loss of $980 million compared to the same quarter last year.

These types of results have been very typical ever since Alphabet was formed as the parent company of Google. We see the established products and services are bringing in enough profit to keep their moonshot projects funded. Sometimes these other bets don't pan out exactly as they originally planned. Which is what we're currently seeing with the fiber side of Google Access, but we can see that the company is still able to beat expectations.

Source: Alphabet Investor Relations

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Google Assistant Gains IFTTT Support

This year, we're seeing Google take on the likes of Amazon, Siri and Microsoft in the personal assistant category with Google Assistant. The company will begin shipping out Google Home pre-orders within the next week, but the service won't be as powerful as its competition if it doesn't support a wide range of 3rd-party products and services. Many will be happy to use it for asking Google questions and interacting with Google services, but it will need more if it wants to be successful.

We've watched as Amazon has continually supported their Alexa personal assistant ever since the Echo was launched in November of 2014. 3rd-party developers are embedding the service into their own products (which is what Google is hoping for as well), and earlier this year they announced Alexa had over 1,000 skills. Amazon has even announced a year-long Alexa hackathon, and will be putting up a record-breaking $2.5 million purse for it.

So it's clear that Amazon is very dedicated to making Alexa work with as many services and connected devices as possible. This is why it was so surprising when Google announced the only products Google Home had support for was Philips Hue and Samsung SmartThings, as well as "given" ones like Nest. Granted, Google is just getting started in this market so it's fair that they aren't launching with support for hundreds of products and services.

Google just needs to be dedicated to the platform and it will easily be able to compete with the likes of Amazon Alexa. This is why it's such good news to hear that Google Assistant has gained support for IFTTT this week. Before Google Home has even been launched, it is able to connect with 258 different IFTTT channels. So, on the Pixel and Pixel XL, you can already do things like send a tweet by voice, send a note on Slack, add a new Google contact, add a Todoist task and so much more.

Be sure to check out the Google Assistant IFTTT channel to see all of the actions that are available.

Source: IFTTT

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Motorola Moto M Spec Leaks Point to SD-625 SoC and 5,100 mAh Battery

Lenovo seems to have a surprise in store for the upcoming holiday season. The Motorola Moto M has had its fair share of leaks for a while, but based on what we've learned so far, the device seemed to be just another low-end device. Interest in the device was recently renewed, however, with new reports indicating that we may see Microsoft apps pre-installed on the Moto M which differentiated the device amidst the saturated low-end market, although without much to really get excited over.

But that's not all up the Moto M's sleeve. A new leak is providing a ton of more juicy details on the device. First up is a leaked press render of the device, although we do already have a good idea of the device's design thanks to the previous TENAA listing for the device.

The more interesting tidbits on the device come from the its specifications, though. The Moto M is likely to be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625. For storage and RAM, there are two distinct models with further sub-divisions. The Moto M aimed at the Chinese market (PRC) will come with 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM with 64GB of eMMC storage. The Moto M for the Rest of the World (ROW) cuts back on some of the specs with its two variants: you'll either get 3GB or 4GB of LPDDR3 RAM with 32GB of internal storage. Both the PRC and the ROW models will sport expandable storage of up to 128GB via a micro-SD card slot.

But the best part about the Moto M is likely to be its insane battery life, as the specification leak points to the presence of a whopping 5,100 mAh battery on the device. Keep in mind that the Moto M is still very likely to include a 5.5″ 1080p LCD display. Couple that with the efficient Cortex-A53 core setup on the Snapdragon 625 SoC (and obviously, the massive battery capacity), and what you should have is a phone that will easily churn out 2-days of heavy phone usage like a walk in the park.

Curiously, the battery specification mentioned here does not match up entirely with the TENAA listing that was previously spotted, so it is best to keep contain your hype until the product is officially unveiled. That, and the device seems to be launching with Android Marshmallow, which while totally expected of a low/mid-range device is still rather disappointing given that Nougat is already out in the wild.

The Lenovo Motorola Moto M is likely to be launched in December 2016, which is in-line with other leaks pointing to a late 2016 release. We hope to get more concrete info on the device as we approach the launch date.

What are your thoughts on the Moto M? Let us know in the comments below!

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Source: @krispitech

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Verizon Pixel/Pixel XL Bootloader Unlock has been Released

When Google revealed they had struck a carrier exclusivity deal with Verizon for sales of the Google Pixel and Pixel XL within the United States, many of us feared the worst. Given Verizon's history of preventing bootloader unlocking, enthusiasts feared that even the standard bearer for Android, Google's first truly in-house flagship smartphone, would be subject to Verizon's draconian security measures. And indeed, that did appear to be the case. But cracking the Verizon Pixel/Pixel XL's bootloader seemed to be a matter of when, not if, and just the other day XDA Senior Recognized Developers beaups and jcase announced that they had figured out a way to unlock the bootloader. Furthermore, the two SunShine developers disclosed to XDA that their unlock method would be released for free which is something the two developers were under no obligation to do, but decided to do so for the benefit of the community.

Keeping their promise, the SunShine developers have just released dePixel8, a tool to unlock the Google Pixel and Pixel XL sold on Verizon Wireless in the U.S. or EE in the U.K.

dePixel8 is released for HTC Pixel phones. Its not my best work, but it works..usually https://t.co/wTtXLBbW4f @jcase @TheRootNinja

— fire water (@firewaterdevs) October 28, 2016

According to the website, the tool works by forcefully enabling bootloader unlocking on the Pixel/Pixel XL by running the dePixel8 program on the target device. The tool does not actually unlock the bootloader, but that step can be easily done by issuing the usual fastboot oem unlocking command followed by fastboot oem unlock. You'll of course need to have the ADB and Fastboot binaries installed (we recommend Minimal ADB & Fastboot from our forums) and the appropriate drivers to allow your PC to recognize the device.

Because the tool is free to use, the SunShine developers will not provide any support for the product should anything go wrong. Though the tool is likely safe, you should accept any potential risk involved with using an unofficially supported bootloader unlocking method, so please do not go blaming the developers if something happens! If you appreciate the work that they've done (and you should), then all the developers ask of you is that you send donations to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

We at XDA-Developers always appreciate the wonderful work done by developers, most of whom take precious time out of their lives to provide us the fruit of their labor for free. With the release of dePixel8, owners of the Verizon/EE Pixel and Pixel XL will soon be able to join their Play Store-bought brethren in flashing ALL the custom ROMs and kernels they desire.

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Download dePixel8 from the SunShine website

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Chainfire’s Systemless Root for Pixel Phones is Coming

We all knew it was coming. It's basically tradition that within days of Google releasing a new device, XDA Senior Recognized Developer Chainfire finds a working root method. In keeping with that tradition, earlier today Chainfire demonstrated he had achieved root access on his Pixel phone with a picture of ADB shell requesting superuser access. The news understandably brought much excitement to fans of the Google Pixel phones, but Chainfire quickly clarified that the method he used to achieve root access required modifying /system and disabling dm-verity.

Frequent readers of our Portal might recall that we wrote an article explaining the possible difficulties with rooting the Pixel phones, and it seems we were right on some fronts: Chainfire initially confirmed that disabling dm-verity would be problematic, and for a while he thought it would be impossible to disable dm-verity without changes to the kernel. But eventually he found a way to disable dm-verity, as usual, and within a day of poking around he achieved full systemless root by modifying the boot image:

Victory is mine! Full systemless root achieved. Boot image mods only, /system fully intact, dm-verity switchable. #pixel

— Chainfire XDA (@ChainfireXDA) 27 October 2016

This is exciting news for all Pixel owners, as systemless root has become the most common way of rooting devices since Android Marshmallow and now Google's latest phone can enjoy the benefits of root access, without the need for altering the kernel. Chainfire has once again worked around Google's changes to Android in order to bring root access to millions in the Android community, but the method is not ready for release yet. Chainfire says it'll take a few days to automate the process, clean up his work, and package it into a flashable zip, so please wait patiently for the release!

Keep in mind that to even attempt to root your device requires you to unlock the bootloader, which will cause SafetyNet to fail, so don't expect to play Pokemon Go or use Android Pay on your Pixel. Even with SultanXDA's temporary SafetyNet bypass patch, it's only a matter of time until Google updates SafetyNet to fix this loophole. Still, we were worried that disabling dm-verity would require modifying the kernel, but Chainfire proved us wrong. We can only hope that the ingenious developers on our forums can continue finding workarounds should the need arise, but at this point it's basically a game of whack-a-mole between developers and Google.

Feature image credit: The Legend

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Android BBQ Vlog Day 2

The second day of the Big Android BBQ of 2016 was a bitter sweet experience. It was announced that this would be the last BBQ as there was no longer the sponsor presence needed to keep the event going. The event was a lot of fun and this video captures some of the final bits of the BBQ.

We were lucky enough to go to the Big Android BBQ thanks to our sponsor UMi. Their latest phone, the UMi plus, has 4GB RAM, a 4,000mAh battery, and stock Android for $149. Click here to check it out!
umidigi.com

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