How Important are Slim or “Efficient” Bezels to You?

We increasingly see the use of curved glass on smartphones, sometimes even emulating Samsung's "Edge" design trademark, and concept phones like the Xiaomi Mi Mix suggest a new focus on slim bezels could be on the horizon.

Many people have also criticized the bezels of 2016 devices like the Moto Z and Pixel XL, although there are also arguments in favor of bigger chins and sides: it's arguably easier to reach the navigation bar (particularly software keys) with a larger bottom bezel, and if the sides are too thin the UX might suffer due to accidental touches. Some people like their phones as compact as possible, while many will argue this impacts touch accuracy, grip or general ergonomics. So we ask you,

How important are slim bezels to you? What about maximizing the top and bottom bezels with speakers or fingerprint readers? Does it impact your purchasing decision at all? What are your phone's bezels like, and what would you change?

Join the discussion in the comments below!

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Team Win Releases their first Official TWRP App in the Play Store

Custom ROM enthusiasts browsing our forums prior to 2011 might remember the days of repeatedly clicking the volume and power button to get anything done in recovery.

This was before the advent of touchscreen-enabled custom recoveries, of course, which are ubiquitous today. Leading the pack is Team Win's Recovery Project (TWRP), which supports virtually every device with an unlocked bootloader and features custom themes, custom scripts, and powerful partition management options all wrapped up in a simple UI designed for ease of use.

But despite how user friendly TWRP itself is, updating the recovery would require manually downloading the latest TWRP recovery image from their website onto your internal storage and flashing it over the fastboot protocol or within TWRP. Although there are a few fairly popular third-party applications on the Play Store that promise the ability to update the recovery partition without fastboot or recovery use, many of us prefer to use first-party applications in order to support the original developers. For the past 5 years of TWRP's existence, such an option has not been available. Today, however, the official TWRP application launches on the Google Play Store!

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TWRP's Official App

Available starting today on the Play Store and soon as an APK directly from TWRP's website, the Official TWRP App is the first app that was developed by Team Win's Dees_Troy for the explicit purpose of maintaining TWRP. The app is free to use without any advertisements and does not require Google Play Services. Its main features include the ability to find and download the latest TWRP image for your device, flash said image to the recovery partition (requires root), and flash downloaded boot images to the boot partition (requires root).

As shown in the screenshots above, the app allows you to quickly find the latest TWRP image for your phone. In order to download the recovery image, you are temporarily re-directed to the TWRP website's download page for the image, but upon returning to the app you can quickly use the built-in file manager to find and select the downloaded image. Prior to flashing the image, you are given a final confirmation dialog in case you selected the wrong partition to flash to. Once you hit "okay" the TWRP app will automatically flash the image to the recovery partition using superuser access. If you downloaded a boot image from our forums and wish to flash that, you can use the built-in file manager to find, select, and flash the boot image to the boot partition all the same using this app.

Finally, in the settings menu you have the ability to check for TWRP updates in the background. You can select to check for an update once everyday (default) or every other day depending on your preferences.

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TWRP Integration

In order to encourage users to keep their recovery regularly updated, new versions of TWRP will include a slimmed down version of the application package baked into the recovery image. In order to fit within the limited space available for the recovery partition, this slimmed down version of the app serves as simply a placeholder app which directs you to install the full application from the Play Store.

Don't worry, though, as TWRP will not force this app on you. Instead, you will be given the ability to opt-in to install this app via a prompt shown before rebooting the device within TWRP. This app can be installed as either a system or a user app, depending on whether or not you have system read-write permissions granted to TWRP. There will also be a check box you can select to stop TWRP from asking you to install the app, in case you want the prompt to disappear. All officially supported TWRP devices will receive an update in the coming days including this feature, with plans for the current Nexus devices, OnePlus phones, and a handful of Samsung devices to be first in line for the update.

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TWRP Open Beta

Lead developer on the project Dees_Troy describes the application as an "open beta" of sorts. This means that the app is not fully feature complete right now, but there are plans to support additional features in the future. Currently, what's on the to-do list includes:

• Open Recovery Scripting support
• Google Pixel support, as the flashing tool needs to be updated to support the A/B partition layout
  • Once this is complete, the app may be updated to allow for flashing just a kernel zImage on the Google Pixel phones
• Support for flashing images from external storage
• Confirmation dialog after successfully flashing a recovery/boot image
• Currently English only, but support for other languages is planned
• Flatter color scheme

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P3 Insights Partnership

The official TWRP application was developed in conjunction with P3 Insight GmbH, a subsidiary of the P3 Group. P3 Insight is well-known for their performance and service quality evaluation of U.K. mobile networks for which they have released several network testing applications. As a nature of this partnership, the official TWRP application will allow users to participate in global mobile network testing for P3 Insight. This service is opt-in. Denying the application permission to collect network quality data will not limit functionality of the main application in any way.

In any case, if you are interested in participating in P3 Insight's network testing, you will have the ability to opt-in during initial set-up of the app.

At the bottom of the set-up page, you are asked if you agree to enabling "insightCore." This is the technology that P3 Insight uses to collect network statistics. If you click on the "terms and conditions" link, you can view the full privacy policy prior to consenting to testing. The terms promise that no personally identifiable information (PII) is collected or shared outside of what data is necessary to compare various network metrics.

Once you agree or disagree with the terms, you will be brought to the main splash page of the app where you can either enter the main TWRP actions screen as shown previously or view the Network Statistics page provided by P3 Insight. If you denied access during set-up, you can click on Network Statistics to bring up the terms and conditions consent dialog once more. As of now, opting out cannot be performed without re-installing the app, but support for opting out within the app is planned for a future release.

Network Statistics are collected silently in the background while you are using your phone.  There are three metrics being tested here: Download Speed, Data Availability, and Signal Strength. Each of these are fairly self-explanatory, but there are some important things to note regardless. As shown in the "help" prompt for each metric, the app tries to ensure very minimal use of your data for those of you on metered connections. In addition, the app tries to avoid excessive battery drain by deriving statistics from very tiny packets of data or collecting statistics from data sent from other apps.

Finally, one thing I would like to mention is the color scheme used in the network statistics. Some of you might notice that the blue background coupled with the shades of blue used for the bar graphs in each network metric make viewing the graphs a bit difficult. I spoke with the developer regarding this, and he informed me that he will work with P3 Insight to improve the readability.

I myself have only tested the app and all of its features using my Nextbit Robin for the past day, so I have not been able to collect enough network statistics to contribute to the overall metrics shown within the app. But the hope is that enough people will find the app useful that they will contribute to P3 Insight's crowd-sourced study regarding mobile network performance and quality in their country. We're always excited to see the work done by members of Team Win, so we'll keep you updated if any major developments for the app occur.

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Download the Official TWRP App

Note: We would like to kindly ask you to not take this time to bug any TWRP developers asking them to support a currently unsupported device. As always, please refer to the XDA forum thread with instructions on how to compile TWRP for your own device.

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Honor Magic Officially Released in China

Today at the Universiade Center in Shenzhen, Honor officially announced their new phone, the Honor Magic. They explained that Magic, to Honor, means "fantasy" and they've chosen to coin the supporting phrase of "to the future." With innovation being the driving force for their products, Honor is looking to take a lead in handset development with the Magic.

Device Name:	Honor Magic	Price	3699 RMB (~510€ / ~420£ / ~530$)
Android Version	Android 6.0 (Honor Magic Live)	Display	5.09 inch 2560 x 1440 AMOLED (577 PPI)
Chipset	Huawei Kirin 950, Octa-Core (4×2.3 GHz+4×1.8 GHz)	Battery	2,900 mAh, Huawei Magic Power (70% in 20min)
RAM	4GB	Sensors	Hall effect sensor, Fingerprint sensor, Proximity sensor, Ambient light sensor, Compass, Accelerometer, Phone status indicator, Gyroscope
Storage	64GB	Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth BT4.2, MicroUSB (USB 2.0),  GPS/AGPS/Glonass/BeiDou Navigation Satellite System
Dimensions	146.1mm (L) x 69.9 mm (W) x 7.8 mm (T)	Rear Camera	12MP, F/2.2 Photo resolution: up to 3968×2976, Video resolution: up to full HD 1080P, 720P 120FPS for slow motions
Weight	145g	Front Camera	8MP, F/2.0, Image sensor: CMOS, Video resolution: up to full HD 1080P

Full list of bands here.

The Honor Magic brings smartphone curves to a new level with all four edges of the screen on the front being curved, and Honor has chosen to also curve the four sides on the back making for a smooth and sleek design.

The back of the device is adorned with the same dual camera setup found on the Honor 8. However, on the front of the device things get even more interesting with a three camera set up, one of which is infrared for taking quality selfies at night. Perhaps the most useful feature is the inclusion of Huawei's new charging technology, as Honor claims that the Honor Magic only takes 20 minutes to charge 70% of its battery (in lab conditions), and just 10 minutes to charge up to 40% of its battery.

Another new feature is Honor's take on facial-recognition with the following key notes:

• Bringing the phone to your face, and actually looking at it, will wake the screen. The demo made on stage showed the phone being raised from flat and the screen staying blank until the presenter looked at the screen.
•  The Magic will not display the text of notifications on the lockscreen unless the owner of the device is the one looking.

The entire software package, dubbed Magic Live, is set to provide Honor's take on all of the features found in Google Now and Google Assistant, and given that this device is a China-only product, such choice makes sense for this market. The demo showed AI integrations for location, application usage, and more.

The Honor Magic is available in China beginning today, and can be found on various online retailers. Let us know your thoughts, and which features you would like to see in worldwide devices from Honor in the comments below. A hands on will be coming soon!

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Official CM14.1 Nightlies are Available for the Nextbit Robin

Nextbit has been very supportive of the developer community, and this week we can now flash official nightly builds of CM14.1 on the Nextbit Robin. Some are reporting performance issues with this early build though, and another says the fingerprint sensor is having some trouble.

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Renders Based on CAD Dimensions Show us the Xperia XA’s Successor

OnLeaks, in collaboration with Slashleaks, has been able to come up with a 3D render of what the successor to Sony's Xperia XA could look like. OnLeaks is known for getting his hands on CAD dimensions of upcoming products. Then, he's able to take this data and come up with reasonable look at what an unreleased product will look like.

As with all rumors though, you'll want to take this information with a grain of salt.

Every now and then we see Sony switch up their design language for a new smartphone, but there doesn't seem to be much changed here. We can see Sony's typical circle power button on the side, along with a volume up and volume down button right above it. Then at the bottom of that same side edge we have the well known dedicated hardware button that most use for taking their photos.

It seems like the speakers are front-facing, but we see what looks like a speaker grill on the right side of the bottom edge. There's a USB Type-C port at the bottom, right in the center, and then a 3.5mm headphone jack at the top. There isn't anything special happening on the back, as the render just shows the camera and flash at the top left corner. It's possible that we'll see some sort of Sony or Xperia logo here  when the final product is released.

Some people have not been a fan of this new design language from Sony. Granted, there have been complaints of the boxed/rectangle look of their phones for a while, but we're seeing them refine this as the years go by. This leak makes it seem as if Sony is shifting from a previous design (from the Xperia XZ) over to this new phone, and focusing on a hardware upgrade with the successor the Sony Xperia XA.

Source: Slashleaks

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BlackBerry Announces a Long-Term Licensing Agreement with TCL

You may know of TCL as the company who manufactures Alcatel's smartphones. They've been producing the company's smartphones for a while now and it seems TCL enjoys this type of business relationship. After BlackBerry's popularity declined, it seemed like the company was just going to stop manufacturing smartphones and focus on their enterprise software division instead. Then a new partnership signaled the possibility of new life coming to BlackBerry's smartphone business.

Granted, BlackBerry is not making their own smartphones anymore, but their brand name will live on. We first saw this with the DTEK50, and then again with the DTEK60, as both of these devices were manufactured by TCL. They were rebranded as TCL smartphones and many have been okay with that, since the hardware is nice and BlackBerry excels in software and security, which is what they've been focusing on.

It was unclear exactly how long this relationship would last, but this week it's been announced that the two companies have signed a long-term licensing agreement. This frees up BlackBerry to continue focusing on their enterprise software division, while still maintaining a branding presence in the smartphone market. It will be interesting to see how this relationship develops in the future too, since the DTEK series was the product of a short-term partnership to see how the two companies would work together.

TCL could go the route of simply rebranding their own smartphones with BlackBerry's logo, or they could start to produce unique designs for them. This partnership gives TCL exclusive global manufacturer and distributor rights for all BlackBerry-branded smartphones except in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Indonesia. So we'll continue to see BlackBerry partner with at least one other manufacturer for products sold within these countries.

What do you think of this long-term licensing agreement? Are you looking forward to seeing what new smartphones BlackBerry and TCL release in the future?

Source: Marketwired

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Material Design Guideline Update Talks About App Shortcut Icons and More

It's been a few months since Google updated their Material Design guidelines, but they were able to sneak one in before the end of the year. This update adds three new sections to the spec, and then makes some significant changes to three other sections. Many were wondering what design was ideal for icons of Android's new App Shortcut feature, and Google has included some tips in this latest update.

We're starting to see a number of applications adopt Nougat's new App Shortcuts feature. This is quite helpful for those times we need to access a specific part of an application. Google tells us that App Shortcut icons are circular, they contain a system icon (or an avatar), and they must remain inside the trim area. Google says the total area of the icon must be 48dp, and that it should include 2dp of padding so that the live area is a 44dp circle.

Google also created a section for cross-platform use of Material Design. The idea behind this section is to talk about when you should stick with Material Design guidelines, and when you should adhere to a specific platform's conventions. It's recommended that you use a platform's default text alignment for toolbars, and the same goes for a platform's preferred iconography too.

The last new section of the Material Design guidelines talks about how to indicate, craft, and place help content. Google provides a handy flowchart for suggesting where and how you can implement your help content. Some can add a shortcut to their help content directly in the Navigation Drawer, others might find it best in the Overflow Menu, and there's even a way to put it inside the App Bar. Google even includes tips for icons, writing the help content, and more.

If you're a developer who is interested in Material Design, be sure to check out the new changes in the link below!

Source: Material Design

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