Clubhouse finally has an Android app that you can download from the Play Store -- provided you live in the U.S. From a report: The voice-based social network launched its beta Android app on Play Store for users in the U.S. on Sunday, and said it will gradually make the new app available in other English-speaking countries and then the rest of the world. The social network, valued at about $4 billion in its most recent fundraise, launched as an iPhone-only app last year. The app quickly gained popularity last year, attracting several high-profile celebrities, politicians, investors, and entrepreneurs. Clubhouse began developing the Android app early this year and started to test the beta version externally this month. In a town hall earlier Sunday, the startup said availability on Android has been the most requested product feature. "Our plan over the next few weeks is to collect feedback from the community, fix any issues we see and work to add a few final features like payments and club creation before rolling it out more broadly," the team wrote. As Clubhouse struggles to maintain its growth -- data from mobile insight firms including AppMagic suggests that Clubhouse installs have drastically dropped in recent months -- the Android app could prove pivotal in boosting the startup's reach across the globe.

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According to The Verge, citing a new deposition made public as part of the Epic case, Apple's senior VP of software and services, Eddy Cue, pushed to bring iMessage to Android as early as 2013. "[...] Cue wanted to devote a full team to iMessage support on Android, only to be overruled by other executives," adds The Verge. From the report: The latest deposition cites a specific email exchange between Cue and Craig Federighi, currently Apple's SVP of software engineering, beginning on April 7th and 8th, 2013. The exchange came after news circulated that Google had attempted to purchase WhatsApp for $1 billion. According to the exchange, Cue took the rumors as a sign that iMessage should expand to Android to cement Apple's hold on messaging apps: Cue: We really need to bring iMessage to Android. I have had a couple of people investigating this but we should go full speed and make this an official project.... Do we want to lose one of the most important apps in a mobile environment to Google? They have search, mail, free video, and growing quickly in browsers. We have the best messaging app and we should make it the industry standard. I don't know what ways we can monetize it but it doesn't cost us a lot to run. Federighi: Do you have any thoughts on how we would make switching to iMessage (from WhatsApp) compelling to masses of Android users who don't have a bunch of iOS friends? iMessage is a nice app/service, but to get users to switch social networks we'd need more than a marginally better app. (This is why Google is willing to pay $1 billion -- for the network, not for the app.)...In the absence of a strategy to become the primary messaging service for [the] bulk of cell phone users, I am concerned [that] iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove an obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones. Elsewhere in the deposition, Cue says, "I remember the time of wanting to do an iMessage app on Android ourselves." "Would there have been cross-compatibility with the iOS platform so that users of both platforms would have been able to exchange messages?" the questioner responds. "That was certainly the discussion and the view that I had," Cue says. [...] The line of questioning is likely to play a significant role in Epic's antitrust lawsuit, which argues that iOS app store exclusivity represents an illegal use of market power. Epic has made clear in previous filings that it plans to make iMessage exclusivity part of that argument, citing a 2016 email from Phil Schiller that argues iMessage expansion "will hurt us more than help us."

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According to a new report from Light Reading, the three major U.S. carriers (four at the time) have reportedly abandoned their joint venture to launch a new Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative (CCMI), that promised interoperability for an RCS Universal Profile-based messaging standard. It was originally set to be launched in 2020. [For a detailed explanation of RCS Messaging, we recommend this article.] Android Police reports: Although the company handling the logistics behind the cross-carrier effort claims that it's still "continuing to move forward with preparations," a Verizon spokesperson told Light Reading that "the owners of the Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative decided to end the joint venture effort." [...] This may seem like bad news, but things have changed since 2019. In the time since the CCMI was announced, Google leapfrogged the carrier's selfish dithering and rolled out its own RCS messaging solution via the Messages app, all connected to its Jibe network (though it will use your carrier network if it's Universal Profile-compatible). It's a move that means customers don't have to wait on their carriers to start the work they should have done five years ago. More recently, T-Mobile has essentially handed the reins for its whole network messaging solution to Google by adopting Messages as the default SMS app for all T-Mobile phones, connecting all its customers to Google's RCS network. Given what has and hasn't succeeded when it comes to RCS messaging, what we'd like to see is for Verizon and AT&T to follow T-Mobile, give up on their own stupid standards, and simply adopt Google's RCS Messaging -- either by connecting their chat apps to Google's Jibe network somehow or by adopting the Messages app as sanctioned solutions, as T-Mobile did. But in the meantime, there's nothing to prevent customers on either network from just installing the Messages app themselves and bypassing the carrier mess altogether -- especially since it sounds like the carriers have given up on fixing it.

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Security researchers say APKPure, a widely popular app for installing older or discontinued Android apps from outside of Google's app store, contained malicious adware that flooded the victim's device with unwanted ads. From a report: Kaspersky Lab said that it alerted APKPure on Thursday that its most recent app version, 3.17.18, contained malicious code that siphoned off data from a victim's device without their knowledge, and pushed ads to the device's lock screen and in the background to generate fraudulent revenue for the adware operators. But the researchers said that the malicious code had the capacity to download other malware, potentially putting affected victims at further risk.

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Apple knows that iMessage's blue bubbles are a big barrier to people switching to Android, which is why the service has never appeared on Google's mobile operating system. From a report: That's according to depositions and emails from Apple employees, including some high-ranking executives, revealed in a court filing from Epic Games as part of its legal dispute with the iPhone manufacturer. Epic argues that Apple consciously tries to lock customers into its ecosystem of devices, and that iMessage is one of the key services helping it to do so. It cites comments made by Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services Eddie Cue, senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi, and Apple Fellow Phil Schiller to support its argument. "The #1 most difficult [reason] to leave the Apple universe app is iMessage ... iMessage amounts to serious lock-in," was how one unnamed former Apple employee put it in an email in 2016, prompting Schiller to respond that, "moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us, this email illustrates why." "iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove [an] obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones," was Federighi's concern according to the Epic filing. Although workarounds to using iMessage on Android have emerged over the years, none have been particularly convenient or reliable.

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schwit1 shares a report from Ars Technica: Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems has filed a complaint against Google in France alleging that the US tech giant is illegally tracking users on Android phones without their consent. Android phones generate unique advertising codes, similar to Apple's Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA), that allow Google and third parties to track users' browsing behavior in order to better target them with advertising. In a complaint filed on Wednesday, Schrems' campaign group Noyb argued that in creating and storing these codes without first obtaining explicit permission from users, Google was engaging in "illegal operations" that violate EU privacy laws. Noyb urged France's data privacy regulator to launch a probe into Google's tracking practices and to force the company to comply with privacy rules. It argued that fines should be imposed on the tech giant if the watchdog finds evidence of wrongdoing. "Through these hidden identifiers on your phone, Google and third parties can track users without their consent," said Stefano Rossetti, privacy lawyer at Noyb. "It is like having powder on your hands and feet, leaving a trace of everything you do on your phone -- from whether you swiped right or left to the song you downloaded." Last year, Schrems won a landmark case at Europe's highest court that ruled a transatlantic agreement on transferring data between the bloc and the US used by thousands of corporations did not protect EU citizens' privacy.

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The developers behind Niagara Launcher, a popular third-party home screen replacement app, have found new evidence in the Android 12 preview documentation, which suggests that Google is adding a new device search API in Android 12 that will let third-party launchers offer a similar universal search feature. XDA Developers reports: [T]he feature will give third-party launchers "access to the centralized AppSearch index maintained by the system." It further highlights that the AppSearch index is a search library for managing structured data featuring: A fully offline on-device solution; A set of APIs for applications to index documents and retrieve them via full-text search; APIs for applications to allow the System to display their content on the system UI surfaces; and Similarly, APIs for applications to allow the System to share their content with other specified applications. This feature will essentially provide a native alternative to universal search apps like Sesame, giving users the option to search for almost anything on their device in an instant.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It sounds like this custom Google SoC-powered Pixel is really going to happen. Echoing reports from about a year ago, 9to5Google is reporting that the Pixel 6 is expected to ship with Google's custom "Whitechapel" SoC instead of a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip. The report says "Google refers to this chip as 'GS101,' with 'GS' potentially being short for 'Google Silicon.'" It also notes that chip will be shared across the two Google phones that are currently in development, the Pixel 6 and something like a "Pixel 5a 5G." 9to5 says it has viewed documentation that points to Samsung's SLSI division (Team Exynos) being involved, which lines up with the earlier report from Axios saying the chip is "designed in cooperation with Samsung" and should be built on Samsung's 5nm foundry lines. 9to5Google says the chip "will have some commonalities with Samsung Exynos, including software components." XDA Developers says it can corroborate the report, saying, "According to our source, it seems the SoC will feature a 3 cluster setup with a TPU (Tensor Processing Unit). Google also refers to its next Pixel devices as 'dauntless-equipped phones,' which we believe refers to them having an integrated Titan M security chip (code-named 'Citadel')." A "3 cluster setup" would be something like how the Snapdragon 888 works, which has three CPU core sizes: a single large ARM X1 core for big single-threaded workloads, three medium Cortex A78 cores for multicore work, and four Cortex A55 cores for background work. The Pixel 6 should be out sometime in Q4 2021, and Pixel phones always heavily, heavily leak before they launch. So I'm sure we'll see more of this thing soon. "I think the biggest benefit we'll see from a Google SoC is an expanded update timeline," writes Ron Amadeo. "Android updates go a lot smoother when you get support from the SoC manufacturer, but Qualcomm abandons all its chips after the three-year mark for major updates. This lack of support makes updates significantly harder than they need to be, and today that's where Google draws the line at updates." "Beyond easier updates, I don't know that we can expect much from Whitechapel," adds Amadeo, noting that lots of Android manufacturers have made their own chips but none of them have been able to significantly beat Qualcomm. "It's hard to be bullish on Google's SoC future when the company doesn't seem to be making the big-money acquisitions and licensing deals that Apple, Qualcomm, and Samsung are making. But at least it's a start."

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Google today announced a series of policy updates for apps distributed through the Play Store. The most impactful sees Google limit most developers from seeing which Android apps are installed on your device. From a report: As part of its ongoing work to restrict the use of high risk/sensitive permissions, Google is limiting what apps can use the QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES permission that "gives visibility into the inventory of installed apps on a given device." This applies to apps that target API 30+ on devices running Android 11 and newer. Enforcement was originally meant to occur earlier, but delayed in light of COVID-19.

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Sustainable smartphone manufacturer Fairphone has gotten Google's certification for its Android 9 update for the Fairphone 2. The Verge reports: Getting certification for a nearly three-year-old version of Android doesn't sound that impressive until you realize that it's running on a phone originally released five years ago when it ran Android 5. The roll-out of the software starts today, and will continue until April 18th, Fairphone says. It's a length of support that's basically unheard of among Android phone manufacturers. Although Fairphone 2 owners aren't going to be able to enjoy the latest Android 11 features, the more important thing is that they're running a version of Android that's still officially supported. Google's latest Android security bulletin from this month includes multiple fixes for security issues in Android 9. "To get Google certification for Android 9 for Fairphone 2 just as we hit five years of support for the smartphone is a huge achievement for Fairphone," says CEO of Fairphone Eva Gouwens. "In order to get certification, we had to pass approximately 477,000 Google tests." "We want to show the industry that this kind of thing is possible, that a smartphone doesn't have to be discarded after 2-3 years, we can prolong it's lifespan," the CEO added.

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The OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro are OnePlus' newest smartphones powered by Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 888 chipset. The flagship device is the OnePlus 9 Pro, featuring a 120Hz LPTO curved display, 8GB of RAM, 128GB storage, Hasselblad-branded cameras, and a starting price of $969. If that price is too much to stomach, the OnePlus 9 features slightly lower-end specs and a more affordable $729 starting price. The Verge has already called the OnePlus 9 Pro "the best Android alternative to Samsung." From the report: OnePlus spent much of its announcement talking about the cameras on the new phones, which have been developed in partnership with Hasselblad. OnePlus says the colors have been tuned to look more natural and that the ultrawide sensor on the 9 Pro and 9 is one of the biggest to ever ship on a smartphone. The ultrawide uses a 50-megapixel Sony IMX766 sensor that's 1/1.56" in size with an aperture of f/2.2. Meanwhile, the 9 Pro's main Sony IMX789 sensor has a resolution of 48 megapixels and is 1/1.43" in size. (The regular 9 has a Sony IMX689 sensor, but it has the same resolution of 48 megapixels.) Both have a 2-megapixel monochrome sensor and 16-megapixel selfie camera, but only the 9 Pro has an 8-megapixel telephoto. As previously announced, the 9 Pro has a 1440p 120Hz curved display that makes use of LPTO technology to adjust its refresh rate between 1 and 120Hz based on the content being displayed on-screen, reducing power consumption by "up to 50 percent." OnePlus also claims it should feel more responsive to use in games that support its Hyper Touch technology. The screen has a maximum brightness of 1300 nits and supports HDR10+. Meanwhile, the OnePlus 9 has a flat rather than curved display. It's not LTPO, it's slightly less bright at 1,100 nits, and it's also lower resolution at 1080p. It's still got a refresh rate of 120Hz, however. Additionally, both phones support Warp Charge 65T, which OnePlus claims should be able to charge the phones' 4,500mAh batteries to 100 percent in under half an hour. The 9 Pro and 9 can also charge wirelessly at up to 50W and 15W, respectively. Both phones will go on sale on April 2nd, with preorders starting March 26th.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: /e/ OS, the "open-source, pro-privacy, and fully degoogled" fork of Android, is coming to Canada and the USA. Of course, you've always been able to download the software in any region, but now (as first spotted by It's Foss News) the e Foundation will start selling preloaded phones in North America. Previously, /e/ only did business in Europe. Like normal, the e Foundation's smartphone strategy is to sell refurbished Samsung devices with /e/ preloaded. In the US, there are only two phones right now: the Galaxy S9 for $379.99 or a Galaxy S9+ for $429.99. North Americans still have reason to be jealous of Europe, where you can get /e/ preloaded on a Fairphone, which is also Europe-exclusive. These Samsung phones are used devices, but the site says the devices have "been checked and reconditioned to be fully working at our partner's facilities." The phones have a one-year warranty and are described as "Good-as-New" with "no surprises." An /e/ device means you'll be getting a fork of Android 10, and for ongoing support, the e Foundation says, "We aim to support with at least 3 years of software updates and security patches." /e/ OS was founded by Gael Duval, the creator of Mandrake Linux, and the project describes itself as a "non-profit project in the public interest." /e/ is built a lot like a Linux distribution, in that it takes a curated collection of other open source projects, merges them into a single product, and does its best to fill in the remaining gaps. In this case, /e/ is based on LineageOS, the Android community's open source, device-ready version of Google's Android source code. The primary contribution of /e/ is filling in all the gaps left by the lack of Google apps, so there's an /e/ app store, an /e/ cloud storage and account system, and various Google-replacement apps like a Chromium-based browser, a fork of K-9 Mail for email, contacts, search, photos, etc. The company is even trying to build a Google Assistant replacement. Actually getting regular Android apps to run on a forked version of Android is a challenge. Google Play Services is built into many apps for things like push notifications, and there's a good chance that functionality won't work on /e/ OS. These apps will at least run on /e/ OS instead of exiting outright, thanks to the inclusion of MicroG, an open source project that hijacks Google API calls.

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Bill Gates "prefers the more open nature of the Android ecosystem, as it's more 'flexible' about how software interfaces with the OS," reports PC Magazine, citing remarks Gates made on Clubhouse to CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin: "I actually use an Android phone," Gates told Sorkin. "Because I want to keep track of everything, I'll often play around with iPhones, but the one I carry around happens to be Android. Some of the Android manufacturers pre-install Microsoft software in a way that makes it easy for me. They're more flexible about how the software connects up with the operating system. So that's what I ended up getting used to. You know, a lot of my friends have iPhone so there's no purity." In 2019, Gates admitted the way he handled Microsoft's own mobile phone division was his "greatest mistake." Microsoft ended up letting Google transform Android into the only true rival for iPhone. Microsoft missed out on a $400 billion market at the time, something Gates deeply regrets. In 2017, however, he went ahead and adopted an Android phone. During the interview, Davidson indicated that an Android version of Clubhouse could be on its way. He called it a "top feature," which could mean the iPhone Clubhouse could soon dissipate.

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Samsung is upping the ante on Android updates and offering four years of security updates on many of its Android devices. The company's full update package is now three years of major OS updates and four years of security updates, besting even what Google offers on the Pixel line. From a report: In the announcement, Samsung says, "Over the past decade, Samsung has made significant progress in streamlining and speeding up its regular security updates. Samsung worked closely with its OS and chipset partners, as well as over 200 carriers around the world, to ensure that billions of Galaxy devices receive timely security patches." Samsung has experimented with bringing four years of updates to its own Exynos SoC devices, but now it looks like the company is getting Qualcomm models on board as well. Keep in mind that these are not necessarily monthly security updates. Samsung says it's delivering four years of "monthly or quarterly" updates, depending on the age of the device. Samsung's current security bulletin page has the Galaxy S9 (2018) on the monthly update plan, while the Galaxy S8 is on the quarterly plan. So it sounds like three years of monthly security updates and one more year of quarterly updates.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Google is adding some of its fancy, Pixel-exclusive editing features to Google Photos today for all Android users to enjoy, but there's a catch -- if you don't have a Pixel, you'll have to be a paying Google One subscriber to use them. The paywalled editing features have been rumored for some time, but today marks the official announcement of the new program. Specifically, Google is offering some of its more recent machine-learning powered editing tools, like its enhanced Portrait Blur, Portrait Light, and Color Pop features that it started offering alongside the Pixel 5 last fall to a broader audience. As Google clarified to The Verge when the paywall was first discovered, the company isn't taking away existing versions of features like Portrait Blur or Color Pop from free Google Photo users. The current iteration of those features -- which work with newer photos that offer depth data, such as a portrait mode shot -- will still work for everyone. But the new Pixel- and subscription-only version promises to take things a step further and allows users to apply those effects (through the power of machine learning) to older photos that don't have that existing depth data. Pixel users will still get access to the features for free, whether or not they subscribe to Google One.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The final version of Android 12 should be released sometime in September, but the first developer preview is expected any day now. Our first hint of what Google's new release might have in store comes to us from XDA Developers' Mishaal Rahman, who has some pictures of what looks like a major UI overhaul for Android 12. According to the report, these images represent mockups, not screenshots, of Android 12. The mockups appear in a document describing the new features of Android 12, and the document is being passed around to partners as a heads-up before the public rollout. The first thing that jumps out to me is the weird sepia-tone color scheme, like someone left night mode on permanently. This color scheme looks like a huge change compared to the all-white color scheme of Android 11, but it's probably completely up to the user. [...] Even if we ignore the colors, the notification panel is still pretty different, which is totally on brand for Android, as the notification panel gets revamped in every release. Starting at the top, the weird black status bar is gone, replaced with a single sheet that serves as a notification background. It's not transparent here, but that could just be a mockup inaccuracy. The time and date have swapped places, with the date on top now. The quick settings are no longer in a box, and they've been cut down to four instead of six (booo!). The Quick Settings shapes have been configurable in the past, but it now looks like there's a mix of shapes, with disabled settings having a square background and enabled settings getting a circle. There's also a new "Privacy" settings screen, which gives you what looks like systemwide kill switches for the camera, microphone, and location. None of these switches is new, but you get easy, more obvious access to them now. This privacy screen also seems to show a new design for the settings. In addition to the new color scheme, it looks like Google is taking after Samsung and some other Android OEMs in designing settings screens with reachability in mind. There's a huge "Privacy" banner at the top, with lots of white space above it, pushing the start of the list down from the very top of the phone. Most good implementations of this feature shrink the top banner once you start scrolling. The final new item in the mockups is a "conversations" widget. This seems to show a person or group chat and recent messages or calls from that person. It appears to combine messages from multiple apps into a single widget, which would be possible through the existing notification APIs.

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Thanks to the hard work of the SwitchRoot team, it's now possible to enjoy an Android 10-based LineageOS 17.1 port on your Nintendo Switch console. XDA Developers reports: The Android 10 release is based on the LineageOS 17.1 build for the NVIDIA SHIELD TV and brings many improvements over the previous release, including a much-needed deep sleep mode so the OS doesn't murder your console's battery life. It's also generally faster and more responsive than the previous Android 8.1 Oreo version, according to the SwitchRoot team. The ROM comes in two flavors: a Tablet build that offers a standard Android UI with support for all apps and an Android TV build that supports both docked and undocked use cases but has more limited app support. The former is recommended if you primarily use your Nintendo Switch while undocked, while the latter will offer a much-better docked experience. As for bugs and broken things, the developer says games built for the SHIELD (Half-Life 2, Tomb Raider, etc.) aren't supported, and you might notice some stuttering with Bluetooth audio. Some apps also may not support the Joy-Con D-Pad. In order to install this build, you'll need an RCM-exploitable Nintendo Switch, a USB-C cable, a high-speed microSD card (formatted to FAT32), and a PC. If you already have the Android 8.1 Oreo build installed on your SD card, just make sure to back up your data before installing the Android 10 build, as flashing this new ROM will wipe all data. After installing the ROM itself, be sure to flash the Google Apps package, Alarm Disable ZIP, and Xbox Joycon Layout ZIP if you use an Xbox controller. You can download LineageOS 17.1 for Nintendo Switch here.

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Google is exploring an alternative to Apple's new anti-tracking feature, the latest sign that the internet industry is slowly embracing user privacy, Bloomberg is reporting, citing people with knowledge of the matter. From the report: Internally, the search giant is discussing how it can limit data collection and cross-app tracking on the Android operating system in a way that is less stringent than Apple's solution, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private plans. Google is trying to balance the rising demands of privacy-conscious consumers with the financial needs of developers and advertisers. The Alphabet unit is seeking input from these stakeholders, similar to how it's slowly developing a new privacy standard for web browsing called the Privacy Sandbox. With more than $100 billion in annual digital ad sales, Google has a vested interest in helping partners to continue generating revenue by targeting ads to Android device users and measuring the performance of those marketing spots. "We're always looking for ways to work with developers to raise the bar on privacy while enabling a healthy, ad-supported app ecosystem," a Google spokesman said in a statement. [...] A Google solution is likely to be less strict and won't require a prompt to opt in to data tracking like Apple's, the people said. The exploration into an Android alternative to Apple's feature is still in the early stages, and Google hasn't decided when, or if, it will go ahead with the changes. On the iPhone, Google offers developers a framework so they can monetize their apps using Google ads. In a recent blog post, Google said Apple's ad-tracking update means developers "may see a significant impact" on their ad revenue. To keep advertisers happy while improving privacy, the discussions around Google's Android solution indicate that it could be similar to its planned Chrome web browser changes, the people said. Further reading: Google's iOS Apps Haven't Been Updated in Weeks. Could Apple's Privacy Labels Be the Reason? Facebook Warns Advertisers on Apple Privacy Changes Apple's Tim Cook Criticizes Social Media Practices, Intensifying Facebook Conflict Facebook Looks To Take its Fight With Apple To Court.

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Investment app Robinhood has plummeted back down to a one-star rating on Google Play, thanks to a flood of thousands of new negative reviews. From a report: The latest low rating comes just days after Google salvaged the app's rating by removing nearly 100,000 reviews, following a flood of negative ratings after the Robinhood blocked purchases of popular stocks from Reddit's /r/WallStreetBets like GameStop or AMC last week. Google confirmed to The Verge at the time that it was actively removing negative reviews on the app. The review rollercoaster for Robinhood's rating has been nearly as up-and-down as GameStop's stock price. When users began to review bomb the app last Thursday, Robinhood reached a one-star rating with nearly 275,000 reviews. Google then removed nearly 100,000 of those reviews, putting the app back at a four-star average with roughly 180,000 reviews. But as of the publication of this article, Robinhood has returned to a new high of almost 305,000 reviews, along with a 1.1-star rating. Google's Play Store policies do explicitly ban reviews that are intended to "manipulate the rating" of an app; the company had previously removed earlier Robinhood reviews because it felt that they violated that policy. A Google spokesperson did confirm to The Verge that the current reviews -- which were not the ones deleted in last week's purge -- are compliant to Google's policies, and won't be removed.

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