Hyundai hands car dash to Android, Apple for device-based interface

Hyundai has made it known that Android Auto and Apple’s CarPlay will be very much central to how they imagine their cars’ dashboards in the near future, particularly starting in 2015. A new entertainment hub/display will be coming to the Korean car manufacturer’s vehicles that will be ditching the current standard CD player and onboard navigation. The music and map apps on the owner’s Android or Apple device will take over that function.

Hyundai is one of the first manufacturers to do this, recognizing the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets which makes the CD player on the cars dash not only redundant but mostly outdated. The functions are clearly duplicated in the more handy and versatile smartphones, and it clearly is a waste of space to continue putting expensive upgrades to cars that owners rarely would use.

Very specifically, Android Auto’s integration into Hyundai’s dashboard is what you would expect. You connect your device via USB cable and you get a streamlined dash screen that gives you access to Google Maps for navigation and some other apps for music – including Spotify, Kick, Songza, and Soundcloud.

How about if the owner doesn’t own a smartphone? Highly unlikely, but in that situation, Hyundai is still bundling in a native suite with a navigation system and its own music app. Bluetooth connection only? Same thing – Hyundai is still including its own Blue Link system for that. What do you think?

VIA: SlashGear

Story Timeline

• Google not locking down Android, coming to TVs and cars in the near future


• Android Auto now supports audio and messaging apps


• Video: Android Auto in full detail

Chainfire Turns Your Bootanimation into a Logging Center

Having a nice boot animation certainly adds a little bit of aesthetic polish to your ROM. But other than its purely aesthetic value, boot animations don’t really provide any useful information. When your device is boot looping or one of your services is constantly crashing, ADB is still the most reliable option to get information. There are plenty applications able to get logs straight from device, but not many can access logs while booting.

XDA Senior Recognized Developer and Senior Moderator Chainfire, known from various projects such as SuperSU and CF-Root, decided to “tweak” the boot animation by adding logcat and dmesg logging. LiveBoot is a root-only application that can replace standard your boot animation with logs, or it can be used as a semi-transparent background. The user can decide which logs are displayed, so this application can be very handy when your device fails to boot.

LiveBoot should work with most Android 4.3+ devices. There might be some problems with some specific device firmwares, but this shouldn’t be too common. LiveBoot requires the newest SuperSU 2.40 to work properly, so update now if you haven’t already.

More information about the project and download files can be found in the LiveBoot application thread. Head over there if you want to change your bootanimation into a complex logging center.

The post Chainfire Turns Your Bootanimation into a Logging Center appeared first on xda-developers.

Double Tap to Wake feature brought back to unrooted Nexus 6

A few weeks back, we talked about an app that brought back the “double tap to wake” feature to the Google Nexus 6 phone, a feature that was planned to be active on the phone but was nixed by Motorola and Google at the last minute. Said app only worked on rooted Nexus 6 phones, so it still presented quite a challenge for those who don’t like/want to root their phones. Enter XDA member “_qwerp” who now presents an alternate solution for bringing back the feature to non-rooted Nexus 6 units.

Early caveat (there always seems to be one), this process is still not without its challenges, as it requires an unlocked bootloader. Granted, this is a bit easier to do through other third-party means, and one can choose to unlock their Nexus 6 bootloaders without rooting the phone itself.

The process entails installing the TWRP custom recovery to your Nexus 6, and then replacing the “power.shamu.so” folder in the “/system/lib/hw” directory of your phone with the one compiled and provided by the developer. This can be done using the TWRP file manager.

This will bring this feature back to your phone where once it was just for your friends who owned new Moto and LG units. If you decide to do this, please note that as always, it would be good to have a backup of the file you are replacing so that you are covered if anything goes to crap. Look more into the information provided by the developer via the official XDA thread here.

SOURCE: XDA

Story Timeline

• App brings back Double Tap to Wake on rooted Nexus 6


• T-Mobile hypes virtually pristine version of the Nexus 6


• Android 5.0.1 images go live for Nexus 6, Nexus 4, no Nexus 5

LiveBoot v1.00 available for rooted Android devices

Chainfire has pulled the wraps off an all-new app for folks who like to root other devices called LiveBoot. The app is in version 1.00 right now and puts a logcat/dmesg boot animation on the screen of the device during boot to allow users to see what is going on with boot as it happens.

There are two versions of the app- the basic and the pro version. The pro version allows the boot information to be laid over the normal device boot screen as the smartphone boots. To use the app, the smartphone had to be rooted using SuperSU v2.40 or higher.

Chainfire says that Android 4.3 to 5.0 might work with the app, but it is mainly aimed at Android 5.0 users. The developer warns that users on Android 4.3 will likely run into issues and those issues will be fixed in "due time."

The app is available on the Google Play store right now. It is a free download with a $2.49 in-app purchase option. Presumably, that is what it costs to update to the pro version. If you want to see exactly what the app does on a device, check out the video below.

SOURCE: +Chainfire

Archer Diaries lets you train around the world to become archery expert

With the popularity of several pop culture phenomenon like Arrow, Avengers, Lord of the Rings and Hunger Games, archery has suddenly become cool again (Robin Hood says, "Told ya!") in the past few years. Attendance in archery schools shot up, students in gym class no longer avoid the bows and arrows, and during Halloween, they've become a popular costume as well. A new game called Archer Diaries is set to take advantage of this continued popularity, this time, aiming (pun intended) it at mobile users.

No, this isn't the secret thoughts and inner feelings of Hawkeye or Legolas, but Archer Diaries is a game that lets you train to become an expert archer (at least digitally) while traveling around the world and going on adventures. Unless you're Katniss Everdeen or the Greeen Arrow, you start from the very beginning, as an entry-level archer. You work your way up, improving your skills, training hard, and taking up challenges as you visit several countries in your quest to become a legendary arrow expert.

The physics based adventure game has amazing 3D graphics and recreations of famous places in countries like France, Italy, Pakistan (where the game developers are actually from), and many more. Players will not just face having to hit their targets, but also overcome wind, gravity, and other elements while chasing both static and moving targets. There is also a time element involved, so you can't just leisurely go through your training.

Archer Diaries is free to download from the Google Play Store. However, there are in-app purchases available so be careful not to turn on the automatic purchase option when other archers in training will borrow your smartphone.

Google Adds New Features to Drive, Sheets, Slides and Docs

In the last few months, Google has been working very hard to adapt all its apps to the new Material Design UI paradigm. Overhauling the UI was a big deal, but one of the main goals in app development is adding new features. Everyone loves features, so Google stepped up and delivered quite a few to several of its first party Android apps.

Google has pushed out updates of the following applications: Docs, Sheets, Drive, and Slides. The first thing you’ll notice are full hamburger menu icons. In addition, Docs now allows users to specify line spacing in the paragraph section, where users select one of the predefined values. Unfortunately, they can’t be edited manually. Sheets also received some tweaks, seen in new scroll bars that should help you to find your location in the document.

Slides users can now also insert and manipulate lines, shapes, and text boxes. You can move those objects freely and do something like this:

The above updates aren’t all–Google has good news for LibreOffice and OpenOffice users. Drive has gained the ability to import Open Document Format into the respective apps. You can even search for content by saying “OK Google, search for [something] on Drive”. Your results will then be available and opened through the Drive app.

These applications are now gradually making their way to end user devices via the Play Store. However, those who want to get in on the updates a bit early can head over to the via link below for the all important APK download.

[via Android Police]

The post Google Adds New Features to Drive, Sheets, Slides and Docs appeared first on xda-developers.

Tile App now available on Android to help forgetful people

A few months ago we talked about the Tile tag that will be the saviour of absent-minded people or those who just seem to always lose their stuff. The accompanying app that will make it easier for you to locate all these lost gadgets or umbrellas or wallets or handkerchiefs, are now available for your Android smartphones and tablets. Of course it will only work if you have one or more Tile tags so if you don't have it yet, you can still read on and maybe you'll get one afterwards.

To review, the Tile tag is a Bluetooth-powered tag that you can attach to anything that you always forget or has a tendency to get lost. For example, put one on your laptop (although how you can forget it is a mystery), your bag, or a precious umbrella. The Android app will connect to the tag using Bluetooth Low Energy and has two ways to connect with each other. If you lose that thing where your Tile tag is, the app will tell you when you're getting hot (and by hot we mean near). You can also program your Tile to play a sound so you can easily locate your lost car keys or whatever it is you have misplaced.

Since the tile has no GPS, it will only work when your device is near your Tiled object. So what if you're out of range? You can check out the last known location of the object from the app's map and then hopefully, you can look around that area until you find it. The description also says you can ask the "helpful" Tile community to help you find what you've lost, although how that works exactly is not fully explained.

The Tile app is free from the Google Play Store but of course you need to buy a Tile tag if you don't have one yet, which you can get for $25. There are also packages for when you want to buy more than one since you lose a lot of things. The app is optimized for use with the following devices: Samsung Galaxy S5, HTC One, HTC One M8, LG Nexus 4, LG Nexus 5.