Posts

Android: My encounter with the worst apis

Lately I have been working with MediaPlayer on Android. I went to Android docs, read the description of the apis. Great! Let's think a rough algo and start working on the app. I wrote a simple app which just streams a video and provided media player controls in the app for seeking, play pause etc. Pushed it on my device and goofed around with it. Play, pause working great. Video is streaming nicely. What about seeking? Let's seek to some X position. BAAAAM!!! The whole app became unresponsive. I couldn't interact with my device any more. I thought may be I am doing something wrong so I better review the code. After reviewing I couldn't find anything that I might have been doing on the main thread which could have caused this ANR. I searched the internet and found a few questions on Stackoverflow complaining about the same issue and guess what those questions were posted back in 2011 and 2012. I asked some of those devs and to my surprise they had the assumption of th

Nexus 5: ElementalX + Lollipop

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Yesterday I rooted my Nexus 5 running stock lollipop. I bought this phone about 3 weeks ago. Lollipop was supposed to improve power consumption of Android devices but the results I acheived were quite opposite of what Google has been claiming. I barely got 3 hours of SOT & I was facing mic issue as well, which means people at the other end couldn't hear my voice clearly & sometimes my voice was gone completely (during important calls offcourse). I knew it could be fixed by rooting the device & modifying the OS to my liking. So far the results & my findings are not that impressive after rooting & modifying the OS. I flashed ElementalX kernel with stock settings except I undervolted the CPU to 750 mV. I greenified the culprit apps & started to expect at least 5 hours SOT. However the results were quite below my expectations. I couldn't get more then 4 hours SOT with the following settings & usage patterns. Brightness ~25% Calls = none Gaming =

Swipify - Wear App Switcher & Launcher

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Published on: 14 July, 2014 Android wear is cool but it lacks a few major things. There is no way you can switch between opened apps & easy, intuitive way to launch the apps. Swipify is designed to allow you to easily switch between recent apps & launch apps. Swipify provides an intuitive recent app switcher & a unified launcher like the one you are used to use on your phones . There are 3 styles of launchers. You can select the one which suits your personality. To use multitasker, swipe from the right edge of the screen. To open the launcher, swipe from the left edge of the screen. There is also a quick settings option in the launcher that provides a slew of options that help you automate and control your phone from your smart watch. Music controls can be accessed from Quick settings to control your music from your smart watch. Swipify notifies you if you left your phone behind. It lets you find it by phone finder feature. There are lots of easter eggs spri

Security flaw in Android lock screen

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Being an Android enthusiast, I have written several apps. I had written a utility app to fulfil my need for making navigation through out Android OS easier. The app works just like a launcher. To my surprise this app made me unearth a pretty nifty UI design flaw hidden in a very fragile/dangerous place, the lock screen. Android allows you to make a call to the emergency numbers in case you can't access or get past the lock screen in dire times. However this accessibility is the culprit for the security flaw in the OS. Messaging app, A game & browser on the lock screen Using my launcher, I could access the apps, data & other information on the phone. This can turn into pretty treacherous situation if your phone some how lands in the hands of some perpetrator. The good news is the solution for this flaw is pretty easy & it may already get fixed in the next version of Android.

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