Google I/O 2012 - AndroidNova.org

How To Improve The Sound Quality On Google’s Nexus 7 tablet [MOD]

Categories: Tutorials

Tags: android hacks, android mods, android tablet mods, Beats Audio, Google, Google I/O 2012, google nexus 7, google nexus 7 tablet, google tablet, improve audio on nexus 7, nexus 7 sound quality, quad core tablet, sound quality, xda developers

Comments: 2 Comments

Published on: September 24, 2012

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Announced at the Google I/O, July 2012, the Asus Google Nexus 7 has been one of the most talked about Android tablets in the market. Equipped with Google’s latest Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and impressive specs in the form of a Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor clocked at 1.3 GHz and a twelve-core 416 MHz Nvidia GeForce ULP GPU ,1GB RAM and a 7″ LED-backlit IPS display at low prices of US $199/$249 for 8GB/16GB models respectively makes it a really good buy.

But not everything comes good at a low price. However thanks to the generous souls at xda developers forums we have seen seen many mods such as Record 720p Videos On Google Nexus 7′s Front-Facing Camera With A Simple Mod and Enable Full Tablet UI Experience On The Google Nexus 7 [MOD] which have helped us unlock the true potential of our Google Nexus 7.

Today we shall see yet another MOD by XDA developer Misledz, which will help us improve the sound quality on Google’s Nexus 7 tablet.

The Nexus has pitifully low volume. Previous fixes like the Volume+ app and Franco’s app only increased the volume on music playback, but did nothing for in-call volume (Skype, VOIP) or notifications, or your earphone experience.

This mod changes all that. It will increase ALL volume, across the entire phone: music, notifications, loudspeaker sound, ear speaker sound, in-call volume, and headset.

www.androidnova.org

This MOD installs the Jelly Bean Louder Audio Improvement Patch, which is comprised of HTC’s Beats Audio and XLOUDER. So let’s get on with it.

NOTE:

AndroidNova.org will not be held responsible if you lose precious data or your device gets damaged in the following of this guide. Proceed at your own risk. This guide assumes that you have unlocked bootloader of and gained root access to your Nexus 7. If you wish to make system-level changes on your Android tablet, both are a necessary requirement. Just keep in mind that this will void your warranty.

REQUIREMENTS:

Any kernel besides stock with CWM.
Jellybean 4.1.1, Deodexed/Odexed
Nandroid backup. Implore this at all costs as sometimes common human mistakes happen.

KNOWN BUGS:

Upon installing it the first time, it will hang and reboot, but upon rebooting all will be perfect and good.

HOW TO INSTALL:

Download the essential files by moving over to the original thread on XDA. Make sure you download the latest version.
Copy the downloaded file into the internal storage.
Press the Volume UP + Volume Down + Power together to boot into CWM.
Select install zip from sdcard and from there choose the zip file, that you downloaded in the first step.
Click on Yes to confirm the installation.
Just wait for 3-4 minutes for installation process to get completed.
Once installation is complete, reboot your Google Nexus 7.

Well that’s it and now you should be able to notice an improvement in the sound quality compared to earlier. Do share with us your experience about this mod in the comments below. For queries and FAQ’s do visit the original thread on XDA.

For more do visit www.AndroidNova.org.

Cheers and have a great day

Enable Full Tablet UI Experience On The Google Nexus 7 [MOD]

by kabir

Categories: Tutorials

Tags: Android 4.1, android hacks, android mods, android tablet mods, Google, Google I/O 2012, google nexus 7, Jellybean, nexus 7, Nexus 7 mod, tablet UI, Tablet UI on Nexus 7

Comments: No Comments

Published on: September 17, 2012

www.androidnova.org

But not everything comes good at a low price. We have already seen how to record 720p videos instead of the default 480p resolution on the Google Nexus 7′s front-facing camera with a simple mod.

Today we another simple mod which will enable Full Tablet UI experience on the Google Nexus 7. Many people have been disappointed with the Google Nexus 7 running the phone interface for portions of the OS, rather than the tablet-optimized interface seen on all Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich running tablets. Google didn’t specify any reason for locking the Nexus 7 home-screen into portrait orientation, but the reason maybe its 7-inch screen-size that is easy to grab single-handed and use for tasks like reading.

Credit goes to XDA Senior Member SladeNoctis for this simple fix to this limitation. You can refer to the original post for more. Here, we will tell you guys in simple words what is to be done to enable a full-fledged tablet experience on the Google Nexus 7.

NOTE:

REQUIREMENTS:

1. Unlocked bootloader and Root access
2. Have a Nandroid backup and a backup of your original build.prop (just in case)
3. Any file explorer that has root access to your system files like File Expert, ES File Explorer etc.

TIP:

Once you have enabled tablet UI you can change your font size by going into the display settings to your preferred size.

WRITTEN GUIDE:

—> Method 1 (Recommended):

Download and install ROM Toolbox Lite from the Google Play Store.
Launch the app.
Go to Performance and press the build.prop editor.
Locate the line with “ro.sf.lcd_density.”
Change the DPI to 175 or below.
Once done, tap OK and close the app.
Reboot your Android tablet.

—> Method 2:

Install a file explorer app such as ES File Explorer and enable the app’s root access option.

In ES File Explorer, for example, go to Settings and enable Allow Mount Rewritable and Root Access.

Using your file manager app, go to /system and you will find the build.prop file. Copy the file and paste it to another folder to serve as a backup file. Make sure you remember where you copied it to.
Open the original build.prop file in a text editor and look for “ro.sf.lcd_density”.

ES File Explorer has its own text editor called ES Text Editor.

The original LCD density value should be set to 213. Change it into 175 or lower.
Save the build.prop changes that you made by pressing the Menu key.
Once done, you may now restart your Nexus 7 to boot into full tablet UI mode.

—> Method 3:

Download and install the BuildProp Editor app.
Open the app and navigate to /system. Open the build.prop file.
Locate the line with “ro.sf.lcd_density.”
The original LCD density should be 213. Change it to 175 or below to get the tablet UI.
Save the file and reboot your tablet.

SCREENSHOTS:

Using the Google Nexus 7 in full tablet UI will definitely make the whole Jelly Bean experience better. For doubts and queries head over to the official thread over on XDA Developers.

Video Guide:

Cheers and have a great day.for more visit www.AndroidNova.org

Google enables Smart App Updates on the Play Store

by Mohit

Categories: Apps, Apps, Latest News

Tags: Google, Google I/O 2012, google play, homerun battle 2, Instagram for Android update, smart app updates

Comments: 1 Comment

Published on: August 17, 2012

Back in June this year at the Google I/O keynote, with the announcement of Jelly Bean Google talked about one of the features of the Play Store i.e Smart App Updates.

That very feature is now a reality!

Androidnova.org

Some of you might be wondering what exactly is this new feature and what does it do.

Smart app updates is basically delta updates for your apps i.e from now on whenever there is an update for your installed apps, the Play Store will download only that part of an app which has been updated rather than downloading the whole app again. Pretty cool, eh?

This new feature on Play Store will come in handy when the apps are relatively huge in size. Data is generally quite costly in most parts of the world and every Android user knows how important the battery life of his Android is! Smart App Updates will make sure that lesser data and battery is consumed for updating apps.

I particularly found it a pain to update apps like Instagram (~14MB) and games like Homerun Battle 2 ( A whopping 49MB). But now with this new feature only a smaller part of the app size will be downloaded as an update.

According to Google, Smart App Updates are only a third in size, which means you save a lot of time and data in updating apps. This feature has now been activated on the Google Play Store and some apps are already making use of it.

Checkout this video to get an idea about how it works.

Source

Google’s Android PDK could result in quicker updates for consumers

by Nitish Shah

Categories: Latest News

Tags: Android Platform Development Kit., Google Android PDK, Google I/O 2012

Comments: 1 Comment

Published on: July 6, 2012

The best news for consumers at Google I/O was the announcement that Google has developed a PDK (platform development kit) for hardware manufacturers to help them use (port) the latest version of Android to new or existing devices.till this time, no real details are known about the PDK, except that it will be available to Android manufacturers partners 2-3 months before new Android releases are made available to the public.

So what does the release for the Android PDK mean for consumers?

While the PDK is intended to be a tool for hardware manufacturers and chip makers, its implementation should translate into more rapid deployments of Android updates to the end users. For a long time, Android users have blamed custom skins from OEMs for the delayed Android update, but we came to know that component drivers bear the majority of the blame. If component and chip makers use the Android PDK to work in hands with OEMs, Android updates could roll out to devices months quicker than they currently do.

Unfortunately, things don’t happen as they seem at first. Google claims that key partners have had access to Android 4.1 for a while, so we’ll see how fast they can deploy the update once Google gives them clearance – presumably once the update gets pushed out to the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S and Motorola XOOM.

Do you think the Android PDK deployment will translate into more timely Android updates for consumers or this is just a gimmick ?

Google I/O Day 2 Happenings

by Nitish Shah

Categories: Tutorials

Tags: day 2 Google I/O, Google, Google cloud, Google drive, google i/o, Google I/O 2012

Comments: No Comments

Published on: June 29, 2012

Google on Thursday announced improvements to its Chrome browser, improvements to Google Docs, and Chrome and Google Drive for iPhone and iPad, among other things on Day Two of the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco.

Google Drive Improvements

While Thursday’s announcements paled in comparison to those rolled out in Wednesdays keynote big show, a few of them will certainly be of interest to us.

Most important announcement was about Google Drive, substantial updations have been added to Google drive.

One cool improvement to the product lets you work on word documents when you are not connected to the internet. The capability is available immediately for word documents, and later on for spreadsheets and presentations.

Google has been working to allow us to sync our Drive documents between different kinds of devices, and to work on documents with our friends or workmates regardless of the type of devices being used.

The company also announced that Google Drive will now be available for use on the iPhone and the iPad. You can now add people to collaborate with.

Developers can now design their apps to send faxes, and send and receive documents, using Drive.you from within Drive; while collaborating you can see your document updating in real time on whatever tablet or phone you may be using.Google says that more than 10 million people began using Google Drive “in just over 10 weeks” after its release.

Chrome Browser Improvements

chrome browser usage statistics

Google says more than 310 million people worldwide now use the Chrome browser.Google Chrome browser product manager Brian Rakowski was on stage to announce some new capabilities for developers.

He also demonstrated how developers will now be able to easily build voice recognition into their Chrome apps. That will allow users to give commands to their apps without touching touchscreens or typing.

The biggest announcment around Chrome, however, is the news that a version of the Chrome browser for the iPhone and the iPad will become available today.

Chromebooks performance is SuperFast

The Chromebooks that Google introduced last year were not well received, mainly because of their connection and storage limitations, and because of sluggish performance. But the Google laptops have survived, and Google says the the new Chromebooks are three times faster than the original chromebooks.

They will also become easier to purchase. Chromebooks will soon go on sale in selected Best Buys and other retail outlets across the United States. Google also says it’s working with a series of computer makers to release more Chromebooks by the Christmas season.

The Cloud is Spreading Far

Google says that its cloud infrastructure is now so powerful and scalable that developers can run their apps entirely in the cloud to as many users as they want “for a reasonable price.”

This was demonstrated by showing the Google I/O kenote audience an entirely cloud-based gamed called Bulletstorm on a giant screen. The game ran very smoothly in the demo, and the graphics looked great; it looked a lot like a game running on a gaming console.

BulletStorm cloud based FPS game being played

Very Developer-Oriented Keynote

Day 2 was very much developer oriented, as compared to day 1 which was maximum consumer oriented.so many consumers were seen yawning in day 2.However, the developers in the crowd were treated to a reprise of the skydiving act from yesterday, in which the divers all wore the Google Glass glasses and filmed their descent from the air.

Google Android 4.1 Jelly Bean

by Darshak Shah

Categories: Firmwares, Future Next, Latest News

Tags: Android, Android 4.1, android jelly bean, Google, google i/o, Google I/O 2012, google nexus 7, google now, improved notification, Jelly Bean, nexus 7, nexus q, nexus tablet, notification jelly bean, offline voice typing, voice typing

Comments: 9 Comments

Published on: June 28, 2012

Today, Google officially announced Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Project Butter started off year ago with aim to smoothen the android experience led to upgrade of Jelly Bean. Jelly Bean has better UI response, smother graphics, higher frame rate, Vsync: Screen composition, screen refresh. Triple Buffering — GPU and CPU enhanced in short a performance focussed effort . It has improved touch experience, touch responsiveness and anticipates where fingers will be. It instantly ramps up the CPU based on touch. Going in more details, Systrace – collects data from the kernel. So we have our utterly butterly smooth Jelly Bean launched.

Android Jelly Bean

New Homescreen Interface Management:-

Google has made widgets more intelligent in Jelly Beans. The widgets will automatically just fit itself in proper position and if there is less space on the homescreen then it will automatically resize itself. You also “toss” the apps and widgets by swiping up to get them off the screen. Also dedicated widgets of in-app contents can be added. For example Featured Apps on Google Play Store can be added as widget thus giving user facility to see what they want to see. Lovely isn’t it?

Widget Resized

Language and Predictons:-

In Jelly Bean, the dictionaries have been refined and will learn better. The bigrame prediction engine will predict words in better way thus will improve the typing experience through keyboard. Fonts support for Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Thai, Persian, Arabic and Hebrew to come.

New Languages

Predictive Keyboard

Voice Typing:-

Google has made a huge improvement in Voice typing by giving completely new feature called Offline Voice Typing. You can type via voice without being connected to the web and that is big improvement. Offline Voice typing is available for English (US) first. Other languages will come soon. Other languages will come soon. Also Touch and swipe gestures + speech for blind user accessibility have been added.

Voice Typing

Camera Application:-

In Ice Cream Sanwich, we can take photos with zero lag but now you can view photos really fast too. You can swipe a photo back into view as you are taking photos. You can pinch from a photo to get a multi photo view, and then view a “film strip” quickly. You can also swipe away a photo, and if you make a mistake, do an “undo.”

Camera Application

Android Beam:-

Two new features are introduced in Android Beam. You can send a photo or video by tapping phones. You can also pair and connect phone with Bluetooth device by simply tapping your phone.

Android Beam

New Notification Improvements:-

There is huge overhaul in the notifications have been done in Jelly Bean. Swiping down the notifications tray will show a new look design and one that is much more fully featured. The idea is that notifications are more complete, meaning you don’t have to open up apps. A lot more information can be displayed, say quick look at news stories or in depth Foursquare check-in information, comment or like. You can take actions (like call someone back) right from the notifications. You can also see your gmail inbox right in notifications. Calendar notifications come in, and if you’re running late, for example, you can send an e-mail to the meeting participants, and it includes canned responses.The notifications can be expanded by selectively two finger swipe although you can get rid of them all, just as in Ice Cream Sandwich. Think of it like either expanding or contracting notifications without the irritation of app opening.

New Notification

Better Notification in Jelly Bean

Expanded Notification in Jelly Bean

Improved Search:-

Search is quicker and more refined. The search result are shown in card-based answers and can be swiped left to right for normal web search. They have used knowledge graph which is supposed to be a smarter search. It also understands the natural language and speaks back to you. Ask it question, it will show you a response. Voice is pretty sexy than Siri, and looked smarter in demo.

Improved Card Search in Jelly Bean

Improved Search Results in Jelly Bean

Google Now:-

It will just get you right info at right time automatically. It uses information from your location, calendar and search history and give amazing information to you. It will get better and better as user uses it more. When you are walking down the street, Google Now can update live, showing you nearby restaurants, with a card-based view showing search results and even a link to open up maps to navigate to the restaurant.And it goes one further: say you searched for a flight, Google Now will auto update showing its data and even the terminal and gate you need to board it.

Google Now

Traffic Updates using Google Now

With sports Google Now works out what sort of sports you search for and then builds up a results-based card for you. While travelling it will even know which country you are in and offer up things like intelligent currency exchange cards.

Places using Google Now

The Google Now service can be accessed in two ways. Either you swipe up from the bottom of the screen or tap on the search box. It behaves like a personalised card which feeds you information relating to everything you search for. Cards increase in accuracy the more you search and Google is promising more types of cards being added as time goes on.

Appointments using Google Now

New Apps:-

Google Chrome is now stock browser in Jelly Bean, also maps have been given overhaul, taking huge advantage of gyroscope. The look inside feature that has existed for a while in the maps app can now be controlled using gyroscope, so you can peek around a restaurant you might fancy visiting by just moving the tablet around a bit like an augmented reality app. Maps are now available to be stored offline, meaning no more getting lost when you are out of areas of reception.

Apps can now be updated in smarted way. Instead of downloading whole apk file again, only the parts changed will be updated. This feature will be boon for people having restricted data usage and also will quickly update apps. With introduction of encryption key, paid apps are protected using device-specific keys and thus stop piracy and ensure all money goes to developers.

Smart App Updates

Improved Google Plus Application is also available from today onward on Play Store.

Google Jelly Bean will be available from mid July onwards. OTA updates will be provided to Galaxy Nexus phones, Nexus S and Motorola Xooms.

So how did you find Jelly Bean? We loved all the new features about it. Share your views and comments below.

Google I/O 2012 Keynotes

by Darshak Shah

Categories: Future Next, Latest News

Tags: Android, Android 4.1, android jelly bean, Google, google i/o, Google I/O 2012, google nexus 7, Jelly Bean, nexus 7, nexus q, nexus tablet

Comments: 13 Comments

Published on: June 28, 2012

Google I/O 2012, Google’s eagerly anticipated developer conference in San Francisco begins with SVP of Engineering Vic Gundotra claiming a power packed surprises both in Hardware and Software side later in the show. It starts off by showcasing the stats about devices activated (400 million) and also heat map representation – Japan, South Korea and France grew over 300% while developing countries like India, Thailand and Brazil grew over 500%.

Moscone Google IO 2012

Google wanted to improve response of the Android and make its performance much better and faster, they succeeded in doing that by Project Butter. As name suggests, it was done to smoothen the Android experience. Dave Burke, Engineering Director explains in detail about improvement done in the Jelly Bean. In Jelly Bean, they made User Interface very fast with improvement in system frame rate, Vsync, Triple Buffering and Touch Responsiveness. They also showcased improved homescreen management, better predictive dictionary, offline voice typing , new camera application, Android Beam, improved notifications which can expand and collapse, new Google search, Voice search and brand new Google Now. The Jelly Bean will be covered in detailed by us in the other article. Do catch it. So till now Google was pretty impressive!!!

Android Jelly Bean

Project Butter

Do you remember our article posted few days back where we predicted the expectations from Jelly Bean. We were almost correct about the few things like Google’s Android Platform Development Kit (Faster Upgrades), Integrated Google Chrome in Nexus Tablet, Introduction of Magazines in Play Store.

Now, Jelly Beans SDK is available from today itself from Google developers website, they also introduced Product Development Kit for hardware developers with all APIs needed. Also from now onwards, it will be shared 2-3 months before with all the manufactures and companies, henceforth faster updates will be available. OEMs and chipset makers will be able to use this to optimize things.

Google Play was displayed with improvements like app encryption, smart app updates and introduction of Magazines.

Somebody said Tablets ? Google Nexus 7 a brand new tablet which is a Asus built was displayed showcasing all the features in it. For details check out our article on Nexus 7 here.

Goolge Nexus 7

Project Tungsten was launched last year and it got transformed into a consumer product called Nexus Q. Nexus Q is cloud connected Juke Box with LEDs embed in it and is first ever Social Streaming product.

Nexus Q

Google Plus will cover 1 year soon in few hours and to celebrate that new features like updates mobile version, application designed specially for tablets, hangout experience, Google events (Before, During and After) were showcased.

Sergey Brin interrupts Gundotra and here starts the never seen before adrenaline demo of Google Glass Project showcasing a Live Hangout where jumper glided down to the Moscone roof. Just amazing demo we have ever seen. Check out our special coverage on Google Glass in other article.

Google Glass Live Hangout

Google Glass Explorer Edition

Last but not the least all the 6000 attendees are given an android developer pack which includes Galaxy Nexus phone, a Nexus 7 tablet (Wow!!!), with a Jelly Bean preview version and also Nexus Q. Luck they are!!! Well we will be covering Google I/O in detail. Check this column regularly and stay tuned.

Developers Kit

Let us know what you think about Google I/O 2012. Share your views in comments below.

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