Poweramp returns from the grave with a new UI

Most audiophiles around here probably remember Poweramp. The paid ($3.99) music player might not be a winner in the looks department, but it makes up for it by being one of the most feature-rich music players out there. So feature rich and reliable, in fact, that it remained the player of choice for some users despite an absolute lack of updates since September 2016. It supports a wide range of audio files including mp3, m4a, ogg, wma, flac, and others, as well as including an internal equalizer, crossfade, gapless playback, support for displaying lyrics (powered by Musixmatch) and a whole lot more. A major update for Poweramp is, however, coming very soon.

The first and most noticeable change is in the UI department, and boy does it look different. Given that Poweramp's previous UI looked rather old compared to Material-based players like Retro Music Player and Phonograph, it was one of the most criticized aspects of the application. The developers are bringing a fresh coat of paint to Poweramp. The new UI is not really Material-based like the rest of its competitors and still favors function over form, but it looks a lot better while at it, including new animated transitions on every aspect of the app. The "now playing" screen features a blurred version of the song's cover as the background and it actually looks nice.

"Now Playing" screen for different songs.

All other menus inside the app—including the album list, the song list, and the equalizer—were also revamped, swapping the old UI for a white-based one. Animations are also the order of the day: absolutely all transitions inside Poweramp are now served with a buttery-smooth animation, making the app a complete pleasure to use. Notifications were also updated to both support the new notification format introduced with Android Nougat and to support Android Oreo's colored notifications.

In my opinion, while it could definitely look better, this is an absolute step in the right direction. You can download the latest beta from Poweramp's forums but have in mind that some basic functionality—like some library categories, playlists, and more—is missing from this version. If you're happy with your current Poweramp installation, do not download this, as a proper beta with all functionality included should come around May. But if regardless, you want to play around with what the newest Poweramp has in store, you can do so by downloading the APK and installing it on your device.

Download the Poweramp beta!

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The Google Pixel & Pixel 2 will support Bluetooth Hearing Aids on Android P

Google I/O 2018 is quickly approaching. We expect to learn more about what's new in Android P at the event. Google has already given us a small taste of what's new with the first Android P Developer Preview, but there's a lot of goodies the company has yet to unveil. Navigation gestures are rumored to make an appearance at the event, and they're supposedly reminiscent of the iPhone X pill bar gestures. Thanks to the Android Open Source Project, we're able to track some of the upcoming features in the next Android release, and there's one feature we spotted that'll make people with hearing disabilities excited to learn about: support for Bluetooth hearing aids. According to a series of code commits, the Google Pixel and Pixel 2 smartphones will natively support connecting to Bluetooth hearing aids.

The benefit of a Bluetooth-enabled hearing aid is that it allows for persons with hearing disabilities to listen to their surroundings while still being able to enjoy standard Bluetooth functionality such as making phone calls or listening to music. Currently, the hard of hearing cannot directly connect their Bluetooth hearing aid devices with the majority of Android devices (though they can connect their devices to iPhones.) Manufacturers of Bluetooth wireless hearing aids often offer an extra Bluetooth-enabled device (such as the ReSound Phone Clip+) that clips on to the person to act as a bridge between the hearing aid and the Android smartphone. Having to carry a second Bluetooth device is not ideal, and that's why Google has worked to make Android more accessible with native support for Bluetooth wireless hearing aids.

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Google Pixel & Pixel 2 support Bluetooth Hearing Aids natively in Android P

In November, we spotted a few commits that suggested native support for Bluetooth hearing aids with the next release of Android. At the time, the implementation was in its beginning stages. But as we approach Google I/O, the number of code commits related to hearing aids has substantially grown. There's now a hearing aid Bluetooth profile in Android, a hearing aid manager, and more. The latest code commits that have sparked our interest in this topic once more are a series of commits with the title "Disable Hearing Aid Profile for all platforms except Pixel." I think that's rather self-explanatory, no?

As you can see in the commit description, the new hearing aid profile for wireless Bluetooth devices will be disabled in AOSP but enabled by default for the Google Pixel, Google Pixel XL, Google Pixel 2, and Google Pixel 2 XL. This is accomplished by setting the boolean value profile_supported_hearing_aid to true in the overlay for the Bluetooth system app, as shown below.

The commits for these changes have been merged already. However, since we're so close to Google I/O and the expected release of Android P Developer Preview 2, I don't suspect we'll see this feature in the next preview release. Instead, I'm hoping to see it in Developer Preview 3 at the earliest but it'll definitely be in the first stable release of P.

When other devices start receiving Android P updates (such as the Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S or Huawei Mate 10 Pro) then it'll be up to them to enable support for this new Bluetooth profile. Hopefully, this feature is enabled for more Android devices in the future, because accessibility is one area where iOS still seemingly triumphs over Android. Google has a session dedicated to Android Accessibility at I/O where we hope to learn more about this feature. We'll be at the event bringing you the latest Android news.

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Xiaomi Mi 6 and Motorola Moto Z receive official LineageOS 15.1

LineageOS 15.1, the popular Android 8.1 Oreo-based custom ROM, was released in late February for a handful of devices. The official roster has since expanded to include devices like the Google Nexus Player, OnePlus 2, Google Nexus 6, and Exynos Samsung Galaxy S9/S9+ among others. Starting today, official 15.1 builds for the Xiaomi Mi 6 and Motorola Moto Z are available.

The Motorola Moto Z was released in mid-2016 with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 system-on-chip and Android Marshmallow, but it has received official updates to Android Nougat and Android Oreo. The Xiaomi Mi 6 was released in mid-2017 with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 system-on-chip and Android Nougat, but it too has received an official update to Android Oreo. Thus, both devices are capable of running Oreo, but for those of you who want an alternative to the OEM experience can now choose to flash official LineageOS 15.1 if you want.

For those of you who are wondering what features are available on the Android 8.1 Oreo-based release of LineageOS, check out our previous article that covers most of the features present in the release. If you want to download the release, then you can do so at the following links to the LineageOS website for each device:

Download LineageOS 15.1 for the Xiaomi Mi 6

Download LineageOS 15.1 for the Motorola Moto Z

Furthermore, we recommend you check out the official XDA forum for each device. Here, you can discuss the latest release as well as any tips, tricks, or other modifications for the devices.

Xiaomi Mi 6 Forum

Motorola Moto Z Forum

There are certainly other Android 8.1 Oreo custom ROMs for each device, but LineageOS is one of the ROMs that many people opt to wait for because of its strict requirements for inclusion on the official build roster. The ROM team members try to avoid releasing buggy builds such as the recent port of Android P to the Moto Z, but it's up to you what bugs you are or aren't able to deal with. For those of you who want a stable, fairly bug-free experience, then you may want to give the official LineageOS 15.1 builds a shot.

In other news, the Google Nexus 4 (mako) and Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 (chiron) were also added to the official build roster, but those builds will be made available next week. Once they go live, we'll let you know.

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Get a dark theme for Sony devices running Nougat with Substratum

Substratum is the current go-to theme engine of choice for the majority of the Android enthusiasts within the community. It offers a robust platform for designers who want use their talents to customize the look and feel of both the Android operating system as well as individual applications. Different smartphone OEMs implement certain features that designers can include in their themes to offer complete support for certain devices. XDA Senior Member balrajs99 wanted to do this for Sony devices that are currently running Android 7.x Nougat, so they released a Substratum theme called Graphi.

Graphi is a dark theme that gives you the ability to choose the background and accent color you like the most. The developers want you to make sure you download Substratum from the thread linked below and that you don't update it via the Play Store if you want to use this theme. It has been personally tested by this developer on the Xperia Z5 on Android Nougat but we're told that it should work on all Sony devices running Nougat and Substratum.

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Check out Graphi  in our Sony Themes and Apps forum

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GCam Tool 2.0 Moves all Google Camera Photos to any Folder, Prevents Flipping of Selfies and More

We've reported a lot on the Google Camera with HDR+ port here on XDA, and various developers have figured out how to get more of the features working on our devices. While lots of work has been done with the application in getting it working on as many devices as possible, not a whole lot of work has been done outside of the application. There's not been much by the way of companion applications. Reddit user /u/naveenjn has created GCam Tool 2.0, which allows you to move all Google Camera photos to any folder on your device and prevent the flipping of selfies. It was initially created to move portrait mode photos to another folder due to how it took multiple photos in their own folder, but it grew from there.

The app is fairly simple and easy to use and costs $1 if you want to unlock all the features like selfie flipping. This feature is necessary as unlike most camera applications, the selfie camera does not allow the option for you to save the image you see in the camera viewfinder. As a result, selfies you take will be saved flipped. GCam Tool 2.0 will flip this back to the right way around if you enable that feature, before saving it. It's simple and it solves one of the bigger complaints Google Camera has had since its release.

If you still use any of the Google Camera applications, then this app is for you. If you want to save your photos to an SD card, it's the best solution available currently. If you don't like your selfies being flipped when you take them, then this app is also for you. It's got plenty of small features that anyone can benefit from, so give GCam Tool 2.0 a try and see what you think. It might just make taking photos that much easier.

GCam Tool (Free⁺, Google Play) →

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Samsung Galaxy S9/S9+ with 128GB and 256GB of storage will be available May 1st

The Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ launched a short time ago with 64GB of storage as the default option. For the vast majority of people, 64GB is a perfectly fine amount of storage. Especially if you use a lot of cloud storage and media streaming services. However, people who like to take a lot of photos and videos may run out of space. Samsung is launching more storage options to cater to those folks.

Starting May 1st, Samsung will offer 128GB and 256GB storage options for the Galaxy S9 and S9+. They are the exact same phones that launched previously with 64GB of storage, just with more storage. Same processor, same battery, same display, same everything. The only other difference is the price. You'll be paying a pretty penny to get the extra storage space. Here's how the pricing breaks down:

	Galaxy S9	Galaxy S9+
128GB	$769.99	$819.99
256GB	$889.99	$939.99

The prices equal an extra $50 for each storage upgrade. Keep in mind you can still use a microSD card to expand storage up to 400GB with any of the models. These extra storage options will be available for pre-order on May 1st. They will begin shipping on May 18th. Anyone who buys any Galaxy S9/S9+ between May 1-17 will get a free pair of Gear IconX Bluetooth earbuds or a discount on the Gear S3 Frontier. Samsung is only selling the extra storage version on their own website. You won't find them at carrier stores or Best Buy.

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Source: Samsung

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Early First Look at the Honor 10

XDA has an early look at the upcoming Honor 10 phone. In this video we will unbox the new device and take a close look at it.

The Honor 10 shares the same Kirin 970 chipset found in the Honor View 10 and Huawei P20. This means that the same AI-powered camera is in the Honor 10, but this time it comes with Semantic Image Segmentatio technology. The camera can detect multiple scenes within the same frame and apply multiple filters precisely, creating much better looking photos. We have a full review on this camera in the near future.

Honor 10	Specs
Display	5.84″ 1080x2280p
Camera	16+24MP / 24MP
RAM	4/6GB
Chipset	Kirin 970
Storage	65/128GB
Battery	3400mAh
OS	Android 8.1

Honor 10 Forums

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