CyanogenMod 13 is soon going to grace us with its custom presence and then you will not have to worry about losing your Wi-Fi calling feature on your new phone again. T Mobile just included the Wi-Fi calling on their most recent smartphones used in areas where the network is not able to penetrate yet. Until now, this was one of the best reasons for you to stay on Android stock, but it is no longer the case, if you like to adorn your device with a custom ROM.
A Cyanogen Inc. employee, namely former AOKP leader Roman Birg recently posted a photo on Google + showing T-Mobile Wi-Fi calling on a custom ROM build. This confirms statements that this will be CyanogenMod 13 in the near future, a custom ROM based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. This implementation will use some proprietary software plus some Wi-Fi calling code.
Although it is still in an incipient phase, Wi-Fi calling will soon become a norm for stock smartphones and custom ROM-using ones, especially since most carriers are allowing their customers to use off-contract phones. CyanogenMod 13 does not have an official release date as of yet, but alpha and beta builds will soon show up.
There’s a rumor going around that Paranoid Android is dead. For those who don’t know, PA is one of the most popular ROMs around in the aftermarket communities. When you want to try a different Android experience, this is one of the most stable options you can try out there. This ROM has advanced features and a high-quality build, which is why it is one of the more popular custom ROMs to be used.
According to Andre Saddler, one of Paranoid Android’s team, there are only four people left working on the project at the moment:
“Paranoid Android is dead. Ever since OnePlus hiring its (sic) been done.”
Saddler is referencing the fact that OnePlus created the Oxygen OS team earlier this year and most team members were fished from other developing teams such as PA. When the Oxygen OS news first hit, everyone was afraid of what the toll over PA would be; well, now we know!
Paranoid Android managed to release an Android 5.1 version of their custom ROM for the Nexus devices. There has been no update or release of any kind since July. Saddler mentions that the remaining team members felt demotivated after their luckier devs who went to Oxygen OS never spoke to them again.
Another dev member is more optimistic though, as he cannot confirm the official death of the team. The practicality of the Paranoid Android project is dead right now, at least until the remaining team members meet up. We can hope to hear some positive news in the near future regarding this custom ROM’s revival.
Motorola Moto E 2015 and Huawei Mate 2 are getting official CyanogenMod nightly builds. You can now download the files and flash them in order to give your device a rebel flair from all that Android conformity. These two budget devices are pretty popular with the public and, since most do like to tinker and bake their devices, especially cheaper ones, CyanogenMod will now probably be the most popular option for a custom ROM when it comes to these two.
Moto E 2015 is a small device with OK specs for its price while Huawei Mate 2 wants to be a device with a huge screen and a pretty small price too. They both have CyanogenMod 12.1 (which is the Android 5.1 equivalent) ROM files you can use now.
The Moto E 2015 is codenamed “otus” whereas the Mate 2 is labeled “mt2”. The first has two available builds while the second has three available CyanogenMod builds. Both device builds are around 250MB, but this does not include the Google apps which you will have to flash separately, in another package. Huawei’s device will receive a nice boost whereas the Moto E 2015 users will remain stuck to a pretty much stock version of Android. According to the logs, the Mate 2 has been worked on for a while now, which explains the work put on it.
You should still bear in mind that these are nightly builds; they can be full of bugs and problems, so flash at your own risk. Nightly builds are less stable than stock versions and Cyanogen M or stable releases. Most users may decide to wait for the official release of Android 6, but knowing Huawei and Motorola, you will have to wait for a few months even before your devices get up to date. CyanogenMod is also taking its time working on flagships first. Happy flashing!
Samsung Galaxy Note 5 is already getting official TWRP support starting today. The GSM version is first in getting this type of support as we already know that most experimented users will bake their devices and flash different custom ROMs on them.
Which Galaxy Note 5 version gets support first?
The Note 5 showed up officially mid-August and it is already available for purchase in many places of the world. The Note series remains one of the more popular phablet lines out there, and this can only mean that some owners will want to root and mod their device to their liking.
Team Win’s Recovery project custom recovery will allow users to mod their Note 5 as they see fit. Keep in mind that this official support version is available for the GSM Samsung Galaxy Note 5 version, which means that if your device is carrier-locked, this will not work for you. The download is available in the source link below.
You got your smartphone rooted and improved its overall speed, but what can you do to improve performance on a rooted phone? Performance boosters are not the best viewed pieces of software around, but if some of them can get a job done and improve CPU performance, they should not all be so easily disregarded. One of the better options you have of upgrading your device overall performance is the L Speed, a flashable ZIP created by developer Danijel Markov. The software applies several fixes in one go, fixes that are supposed to improve memory management and system-level functions.
In order to improve performance on your rooted phone you will have to download and run the L Speed mod. It will offer you a command prompt interface for some tweaking. It can improve performance without you having to change anything too!
The ZIP will apply some kernel changes by default, and these changes will also lead to RAM modifications and CPU calibrations. Your Android device will get an increase in performance and battery life as a result.
What do you need for this to work?
Rooted android handset
Custom recovery
BusyBox commands.
Improve performance step by step
Download the L Speed ZIP
In order to begin this entire modding process, you will have to download the flashable ZIP from this LINK. It will start downloading automatically (we assure you there are no hidden viruses or anything in the link). After download, you can boot it into the custom recovery.
Optional – Create backup
Before you flash the file, you can backup your data if you have NANDroid backup active. Just in case something goes wrong and you want this performance boost mod off your device, this would be the easiest way to get back to normal, by restoring the backup you previously made.
Flash the ZIP
The second active step in your attempt to improve performance on your rooted phone is to use the Install button on the TWRP recovery main menu. When you are there, you can navigate to your device’s Download folder and select the “L_SPEED_V2.0_REVOLUTION.zip” file. You then swipe the slider to start installation and tap the “reboot system” after it has finished installing.
When your device is back up, some system changes will have already been made. These changes should make your experience noticeably better when it comes to performance and battery life. Just in case you want to change things just a bit more, you can go to the L Speed command prompt interface.
Optional – customize L Speed settings
In order to change a few options on your new piece of software and further improve performance on your rooted phone you can download Terminal Emulator for Android, an app you can install, open and type su in, after which you tap Enter. The app will then require Superuser access and you will have to Grant it.
The Terminal Emulator now has access to your smart device. You will have to type LS and press Enter to access the L Speed menu and 2 to access the setting wizard. At this stage you can manually improve performance on your rooted device because you can easily enable or disable different RAM, CPU and kernel features. To activate or deactivate said features, you will have to press the desired number and tap Enter. As these changes will require a reboot to apply, you can choose whichever you want to implement and then reboot your smartphone.
L Speed works on all ROMs that have init.d support.
This is just one way of getting your device to significantly improve its performance and its battery life. Have you tried any apps or software to improve performance on your rooted device yet? Let us know in the comment section below.
Motorola is working on its current products and their software programs as it is attempting to update all of them. This ultimately means releasing kernel sources to the public as well. This time, the device getting this treatment is the 2015 Moto E, its low-cost smartphone. The device was updated to Android 5.1.1 in May and now its kernel source files are being published.
This will probably interest you developers out there and, if you are intrigued and eager, you can head over to Motorola GitHub (link in source) to find and download this package or any other Moto package that interests you (and is available at this time). After downloading the files, you can start tinkering with the source code to create beautiful ROMs, better recoveries and apps for instance.
Attention: this is not the package for the AT&T Go phone or the Verizon prepaid Moto E.
