Yeri Tiete

#Android

11 posts tagged Android

Xiaomi Phone Shipped With Censorship List

· hardware, networking, software

This summer, the Lithuanian government went public with an astounding finding. A Xiaomi phone sold in Europe — the Mi 10T 5G — could censor approximately 450 words and phrases, it said. The blocklist wasn’t active, but could be activated remotely. It was filled with political terms, including “Democratic Movement” and “Long live Taiwan’s independence.”

[...]

The accusations, which Xiaomi disputes, clarified just how fraught the West’s relationship is with China’s growing technology power. As China-based tech companies like Xiaomi and TikTok flourish, there’s still no playbook in North America or Europe to deal with their potential to censor or steer culture via algorithms.

Nexus 5: boot loop

· errors, google, hardware

I had a Nexus 5 stuck in a boot loop (Android logo/animation in a loop, not actually booting).

This is what I think I've done to fix the issue. It seemed that /persist partition was corrupt. I tried a factory reset, flash new stock images, and clear cache, etc before trying the following.

Note that I managed to boot Android 4.4, but nothing else; it did throw a shit load of errors though (Google Play crashes, etc).

Waze not getting a GPS fix

· errors, google, hardware, software

TL;DR: recalibrate your compass.

I’ve come across an issue for the past 10 days that Waze kept losing its GPS fix. This meant:

  • constantly switching between 0 and 120 (or whatever) km/h
  • constantly zooming in & out on maps (dynamic zoom level depending on speed)
  • being in a field/not on the road for most of the time, or stuck to a location of many minutes ago
  • often & randomly losing GPS fix (ie middle of the highway without any buildings blocking the line of sight)
  • I could do a 45 minute trip with Waze never getting a GPS fix
  • not knowing road issues (accidents, traffic jams ahead, speed traps, etc)
Things I tried:
  • nothing changed (no new car window, didn't move my phone location in the car, etc)
  • not moving (ie parked car) didn't really improve the GPS fix
  • even left my phone with Waze on in the car for 30 minutes parked (got a fix, but later that evening when driving home it started to lose its GPS fix again)
  • clear Waze cache
  • uninstall Waze completely
  • GPS Essentials showed a fix with 3 or more GPS satellites when Waze couldn't get a fix
  • I was about to find a way to reset my GPS and/or clear its cache (???)
PS: I have had this issue in the past (I believe with the same phone, a Nexus 5), but it went away after several days.

What I did notice, however, is that in Google Maps the arrow (clicking the pin point button twice or something) was pretty much showing the opposite direction of how the car was moving (thus driving backwards at ~120km/h). This made me think, as I know the GPSes in smartphones are quite cheap and aren’t always on (to save battery – my phone is always being charged in the car though) and the phone uses the accelerometer and other sensors to “guess” current path (or rather, path changes, ie taking a turn or slowing down/accelerating).

4.4.x & Nexus 7 (2012/v1)

· google, hardware

New Android, once more a laggy device. Thank you Google.

My Nexus 7 (1st generation, 2012 model, with 3G) is encrypted, so I guess that might also slow everything further down.

Three things I did to solve the lagginess:

  • Wipe cache (howto),
  • Clear space (I had some movies left on it, deleted a few big files and it seemed to instantly pay off),
  • For some odd reason turning off WiFi optimalisation (advanced settings of WiFi) seemed to have the biggest impact on speed.
Edit (2/2/2014): Lagginess came back pretty quickly. I tried an entire reset/wipe and re-encrypted the storage. That didn't really help.

I’ve now done a complete wipe again, but have not encrypted the storage (and removed more useless apps). And it is noticeably less laggy.

Nexus 4 red light of death (2)

· errors, google, hardware

To continue my story, I replaced the battery with a new, and what appears to be a genuine LG battery (if not, then those Chinese are getting good at it).

It worked and booted, but the battery got drained in ~8 hours (100% to 0%). And it felt a tiny bit warm on the cover, just above the battery (battery area was normal). Especially in my pocket it would get quite warm.

Nexus 4: Red light of death

· errors, google, hardware

On Thursday night I used my Nexus 4 as GPS (as I always do – it’s my main navigation device, so Google, please bring back a usable navigation app pretty plx!) to drive from Brussels to Antwerp (~40 minutes).

I had about 60% of battery left when I turned on the GPS. I tend to recharge my battery every night. It’s times like these I usually just use the GPS without using the car charger. I don’t mind my phone being at 10 or 20% when I arrive home, late at night, as it will be charged overnight anyway.

Random reboots of Galaxy Nexus

· errors, google, software

Since I moved to Antwerp, in a high building apparently made out of the thickest steel they could find (> My wifi signal barely passes the internal walls, and I’m pretty much unable to make a decent cell phone call) my Galaxy Nexus has been behaving oddly.

It started during the night of the press conf when I was catching up on my mails when I got home of a whiskey tasting evening/“apps for whiskey” event.

Android 4.1 IMAP + stock mail bug

· errors, google, software

On 4.1 (yes, I’m lagging behind with my blog posts) something rather funky happened. And it took my 7 days to notice.

My phone was running hotter and battery life was suddenly crappier than usual. But not really paying attention, until my cell provider (Proximus) texted me I was over my data consumption limit…

As it was the beginning of the month, so that was unusual. I checked data usage in settings, and noticed ~7Gb of traffic by mail app over WiFi and ~3Gb over mobile data.

Laggy Android 4.2 on Galaxy Nexus? Kill Currents!

· errors, google

I updated to 4.2. Then I wanted a new phone.

4.2.1 came. It solved 5% of the lagginess.

However, it was still unbearably slow. With 4.1 I had an amazing phone, 4.2 made me want to shoot it.

But after 4ish weeks I found something out… Go to Settings and then Sync, click the Google account(s). Disable Google Currents syncing.

Enjoy. You might want to reboot to be sure, but for me this brought my phone back. It’s not perfect, it’s still a bit slowish, but it’s a lot better!