One of the major benefits of customization is the ability to take what you are given (beit a smartphone, tablet, wearable or even a car) and be able to adjust it to better represent you and your needs. While most customizations are sometimes thought of as a proof-of-concept or a badge-of-honor to simply prove that they can be done, there is always a more important underlying thread to these badges-of-honor. By showing what can be achieved, more often than not, paves the way for more developers to pick up the gantlet and make further customization and porting more widely accessible.
A prime example of this hit the headlines this week with the Samsung Gear 2. Samsung is not shy with their wearables and have already brought a number of units to market. So much, in fact, that they are able to offer users a choice. You want an Android Wear running device, sure buy this Samsung one. You want a more native Samsung experience with Tizen OS, sure, but his Samsung one. Unlike other manufacturer’s, they have the variability and production capabilities to be able to offer such choices. That said, those who bought a Tizen running device (for the reported better battery life and more Samsung integrated features) might have found that afterwards (and with the advances in Wear), they would rather be running Android Wear on their Tizen powered wearable
Well, the first steps on this were noted this week, when XDA member biktor_gj managed to port Android Wear on to a Samsung Gear 2 smartwatch. Now, being able to port is one thing, becoming a fully functional crossover port is quite another and at the moment, the current status of the Android Wear port for the Gear 2 is firmly in the former category. The current project is very much in the early port stages with most of the functionality not working or responsive. However, the fact that Wear is able to boot on the device at all, is impressive none-the-less. Not to mention, basic touch functionality also seems to be working too. This is quite often one of the harder elements to achieve and as such, both booting and touch sensitivity lends to the likelihood that far more functionality will be achieved sooner rather than later.
The current status of booting has taken the best part of four months, however, as noted, the coverage lent to the most recent achievement is likely to fuel further developers to jump on board and help to push forward the concept even more. Although, it is earlier, nothing should be taken away from the milestone reached this week. If you want to follow biktor_gj’s progress, then you can by following the XDA thread on the topic. Not to mention, if you have the abilities to help out then do. The reality of dual-OS booting smartwatches is edging closer.
In other news this week…
Moto G
Owners of the Moto G (2nd Gen) saw their commencement of official CyanoegMod support this week. As such, if you own a Moto G and want to try CM12 (in nightly form), then you can now download the latest nightly by clicking the link below.
Yu Yureka
This week saw the introduction on XDA of a new all-in-one toolbox for those running a Yureka smartphone on Cyanogen OS 12. The toolbox will allow for some neat additional features like locking and unlocking bootloader, installing TWRP and so on. Click the link below to find out more or grab your copy.
Xperia Bootlooping
If you have been running Lollipop and experiencing some bootlooping activity when trying to install Xposed then it seems a workaround popped up on XDA this week. For those affected, click the link below to find out more on the workaround.
Xposed 3.0
Speaking of Xposed, finishing up this week’s news is that rovo89 has made available a flashable zip of Xposed 3.0. You can grab the latest download and find out more by clicking the link below.