Google is attempting to rein in the out-of-control app storage situation with “Scoped Storage.” Scoped Storage was introduced in Android 10 but has since been changed several times since its debut because of how dramatically it affects storage access for many Android applications. Google is enforcing Scoped Storage for apps that target API level 30, which is the latest API level coinciding with Android 11.

Rather than try to explain Scoped Storage all over again, here’s a graphic from Google’s “All things privacy in Android 11” talk that summarizes how Scoped Storage will affect storage access for apps in Android 11.

One of the more interesting changes to storage access that has flown under the radar thus far is the introduction of a new “trashing” mechanism. This feature is detailed in Google’s “Storage access with Android 11” video. In essence, apps using the MediaStore API can trash a file instead of deleting it in order to give the user a chance to recover the file later. Google likens this feature to the Recycle Bin on PCs except Android’s recycle bin is hidden by default. Google states that apps with edit access to trashed files or that request user consent can display items from the recycle bin, though. Items that are trashed are automatically deleted by Android after 30 days.

Android 11 is also requiring that apps get consent from a user before modifying media files that the app doesn’t own. Another new feature that has been added is “favorites,” which allows media apps to add a “favorite” file status to designated media items so that other media apps will know that the user views these items as important. For instance, if the user stars an item in a gallery app, then other media apps can see that this item has been favorited.

Although Google’s talk doesn’t show an example of the MediaStore’s new trash concept, the API has been available since the first Android 11 Developer Preview. Developer Yuriy Mysochenko published an article on Medium back in February that goes over this new API, and he demonstrated the API in a sample app as shown below:

In this demo, the app asked the user if they wanted to move a photo to trash which would temporarily delete the photo from the gallery. After 7 days, the photo would be permanently deleted from storage. Googler Roxanna Aliabadi mentions that the OS stores trashed items for 30 days, so the 7-day storage limit was likely increased since the first Developer Preview.

Developers interested in implementing this API can check out the documentation right now on the Android Developers website. Media apps can create a PendingIntent called createTrashRequest to prompt the user to trash an item, which then adds the flag IS_TRASHED indicating that a media item has been trashed. Trashed items are retained by the OS until DATE_EXPIRES, after which they are permanently deleted from storage. Media apps querying the MediaStore must explicitly query for trashed items using QUERY_ARG_MATCH_TRASHED as trashed items are filtered away from operations by default.

You should listen to this full talk on Scoped Storage if your app deals with storage access:

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Xiaomi Mi 10, Mi 10 Pro, POCO F2 Pro to get Android 11 Beta with MIUI soon

Don’t install Android 11 Beta if you use Google Pay

WhatsApp tests multi-device access, searching by date, better storage usage tools, ShareChat video service, and much more

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After months of developer previews, Google released Android 11 Beta 1 yesterday, making the new version of Android available for more people to easily test. The beta releases are generally more stable than the developer previews, but they are still beta releases. There are always a few little quirks and Android 11 Beta 1 has an issue with Google Pay.

Google lately rolled out a brand-new firmware replace for its nest hub and nest hub max sensible shows. The replace (v1.46) launched a variety of interface and value modifications, together with a number of minor tweaks to the system settings, new show settings, lighting controls, and extra. Now, in response to a current blog post, the corporate has begun testing a brand new less complicated UI designed for the much less tech-savvy customers.

The new UI goals to make organizing a brand-new Nest Hub even simpler for aged customers and it features a pre-loaded shortlist of contacts that’s geared toward making video calling a less complicated course of. The UI additionally consists of new “What can you do?” playing cards that act as shortcuts for exhibiting climate studies, setting alarms, or enjoying stress-free sounds, permitting customers to take advantage of out of their Nest Hubs with minimal effort.

The easy-to-use UI is a part of a brand-new initiative underneath which Google is giving practically 1,000 Nest Hub Max shows to residents in seven Merrill Gardens retirement communities in Washington State. The initiative is predicted to assist the residents simply join with their family and friends throughout the COVID-19 induced lockdown. The weblog submit additionally notes that the brand new UI has been designed in a means that preserves Privacy for residents, with all of the units managed on Nest’s fleet administration system and working in a “signed out” mode, by which no audio is saved and all exercise is nameless. As of now, the corporate has launched no details about a broader rollout for the brand-new Nest Hub UI.

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Redmi 10X collection with MediaTek Dimensity 820 SoC launching in China on May 26

Huawei Enjoy Z 5G launching on May 24, first 5G phone among Enjoy lineup

Honor 30S 5G Feather Red color variant launched

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Early Google Pixel 4a performance review compares the 2020 mid-range Pixel to the Pixel 4, Pixel 3a, and Pixel 3 XL

    If there wasn’t a global pandemic to worry about, then Google would have held its annual developer conference, Google I/O, in Mountain View, California this week. At last year’s I/O, Google unveiled its first-ever mid-range Pixel devices, the Pixel 3a and 3a XL. This year, we’re expecting Google to follow-up with a new mid-range Pixel smartphone called the Pixel 4a. We don’t know when exactly this 2020 mid-range Pixel will be announced, but thanks to leaks, we know pretty much all there is to know about it. Ahead of the Google Pixel 4a announcement, we can detail the phone’s performance thanks to benchmarks performed on pre-release hardware.

    To date, the most substantive leaks of the Pixel 4a have come from Cuban YouTuber Julio Lusson who runs the TecnoLike Plus channel. Last week, he shared multiple photos he took from his pre-release Pixel 4a, giving us an early look at the camera performance of Google’s 2020 mid-range Pixel. Today, he has published a video on his YouTube channel showcasing the performance of this upcoming smartphone in various benchmarking applications. He shared the raw results with us before publishing the video, allowing us to compile and analyze the data into the below tables and charts. Take note that since he performed these benchmarks on pre-release hardware running pre-release software, there’s a chance that the retail units may perform slightly better in benchmarks if Google has further optimized the performance.

     Julio’s video below shows him running the Pixel 4a through multiple benchmarks, and it even offers a few glimpses at games like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for the Nintendo GameCube (via Dolphin Emulator) and PUBG Mobile running on the device. The video is in Spanish, though, so keep reading below if you’re interested in the benchmark results, we put together.

Test Devices – Pixel 4a, 4, 3 XL, 3a XL, and the latest QRD

The Google Pixel 4a is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 730 mobile platform, which is manufactured by Samsung using an 8nm LPP process. The Snapdragon 730 has an octa-core CPU consisting of 2 clusters: 2 ARM Cortex-A76-based CPU cores clocked at up to 2.2GHz and 6 ARM Cortex-A55-based CPU cores clocked at up to 1.8GHz. The GPU is Qualcomm’s Adreno 618.

The Snapdragon 730 is no longer Qualcomm’s best mid-range processor as that crown goes to the Snapdragon 765, but the 730 is still a significant jump up from the Snapdragon 670 found in the Pixel 3a and 3a XL. We can expect noticeable bumps in CPU performance because of the difference in the architecture between the ‘Performance’ CPU cores. We can also expect the Snapdragon 730 in the Pixel 4a to be more power-efficient than the Snapdragon 670 in the Pixel 3a because of the more modern manufacturing process, though our benchmarks won’t reflect this improvement. In terms of real-world performance, the Google Pixel 4a should noticeably outperform the Pixel 3a because of the better processor, better GPU, higher memory capacity, and faster storage technology.

    For good measure, we also added benchmark results from the Google Pixel 4 (powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855), the Google Pixel 3 XL (powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845), and the latest Qualcomm Reference Device (powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865). We collected most of these benchmark results back in December when we benchmarked the Snapdragon 865. We’re fairly certain the upcoming Google Pixel 5 won’t feature the Snapdragon 865, but we thought it would still be interesting to see how much of a performance gap there is between Google’s 2020 mid-range Pixel and the best hardware you can find on any Android device. The Pixel 5 is instead expected to feature the Snapdragon 765, but we don’t have a device with this processor at our disposal yet since few devices with this platform are available outside of China.

    Here is an overview of the specifications for the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, Qualcomm Snapdragon 855, Qualcomm Snapdragon 845, Qualcomm Snapdragon 730, and Qualcomm Snapdragon 670.

Quick Overview of Each Benchmark

·               AndroBench: AndroBench is a fairly old benchmark with an equally dated design, but it’s still the go-to for storage testing. It tests the speed of sequential read/write, random read/write, and SQLite insert, update, and delete operations. A sequential read/write is an operation that involves reading/writing storage blocks that are contiguous, while a random read/write involves reading/writing randomly scattered storage blocks. SQLite describes a type of database management system; developers dealing with large databases often have to make SQLite calls to retrieve or modify the database. We can get a good idea of the storage performance of an Android device with AndroBench. By default, the benchmark writes a 64MP file with either 32MB or 4KB buffer sizes for sequential and random read/writes respectively, and an SQLite transaction size of 1. The speed of the former operation is measured in MB/s while the latter in Queries Per Second (QPS).

·         AnTuTu: This is a holistic benchmark. AnTuTu tests the CPU, GPU, and memory performance, while including both abstract tests and, as of late, relatable user experience simulations (for example, the subtest which involves scrolling through a ListView). The final score is weighted according to the designer’s considerations.

·         GeekBench: A CPU-centric test that uses several computational workloads including encryption, compression (text and images), rendering, physics simulations, computer vision, ray tracing, speech recognition, and convolutional neural network inference on images. The score breakdown gives specific metrics. The final score is weighted according to the designer’s considerations, placing a large emphasis on integer performance (65%), then float performance (30%), and finally, crypto (5%).

·         GFXBench: Aims to simulate video game graphics rendering using the latest APIs. Lots of onscreen effects and high-quality textures. Newer tests use Vulkan while legacy tests use OpenGL ES 3.1. The outputs are frames during test and frames per second (the other number divided by the test length, essentially), instead of a weighted score. 

·         Aztec Ruins: These tests are the most computationally heavy ones offered by GFXBench. Currently, top mobile chipsets cannot sustain 30 frames per second. Specifically, the test offers really high polygon count geometry, hardware tessellation, high-resolution textures, global illumination and plenty of shadow mapping, copious particle effects, as well as bloom and depth of field effects. Most of these techniques will stress the shader compute capabilities of the processor.

·         PCMark 2.0:  Tests the device as a complete unit. It simulates everyday use cases that can implement abstract algorithms and a lot of arithmetic; the difference is that these are dispatched within an application environment, with a particular practical purpose, and handled by API calls and Android libraries common to multiple applications. The test will output a variety of scores corresponding to the various subtests, which will be detailed below; the composite, work 2.0 score is simply the geometric mean of all of these scores, meaning all tests are weighted equally.

Benchmark Results

    AnTuTu isn’t my preferred benchmark, especially after it got booted off the Play Store, but there’s no denying it’s one of the most popular benchmarks for Android devices. In this test, the Pixel 4a scores overall about ~48% as high as the Qualcomm Reference Device and ~70% as high as the Pixel 4, but it does about as well as the Pixel 3 XL and substantially better than the Pixel 3a XL. When we looked at AnTuTu’s sub scores, we can see that the Pixel 4a scores fairly well in the CPU, Memory, and UX tests but falls significantly behind all the Snapdragon 8-series processors we tested when it comes to the GPU tests. In fact, the Pixel 4a outperformed the Pixel 3 XL in most of AnTuTu’s tests except for the GPU ones, where the Pixel 4a performed 50% to 60% as well as the Pixel 3 XL. The Pixel 4a’s performance in AnTuTu’s Memory tests is about on par with that of the Pixel 4 and Pixel 3 XL—no surprise, though, since all of these devices have similar memory configurations. The Pixel 4a’s overall UX score in AnTuTu is also about on par with that of the Pixel 4, but it’s about 35-36% higher than the scores for the Pixel 3 XL and Pixel 3a XL. Out of all of these devices, however, the Pixel 4 will still offer the best real-world UI performance since we can’t discount the fact that it’s the only Pixel device with a 90Hz refresh rate panel. Overall, the Pixel 4a outperforms the Pixel 3a XL in nearly every test in AnTuTu while it unsurprisingly underperforms the QRD in every test.

    PCMark is one of my favorite benchmarks because of its emphasis on real-world performance. While there’s a big gap in the scores between the Pixel 4a and the Pixel 3a XL, there’s a much smaller gap in the scores between the former device and the Pixel 4 or Pixel 3 XL. The QRD predictably blows the competition out of the water because of its superior hardware across the board, so it’s not even worth analyzing its sub scores. The Pixel 4a’s sub scores for PCMark’s Writing 2.0 and Photo Editing 2.0 tests are much higher (44% and 56% respectively) than the Pixel 3a XL’s, which is good news for users looking to perform basic document and image editing tasks on their device.