OnePlus 6 and 6T receive third OxygenOS 11 beta

Last month, OnePlus released the first beta of Android 11 for the OnePlus 6 and OnePlus 6 T, allowing power users to test drive the new software ahead of the stable release. This was followed by the second beta release towards the end of July, which optimized the overheating control management and enhanced 5G and Wi-Fi connectivity. Now both phones are receiving a new beta update which further refines the software experience.

The third beta OxygenOS 11 beta, is rolling out to the OnePlus 6 and 6T as OnePlus continues to patch issues and iron out annoying bugs. The new update promises to improve the smoothness of YouTube videos, fixes a bug related to the Work-Life Balance feature, and optimizes background process management for improved battery life.

Screenshot courtesy: OnePlus forum member ishank_rastogi28

• System
  • Optimized background process management mechanism to improve battery life
  • Improved the smoothness of YouTube playing videos
  • Improved system stability and fixed known issues
• Network
  • Fixed the failed issue of enabling VoWiFi
• Work-Life Balance
  • Fixed the issue that the feature doesn’t work when the screen is locked

OnePlus 6 XDA Forums || OnePlus 6T XDA Forums

OxygenOS 11 Open Beta 3 has already started rolling out to OnePlus 6 and 6T units. If you’re running the second beta, you should receive the latest build as an OTA shortly. As always, we have also provided direct download links to incremental and full OTA zip packages for both devices below. If you’re coming from the stable version, download the full OTA; grab the incremental update if you’re on Open Beta 2. Once downloaded, put the update package in the root directory of your internal storage. Next, navigate to Settings > System > System Update > “Local Update“ and select the downloaded package from the internal storage to start the installation process.

Download OxygenOS 11 Open Beta 3 for the OnePlus 6 and 6T

• OnePlus 6:
  • Full OTA
  • Incremental update from Open Beta 2
• OnePlus 6T:
  • Full OTA
  • Incremental update from Open Beta 2

---

Thanks to XDA Senior Member Some_Random_Username for the download links!

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Google starts signing out free Hangouts accounts on Android and iOS

Last year, Google laid out plans to retire classic Hangouts for all users. At the time, the search giant said free Hangouts users would be moved to a free version of Google Chat in the first half of 2021. As promised, Google has now started signing out free accounts from Hangouts, marking yet another step towards the service’s slow and inevitable death.

9to5Google reports that free Hangouts users on Android and iOS have started seeing a prompt inside the app telling them to switch to Google Chat. Google has slowly been killing various features of Hangouts over the past months. But this latest step is the biggest one since Google announced its plan to shutter the service last year.

A blue banner appears at the top in the Hangouts app that reads, “Hangouts is being replaced by Google Chat”. It also shows a “Switch to Chat in Gmail” button. When you click on it, it signs you out of Hangouts and takes you to the unified Chat experience in Gmail. Google says all your previous Hangouts conversations from last year (June 2020) will appear in Google Chat, while older chat history will be made “available later.” 

Your conversations from the last year are already in Chat, and older conversations will be available later.

Once you sign out, you’ll not receive any new notifications from the Hangouts app. However, 9to5Google notes that Google isn’t completely shutting down the service just yet as you can continue to use the mobile app by re-adding your Google account.

A similar notice is shown when trying to access the web version of Hangouts. When you click on the “Open Chat” button, you’re taken to the standalone web experience of Google Chat.

 

As for enterprise accounts, a mandatory upgrade is coming in late 2021 when Google will “fully replace classic Hangouts with Chat.” 

Hangouts (Free, Google Play) →

Google Chat (Free, Google Play) →

 

 

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Spotify reassures it’s working on adding AirPlay 2 streaming support on iOS

Spotify has cleared up confusion around AirPlay 2 support for its iOS app. Last week, a representative from Spotify said that it wasn’t possible to add AirPlay 2 streaming support to Spotify for the foreseeable future due to audio driver compatibility issues. Now the company says it was a bit premature on its part to say that.

In a forum post, Spotify has clarified that the iOS app will add support for AirPlay 2 after all (via Engadget). It’s still not saying when we should expect the feature to become available, though. However, this confirmation provides much-needed clarity on the earlier statement, which made it look like Spotify had put the feature on indefinite hold.

A Spotify spokesperson provided the following statement to The Verge:

A post on one of Spotify’s Community pages contained incomplete information regarding our plans for AirPlay2. Spotify will support AirPlay2 and we’re working to make that a reality.

AirPlay 2 is the latest iteration of Apple’s proprietary wireless protocol. Think of it as a Google Cast but for Apple devices. AirPlay 2 was unveiled alongside iOS 11 at Apple’s WWDC event in 2017. The new version is a big step up over the original protocol, offering lower latency, multi-room support, streaming to stereo speakers, and Siri integration.

iPhone users have been requesting Spotify to add support for AirPlay 2 streaming for years — currently, the app only supports the old AirPlay protocol. As per Apple’s official documentation, adding support for AirPlay 2 in an app is a four-step process, requiring the app to set a flag, adding an AirPlay picker, respond to play/pause, and adopting a playback API to take advantage of enhanced buffering. However, as developer Macro Arment points out, it’s the fourth step, adding a new API to support fast streaming, that’s the main roadblock as Apple has provided very little documentation around that.

…and that new API:

– is barely documented

– has no public sample code

– is full of major gotchas

– can’t change speeds seamlessly

– doesn’t provide precise timing

– requires much more complex logic

– is less efficient, which can cause background CPU-overage terminations

— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) August 6, 2021

As mentioned above, Spotify hasn’t provided ETA on when we should expect AirPlay 2 streaming support to arrive on the Spotify iOS app. For now, all we know is that the company is “working to make [the AirPlay 2 feature] a reality.”

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This week in Chrome OS: Chrome OS 92 hits stable

It’s been quite a busy week for Chrome OS and Google in general. Google kicked off the week by officially previewing the upcoming Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro smartphones. While that’s not Chrome OS news directly, the Google-made Tensor chip could have future implications for Chromebooks. In the middle of the week, Chrome OS 92 finally hit the stable channel, bringing a host of new features with it. AT&T also put up the LTE version of the Galaxy Chromebook Go for sale on their website.

In addition to all of the current news, there were also encouraging developments in upcoming Chrome OS features. Chromebooks will soon gain native Google Calendar support in the dock. Debian 11 ‘Bullseye’ is rolling out to Chromebooks soon, available on certain devices now. The guys over at Chrome Unboxed were also able to get Vulkan games working in Crostini on Chrome OS Canary 94. Let’s take a look at everything in more detail.

Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro feature Google’s Tensor chip

On Monday, we all woke up to the surprise of Google announcing the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. It’s fairly common to get official ‘leaks’ from Google regarding Pixel phones, but we didn’t expect them quite this early. We already knew that the Pixel 6 series would run Google’s new custom SoC. Now we now know the name of that SoC, dubbed Tensor.

The name makes a lot of sense given Google’s use of the word Tensor in their machine learning platforms. These phones are not not Chrome OS devices, but the potential of Google silicon forebodes the possibility of a Pixelbook with the Tensor chip inside. Apple already started the process of transitioning their Macbook lineup to all in-house chips, Google could easily do the same. The Pixelbook Go is already one of my favorite Chromebooks. A Google Tensor chip in the sequel could make performance and integration with Chrome OS even better.

Chrome OS 92 hits stable channel

The biggest Chrome news of the week was undoubtedly Chrome OS 92 hitting the stable channel. Some of the key features in the update include better video calling on Chrome OS, eSim support, and a new emoji picker. If you like to live on the edge like me, some of these features have been available in the Canary, Developer, and Beta channels for quite some time. It’s still nice to see experiments Google worked on for a long while trickle down to stable.

Obviously improved video calling is a big deal right now as many people are stilling working from home. The addition of eSim support is exciting, perhaps it means we’ll get an influx of LTE and perhaps even 5G-enabled Chromebooks in the near future.

There are a few other nifty flags that come with Chrome OS 92 stable as well. One of the most useful of these is:

chrome:flags#enable-input-noise-cancellation-ui

This enables input noise cancellation if you’re using an external microphone with your Chromebook. For those of us that create tutorial videos or record podcasts, this is a great feature to add to Chrome OS.

Galaxy Chromebook Go LTE now at AT&T

Last week we mentioned that the Galaxy Chromebook Go LTE was coming soon, and now it’s here. This week, AT&T put the device up for sale on their online store. Presumably this device will not be available in physical retail stores, it’s most likely online only.

There weren’t a ton of surprises on the specs side of things, but the price was a shocker to me at least. At $349, the LTE version of this Chromebook is respectably priced. I figured there would be at least a $100 price bump over the WiFi variant. You can also knock off 50% of the purchase price if you buy from AT&T and bundle a qualifying data plan. The data plan runs $20 per month, but you’re still getting the hardware for $175, which is a great deal.

Chromebooks gaining native Google Calendar support

It’s crazy to think that Google Calendar hasn’t been directly baked into Chrome OS from the beginning. But, we all know Google makes some strange choices. Thankfully, it appears Google Calendar is finally coming to Chrome OS in the shelf.

Originally spotted in the Chromium Gerrit by Chrome Story, this commit suggest that the functionality will work similarly to the calendar integration in the system tray on Windows. You will also be able to launch the calendar view widget with a keyboard shortcut, Alt+Shift+C. The experimental flag enabling the Calendar widget doesn’t expire until Chrome OS 103, so we might need to wait awhile before this hits the stable channel.

Debian 11 coming to Chrome OS

If you use Linux on your Chromebook, you probably know that the underlying container on Chrome OS is based on Debian. As of now, the latest version of Debian for Chrome OS is Debian 10, code-named ‘Buster.’ It appears that this will soon change with the arrival of Debian 11 ‘Bullseye’ on Chrome OS.

Gabriel Brangers from Chrome Unboxed was playing around on the Canary channel with a Tiger Lake Chromebook (I presume the ASUS Chromebook CX9) and noticed that there is now a flag to enable Debian 11 on your Chromebook. This brings some kernel improvements and also the possibility of running Vulkan games on a Chromebook, which coincidentally is our next topic. You won’t notice much difference from Buster to Bullseye if you aren’t a Linux power user, but this is exciting stuff for Chrome OS fans.

Vulkan games in Crostini are now a thing

As I’ve mentioned many times in this column, Steam gaming is coming to Chrome OS, probably later this year. One of the most important steps in getting Steam games running on Chromebooks is Vulkan support.

In a post on Friday, Luke Short from Chrome Unboxed detailed his efforts to run Vulkan games in Crostini. The details of doing this are fairly technical and he apparently tricked his Chromebook Pixel 2 into thinking it was an ASUS CX9 to make things work.

The upshot of this development is that it appears we are getting extremely closer to official Steam support on Chrome OS. Borealis should revolutionize the way people think about gaming on a Chromebook. It’s quite possible that there may be flags available for wider public testing of Vulkan on Chrome OS 94, along with the aforementioned Debian 11 support.

That’s all for this week. Overall, a stellar week to be a fan of Chrome OS or just Google as a whole. We’ve got gaming Chromebooks coming, Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro this fall, and more fun stuff to look forward to. My ASUS Chromebook CX9 review is finished and submitted, look for it to go live next week. If you want to chat with me about all things Chrome OS and Android during the week, give me a follow on Twitter.

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Here are the games available to stream on GeForce Now in August 2021

NVIDIA has revealed which games are coming to GeForce Now in the month of August. Subscribers can look forward to playing 34 new games on their GFN devices. As a cloud gaming solution, GeForce Now allows players to stream their Steam, Epic, and Ubisoft games to multiple devices.

GeForce NOW tends to get large batches of games announced at the beginning of the month. Last month 36 games were announced, including 11 games on the first of the month. This month, 13 games are available in the first week, with all but two available on Steam, and those two being available on the Epic Games Store.

• A Plague Tale: Innocence (Free on Epic Games Store, August 5)
• Death Trash (day-and-date release on Steam, August 5)
• Starmancer (day-and-date release on Steam, August 5)
• CyberTaxi (Steam)
• Eldest Souls (Steam)
• Elex (Epic Games Store)
• The Flame in the Flood (Steam)
• GRIME (Steam)
• Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds (Steam)
• MetaMorph: Dungeon Creatures (Steam)
• Super Animal Royale (Steam)
• Tales of the Neon Sea (Steam)
• Zero Hour (Steam)

This is just the first batch of games that are coming to the service this month. These are the rest of the games, including some that have not yet been released. Some of the games also don’t have launch dates on GeForce Now, but they’ll most likely be announced in subsequent GFN Thursday announcements:

• Lawn Mowing Simulator (day-and-date release on Steam, August 10)
• Naraka: Bladepoint (day-and-date release on Steam and Epic Games Store, August 12)
• Voidtrain (day-and-date release on Epic Games Store, August 12)
• Greak: Memories of Azur (day-and-date release on Steam, August 17)
• Humankind (day-and-date release on Steam and Epic Games Store, August 17)
• RiMS Racing (day-and-date release on Steam and Epic Games Store, August 19)
• King’s Bounty II (day-and-date release on Steam and Epic Games Store, August 24)
• Arid (Steam)
• Check vs Mate (Steam, North America) / Battle vs Chess (Steam, Europe)
• Before We Leave (Epic Games Store)
• Blood of Steel (Steam)
• Deepest Chamber (Steam and Epic Games Store)
• Hard Truck Apocalypse / Ex Machina (Steam)
• Hello Neighbor (Steam)
• Hello Neighbor: Hide and Seek (Steam)
• Ironclad Tactics (Steam)
• Old World (Epic Games Store)
• Shadow Man Remastered (Steam)
• The Architect Paris (Epic Games Store)
• TIS-100 (Steam)
• Wargame: European Escalation (Steam)

Nvidia adds that, in addition to the aforementioned 36 games that were announced at the beginning of July, 24 more games were added to GeForce Now over the course of the month, meaning that even more games than this will likely be added to the service throughout August.

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Realme’s MagDart is a not-so-subtle jab at Apple’s MagSafe, and it works

Realme’s MagDart is the company’s latest charging technology innovation and also a not-so-subtle jab at Apple’s MagSafe. Just like MagSafe, it magnetically attaches to the back of your phone, and the company has also introduced additional peripherals that are MagDart-enabled too. Realme sent us the Realme Flash to play around with, along with two MagDart peripherals to try the technology out. It may well be a jab at Apple, but it certainly gets the job done.

About this article: Realme sent us the Realme Flash, a concept smartphone that the company uses to show off MagDart, as well as two MagDart chargers. The company had no input into the contents of this article.

The practicality of magnetic wireless charging

Right off the bat, I need to be honest. I’m not necessarily sure I see the practicality of MagSafe and similar technologies. If I’m going to use something that attaches to my smartphone, I may as well just use a cable that plugs into the bottom of the smartphone. MagDart feels more of the same in that regard, especially when I can get a much faster charging speed from a cable than the much slower MagDart charger.

However, if this is a move towards the introduction of portless phones, then technology like MagDart is going to be required in order to get acceptable charging speeds. The smaller and thinner MagDart charges at 15W, which is acceptable even if it’s still a lot slower than what you can charge with a cable. This is also faster than Apple’s 15W solution, which the company made several points about at the MagDart unveiling event.

However, Realme’s much bigger MagDart wireless charger charges at 50W and can charge the 4,500 mAh battery in the Realme Flash in just under an hour. It’s bulky and basically impossible to hold the phone while it’s in use though, and given the rubber feet on the wireless charger, I don’t think it’s even designed for use in the hand. At that point though, it’s also somewhat impractical. Sure it magnetically attaches to the phone, but there are better wireless chargers that are capable of faster speeds.

However, the one that I can most appreciate (and sadly, we couldn’t get our hands on thanks to international customs) is the MagDart power bank. It works exactly how you can imagine — it magnetically attaches to the back of your phone, and a USB-C cable comes out of the bottom to be plugged in to charge.

Hands-on with the Realme Flash

The Realme Flash is merely just a concept phone, but it’s a fun device to play around with because of that. It’s not designed to be used as a daily driver, and it looks very similar to the OnePlus 9 Pro. It’s a vessel for trying out MagDart, and concept smartphones tend to be made cheaply just to show off a particular technology. As a result, there are no Google apps, and the cameras on the back don’t actually work either.

The main part of this phone that Realme wants us to test out is the magnetic back of the phone that attaches to the MagDart peripherals that the company sent us.

Hands-on with Realme’s MagDart peripherals

15W MagDart charger

The 15W MagDart charger is the most “Apple-like” product of the bunch. It snaps to the back of the phone as a small, thin circle, and charges the phone at 15W. It doesn’t heat up a lot, though the cable going into it is a bit annoying when trying to use the phone at the same time. The cable is also rather short, so you’ll need to be close to the included charger at all times. The charger goes into a USB-C brick, and doesn’t seem to work in just any USB-C brick — I could only get it working in the included Realme pill charger. Once connected to the phone though, it’s fairly rigid and hard to move without applying some force.

50W MagDart charger

The 50W MagDart charger is the most overkill of the bunch. It’s a box that the phone sits on, with a fan built-in and capable of charging the phone at 50W — charging almost as fast as the company’s own 50W wired charger. It’ll top up the 4,500 mAh battery in just under an hour, though the charger itself feels a bit impractical. While all of the other peripherals allow you to use your phone at the same time, it’s basically impossible to use your phone at the same time while using this wireless charger. It’s a whole lot faster than most wireless charging alternatives from other companies, though.

MagDart and magnetic backs on phones have potential

The problem with MagDart is the same problem I have with MagSafe — that the form-factor itself does not lend itself to being particularly useful. While it’s certainly a cool technology and has its uses, there are a lot of problems that can be solved just by using a regular cable, a cable that is also going to be faster, is usually not proprietary, and we already have plenty around.

If I’m honest, I don’t necessarily think that regular chargers are going to be the best form factor for making use of the MagDart technology. However, I think peripherals like the power bank certainly will be. There’s a lot of room to grow for MagDart, and there’s a lot of different things I’m sure the company will try. For example, there’s a wallet case the company also unveiled that has a built-in stand, and that’s something some people might actually like to use with their smartphones. Magnets on the back of phones also can come in handy with other mounting situations such as car mounts, tripods, and perhaps even swappable camera lenses, as the ease of snapping in and out might just make them worthwhile the other compromises.

Either way, the Realme Flash is a concept phone, and MagDart itself is a concept. I’m certainly looking forward to its future, one that perhaps coexists alongside ports and wires.

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The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD is already $10 off

Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD less than a month ago for the Nintendo Switch. It’s a remake of 2011’s The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Wii, where you play as Link on the floating island of Skyloft, and the remaster has been just as well received as the original. Nintendo originally priced the new game at $59.99, but now it’s on sale for $49.94 at Amazon. It’s also nearly the same price at Best Buy, if you prefer shopping there.

Skyward Sword is a mainline Zelda game, where Link is tasked with rescuing Zelda after she is kidnapped and taken to the surface. The original version was the first game to sue a live orchestra for the majority of its music, and it was among the highest-rated games for the Wii. The new remaster has two control schemes (motion controls with Joycons, like the original game’s Wii remotes, or normal controls), a smoother 60FPS experience, autosaving, the ability to skip dialogue boxes and cutscenes, and other improvements.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD

Skyward Sword HD is now on sale for $10 below the original price at Amazon. Best Buy has it for $9 off.

Buy at Amazon

Buy at Best Buy

Skyward Sword HD was co-developed by Tantalus Media, the same group that helped with Twilight Princess HD on the Wii U. This game definitely worth picking up for any Zelda fan, or just anyone interested in one of Nintendo’s best games of the 2010’s.

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