HALO is one of the best things to ever hit Android. It is basically an omnipresent bubble that shows you notifications for every app and system feature installed on your device right on top of whatever app or screen you have open, while still remaining unobtrusive enough to not cause a distraction in your workflow. The bubble also shows the picture or icon associated with the notification – basically what you would see in the notification pull-down gets shown in the circle. Here, take a look for yourself.

As you can see, the bubble shows toast-like popups for notifications from any app that you would otherwise get in the notification shade. It works no matter what app you have open, and can be dragged around on the screen to be positioned anywhere you like, and even dismissed by dropping it on the on-screen cross that appears. Being a feature of the ROM itself, it does require you to be running Paranoid Android on your device, but that doesn’t mean all Paranoid Android users have to use it – it is an opt-in feature and can be enabled by hitting its button from the notification shade, highlighted below.

If you thought receiving notifications like this for all your apps was awesome, try tapping on one of the notifications; what you’ll get is nothing short of groundbreaking. The app’s appropriate section opens up in a floating popup above whatever you have open, and lets you quickly respond to the notification. You can then tap anywhere outside that popup to dismiss it and return to what you were doing. The following screenshots should give you a clear picture.

As you can see above, I can simply tap on a Facebook message’s notification to open that very conversation in the actual Facebook app in a popup, reply to it right away, and dismiss it to resume exploring music in Google Play All Access.

If you find the idea of having an omnipresent chat bubble on your screen intrusive, fret not – after being inactive, it is set to automatically set itself to half-transparent, and slide towards the nearest screen edge to hide half of it off the screen. If that bothers you as well and you’d rather have it gone altogether when inactive and only show up when a new notification is received, just go to Settings > Toolbars and enable the ‘Hide HALO after activity’ option.

You’ll also see a ‘Reverse HALO gestures’ feature here, which brings us to HALO’s gestures. If you have multiple notifications, you can simply double-tap-and-swipe or long-press-and-swipe on the HALO bubble and move your finger away from the screen’s edge that HOLO is docked next to, to switch between the notifications. You’ll see ) signs for every notification you have, and moving your finger from one to the next will switch to that notification, also changing the image shown in the bubble accordingly. Getting back to the ‘Reverse HALO gestures’ option, it lets you switch to the single-tap-and-drag gesture for switching between the notifications and double-tap-and-swipe or long-press-and-swipe for dragging the bubble around or dismissing it by dragging it to the cross.

Speaking of dragging it to the cross, using that gesture to dismiss HALO basically disables it, and you have to re-enable it from the notification shade to get it back. At the moment, there seems to be no way to selectively dismiss individual notifications from HALO, which is the only shortcoming we can see for now. However, dismissing them from the notification shade itself eventually takes notifications away from the HALO bubble as well.

HALO))) App

While HALO itself works great for all your notifications by default, what if you had a way to open apps of your choice in HALO’s on-screen popup mode from any screen or any app, even when you don’t have any active notifications from those apps? HALO also comes with a companion app called HALO))) that can be installed from the Play Store for free, and this app lets you do just that! Simply launch it, use the pin icon from the action bar to select any apps that you want to access from anywhere via this method, and hit the right-most button (that initially looks like a play button) to start the service.

Doing this will instantly add entries for all the selected apps to your notifications, and you can access them all in their own minified popup forms from anywhere in Android using the same gesture on the HALO bubble that’s used for all other notifications.

This can be immensely useful, as you can imagine. While doing some reading on Flipboard, if I’m getting annoyed by the screen timing out and turning off while I’m in the middle of going through an interesting article, I can just use this gesture to quickly bring up Wakey on my screen, tap its bulb icon to enable the ‘keep screen awake’ mode, and tap anywhere outside that popup to dismiss it and resume reading. Previously, I would have had to go to my home screen, then to the app drawer to launch Wakey and enable it, then back to Flipboard using the multitasking screen. See all the steps it saves you? You can add any app to the list, and the few that we can think of being immensely useful this way include the Calculator, Camera, your favorite file manager and note-taking apps, and just about any tool that you frequently need to access quickly for one small function while you already have a main app open.

To sum it up, HALO is one of the greatest things that has ever happened to Android, and has already become a daily driver for me on my Nexus 4 running the latest alpha version of Paranoid Android. The feature is currently available only on Alpha released of the ROM, but has been stable enough in our experience. HALO as well as the ROM itself are being actively improved, and the developers plan on pushing it to stable releases pretty soon. You can learn more at Paranoid Android’s website and Google+ page, and grab the ROM for your device via its XDA thread linked below.

If you want Chat Heads-like notification bubbles but don’t want to install a complete ROM for the purpose, you might want to try out our recently covered Floating Notifications.

Download Paranoid Android From XDA-Developers

Read Paranoid Android’s HALO Notification System – A Complete Review by Haroon Q Raja on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Here are the most significant new features and improvements you can expect from this build:

• Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with all its official core features like lock screen widgets, daydream, notification actions etc.
• New S4 Lockscreen with different unlock effects and some other tweaks
• New Adapt Display and Professional Photo screen modes from S4
• S4-style Tabbed Settings interface
• S4’s new S-Voice and voice controls for several phone features
• S4 and Note II-style full-screen Samsung apps
• New Smart Switch widget
• Driving mode

and possibly more.

Before you proceed with the installation, do note that this is a leaked internal testing build, and not the final release. Therefore, it might contain some quirks that have yet to be ironed out. That said, if you just can’t wait till the final release is out (we can’t), here’s how to get it up and running on your Galaxy S III.

Disclaimer: Please follow this guide at your own risk. AddictiveTips will not be liable if your device gets damaged or bricked during the process.

Requirements

• International GSM Galaxy S III I9300. Do NOT attempt to flash it to any other variant of the S III.
• Samsung USB drivers
• Leaked Android 4.2.2 XXUFME3 ROM for Galaxy S III
• Odin 3.04 (included in the above file)

Procedure

1. Take a backup of any data that you might need in case you later need to do a factory reset. This includes any data you might have on your internal SD card.
2. Download the ROM’s package and extract the contents of the downloaded zip file to your computer.
3. Download and install Samsung’s USB drivers, if they aren’t already installed.
4. Power your phone off and boot it into download mode by holding Home and Volume-down buttons while powering it back on.
5. Launch Odin on your computer and connect your phone to it via USB. You should get a blue indicator sign on Odin.
6. Click ‘PDA’ in Odin and select the I9300XXUFME3_I9300OJKFME1_HOME.tar.md5 file.
7. Leave everything as it is, and especially make sure that Re-Partition is unchecked.
8. Click ‘Start’ to begin flashing, and wait for the process to finish.

You should now have the latest leaked Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean firmware up and running on your S III.

In case there are any issues like bootloops or force-closes when you reboot your phone after flashing the firmware, reboot your phone into recovery by powering it off and then powering it back on while keeping the Home and Volume-up keys pressed, perform a wipe data/factory reset, and reboot the phone. This WILL delete all your apps, data and internal SD card contents, but your phone should boot and work fine after that. For this reason, taking a backup before flashing anything like this is extremely important.

[Firmware & Screenshots via SamMobile]

Read Install Leaked Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean ROM On Samsung Galaxy S III by Haroon Q Raja on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

In case you aren’t familiar with the concept of a custom Android recovery, we suggest you check out our ClockworkMod recovery guide (linked above) and go through the ‘About Android Recovery’ section. That said, let’s take a closer look at TWRP.

The first thing you’ll probably notice about TWRP is its GUI that looks impressively modern when it comes to a recovery environment, especially compared to that offered by ClockworkMod. You get the same basic set of features that you’d expect from any modern and full-featured custom Android recovery, all laid out in a very organized manner with large, touch-friendly buttons that make using it a breeze. Furthermore, the tablet variants are actually tablet-optimized. Here, take a look for yourself:

Installation

Installing TWRP is super-simple and if you’ve previously installed a custom recovery, you shouldn’t have any trouble doing it. Though for those who haven’t had any prior experience with custom recovery installation, we have you covered. Just head over to the guide linked below and follow the GooManager method for rooted devices or the fastboot method (for both unrooted and rooted devices with an unlocked bootloader) to get TWRP up and running on your device in no time. If neither of these methods work for you, the flash_image method should come handy, though it requires root access.

Installing a custom recovery on Android

Features

TWRP gives you access to all the features you would expect from any custom recovery, and then some. Let’s take a look at them in detail.

Interface

The interface of TWRP comprises of large buttons that make it easy to spot the feature you require at a quick glance and select it with a quick tap.  You’ll also find soft buttons for Home and Back here, along with one for the log view that shows progress of all the operations you’ve performed in recovery.

The log is normally shown automatically while any recovery operation is taking place, but goes into background when the operation is complete. By using the Log button, you can bring it up again if you missed out on anything, or needed to look up some info for troubleshooting purposes.

Install

As the name suggests, the Install option lets you install any recovery-flashable zip file to your device. This can be a ROM, a kernel, a mod, a theme, a system app – pretty much anything that’s available in the recovery-flashable zip file format.

Upon hitting Install, you’re presented with the files and folders on your phone’s storage, from which you can select the file you want to flash. With the file selected, you can either swipe the slider to confirm and start flashing the selected file, or hit the ‘Add More Zips’ button to queue up more files for flashing one after the other in a batch – a feature we haven’t come across in any other custom recovery. It will present you with a file selection screen just like the first one, letting you add up to 10 files to the flashing queue before flashing them all in the selected order. You can also clear the queue any time by tapping the ‘Clear Zip Queue’ button to start file selection from scratch.

Once the flashing process is complete, TWRP gives you some handy options for quick access to certain tasks that many users would need to perform after flashing, eliminating the extra steps required to pick them from their individual sections. These include wiping cache and dalvik cache, and rebooting the system, in addition to a Home shortcut.

Wipe

This section is dedicated to wiping all standard partitions on your Android device. By default, TWRP offers you to perform a full factory reset upon hitting Wipe, since it’s the most common form of wipe operation that most users need in recovery. This will wipe all your user data from the phone, including your installed apps, cache, and dalvik cache. This will not effect the internal or SD card storage area of your phone, meaning your documents, downloads, pictures, music, videos and other files will stay safe.

If you would rather want to wipe EVERYTHING including the aforementioned data, tap ‘Format Data’. This will wipe all your apps, backups, downloads, pictures, videos and media, and will also remove encryption on your internal storage, if you have applied it, essentially leaving nothing but the operating system itself on the device, in a complete factory state.

If you want to be more specific about the partitions you want to wipe, hit ‘Advanced Wipe’ instead. You can then select one or more common partitions to wipe specifically, leaving the rest untouched. The partitions available for wiping include system (where your operating system is stored), data, cache, Dalvik cache, and usb-otg in case of our Nexus 4, but may (or may not) include other partitions as well. Just remember – if you are unsure of whether to wipe a partition or not, NEVER touch it, especially if it’s the system partition. If you are following instructions provided somewhere, wipe only the partitions that the instructions clearly specify to wipe, and leave the rest untouched. Otherwise, you might be stuck with a device with no operating system installed, or lose all your data stored on the device.

Backup

A timely backup can save you from a lot of hassle later on in case of any data loss due to a faulty installation or an operation performed by mistake in recovery mode. That’s why all custom recoveries for Android come with a backup feature (also called NANDROID backup). TWRP’s backup section lets you take a backup of the current state of your phone, allowing you to select the partitions you want to be included in the backup, and even letting you give the backup a custom name on the go.

You are also shown your available storage space, and you can calculate if it’s enough for the backup, based on the sum of the individual partition sizes, that are shown with each partition.

Restore

This section lets you restore your phone to the state of any previously taken backup. Simply select the backup that you want to restore, optionally choose the specific partitions that you want to restore, and swipe the slider to begin the restore process.

Do remember that restoring a backup will essentially wipe the current state of your phone, meaning any changes made after that backup will be lost. However, your internal or SD card storage will remain untouched, and any files that you may have added there after the last backup will still be there.

Mount

Most casual users will never really need this section, but for power users, this can be immensely useful. Here, you can mount or unmount several key partitions of your device, in order to access them over ADB (or certain areas of the recovery, as we’ll see later.) You can also see the amount of free internal storage available on your device here.

Settings

TWRP lets you tweak a few recovery-specific settings, such as toggling signature verification for the zip files you flash, using the rm -rf command for wiping instead of the format command, wherever applicable, skipping MD5 generation during backup, enabling MD5 verification of backup files, using military-style time for the clock display, and a simulation mode in which you can test out recovery operations without actually performing them, which is super-useful for those creating custom TWRP themes, in testing them out to ensure they apply properly to all areas of the recovery.

The Time Zone option lets you specify your own time zone for the time display in recovery mode, by choosing it from a list of all global time zones, and optionally specifying any offset if required.

To keep things secure, TWRP also comes with a lock screen that activates automatically after a predefined screen timeout period, and can be unlocked with a swipe similar to the unlock gesture on the iPhone, as you can see in the screenshot above. This option can be toggled from the Screen section.

Advanced

In the Advanced section, you’ll find some further features that many users might not require. You can copy the recovery’s log to SD card for accessing it later, which can be useful for debugging purposes. You can also fix file permissions, which can help if things aren’t working properly due to improperly set permissions for important files. There’s also a Reload Theme option that is useful for those developing a custom theme for TWRP.

The ADB Sideload mode is also accessible from here, which essentially allows you to put your phone into a mode where files can be flashed to it from a computer using the ADB sideload command. This mode shouldn’t generally be required by anyone who doesn’t already know how it works, and those unfamiliar with it don’t really need to worry about it. For those who are going to use it, the Wipe Cache and Wipe Dalvik Cache options can come handy to ensure that both these cache partitions are wiped after the ADB sideloading process completes.

There are two more options here – Terminal Command and File Manager. These (especially the File Manager) deserve a section of their own, so let’s now take a look at them.

File Manager

Not many custom recoveries come with a built-in file manager, but TWRP has taken things one step further by adding one to the mix. Once you launch it from the Advanced menu, you are shown the file or folder selection screen. Simply navigate to the file or folder you want to manage, and hit the ‘Select’ button. For conveniently locating the required file or folder, you can use the sorting options.

Once a file or folder has been selected, you can then copy or move it to another location, set its permissions to rw-r—r– (755) by using the ‘chmod 755’ button, or to any other permissions you want by using the ‘chmod’ button, delete the item, or rename it. These options can come incredibly handy when attempting to fix things from recovery in case of any issues that have made the phone inaccessible in normal Android mode. However, use these only when you are sure of what you are doing, and don’t mess around with any files that you don’t know much about, or else you might end up harming your OS.

Terminal Command

The Terminal Command mode found in the Advanced menu lets you run a batch file that contains Terminal commands that you want to execute. These files usually have a .sh extension, and if you are unsure about this mode, just let it be, as you won’t exactly need it in that case. For those advanced users who do need to run such a file, TWRP offers the same file selection interface in this section that’s featured in the other parts of the recovery, as we’ve seen above. Simply select the file and you’ll be able to run it right from recovery.

Reboot

This menu provides you with handy options of rebooting your device directly into specific modes right from recovery. The options available include System (normal Android mode), Recovery, and Bootloader (fastboot mode). In addition, you can also directly power your device off from here.

Final Words

TWRP is nothing short of a breakthrough when it comes to Android recoveries. It provides the most impressive user interface we’ve seen in recovery mode, making it a very easy-to-navigate GUI – a major jump from the traditional menu-based boring and complicated recovery interface found in most other recoveries including ClockworkMod. And the interface is just the icing on the cake; the several handy features offered by TWRP that are nowhere to be found in other custom recoveries make it THE best custom recovery currently available for Android, period! It also allows users to theme it to their liking by editing an XML file, and fully conforms to the OpenRecovery standard for its recovery operations, rather than going for its own non-standard ways. This standards-compliance makes it compatible with the excellent GooManager app for scheduling flashing of files without leaving the Android environment.

TWRP has replaced ClockworkMod on all our devices here at AddictiveTips, and we have no hesitation in recommending it to any Android user looking for a custom recovery for their device.

Visit TWRP Website

Read What Is TWRP Recovery & How To Install & Use It On Android Devices [Guide] by Haroon Q Raja on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Performance Enhancements

First and foremost, you will notice a significant improvement in the overall performance. Ever since Canonical introduced its Unity UI, many users complained about it being slower compared to the old Gnome UI. In 13.04, everything feels just snappy – no lag, no noticeable performance glitches, no slowdowns due to the UI. This alone can go a long way towards making several users finally embrace Unity with open arms.

New Photos & Social Lenses

One of the key features of the Unity interface are the Lenses that allow you to quickly find both local and online content without having to worry about where to look. In 13.04, two new Lenses have been added. The Photos Lens – as the name suggests – provides you with quick access to not only your local images, but also the images from your online albums as well as those shared with you by your friends over social media, provided you have connected your online accounts with the OS. There are also several handy filters available to view the images based on their source or date.

Similarly, the Social Lens consolidates your social media communication in one place. At the moment, Facebook and Twitter appear to be the only two compatible services, but these should be enough for most of us. You can access your Facebook messages as well as Twitter @mentions and DMs from here.

Per-App Toggles For Online Accounts

The Online Accounts section is great for connecting many of your social media and other web accounts with the OS in order to make your content from these services accessible in the relevant areas of Ubuntu. However, it’s also important to have more control over what content from these service gets to be available in which particular OS features or apps in Ubuntu, and that’s been taken care of in 13.04 by providing you with toggles for enabling or disabling access to your online content on these services from individual Ubuntu features or apps. Want to keep your Picasa photos accessible for the Photos Lens but don’t want Empathy to automatically sign you in with the same Google account? You can do that now!

New Window switching Methods

The heavy multitaskers among us are always on the lookout for the quickest ways to switch between all the different windows that we have open all the time. In 13.04, Ubuntu makes life easier for us by adding two new ways of switching between windows. Firstly, the application Quicklists now show you all open windows of the currently selected application, complete with a visual indicator next to the currently selected one.

Though what’s even better is that now you can cycle between multiple open windows of the same app by simply hovering your mouse pointer over that app’s icon and scrolling your mouse wheel. It works incredibly well, and you are bound to appreciate its intuitiveness as well as usefulness when you try it out for yourself.

Sync Menu

Over the past couple of years, we have seen an exponential rise in the use as well as availability of cloud service, with Ubuntu also joining in with their cloud storage and sync solution in Ubuntu One. In Ubuntu 13.04, upon signing in with your account in the Ubuntu One app, you will notice a new Sync menu in the menu bar. From here, you can quickly toggle the service on/off, open the Ubuntu One app or your synced folder, share files, open the web interface, keep track of any ongoing file transfers, and purchase more space if the 5GB free space doesn’t cut it for you.

Improved Bluetooth Menu

While the Bluetooth menu has had a place in the menu bar since the old days before Unity, it has previously been quite bland, using multiple text entries for turning Bluetooth on and off, and for toggling your device’s visibility. In the latest update, both these features have been implemented in the menu in form of toggles that not only look better, but also offer a more instant visual indication of the current Bluetooth state of your device.

New Look For Shut Down Dialog

Most of the features we saw above were primarily about function rather than mere cosmetics, but that doesn’t mean cosmetic changes have entirely been left out in 13.04. The Shut Down dialog has been visually revamped, making it more Unity-like, and a bit similar to the Alt+Tab list too.

Speaking of the Alt+Tab list, it has also received some subtle visual improvements that might not be noticeable at first glance, but become apparent when comparing it with the previous version.

Prettier & Smoother Animations

If you have a thing for smooth animations and stunning visual effects, you are in for a treat when you next try to snap a window to a side of the screen (or the full screen) – the new animation is both stunning and super-smooth, and it adds a nice visual enhancement to this handy window management feature.

In addition to that, you’ll also notice an improvement in the animation shown in Unity Previews when you right-click an item from any of the Unity Lenses.

Other Minor Changes

Apart from the above, there have been a few other, relatively minor changes as well. The Workspace switcher icon is no longer there on the launcher by default, but can be added back by enabling it from System Settings > Appearance > Behavior, and now indicates which workplace you’re currently on. Also, the launcher icon of removable media such as USB flash drives now shows a visual indicator in form of a different background color if you have the device open in the file manager. Speaking of the file manager, it’s icon has also been changed.

To sup it up, while Ubuntu 13.04 may not seem to be a huge upgrade in terms of features alone, its performance improvements combined with the few major new features as well as the countless minor enhancements make it worth the upgrade for every Ubuntu user out there.

What do you think of the latest version of Ubuntu, and which of its new features is your favorite? Did we end up missing out on something new that you have noticed? Don’t forget to let us know in the comments.

Visit Ubuntu Website

Read Hands-On With The New Features In Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail by Haroon Q Raja on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

As Chainfire himself clarified in his Google+ post, the purpose of the app isn’t to bypass any restrictions that your carrier may have enforced on tethering your data connection. While it can do that for some (but not all) devices, its primary purpose remains enabling users to create a Wi-Fi hotspot on their device regardless of whether they have a data connection enabled or not, and even regardless of whether they have a SIM card inserted in the device or not. This can have purposes other than sharing your data connection as well, such as creating a private Wi-Fi network for connecting multiple devices to transfer data between them.

Using the app is super-simple – just launch it and you’ll be presented with the app’s sole screen that houses all the options you’ll need, which aren’t many in this case. Apart information and donation links, the available controls let you easily enable or disable Wi-Fi, as well as the Access Point (Wi-Fi Hotspot). You can set a network name (SSID) as well as a password of your choice, and view the current state of Wi-Fi and Access Point. The security & encryption used is WPA2 AES+TKIP, which is hard-coded to keep things simple, and you don’t have to worry about changing it.

Several users who have tried the app have reported that it successfully allowed them to enable tethering their data connection over Wi-Fi on devices that had the feature disabled or hidden by their carriers. However, this depends on the carrier as well as the device, and isn’t guaranteed to work for all users. The app is available for free on Google Play Store, so you can give it a try and see how it fares on yours.

Download Hotspot Control For Android

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This update primarily focuses on UI improvements, boasting lighter background colors and a more content-focused design. On the landing page, you are now shown content in different curated lists (such as a Gangster Movie Classics collection, previews of some new books, FPS games collection, Personal Finance apps etc.) that makes the process of content discovery easier. The lime green color choice for the Apps section is a nice hint at Key Lime Pie.

Another change you’ll notice is that all apps listed throughout the several sections and panes of Play Store are now presented as cards similar to those seen in Google Now, with greater focus on their graphics and just the right amount of info shown within each card. There’s also a menu overflow button (that looks like a vertical …) on each card that lets you install the app or add it to your wishlist without having to open its own app page.

The new layout is even more prominent on tablets, presenting more content to you in an engaging manner on the expansive screen of your device.

Another significant change is that in-app purchases can now be made from the context of the app in which the purchase is being made. Previously, making any in-app purchase took you to Play Store, taking the app to background temporarily. Now, you’ll just get a dialog box on top of that app itself, eliminating this annoyance and not requiring the app to re-render after the in-app purchase.

So how do you get the latest update on your device manually instead of waiting for it over the next few days or weeks? It’s dead-simple! Simply download its APK file from the link provided below, transfer it to your device, and sideload. It is the official app as provided by Google with no changes made whatsoever, and will simply update your existing Play Store app to the latest version – no need to be rooted and replace any system files manually.

How did you find the latest version of Play Store? Do you prefer it over the previous one, or would you rather stick with the old design? Do let us know in the comments below.

Download Google Play 4.0.25 APK

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Information about the leak comes courtesy of MoDaCo’s Paul O’Brien, who also shared the installable APK files for everyone to try out on their devices. While Facebook Home will be officially available only on select Samsung and HTC devices on launch, this leak can be installed on any device running ICS or later, with a maximum screen resolution of 1280×768.

Upon sideloading all three APK files, you’ll get the option to use Facebook Home as your launcher upon pressing the Home button. Needless to say, you’ll need to sign in with your Facebook account credentials in the main Facebook app before anything works. Once done, launching Facebook Home will present you with a full screen view of posts from your timeline.

Tapping anywhere on the screen will bring up your Facebook display picture in form of a circle. When you tap-and-hold your avatar to drag it around, three buttons show up around it, on which you can drop it to access those features. The top button opens the app drawer, the left one is for the camera (not functional in this build), while the right one is a quick way to open your last accessed app.

You can swipe sideways on the home screen to scroll between posts, and the currently visible post’s image zooms out to full view while you do that. You can also like a post, access its comments, and post comments of your own to it using the available controls.

The ‘Apps’ button take you to a page dedicated to your app shortcuts, along with a few buttons on top to post a status, photo or check-in on Facebook, though these three aren’t functional in this build. You swipe to the right to access the full app drawer, from where you can also drag app icons to pin them to the shortcuts pane for quicker access.

Pressing the menu button lets you access settings for both Facebook Home and the Facebook app, where you can tweak options related to story sources for your home screen, notifications and a few other options related to the app.

In the little time that we played around with it, the app seemed to offer an experience that is sure to be appreciated by any heavy Facebook user, but that wouldn’t likely appeal much to a seasoned Android power user who is used to having access to a customized home screen.

You can give the app a try by downloading all three APKs from the following links, and sideloading them to your device. Though before you install any of these, you will need to uninstall the Facebook app first if you have it installed on your device already, and if it is installed as a system app, your device will need to be rooted in order to remove it.

Download Facebook Home Leaked APK | New Facebook App | New Facebook Messenger App

[via MoDaCo]

Update: Facebook Home has been released to the Play Store for the US and a limited number of devices. The leaked APK seems to have stopped working for a majority of users, possibly through actions taken by Facebook to counter access through unsupported devices. You can still try installing the APK linked below from an unsupported region provided you have a supported device, namely Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S4, HTC One X, One X+ and One.

Download Facebook Home Final Release APK

Update 2: If you own an unsupported device and want to get early access to Facebook Home, follow our guide to running Facebook Home on unsupported Android devices.

Read Install Leaked Facebook Home APK On Any Android Device by Haroon Q Raja on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Many people had been wondering what’s taking Twitter this long to update its Android app to meet the UI guidelines set by Android starting with version 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and continued in Jelly Bean. Better late than never though, as the Holo UI update seems to be definitely worth the wait. The navigation buttons for Home, Connect, Discover and Me in the top bar have been replaced with Holo tabs, and the whole top UI has been flattened to remove any hint of a pseudo-3D look. You still get the exact same functionality from all the tabs, with the added benefit that you can now swipe sideways to navigate between them.

If you are wondering how to get the options for each tweet that you could previously bring up by sliding sideways on tweets, there’s now the tap-and-hold gesture for that. Another thing you’ll quickly notice is the new font; not only does it look cleaner and more modern, but also provides better readability, especially on devices with large screens.

The @username and @hashtag suggestions as you type have got to be perhaps the most important feature of this update, especially on phones, as they can save you significant amount of typing on that small keyboard when mentioning others in your tweets or adding any of the popular hashtags to them.

Another new feature is the integration with certain other web services that will allow you to launch an app directly from a tweet that contain a link to content on that service, or allow you to directly install that app if you don’t have it already. An example of this would be the ability to tap a link of a Flickr photo in a tweet to directly open that photo in the Flickr app installed on your phone, or get a prompt to install it from Play Store if it isn’t installed. For some reason though, we couldn’t figure out how to get it to work in our testing. Also, we aren’t currently sure how many services are on board for this at the moment, but we can expect integration with many in the future.

Unfortunately, the new update still doesn’t bring a tablet-optimized interface for Android tablets, which is inexplicable for an app like Twitter. However, the Holo UI actually compensates for that to an extent, thanks to the flat tabs that don’t look blown out of proportion on tablets, unlike the buttons in the previous versions of the app.

You can update Twitter to the latest version by going to your apps section in Play Store on your device, or install it using the following link.

Install Twitter for Android

Read Twitter For Android Updated With Holo UI, @/# Suggestions & More by Haroon Q Raja on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

HTC One M7 All-in-One Rootkit is developed by XDA Recognized Developer hasoon2000 – the same guy who brought us similar toolkits for several other popular HTC phones including One X+, Droid DNA, One X, One S, Vivid, Rezound, myTouch 4G Slide, Amaze 4G and many others.

Let’s now get the toolkit up and running, and see what we can do with it.

Setting Everything Up

Before you can start using the toolkit, you’ll have to configure a few things on both your computer and your phone.

• Enable USB debugging on your phone.
• Download the tooklit. Make sure to get the latest version, in case there are multiple files there.
• Extract the contents of the downloaded RAR file. We recommend using 7-zip for the purpose.

Unlocking the bootloader

The toolkit guides you through all the steps of unlocking your phone’s bootloader. Just start performing the steps from the top-left box one by one in that order. You’ll have to select a step, press the ‘Go’ button, follow any instructions that pop up to complete it, and move on to the next step, doing it till the process is complete.

Installing A Custom Recovery

Once you have unlocked the bootloader, you can quickly install a custom recovery using the toolkit. There is built-in support for downloading and installing the latest version of ClockworkMod (classic) or ClockworkMod Touch recovery using the top-right box. In addition, if you want to install another recovery such as TWRP, you can use the third option i.e. ‘Your Own Recovery’ and follow the instructions to flash any recovery using its .img file.

Rooting The Device

To root your device, first make sure you have unlocked the bootloader and installed a custom recovery. Next, select the ‘Perm Root’ option (the last one) from the Extras section and follow the instructions to get root access in no time.

Flash A Kernel

The Kernels section lets you flash any custom kernel to your device with ease. Just make sure the kernel you are using is meant for the HTC One, and is in boot.img format. If it is in recovery-flashable format, you’ll need to open the zip file and extract the boot.img file from it first.

Performing Other Useful Commands

The Commands section allows you to perform several other useful commands without having to do so manually. These include:

• Booting into bootloader
• Booting into recovery
• Checking CID
• Erasing Cache
• Getvar All
• Rebooting Phone
• Relocking Bootloader

In addition, the Extras section also allows you to

• ADB Sideload a ROM
• Batch-install one or more apps using their APK files
• Backup/Restore apps and their data
• Flash factory RUU zip (Complete factory reset)
• Fix Mainver error
• Make a logcat

Quite a handful, isn’t it? So if you’ve got yourself an HTC One that you want to take beyond the stock features it comes with but are afraid of doing it all manually due to the risk of messing things up, go ahead and use the toolkit as a much safer and quicker option to take full control of your device.

[via XDA-Developers]

Read HTC One M7 Toolkit: Unlock Bootloader, Install Recovery, Root & More by Haroon Q Raja on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

The Making

Considering how far smartphones and tablets of today have come, it is becoming increasingly difficult for a new entrant to come up with an entirely new user interface that doesn’t draw inspiration from what’s already out there, and Ubuntu Touch is no exception. However, before we get into details about what it brings to the table, let’s take a brief look at the user experience offered by a few other mobile operating systems that aimed to change how we interact with our devices.

Today’s mobile industry is dominated by two names when it comes to operating systems: Android and iOS. Though Apple’s offering remains basically a mere grid of icons with basic task switching and an Android-like notification pull-down when it comes to the UI, and Android only started to work seriously on its UI since the introduction of Android 4.0 ICS last year.

In addition to these two, there’s also Microsoft’s Windows Phone that has gained a lot of positive critical reception but hasn’t been quite lucky in capturing a significant market share. That said, it’s actually Windows Phone that has managed to redefine the smartphone user experience with its extremely fluid Metro design language that aims to help users focus on content rather than the user interface itself, and we have seen the likes of Google take inspiration from this in their Magazine style interface introduced in Ice Cream Sandwich that also features fluid side-swiping gestures and large content-rich tiles in many stock Android apps.

Windows Phone wasn’t the only OS to think completely different in terms of the user experience; the ill-fated MeeGo had aimed to redefine the smartphone user experience as well, by eliminating buttons (both hardware and on-screen) entirely in favor of swipe gestures from the bezels – a concept that didn’t quite take off officially in any of the mainstream operating systems so far, but was greeted with arms wide open by third-party app developers, who have integrated it in countless apps to provide users with a more intuitive way to use their devices.

And before both MeeGo and Windows Phone, there was the also ill-fated webOS – Palm’s brainchild that was later acquired by HP with the company, but discarded as a commercial OS along with the devices it was intended to run on. At the time of its introduction, webOS had introduced several features such as the revolutionary card-based full multitasking and task switching UI later incorporated partially in both Android and Windows phone, and a universally accessible, completely unified notification system for all apps that was somewhat similar to Android’s offering, but considerably more feature-rich back then.

In case this has started to sound too much like a walk down smartphone memory lane to you and you’ve started to wonder if we have forgotten that this post is about Ubuntu Touch rather than other operating systems, that’s not the case, we assure you! We’ve brought it all up for good reason, as you’ll shortly see for yourself.

The User Interface

What Canonical has tried to do with Ubuntu Touch is bringing all the aforementioned innovative features of these operating systems together in a way to make them all compliment each other, rather than becoming a hodgepodge of everything but the kitchen sink. Though that’s not to say that they have merely ripped off everything from existing or past operating systems without adding anything of their own. On the contrary, despite taking at least one of the best features from each of the aforementioned operating systems, Ubuntu Touch successfully makes an impression of its own. It looks and feels very much Ubuntu – very much Unity, and in a great way!

Welcome Screen

When you power on the device, you’ll be greeted by a Welcome screen that speaks out Ubuntu, thanks to its choice of nature-inspired wallpapers in Ubuntu’s warm, natural colors. Then there’s the sole information widget that is currently a static placeholder but once fully implemented, it will cycle through a lot of information relevant to both your online and offline activities, ranging from the number of messages, calls and social media updates waiting for you, to the distance you’ve walked (which will be monitored by the device’s GPS when this feature becomes functional).

For most of us, phones are purely personal devices, while tablets are often shared by family members or borrowed by friends to do some casual browsing or watching videos, and Ubuntu Touch takes this into account. That’s why the tablet variant comes with pretty much the same multi-user login interface that Ubuntu offers in its desktop OS, complete with a Guest account for the latter scenario. In the Developer Preview, the multiuser feature isn’t fully implemented, and logging in as any user brings you to the same home screen merely with different wallpapers, but this is bound to change in a more stable release, with each user profile having its separate personal content much like in Ubuntu for desktop.

The phone version supports only a single user, and swiping leftward from the right edge of the screen gently slides the Welcome screen away to reveal the home screen. Sounds familiar? It’s the same gesture-based UI we’ve seen in the Nokia N9 running MeeGo. Using this gesture felt extremely comfortable on our Nexus 4 due to the way its front glass curves smoothly on both sides of the bezel without any raised surface to bump in the way.

Home Screens

Once you unlock the device, you’ll land on a gorgeous Home screen that looks unmistakably similar to the Unity dash from Ubuntu’s desktop OS, complete with horizontal content groups to keep it all organized.

Scrolling sideways from the Home screen reveals similarly categorized screens for People, Music, Apps and Videos, providing you with quick access to your contacts and content without even having to launch any app first. This content-centric interface is in sheer contrast with Apple’s “There’s an app for that!” philosophy and from the looks of it, it’s definitely much more intuitive and immersive. Apart from scrolling between the different home screens, you can also scroll some of the individual content groups on each screen sideways in a carousel view, as shown in the screenshot above for the Favorite People group. This is similar to the design language used by Apple in the latest versions of some stock iOS apps, most notably the revamped iOS 6 App Store.

Apart from the differences due to screen size and orientation, all of these screens are identical on both phones and tablets. The Home screen is populated with groups for quick access to your frequently used apps, favorite contacts, people you’ve recently been in touch with, the music you’ve recently listened to, and the videos currently popular online.

When you swipe to another home screen, you’ll briefly see a bar at the bottom with buttons for all your home screens for quickly jumping to them, as you can see on the Home screen in the screenshot above.The People screen shows you your favorite contacts on top, with recently contacted ones below them, complete with the content of your actual recent interactions with them. Below that, there’s yet another section for your recently added contacts to make accessing them even quicker, and finally there’s an alphabetically organized list of all your contacts.The Apps screen isn’t a mere grid of your apps either; instead, it lists all your currently running apps (if any) on the very top for quick access, followed by the most frequently used ones below them. Next are all the apps you have installed, and lastly there are the apps available for download.

The Music and Videos screens both offer similar groups for featured, recently watched, newly released and top charting/most popular music and videos respectively. Much of all this content other than the currently running, frequently used and installed apps is static in this preview, but it’ll update based on your device use in stable releases.

The current screen arrangement is in order of Music, People, Home, Apps and Videos, with Home being the default central screen. While keeping the Music and Videos screens apart on opposite ends might seem counter-intuitive, it has probably been done to provide quicker access to the People and Apps screens from the Home screen. One way to solve this would be adding the ability to loop through all the screens infinitely by swiping in the same direction, or allowing users to rearrange the screens in an order of their choice.

Launcher

Having quick access to all your installed apps from anywhere in the OS can be a real timesaver. On most mobile operating systems, you need to go to the home screen or app list to launch an app, which adds a step to the process. The Ubuntu Touch Launcher solves this by providing you an omnipresent list of apps that you can bring up from anywhere in the OS with a rightward swipe from the left edge of the screen. It works the same way as the Unity launcher in Ubuntu for desktops does when set to auto-hide.

If you don’t lift the finger from the screen after the launcher shows up, you can move your finger vertically over the app icons to directly launch any app, as shown in the second screenshot above. This saves you yet another step, making the overall experience of launching an app both quicker and more fluid.

Context-Sensitive Search

Just like the search box in Unity dash, Ubuntu Touch comes with a universal context-sensitive search feature in form of a button built right into the top status bar to find anything, anywhere. This feature can be used on any screen that supports searching for content. While it is still available in the status bar on app screens, it’s not functional for any of the apps at the moment, but we’re guessing that’s only a limitation in this preview, and it’ll likely work for apps supporting search in a stable release.

The feature works as you type, updating the results with each keystroke. Searching on the Movies screen shots movie results, while using the feature on the Contacts screen shows matching contacts. You also get to see a history of all your recent searches upon tapping the search box, allowing you to quickly search for those items again.

Keyboard

The keyboard is fairly basic for now. While it looks pretty OK, it offers no advanced features like gesture-based typing, autocorrect, suggestions, emoji etc. This could also be a developer preview limitation.

When it comes to the typing experience itself, it was rather OK on the phone, but the width of keys, the placement of the second and third rows, and the lack of any feedback made it more difficult to type on a tablet in our experience. To sum it up, the keyboard can use a lot of improvement and we hope it is revamped significantly in a stable build.

Notifications & System Settings

The right section of the status bar lets you quickly access notifications from all your communication apps, date and time, events and appointments from your calendar, and important controls for various system features such as Wi-Fi networks, flight mode, volume, brightness and battery level. While the drop-down nature of this feature is quite obviously inspired by Android’s notification shade, the implementation is significantly different. Unlike Android, neither all notifications nor all settings and toggles are shown in the same view. Instead, you can simply tap on the status bar area containing these icons, and the ‘Device’ dropdown will let you access all the individual sections. In addition to that, you can also drag down from any individual icon to reveal its own screen directly. You can even switch it during the gesture to any of the other available options by swiping sideways, as long as your finger is still in the upper half of the screen.

The Messages dropdown consolidates notifications related to all your communication from all the relevant applications, ranging from missed calls on phone or Skype and text messages to emails, Facebook messages, Twitter mentions and potentially more. You can clear notifications using Android-like sideways swipe gestures, or tap on them to reveal options that allow you to respond to them directly based on the notification type.

The Sound section lets you quickly mute/unmute your device, or adjust its volume. Similarly, the Networks section shows you all available wireless networks and lets you quickly connect to any of them.

The Battery dropdown shows you the current battery charge level, though in the preview, neither the icon nor the notifications section shows any information about whether the device is currently charging or not. The Date and Time section shows you a digital clock surrounded by a beautifully stylized analog one, along with the current date and day, and all your calendar appointments.

Overall, this is an impressively designed feature of the OS, as it keeps relevant actions grouped together and avoids clutter while still providing you quick access to all of them. It seems more like a blend of the classic system tray concept and the modern dropdown notifications and system settings center.

Also, when you receive a notification, it is displayed in form of an on-screen popup. In the preview, this feature is only working for the received text messages, and you’ll shortly see it in action when we take a look at the Messaging app.

App Switching

All smartphone and tablet operating systems allow you to launch your apps using one or more methods, but the concept behind launching them is the same – you tap an on-screen object such as an app’s icon, a widget button or a media file, and the relevant app shows up on your screen. When it comes to switching between currently running or recently launched apps though, most operating systems have been struggling with different implementations with varied success, and the overall experience offered by them has mostly felt lacking. webOS initially got this right by treating apps as stacks of cards that you could move off each other to reveal the next one using sideways swipe gestures. Even Android and Windows Phone later implemented part of the same idea in form of their app switching lists. Though the best implementation of the concept that we’ve seen was in MeeGo on the Nokia N9. Canonical has also incorporated what we would call a perfect implementation of the same concept in Ubuntu Touch.

Ubuntu Touch uses two swipe gestures to facilitate app switching. Firstly, you can summon the launcher from any screen with a rightward swipe from the left edge to launch any of the apps that are pinned on it. Furthermore, if you continue the swipe gesture beyond the launcher without lifting your finger, the app that’s currently on the screen will start to slide rightward with an animation, eventually getting sent to background, landing you on the home screen. That’s not all – if you have multiple apps currently running, swiping leftward from the right edge of the screen will let you switch between them instantly and infinitely in a loop, making quick task switching a breeze.

A problem many of us face in iOS, Android and Windows Phone is the lack of distinction between recently launched and currently running apps. Being a pure multitasking OS, Ubuntu Touch gets this one right as well. Your currently running apps are just that – the apps that are actively running, be it in the foreground or in the background. Once you exit them (more on that later), they cease to exist in the task switching interface just discussed above. All your running apps are also listed on the Apps screen, from where you can switch to any of them with a tap. While there’s no section for your recently accessed apps, you instead get a group of your frequently used apps on the Home and Apps screen, which makes more sense; after all, there’s no point in having priority access to any of your recently launched apps that you rarely ever use and merely open, use and close when required.

The task management experience offered by Ubuntu Touch easily puts everything already out there to shame; it feels so natural and intuitive even in this preview, that you can’t help wondering how you were doing without it, and the idea of going back to an OS that doesn’t offer this starts sounding like reverse evolution. Thank you Canonical, for getting this basic feature just right.

Ubuntu HUD

With the exception of the keyboard, what we’ve seen so far has been impressive to say the least, and we’ll even venture to call the app launching and switching process just perfect. Though how about closing any of the running apps, or accessing their settings? This brings us to the Ubuntu HUD.

Apart from the launcher and dash, the HUD found in the desktop version of Ubuntu is another salient feature of the Unity UI, and Canonical has added its touch-friendly implementation to Ubuntu Touch as well. Swiping upward from the bottom edge from any app’s screen brings up an icon in the center of the screen, and taking your finger to that icon without lifting it from the screen brings up the HUD.

The HUD in Ubuntu Touch shows you a horizontal list of your currently running apps on top, similar to the list shown in the iOS app switcher tray on double-tapping the home button. Below that is a list of action shortcuts for your currently running app, though these aren’t functional in the preview. Then there is a horizontal list containing five buttons. We can make out the first three as close, back and help, and the last one as settings, but there’s no hint on the fourth one that features an icon similar to maximizing a window. Only the close button is functional in the preview, so we’ll have to wait for a stable release to see how the other buttons work. At the moment, it isn’t even clear if the other four buttons are system-wide, or meant for the currently active app.

You can dismiss the HUD by swiping downward from its handle near the top edge, just the way you can dismiss the notifications and system settings dropdown with an upward swipe from its handle near the bottom edge. Speaking of the notifications and system settings dropdown, the HUD acts independent of it on tablets and both can be activated at the same time, as you can see in the screenshot below.

In the HUD implementation, we can see the first shortcomings of the Ubuntu Touch user interface. In order to close an app, you have to swipe upward from the bottom edge of the screen, drag your finger to the icon that shows up in the center of the screen, release your finger to bring up the HUD, and then tap the close button from the HUD to finally close the app. With every other feature of app switching so smooth and intuitive, we can’t think of any reason why Canonical opted for such a complicated procedure to close an app. And this becomes even more cumbersome if you want to close multiple apps, as the close button is active only for the app from which you have triggered the HUD; tapping on the app icons on top does show you their own options, but the close button isn’t active for them. Therefore, you have to keep switching to the running apps and repeat the above process for each of them individually to close them. Also, there is no way to switch to any of the running apps from this list directly.

One way to fix things here would be to also show a close button in addition to the HUD button when swiping upward from the bottom edge from any app, letting users close it by simply dragging their finger to that close button. Another implementation could be similar to the gesture from the left edge that first brings up the launcher, but later swipes away the app and takes you to the home screen if you continue swiping rightward. The same way, continuing an upward swipe from the bottom edge beyond the HUD icon (preferably positioned lower) could be possibly used to close the app. A similar upward swipe gesture on the app icons in the HUD’s app list could be used to close those apps quickly without having to repeat the entire process for them. Lastly, adding a way to quickly switch to any of the currently running apps from this list could also be useful.

Voice Control

While discussing the HUD, we skipped the last item on it – the command box with a mic icon. We didn’t expect the voice control part to be functional in the preview, but it turns out it is. You can either type a command directly, or tap the mic icon to activate Voice Control. Simply speak into the phone and if it recognizes what you said as a command, it’ll show it to you on the screen. Tapping on it will execute that command.

The available commands vary from app to app, and since most of the apps currently provided in the preview aren’t functional, the commands for these apps will not work either. The feature itself looks promising nevertheless and could be a real timesaver if Ubuntu manages to get it right.

The Apps

So far, we have explored every component of the Ubuntu Touch UI provided in the preview and apart from a couple of shortcomings, it has been fairly impressive. Though the UI alone doesn’t guarantee the success of a platform; availability of quality apps makes a huge difference, and can act as a deciding factor when it comes to consumer adoption or rejection, as we have seen in case of webOS and to some extent, even Windows Phone. Before we move on to the available apps in Ubuntu Touch preview right now, let’s take a look at an interesting feature that’s bound to be immensely useful to many of us.

SideStage View

In any mobile OS that caters to devices of multiple form factors such as smartphones and tablets, running apps built for phones on tablets in a practical and useful manner has been an issue for most operating systems in the past. The iPad still runs iPhone apps in a letterboxed or blown out view, while Android has lately tackled this problem by unifying app development for phones and tablets, and appropriately rendering them automatically based on the device form factor, but this requires developers to build their apps accordingly. Ubuntu tackles this issue in a different way that’s clearly inspired by Windows 8 & RT. Enter SideStage – a feature in the tablet version of Ubuntu Touch that lets users run smartphone apps side-by-side with tablet apps in a pane of their own, as you can see below.

Not only does this allow you to work on multiple apps together, but it also means any apps built only for the phone form factor will work perfectly fine on tablets as well. We can already think of several use case scenarios for this feature, for instance having the calculator handy on the side while you are working on a document involving calculations in the main pane. Similarly, taking notes in the right pane while browsing websites in the main pane can be immensely useful for research. The possibilities are endless.

To use this feature, you simply have to launch or switch to a phone app while a tablet app is already running. This feature is a bit buggy in the preview, and at times apps crash when you attempt to dismiss them by swiping the vertical border rightward. Though once fully fixed in a stable release, it can very well be one of the flagship features of the OS.

Available Apps

Getting back to the apps provided with the preview, many important core apps are missing for now, and some of the included ones are mere placeholder icons or screenshots. Also, no third-party apps are available at the moment, but that’s perfectly understandable at this preview stage.

As mentioned above, there are two types of apps available for Ubuntu Touch when it comes to the form factor – phone apps, and tablet apps. Some of the built-in apps including Browser, Gallery, Camera, Gmail and Music come in both variants depending on the device, meaning launching any of them on the tablet will launch their full tablet version. Many of the other apps including Facebook, Twitter, Phone, Calculator, Notepad, Sharing and Weather only come in phone form factor for now, and launching them on a tablet will always run them in a vertical pane on the right, as we have already seen in the case of Twitter and Notepad in some of the screenshots.

Ubuntu supports both native apps and web apps. In fact some of the working apps available right now such as Twitter, Facebook and Gmail just load the web interface of the relevant service. This is a great way to give a head start to the app ecosystem, as it allows Ubuntu to launch with countless web apps already installed or available for installation, while it catches up with other competitors by working on native apps and sparking third-party developer interest.

Let’s now take a look at a few of the core apps provided in the preview, which will also highlight some features of the app design language Ubuntu has chosen for the OS.

Browser

There is a functional browser included in the preview, but it doesn’t currently allow you to do much other than entering a URL to visit, and moving back and forth between pages. Tab support and other features are in the works, but haven’t been implemented yet.

As you can notice, there are no buttons or menus here, which is part of Ubuntu Touch’s app design language. Instead, swiping upward from the bottom edge brings up an action bar similar to that found in Windows Phone and Windows 8/RT. To access more features and settings, you have to bring up the HUD by swiping further upward to the HUD icon, as mentioned earlier.

Gallery

The Gallery app is also functional, presenting you with all your photos organized by date in the Events view by default. Here, you’ll see another element of Ubuntu’s design language in action. The top bar shows the name of the current view by default, but tapping on it brings up any other panes available in the app, and tapping on the name of any of them, or simply swiping sideways takes you to that section. This seems to be inspired from Android’s Holo UI, which in itself derives from Microsoft’s Metro design language from Windows Phone and Windows 8/RT.

The other two sections offered by the Gallery include Photos (for viewing all photos together and the Albums view.

Phone & Messaging

The phone app offers basic functionality in the preview to make and receive calls. In the dialer interface, you can either start dialing a number or look one up from the already saved contacts, but the latter option along with the ability to save contacts isn’t functional in the preview.

While in a call, you get buttons to put it on hold, mute your own or the other person’s sound, add someone else to the call to make it a conference call, bring up the dialpad, and access your contact list.

Swiping sideways from the dialer interface brings you to the Conversations view. which is a consolidated list of your call log and recent text conversations, and acts as a messaging app as well. Tapping on any conversation from this list takes you to a view of all your interactions with the selected contact, including messages and calls. Swiping upward from the bottom edge shows you the option to start composing a new message. Whenever you receive an incoming message, you get a nifty notification in the top region of the screen.

Swiping sideways further brings you to the Contacts view, which is a part of the Phone app itself rather than a separate one. This makes perfect sense, as it offers a more content-centric approach by grouping actions for similar content together. An upward swipe from the bottom edge reveals the option to add a new contact.

Notepad & Calculator

These two basic apps are functional in the preview but you can’t save notes for now, and the calculator isn’t displayed properly on the Nexus 4.

Both these apps are available on both phones and tablets in only the vertical phone view.

Gmail, Facebook & Twitter

All three of these apps are basically web apps with their own buttons provided to launch them quickly.

The Gmail app supports full tablet view on tablets, while the Facebook and Twitter apps are available on both phones and tablets in only the vertical phone view. The browser that’s powering these web apps seems to be identifying as an iPhone browser for now, since signing in with your account in the Facebook app brings up an offer to install Facebook for iPhone, though you can easily dismiss it by tapping the Cancel button.

Other web apps available in the preview include Amazon and eBay, which work similarly.

Camera

The preview comes with a functional camera app that can utilize both front and back cameras of the devices. Though we’ll be reviewing the camera in detail once a stable build of Ubuntu Touch is released.

In addition to the above, you’ll also find Music, Media Player, Weather, Sharing, Ubuntu One and Ski Safari among the other native apps, but these aren’t functional at the moment and serve as placeholders.

Our Verdict

From what we’ve seen so far, Ubuntu Touch seems to be a promising contender for the smartphone industry. If Canonical manages to iron out the few shortcomings we mentioned earlier and get the app ecosystem going, it can become a major player in the industry. Though that’s easier said than done, especially the latter part. It’s a little too too early to tell how things will turn out but judging from the preview, Ubuntu Touch certainly has what it takes to become a solid operating system for smartphones & tablets.

If you want to give the OS a try yourself on your Nexus device, we’ve got you covered; just head over to our detailed Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview installation guide.

We have also made a small demo video of Ubuntu Touch Preview running on our Nexus 4 and Nexus 10, that you can check out below.

Read Ubuntu Touch Preview: A Complete Hands-on Feature & Interface Analysis by Haroon Q Raja on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Disclaimer: Please follow this guide at your own risk. AddictiveTips will not be liable if your device gets damaged or bricked during the process.

Flashing Ubuntu on your phone will wipe your phone completely, including all your app data and media. That’s why taking a backup from recovery and then transferring all the contents of your device’s internal storage to your computer is extremely important, if you later want to get everything back to the way it was. We will also be providing instructions for backup as well as restoration.

Installing Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview

Requirements

• Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 7 or Nexus 10 with an unlocked bootloader. See our bootloader unlocking guide for details.
• If you don’t have a custom recovery installed already, download ClockworkMod Touch recovery for your device and rename the downloaded file to recovery.img to keep things simple.
• USB Debugging enabled in ‘Settings’ > ‘Developer options’. If you’re running Android 4.2, see our guide on enabling USB Debugging on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.
• Phablet armhf zip package.
• Device-specific zip packages: Galaxy Nexus GSM (maguro) | Nexus 4 (mako) | Nexus 7 (grouper) | Nexus 10 (manta)

Instructions

If you already have a custom recovery installed, skip the first 3 steps; just reboot into recovery and start from step 4.

1. Reboot your device into bootloader. Since you already installed the Android SDK in the bootloader unlocking process, and have USB debugging enabled, you can easily do so with the following command:

   adb reboot bootloader

2. Install the downloaded recovery image using this command:

   fastboot flash recovery recovery.img

3. Press any of the volume keys till it says ‘Recovery mode’ on your screen, and then use the power button to enter recovery.
4. Once in recovery, take a backup from ‘backup and restore’. If you are using another recovery such as TWRP, use its own backup method to perform a full backup.
5. Now reboot back into Android mode using the options provided in recovery.
6. Transfer all the contents of your internal storage to your PC. This step is important because the next steps will wipe everything from your device, including the backup you just took from recovery.
7. Transfer the downloaded Phablet armhf package, and the device-specific zip file to the internal storage of your device (not in any sub-folder).
8. Reboot into recovery again.
9. Perform ‘wipe data/factory reset’, followed by ‘wipe cache’, and then ‘wipe dalvik cache’ from the ‘advanced’ menu. If you are using another recovery such as TWRP, use its own wiping method to perform the same three wiping operations.
10. Now get back to your recovery’s main menu, select ‘install zip from sdcard’ followed by ‘choose zip from sdcard’ and choose the Phablet armhf zip file. If you are using another recovery such as TWRP, use its own installation method to flash this file.
11. Once the Phablet armhf package has been installed, use the same method to install the device-specific zip file (the one with maguro, mako, grouper or manta in its name, depending on your device).
12. Lastly, reboot the device into system using ‘reboot system now’ from ClockworkMod recovery’s main menu, or the appropriate option from any other custom recovery that you’re using.

That’s it – keep your fingers crossed, as Ubuntu Touch boots up on your device, which doesn’t take long. Once its lock screen shows up, you can get to the home screen as follows.

• On a phone such as Galaxy Nexus or Nexus 4, simply swipe leftward from the right edge, and you’ll land on the home screen.
• On a tablet such as Nexus 7 or Nexus 10, you will be shown multiple user accounts. You can either use the Guest account without any password, or one of the preconfigured accounts using the first name of that account (in all lowercase letters) as the password.

Enjoy playing around with Ubuntu. Not many apps work for now, and the ones that are working don’t really have that much to offer, but since it’s a preview rather than a daily driver build, that is expected. The overall user interface works, and it is both stunning and intuitive in our opinion.

Reinstalling Android & Restoring Your Backup

Had your fun with the preview and want to get back to Android? Let’s get the latest version of Android up and running on your device, and restore your backup to take everything back to the way it was.

Requirements

• Latest Android factory image for your device. Use this information to select the correct factory image:
  • takju for Galaxy Nexus GSM US edition (with Google Wallet)
  • yakju for Galaxy Nexus GSM International edition (without Google Wallet)
  • occam for Nexus 4
  • nakasi for Nexus 7 Wi-Fi
  • nakasig for Nexus 7 GSM/HSPA+
  • mantaray for Nexus 10
• A utility to extract contents of compressed archives. We recommend the excellent and free 7-zip for Windows.
• The backup you transferred to your computer before installing Ubuntu.

Instructions

1. Extract the contents of the factory image you downloaded. You will probably need to extract the contents of the extracted file again, to get a folder.
2. Connect your device to your computer via USB, and put it into bootloader mode using the same method you used when installing Ubuntu.
3. Windows: Run the flash-all.bat file from the folder extracted in step 1.
   Linux or Mac: Run the flash-all.sh file from Terminal.
4. Wait patiently as the factory image installs on your device.
5. Once it has installed successfully, the device will reboot into Android. Do the initial configuration of your device after it boots up.
6. Now transfer the backup you had taken on your PC back to your device, taking care to keep the folder structure the same.
7. Next, flash a custom recovery using the same method used above, and reboot your device into recovery.
8. In recovery, go to ‘backup and restore’, and select ‘restore’ and choose the backup you had made in recovery just before installing Ubuntu. If you are using TWRP or any other recovery, use its own backup restoration method to restore the backup you took before Ubuntu installation.
9. After the backup has been successfully restored, reboot your device into system, and you should have everything back the way it was.

For any queries and updates related to Ubuntu Touch, head over to Ubuntu Wiki.

UPDATE: Our detailed review of Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview is up, so don’t forget to check it out!

Zayed Rehman contributed to this post

Read Install Ubuntu Touch Preview On Nexus Devices The Easy Way From Recovery [Complete Guide] by Haroon Q Raja on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

As we mentioned above, this method of unlocking your SGS3 or Note II is as simple as it gets. It doesn’t require you to connect your phone to a computer, run any complicated commands or even install any app. Heck, you don’t even require root access for this, as it utilizes the unlock feature built right into the operating system. Do note however that it will work only on the stock version of the operating system i.e. the official TouchWiz-based Samsung ROM, so if you are on CyanogenMod, AOKP, ParanoidAndroid, MIUI or any other third-party ROM, you better revert it back to stock before proceeding. You can always flash your favorite ROM later after unlocking, as this method results in a permanent unlock that stays even after flashing any stock or custom ROM.

The question of whether it’s OK to unlock a carrier-locked device or not while you are under contract, is a gray area. Though there are many legitimate use-case scenarios to justify it. For instance, you might temporarily be travelling in an area with little or no coverage from your carrier, and would want to switch to another one to be able to stay in touch with everyone. Or you might be roaming abroad and want to switch to a local carrier rather than paying hefty international roaming charges. This guide is being provided here with such use cases in mind, and we do not approve of permanently unlocking your device for the sake of getting away with the carrier discount, and then permanently using it on other networks.

This method is brought to us by XDA-Developers forum member owl74, who initially posted it for the Galaxy Note 2 GT-N7105, which is the LTE variant of the device. However, it has been confirmed to work by many on the international Galaxy Note 2 GT-N7100 and some (but not all) of the Galaxy S3 variants. While the method should be safe to try on any of these devices, you should still proceed at your own risk.

Had enough details and just can’t wait to liberate your phone from any carrier restrictions? Let’s get on with it and straight to the instructions.

Disclaimer: Unlocking your phone may be against your contract with your carrier and may void your warranty. Proceed entirely at your own risk. AddictiveTips will not be responsible if your device gets harmed in the process in any way.

1. Open the phone app on your device and enter the following code in it:

   *#197328640#

2. You will be presented with a menu. Go to ‘[1] UMTS’, then ‘[1] Debug Screen’, then ‘[8] Phone Control’, followed by ‘[6] Network Lock’, and finally, ‘Options’.
3. In the Options menu, select ‘[3] Perso SHA256 OFF’.
4. Now wait for about 30 seconds, and then press ‘Menu’ and select ‘Back’ to go back one step to the ‘[6] Network Lock’ screen.
5. Once there, select ‘[4] NW Lock NV Data INITIALLIZE’.
6. Wait for around one minute, and reboot your device.

That should do it – your Galaxy Note 2 or Galaxy S III should now be unlocked. Needless to say, you can test if the method worked for you or not by inserting any other SIM into it and checking if you get a signal. Enjoy your carrier-unlocked device!

[via XDA-Developers]

Read How To Permanently Carrier-Unlock Samsung Galaxy S III & Galaxy Note 2 by Haroon Q Raja on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter