Two Android releases in 2025

Next year, we’ll have a major release in Q2 and a minor release in Q4, both of which will include new developer APIs. The Q2 major release will be the only release in 2025 to include behavior changes that can affect apps. We’re planning the major release for Q2 rather than Q3 to better align with the schedule of device launches across our ecosystem, so more devices can get the major release of Android sooner.

The Q4 minor release will pick up feature updates, optimizations, and bug fixes since the major release. It will also include new developer APIs, but will not include any app-impacting behavior changes.

Outside of the major and minor Android releases, our Q1 and Q3 releases will provide incremental updates to help ensure continuous quality. We’re actively working with our device partners to bring the Q2 release to as many devices as possible.

What this means for your apps

With the major release coming in Q2, you’ll need to do your annual compatibility testing a few months earlier than in previous years to make sure your apps are ready. Major releases are just like the SDK releases we have today, and can include behavior changes along with new developer APIs – and to help you get started, we’ll soon begin the developer preview and beta program for the Q2 major release.

The minor release in Q4 will include new APIs, but, like the incremental quarterly releases we have today, will have no planned behavior changes, minimizing the need for compatibility testing. To differentiate major releases (which may contain planned behavior changes) from minor releases, minor releases will not increment the API level. Instead, they'll increment a new minor API level value, which will be accessed through a constant that captures both major and minor API levels. A new manifest attribute will allow you to specify a minor API level as the minimum required SDK release for your app. We’ll have an initial version of support for minor API levels in the upcoming Q2 developer preview, so please try building against the SDK and let us know how this works for you.

When planning your targeting for 2026, there’s no change to the target API level requirements and the associated dates for apps in Google Play; our plans are for one annual requirement each year, and that will be tied to the major API level only.

Today is the day for Xiaomi to unveil its new flagships – and to our surprise, it unveiled three new models. It turned out that the third module is just a special edition of the small Xiaomi 15, which brings no less than 20 color options to choose from. The regular 15 is available in a good number of colors too, but that’s not what you’re interested in, is it?

Xiaomi managed to fit a massive 5,400mAh battery with the Silicon-Carbon tech that has been gaining popularity recently. For reference, the Xiaomi 14 had a 4,610mAh battery.

The display remains at 6.36”. It’s not tiny, but the 15 is smaller than most Androids. This is a flat OLED panel with 1,200 x 2,670px resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. The peak brightness has been boosted a bit to 3,200 nits (up from 3,000 nits) with DC dimming to dial it down. And we know that some of you have been waiting for this one – the new model uses an ultrasonic fingerprint reader.

The display is protected by Xiaomi Dragon Crystal glass for the first time, which is 10x tougher than the Gorilla Glass Victus used by the Xiaomi 14 (says Xiaomi’s internal lab). The phone’s frame is made out of high-strength aluminum alloy that has 33% higher bending resistance. Naturally, the phone is rated IP68 for dust and water resistance.

The camera system has a few changes, but few actual upgrades. It is a triple 50MP setup once again. The main camera uses the Light Fusion 900 sensor from OmniVision (sometimes mistranslated as Light Hunter), a 1/1.31” sensor with 1.2µm pixels. The 23mm lens has a bright f/1.62 aperture and OIS. Xiaomi promises that 5x lossless zoom (120mm) is possible with this camera.

The Xiaomi 15 is available for pre-order in China now through the company’s online store, proper sales start on October 31. The base 12/256GB model costs CNY 4,500 (which converts to $630/€585/₹53,000). There are a few more versions going all the way up to 16GB/1TB, check the table below.

Xiaomi 15 	
12GB/256GB 	CNY 4,500
12GB/512GB 	CNY 4,800
16GB/512GB 	CNY 5,000
16GB/1TB 	CNY 5,500
Diamond Edition 	CNY 6,000
Custom Edition (16GB/512GB) CNY 5,000

Wait, Diamond Edition? And that’s not even the special edition we mentioned in the beginning. The vanilla Xiaomi 15 has a glass back and comes in Lilac, Green, Black and White versions. There’s also the Silver Edition.

The Diamond Edition switches over to crocodile-grain leather for the back and has an actual 57 facet diamond embedded on the side. The camera island is also given a sparkly texture. This edition is available in Elephant Gray, Orange and Glacier White. This is a limited edition, so it won’t be around forever and we don’t know whether it will be available outside of China.

This brings us to the Xiaomi 15 Custom Edition. The back panel offers an impressive palette of 20 colors to choose from. They are paired with two paint jobs for the aluminum frame (high gloss PVD). The Custom Edition is available only in a 16/512GB configuration.

OnePlus 13 is coming with a 6,000 mAh battery, the company confirmed in its latest teaser. This will be the brand's first flagship with such a battery capacity and is over 10% more than what the predecessor had.

We also learned that it will keep the 100W SuperVOOC wired charging, but the 50W wireless charging will work with a magnetic attachment.

The new phone will arrive on October 31, and we'll also see some power accessories on stage – a magnetic power bank with 5,000 mAh capacity, a wireless charger with a cooling fan, a 100W SuperVOOC power bank, and a brand new 120W GaN adapter.

The OnePlus 13 will get a line of official cases that old-school brand fans will love. We are looking at two wooden options and a sandstone variant. It seems like OnePlus will also launch a branded cup for beverages for its really hardcore fans.

The launch of the phone is in three days, and so far, we learned it will have a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, up to 24 GB LPDDR5X RAM and 1 TB UFS 4.0 storage. Camera-wise, there is a revamped setup with a 50 MP multi-prism telephoto shooter while sticking to a familiar design.

Leakster Digital Chat Station reports that the Red Magic 10 Pro and 10 Pro+ will have a flat, high-resolution screen that is “about 7 inches” in size. This with an under display camera, just like other recent models from the company.

And here’s the kicker – the Red Magic 10 Ultra will have a 7+ inch screen, according to DCS. It might measure 7.5 inches, but exact dimensions are just a guess for now. Anyway, a 7+ inch display on a non-foldable phone means that the device will be huge.

Red Magic also teases that the upcoming models will be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite “Extreme Edition”. We don’t know what that means – in the past, Red Magic has used overclocked versions of Qualcomm’s chips. But the 8 Elite already runs at a bonkers 4.32GHz, is there really room to go higher? Maybe, Red Magic phones have active cooling, after all, so they don’t have the same heat dissipation limits as other phones.

cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/28192103

The CPU of the Exynos 1580 moves to a three-cluster design with one prime Cortex-A720 core (2.9GHz), three big A720 cores (2.6GHz) and four A520 (1.95GHz). This alone represents a major performance boost compared to the 1480, which used ARMv8 cores.

The GPU is based on AMD’s RDNA 3 architecture, now featuring two Work Group Processors – up from just one on the 1480 (the Exynos 2400 has six). Samsung says that maximum performance is up by 37% while performance at the same power level as the 1480 is up by 20%. This GPU also increases the GL2 cache.

The NPU delivers 14.7 TOPS of performance. The 1380 had just 4.9 TOPS, while the 1480 went up to... Samsung doesn’t say. However, both the 1480 and 1580 NPUs are described as “6K MAC”, so presumably there’s no difference. The spec sheet does say the new NPU has an increased cache capacity of 2MB, but the effects of that will only be known after benchmarks.

Samsung Exynos 1580 chipset Samsung Exynos 1580 chipset Samsung Exynos 1580 chipset Samsung Exynos 1580 chipset

The new chip supports LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage. Connectivity is mostly the same with 5G (both sub-6GHz and mmWave), Wi-Fi 6E (ax) and Bluetooth 5.4. There is no AV1 decoder.

	Exynos 1480	Exynos 1580
Node	4nm EUV	4nm EUV
CPU (prime)	-	1x Cortex-A720 @ 2.9GHz
CPU (big)	4x Cortex-A78 @ 2.75GHz	3x Cortex-A720 @ 2.6GHz
CPU (small)	4x Cortex-A55 @ 2.0GHz	4x Cortex-A520 @ 1.95GHz
GPU	Xclipse 530 RDNA 3, 1x WGP	Xclipse 540 RDNA 3, 2x WGP
NPU	6K MAC	6K MAC (14.7 TOPS)
RAM	LPDDR4X, LPDDR5	LPDDR5
Storage	UFS 3.1	UFS 3.1
Screen	1080p+ @ 144Hz	1080p+ @ 144Hz
Camera	200MP, 4K @ 60fps	200MP, 4K @ 60fps
5G	NR (5.1Gbps down, 1.28Gbps up) mmWave (4.84Gbps down, 0.92Gbps up)	NR (5.1Gbps down, 1.28Gbps up) mmWave (4.84Gbps down, 0.92Gbps up)
4G	Cat. 18 (6CC 1.2Gbps down, 2CC 211Mbps up)	Cat. 18 (6CC 1.2Gbps down, 2CC 211Mbps up)
Wi-Fi	Wi-Fi 6E	Wi-Fi 6E
Bluetooth	5.3	5.4

The CPU of the Exynos 1580 moves to a three-cluster design with one prime Cortex-A720 core (2.9GHz), three big A720 cores (2.6GHz) and four A520 (1.95GHz). This alone represents a major performance boost compared to the 1480, which used ARMv8 cores.

The GPU is based on AMD’s RDNA 3 architecture, now featuring two Work Group Processors – up from just one on the 1480 (the Exynos 2400 has six). Samsung says that maximum performance is up by 37% while performance at the same power level as the 1480 is up by 20%. This GPU also increases the GL2 cache.

The NPU delivers 14.7 TOPS of performance. The 1380 had just 4.9 TOPS, while the 1480 went up to... Samsung doesn’t say. However, both the 1480 and 1580 NPUs are described as “6K MAC”, so presumably there’s no difference. The spec sheet does say the new NPU has an increased cache capacity of 2MB, but the effects of that will only be known after benchmarks.

Samsung Exynos 1580 chipset Samsung Exynos 1580 chipset Samsung Exynos 1580 chipset Samsung Exynos 1580 chipset

The new chip supports LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage. Connectivity is mostly the same with 5G (both sub-6GHz and mmWave), Wi-Fi 6E (ax) and Bluetooth 5.4. There is no AV1 decoder.

The two-way connection between HMD Fusion and Smart Outfits1 opens up all sorts of possibilities. Human Mobile Devices teamed up with Venom: The Last Dance to create a conceptual outfit that explores those possibilities. With its dark, dripping visual effect and change of notification sounds, The Venom: The Last Dance outfits pay homage to one of the most iconic antiheroes from the world of comic books.

VP of Design at HMD, Raun Forsyth, explains. “Using electromagnetic arrays and ferrofluid, we’ve created a mesmerizing effect where the inky liquid dances across the back of the phone.”

Just as the symbiote changes its host, the Venom: The Last Dance outfits make changes to the phone itself. The interface gets a dark-looking overhaul, and lines from the new movie take the place of default notifications sounds, like “Who sent this?” when a message is received, and “Eddie, the time has come,” as an alarm sound. These bespoke outfits to celebrate the arrival of the Venom: The Last Dance cinematic release will not be available to purchase.

TL;DR

• Google is working on a Download Manager feature for the Play Store, which could list your recently downloaded apps.
• We managed to activate the feature to give you an early look at the Download Manager.

We activated the feature in v43.2.16-29, giving us a better look at it and an idea of what it does. The Download Manager within the Google Play Store shows all apps that are currently downloading and all the recently installed apps that you haven’t opened yet. When you open the apps you can see in the list, the app exits the list, giving you an updated view of what you have yet to open. Take a look at the Download Manager in action in the video below:

https://youtu.be/Rd3IEenFbUk

Further, you will see the download count of the recent apps and games you have downloaded as a badge at the top of the app details page.

For now, the Download Manager within the Play Store merely lists the apps you have downloaded and not opened yet. It will be handy for people who download multiple apps in one go and forget about opening up.

This feature is not currently live in the Play Store, and Google hasn’t shared anything about its existence either, so it may or may not be released in the future. We’ll update this article when we learn more.

OPPO already confirmed that the Find X8 series will be introduced on October 24th, and also said that it will introduce the OPPO Pad 3 Pro, and the OPPO Enco X3 alongside.

Now it has confirmed that it will introduce a new 120W fast charger, 12000mAh 80W SuperVOOC Power Bank and 50W compact magnetic power bank at the event.

The 120W GaN charger for the Find X8 series will feature dual-port output capability, supporting 80W+45W power output at the same time.

The OPPO 80W 12000mAh Flash Charge Power Bank battery in ivory white color features USB-C port and USB-A ports and is expected to support both input and output capabilities via USB-C.

The OPPO Magnetic charger for the Find X8 series will be just 8.8mm thick, is expected to pack 5000mAh battery.

There is also 50W wireless charger which should support both Apple and Android devices, in addition to charging OPPO Find X8 series at 50W wirelessly.