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While many OEMs generally ignore some of their older smartphones, the developer community at XDA continues to work hard to keep them alive. Just yesterday, XDA Recognized Developer  Ziyan  released their first alpha build of Android Oreo for the Nexus 4 . Since this is an alpha release, we should expect some features to not work right now (like NFC, screen rotation, and likely others), but they looking into fixing them right now. Users are also reporting that there isn’t much system space to install Google apps, but XDA Senior Member n0b0dy666 found that flashing a “pico” Gapps package should work just fine. Check out this Android Oreo port for the Google Nexus 4

These are the phones Motorola is committing to updating to Android 8.0. Update, September 18: Motorola has updated its initial blog post to reflect a change in its plan after an outpouring of frustration and anger around the lack of a promised update for the Moto G4 Plus. From the company's blog : Since the time of posting this, we have learned of some errors in our marketing materials around Android O upgrades for moto g4 Plus. It's our general practice for the moto g family to get one major OS upgrade per device, so it wasn't originally planned for Android O. But it's important to us we keep our promises, so in addition to the N upgrade it has already received, we will be upgrading moto g4 Plus to Android O. Because this is an unplanned upgrade, it will take some time to fit into our schedule, we'll update our software upgrade page when we have more info. So there you have it. The Moto G4 Plus was never meant to get Oreo, but Motorola is...

Android 8.0 Oreo has been out in the wild for a hot minute now, and following the OS’s release back in August, we’ve quickly been learning which phones will be updated to the new firmware and which ones won’t. As for the good news, there are still quite a few handsets that’ll be updated to Oreo. They include: Moto G5 Moto G5 Plus Moto G5S Moto G5S Plus Moto Z Moto Z Droid Moto Z Force Droid Moto Z Play Moto Z2 Force Moto Z Play Interestingly enough, there’s no mention of the Moto E4 or E4 Plus that came out earlier this year. We’re inclined to believe that these two devices will be updated to 8.0 Oreo at one point or another considering how new they are, but it is odd that Motorola  omitted them from its support page. Moto Gamepad Mod    

Android Oreo introduces a new feature that lets you turn on WiFi automatically when you’re near a “high-quality saved network,” like one from work or home. This feature can be found on the official builds of Android 8.0 for the Google Pixel and Google Pixel XL, but it is not available on the Google Nexus 5X or Google Nexus 6P. However, that wasn’t always the case. The two Nexus phones actually had the WiFi automatic wakeup feature when Android O Developer Preview 2 was out, but for some unknown reason Google removed this feature in the final Android 8.0 Oreo release for the Nexus 5X/6P . WiFi modules in smartphones these days are quite efficient when it comes to battery life so this isn’t something that will save a lot of battery life for most people. However, if you’re in an area with a ton of WiFi access points with varying network connection quality, then you may experience some battery drain associated with your smartphone constantly connecting and disconnecting...

One of the most annoying “features” in Android Oreo is persistent notifications that constantly tell you of any apps that are running in the background. It’s a great idea, but in practice, it’s just unwanted clutter. Unfortunately, the final version of Oreo provides no solution for this, but a clever developer has created a workaround. A new free app on Google Play quite simply named “Hide ‘running in the background’ Notification,” is available now and works just as simply as you’d hope. Once you’ve downloaded the app, just open it, grant notification access, and that’s it. The persistent notification should disappear immediately, but if not a quick reboot should make it kick in. From then on out, just leave the app installed in order to keep that notification hidden. One limitation is that, for the time being, it only works on devices set to English, but the developer says more languages are coming soon. This app is, again, completely free on Google Play , but you...

According to Canadian carrier Rogers' OS Upgrade Schedule, Android Oreo for the Nexus 6P will be released on September 11. When Android Oreo was initially released by Google, only phones that were currently enrolled in the Android beta program received the update. This isn't surprising, as the people who helped test the software all along should be the ones to give a gold master version its last test. A week or so later, Oreo was pushed to everyone's Pixel but we've heard no word on a wider release for the Nexus 6P or the Nexus 5X. We have heard some whispers that Huawei and LG need to tweak a few things, mostly with the radio firmware, to get Oreo closer to perfect for the last of the Nexus line. If true, this would give more weight to a carrier announcement as the release date because they are the companies doing the final network testing. There is also the off chance that this will be a point release and we'll see Android 8.0.1 for the 6P ne...

Few months ago you may remember that Reddit user AmirZ released a rootless solution to install a full-featured version of the Pixel Launcher. Earlier solutions left users with a gimped version that wouldn’t allow access to the Google Now panel or the G Search widget. AmirZ discovered that Google intentionally designed the Pixel launcher to restrict these features so they could remain exclusive to Pixel phones. Luckily, with a few tweaks, AmirZ was able to get around those restrictions. The port was developed and then subsequently released on Github in June. Development continued for about a month but ceased when AmirZ announced they would be back to do another version once Android Oreo dropped. Now, mere days after the release of Oreo, AmirZ is back with Pixel Launcher 2.0 .  The previous version stuck to a “don’t fix what’s not broken” philosophy where stability was the first priority. Now with the knowledge gained from the previous release, AmirZ has added...

Do you have tried rooting your Pixel XL device after updating to Android Oreo, you may have noticed that your typical rooting methods don’t really work well on Android’s newest version.  If that’s the case, then we’ve got you covered. XDA Senior Member GroovinChip has put together a step-by-step guide that walks us through how to get root access back on the Google Pixel XL running Android 8.0 . The new method involves flashing Chainfire ‘s SuHide in conjunction with SuperSU and AROMA SuperSU Config to get systemless root access on the Google Pixel. For more details and step-by-step instructions, check out the main XDA thread by following the link below. Check out the Pixel XL rooting guide Install Android O Factory Images On Pixel, Pixel XL, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus Player, and Pixel C

With the launch of Android Oreo comes a lot of time spent searching for hidden goodies within the source code. In the past, the Android engineering team has talked about enabling theming in Android O. We knew that the second Developer Preview of Android O may have been a hint of Google supporting the Overlay Manager Service (OMS) and Runtime Resource Overlay (RRO), but now we know for certain it was. Android Oreo now,  technically , supports both OMS/RRO theming and even provides an interface for enabling or disabling themes using the command line. What are RRO and OMS? RRO was developed internally by Sony for theme functionality on the Sony Xperia line. Developers who recognized its significance worked to extend its support to other ROMs, and with it came RRO theming across a multitude of devices- not just Sony devices. It ingeniously replaced resources at the app runtime, an ease of use unseen from other theming options at the time. This has evolved int...

With the official unveiling of the Android Oreo statue, Google has begun pushing out OTA updates to some of its Pixel and Nexus devices. Initial reports show the updates either failing or taking hours to install, but thankfully Google has released Android 8.0 system images. Here’s how to manually install Android Oreo… Note: This guide assumes you already have your phone’s bootloader unlocked and the ADB tools installed on your computer. If you need the ADB tools, head over and download the Android SDK , and if you need to unlock your bootloader, keep reading. Before we get started, take backup then make sure that your device is visible to your computer. Type the command “adb devices” in your Terminal app; if you see your device listed, you’re ready to go. If not, make sure your device has ADB debugging turned on in Settings. Unlock the bootloader If you know that your device is already unlocked, feel free to skip this section and keep reading. Otherwise, you n...