Multizone | All our technotes
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Android Studio fully supports Apple silicon (arm64).
There are significant improvements for developers working on Macintosh computers based on Apple silicon devices. As a leading integrated development environment for creating android apps, Android Studio now fully supports Apple’s M series of chip architectures, delivering a smoother and faster experience. This optimisation dramatically enhances performance, from compiling code to running emulators. Developers leveraging Apple Silicon can now expect reduced build times, better memory management, and more efficient multitasking. These improvements translate into a development process that is not only faster but also more responsive, ensuring that the focus remains on crafting exceptional android apps.
The update also extends to the emulator, which now runs natively on Apple Silicon. This ensures that developers can test their apps with minimal latency and greater accuracy, mimicking real-world scenarios seamlessly. The native support further reduces reliance on translation layers, such as Rosetta 2, providing an overall performance boost for the entire development workflow.
By fully embracing Apple Silicon, Android Studio empowers developers with cutting-edge tools. This ensures that whether you're building robust enterprise solutions or innovative consumer applications, your development environment operates at its very best.
TL:DR—Download and drag to /Applications to install, then complete the first-run setup, add an arm64-v8a system image and run the emulator. Marvel at how fast it is, or how slow it was before on Intel perhaps!
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Flutter 2.0 on Ubuntu 21.04 is here!
"Flutter SDK snap build integration makes it easy to publish your multi-platform Flutter app for one-click install by millions of Linux desktop users." — So says the press release. Lets find out.
We've been working with Flutter for over two years now, creating Android and iOS apps from the same source code. With nearly 30 Flutter based apps in the App Store and Google Play. Flutter 2.0 adds Linux support and Ubuntu made a point of making it part of their Ubuntu 21.04 release. This is an indication of direction of travel. Flutter is capable of building robust mobile apps. The Linux support is new, but it is built on the same foundation. The promise of cross plaform app development is often mired in technical difficulties but this time there is something different in the level of industry collaboration and support for Flutter with some notable exceptions.
Hello, world on Ubuntu 21.04
Flutter 2.0 can now create Ubuntu 21.04 desktop apps, This is the hello world example app.
TL:DR— Getting this running too around a dozen commands, and a bit of default question answering in both Flutter and Android Studio, which you have to launch once its installed. It took about 15 minutes to set up.
$ sudo snap install flutter --classic
$ flutter sdk-path
$ export PATH="$PATH:/home/yourusernamehere/snap/flutter/common/flutter/bin"
$ flutter config --no-analytics
$ sudo snap install android-studio --classic
$ flutter config --android-studio-dir /snap/android-studio/current/android-studio
$ flutter doctor --android-licenses
$ flutter config --enable-linux-desktop
$ flutter doctor
$ cd ~/Projects
$ flutter create hello_world
$ cd hello_world/
$ flutter run -d linux
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Read more: Create an app in Flutter on Ubuntu in about 15 min
Firefox screenshots
I think I was quite cross when I wrote this. It doesn't seem so important now.
"The ‘Take a Screenshot’ feature was removed from the Page Actions menu in the url bar. To take a screenshot, right-click to open the context menu. You can also add a screenshots shortcut directly to your toolbar via the Customize menu. Open the Firefox menu and select Customize…"
Well thats half an hour of my morning I won't get back. Progress I suppose. Something I use every day requires a toolbar customisation like its 1992, or for me to use the context menu if it hasn't been disabled.
TL:DR— You can right click to open a context menu to take a screenshot and you can also add a screenshots shortcut directly to your toolbar via the Customize menu.
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Read more: Screenshots in Firefox 88 have been moved, annoyingly!
Theres generally one single corporate strategy in an oranisation.
TL:DR – Robust strategies are about survival in the long term ensuring all threats are managed. Corporate strategies more generally are about optimising current performance. The main targets of strategies are customers and staff. These are fragments of notes from a course I took on Strategy with the OU.
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KeeWeb for Ubuntu 21.04
KeeWeb is a free cross-platform password manager compatible with KeePass. The KeeWeb desktop apps look beautiful on each supported platform. You can open local KeePass data files in the desktop apps. KeeWeb doesn't require a server or additional resources. KeeWeb can run either in browser, or as a desktop app.
KeePass desktop (it has a built in demo mode to help you get the hang of it) on Ubuntu 21.04
"For those of you who need cross platform password management on Linux, macOS, and in your browsers and mobile devices, KeePass based tools are what you need. KeeWeb delivers a rock solid, beautiful open source desktop password manager for Ubuntu Linux compatible with the KeePass format, that is free and open souce, without ludicrous subscription fees."
TL:DR— If you have been looking for password manager without a subscription you found it!
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Ubuntu 21.04 is here!
"For developers and innovators, Ubuntu 21.04 delivers Wayland and Flutter for smoother graphics and clean, beautiful, design-led cross-platform development."
Heres living proof that screen sharing works now. macOS with Screen Sharing to Ubuntu 21.04. Zero Setup. Just enable Screen Sharing in settings.
Ubuntu 21.04 desktop over macOS Screen Sharing app (essentially VNC).
Ubuntu 21.04 is the latest version of the Ubuntu operating system for desktop PCs and laptops with nine months, until January 2022, of security and maintenance updates. It was released on 22nd April 2021.
TL:DR— If you need the latest released edition of Ubuntu, this is for you but read the release notes before jumping in!
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Read more: Ubuntu 21.04 delivered Wayland, Flutter and Screen sharing!
Android 12 Developer Preview
This article is about installing Android 12 on a supported Google Pixel device using the OTA image. If you have a compatible device you can try out Android 12 today. You can get back to the current release, or just wait for further over the air updates from the preview.
TL:DR— If you have a recent Google Pixel phone and the Android developer tool 'ADB' which is part of the developer tools this is easy enough to do.
Android 12 images are available for Google Pixel 5, 4a, 4a (5G), 4, 3a, 3a XL, 3, and 3 XL devices.
The OTA image shouldnt (and in my case didnt) cause any problems, and should not wipe your data but your mileage may vary! I havent noticed any reliability issues in the last couple of days having installed it on a Pixel 4a (5G) phone.
More polish in the User experience
Androis 12 includes a few improvements you'll notice immediately and many that you won't notice yet because developers need to build apps that support them or they are not yet in the build of Anrdoid 12 that has been made available.
- New call notifications have more visibility.
- Notifications can be snoozed.
- Screenshots can be annotated in the editor with text or stickers.
- Alarms require less battery if implemented using inexact alarms.
- Web linking respects your default browser rather than from a chooser dialog.
- Richer haptics on devices that can support them.
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