Last month, Google pulled the trigger and released the first Developer Preview version of Android 11 a little earlier than most of us expected. While it was an exciting prospect to be on the cutting edge, it was a bit of a mixed bag more than anything. Shortly after, Google released another version of Developer Preview, resolving some of the bugs reported in the initial version. It is indeed the ultimate gift to entertain all geek owners of Pixel 4, 3a, 3 and 2 devices during their quarantine (May the Pixel 1 rest in peace). And even though Essential has unplugged the PH-1, declaring no additional support beyond the February security update, it’s fair to say that Essential’s engineers were a little too stubborn to let it go , treating their geeky users with the biggest surprise so far: Android 11 support. Here is a simple procedure to install the latest version of Developer Preview of Android 11 on the legendary Essential PH-1.
Preconditions
Instructions
- Back up all of your data, as this procedure will involve erasing all of your user data and applications. For rooted phones, you can also back up your apps via Swift Backup, but in the absence of Magisk support for Android 11, this might not be very useful. Hopefully it is only a matter of time before Magisk is updated to support Android 11. Fingers crossed.
- Connect the Essential phone to your PC via USB. Make sure that USB debugging is enabled in the developer options.
- press the the Windows and R simultaneously. A small pop-up window should appear afterwards. Type “cmd” in the text field (without quotes) and press OK.
- A terminal command window should appear at this point. To verify that your phone is correctly connected, type the command “adb devices” (without quotes), then press Enter.
- Your Essential phone should appear as device next to your serial number. In case your device does not appear, enter the following command “cd C: Program Files (x86) Essential ADB” which essentially navigates to the directory in which the ADB drivers have been installed. Then enter the previous command “adb devices”. At this point, your device will be recognized.
- Then type “adb reboot bootloader” and press Enter. Your phone should restart in bootloader mode now.
- To check that your phone is correctly connected, type the command “quick start devices”. Your phone should be recognized as fastboot with your serial number next to it.
- To determine which slot is active, type the command “fastboot getvar current-slot”. In my case, the current location was “_b”. In case it did not return a correct value, check the connection of your phone (use another cable / port).
- Extract the “vendor-QQ1A.200105.088” zip file and copy the vendor-QQ1A.200105.088.img file to the ADB directory.
- Extract the zip file “gsi_gms_arm64-exp-RPP2.200227.009-6291673” and copy the system.img file to the ADB directory.
- Copy the unsigned-new.img file to the ADB directory.
Note: Iin the following commands, the index _a represents the inactive slot. In my case, the current location was identified as _b, so I typed the index _a in the following commands. In case the current location identified was _a, you must replace it with _b in the following commands. - Then, in the command window, type “fastboot flash vendor_a vendor-QQ1A.200105.088.img”, then press Enter.
- Once the provider image has been properly flashed, type “fastboot erase system_a” and press Enter.
- Once the system_ has successfully erased, type “fastboot flash system_a system.img”, then press Enter.
- To fix the current problem with WiFi, you need to flash the modified boot file that I linked earlier. Type “fastboot flash boot_a unsigned-new.img” then press Enter.
- After flashing the boot file, type “fastboot set_active a”
Note: In case the current location was previously identified as _a, replace “a” with “b” in the command. - Finally, you must format and rebuild the userdata partition by typing the last command “fastboot -w”.
- Restart your phone by selecting the “start” option on your phone using the power button.
Some additional adjustments
Here is! You have now successfully installed Android R DP2! Now you can use your Essential phone as your daily driver… sort of. Unfortunately, there are some quirks to be wary of. For starters, the integrated phone application is a bit buggy. Modem works fine, but due to buggy’s default Dialer application, you will not be able to answer or reject phone calls – the user interface during a call will not appear, nor in an intrusive notification nor in the usual full screen layout. Here’s what to do to fix it.
- Download and install the linked APK file here on your Essential phone. This is an APK of the beta version of Google Dialer that I have personally tried. You can download any other numbering app through the Play Store and follow the same procedure below.
- Then go to Settings> Applications & Notifications> Default Applications> Phone and select the new Dialer application you just installed.
- Then press home and open the drawer of your application. Locate the newly installed dialer app and long press the app icon to display contextual shortcuts. Tap the App Info shortcut in the upper-right corner.
- After opening the Dialer application information, tap the Permissions menu.
- Grant the application all the necessary authorizations (call logs, contacts, microphone, telephone).
- Here is! You are now ready to accept and reject calls once you receive a call.
So far, this was the only major problem I encountered that prevented me from using my Essential phone as a daily driver. Once this was resolved, I was back in business and I cracked to restore my belongings. Until I notice these ugly square icons in my app drawer. Fortunately, there is a way to change the shape of the icon via adb into a square, teardrop or rounded rectangle (square icons with rounded corners instead of the square shape with sharp edges by default). Here’s how to save your eyes from the ugliness of these square icons.
- Connect your phone to your PC via USB and verify that your phone is discoverable via adb.
- Then type one of the following commands depending on the icon shape you want:
- For the squircle icon shape, type the following command
adb shell cmd overlay enable –user 0 com.android.theme.icon.squircle - For the tear icon shape, type the following command
adb shell cmd overlay enable –user 0 com.android.theme.icon.teardrop - For the rounded rectangle icon shape, type the following command
adb shell cmd overlay enable –user 0 com.android.theme.icon.roundedrect
- For the squircle icon shape, type the following command
- You should notice that the shape of your icons will change instantly. Fortunately, these changes also survive the system restart.
- To switch between icon shapes, you must first deactivate the applied icon shape by writing the same command and replacing “activate” with “deactivate”. Then you can type the command corresponding to the icon shape to which you want to switch.
- Unfortunately, you cannot switch to the circle icon form on this GSI using the same commands. For those who don’t care a little DIY, check out this thread on XDA to see how to switch to the circle icon shape.
Not only can you change the icon shape via ADB on Android 11, but you can also change the accent colors! Instead of the default lame green accent color, here’s how to change the accent colors to orchid, black, green, ocean, purple and space.
- Connect your phone to your PC via USB and verify that your phone is discoverable via adb.
- Then enter the command “adb shell cmd overlay enable –user 0 com.android.theme.color.orchid”.
- Accent colors should instantly change to the newly selected color. You can replace orchid with black, green, ocean, purple or space.
- To switch between accent colors, you must first deactivate the applied accent color by writing the same command and replacing “enable” with “disable”. Then you can type the command corresponding to the accent color you want to switch to.
Another feature missing from the Android 11 DP2 GSI that we just flashed is the new gesture navigation introduced in Android 10. Fortunately, with the help of certain adb commands, you can enable and disable navigation gestures at will.
- Connect your phone to your PC via USB and verify that your phone is discoverable via adb.
- To activate the navigation gestures, enter the command “adb shell cmd overlay enable com.android.internal.systemui.navbar.gestural”.
- To return to the classic navigation bar, enter the command “adb shell cmd overlay disable com.android.internal.systemui.navbar.gestural”.
Unfortunately, you cannot customize the sensitivity of the back gesture for me. Additionally, it appears that the two-button navigation option is no longer supported. Maybe Google will abandon it with Android 11?
While these mods might seem a little trivial to most people, they were more of a necessity to me, especially the ability to switch to gesture navigation. It was only then that I felt a more complete experience of using my Essential phone as a daily driver while running Android 11 … a little. Although the overall experience seems unharmed at first, there are a few drawbacks here and there that are worth mentioning, which could potentially be a departure for some.
For starters, there is no sign of automatic brightness control, which means that the brightness level can only be changed manually by adjusting the brightness slider yourself in the Quick Settings menu. Speaking of which, there doesn’t seem to be support for Night Light, although there is a Grayscale tile in the Quick Settings menu. Also, it appears that the default shape of the notch is not supported, which means that the notch will cut the content of the app itself at the top, instead of crossing a status bar. slightly higher. To alleviate this problem, you must go to the developer options in the Settings application, find the Display cutout menu and select the “High cutout” option. This will extend the status bar vertically to the same vertical distance from the front camera notch, although it will add two slanted black bars next to the front camera, looking almost the same shape as the famous notch. Pixel 3 XL tub, which might be a little too hideous for some.
On the subject of missing features, you can’t slide the fingerprint sensor on the back to slide the notifications panel as well. Fortunately, you can slide your home screen down with your thumb to access the notifications panel – a sigh of relief. You can’t, however, swipe left to access your Google News feed. Thereafter, photos taken with the default camera application are not saved to your phone’s storage. This problem can be alleviated by installing other camera apps – I downloaded an APK from latest Gcam 7.3, works fine without major problems. Finally, there doesn’t seem to be any ambient display support, which means you’ll have to rely on the little LED indicator at the top to find out if there are any new notifications.
If you can make peace with the quirks mentioned, then you will enjoy running Android 11 on your Essential phone as a daily driver. The performance is excellent for the most part, with only a few stutters from time to time, as with almost any GSI in my experience. The same can be said of the battery life. I have had about 5-6 hours of screen time on each charge cycle in the past two days. From my usual suite of social media apps, there are so far no compatibility issues. And of course, you can use this nifty screen recorder option found in the Quick Settings thumbnails that Google has been teasing us with since creating the Android 10 developer preview! This is nothing short of extraordinary, with options only to display the keys and activate audio recording from the microphone. But hey, it works very well! Cared for!
Hopefully Google will surprise us with another early release of the next version of Developer Preview and may fix some of the reported bugs. It will be the ultimate treat for all technology enthusiasts who isolate themselves. Are there any other bugs you encountered after installing Android 11 on your phone? What is your favorite feature of Android 11 so far? Let us know in the comments section below!
Via: Reddit, XDA Developer Forums