XDA Recognized Developer arter97, a prolific ROM, kernel, and root mods developer who is very active in our forums, has also developed one of the most fully-featured and easy to use YouTube video and audio downloading applications available for Android – arkTube.
Though applications that allow you to download from YouTube are not new, most of them have some limitations. Some of the more popular ways to download from YouTube involved installing modified versions of the YouTube application or to use an Xposed module, but either of these methods would require frequent updates due to Google making many changes to the YouTube application. Furthermore, the use of an Xposed module necessarily requires root access and an Android version that is supported by the framework, so many of us running Android Nougat were out of luck.
If you have some familiarity with python scripts, you may have heard of youtube-dl – one of the most popular command line programs to download videos or audio from YouTube. It comes with a plethora of options to grab the source video in whatever resolution or format you want as well as any of the embedded metadata. Some applications such as Videoder or Tubemate make use of youtube-dl, but these mostly function as a wrapper for the YouTube application. For those of you seeking a more barebones alternative (but with all of the powerful features of youtube-dl), we would like to bring arkTube to your attention.
Once you install the application and enable the settings that you want, this minimalist YouTube downloader is summoned by sharing any video or playlist YouTube URL to the application. You have the option to select downloading the video or the audio straight from the share menu. If you select to download the video, you are presented with a dialog asking you which resolution and framerate quality you want to grab. If you select to download audio, the download will automatically begin according to your preset preferences.
While the free version will give you basic support and access to several of the most useful features, the paid version (just $1.99!) is where the application truly shines. (Note that as with any YouTube downloading application, arkTube cannot be found on the Play Store – but the pro version unlocker is available there.)
The application provides multiple detailed options for export resolution qualities and audio/video codecs. arkTube automatically decides whether to export videos as MP4s or MKVs based on whether the original video codec is VP9 or H.264. Audio has three codec options, with Vorbis or Opus OGG codecs providing smaller file sizes at the cost of guaranteed compatibility, and AAC/M4A as the default choice.
Export resolution quality options range from 240p to 8k @60fps (though the free version is limited to a maximum 720p @ 60fps), with every resolution offering a choice of the default framerate or 50/60 frames per second if the video supports it. There is also an automatic resolution selection option which will allow you to more quickly download videos at a desired resolution rather than ask you which quality you want. Note that enabling the auto select resolution feature is required in order to download video playlists.
This is nevertheless just the tip of the feature iceberg that is arkTube. We'll run down the list of important features based on our experience using the application.
We tested out arkTube on many popular YouTube videos to see how it handles metadata, and we came away impressed. For starters, the captioning and other metadata such as the YouTube video description was appropriately stored. In my experience with other YouTube downloading applications, few have been able to store metadata as cleanly as arkTube.
As you can see in the screenshots above, all metadata for this video have been properly scraped from the YouTube page. Given how much metadata there was to obtain, this resulted in an output video that essentially is a carbon copy of what you would see on YouTube.
Next, we were also impressed with how effortless arkTube handled YouTube playlists. When you select to download a playlist, you can download each item as either a video or audio. You have the option to download them in forward or reverse chronological order, too. Once initialized, you can see the progress of the video downloads in the status bar. Although there are many videos being downloaded, rest assured that arkTube does not clog up your status bar – your download notifications are collapsed until you expand them.
As you can see in the third screenshot, I chose to download the files as .ogg files and furthermore the playlist is listed with track numbers in chronological order. Though I chose to save these videos on the internal storage, as mentioned in the feature list up top you can select any directory on your device for storage.
For example, you can choose to save to an external SD card, allowing for less space anxiety if you find yourself saving multiple gigabytes of videos. The process of choosing external storage as the save point is a few steps long, but is simple enough and arkTube itself guides the user through the process.
If you are downloading many gigabytes worth of video or audio, it would usually be painful for your download to finish. But arkTube presents some nifty download acceleration options to speed up the process. You can enable simultaneous downloads as well as multiple download threads to greatly improve download times, though at the cost of additional bandwidth use.
arkTube's main advantage as a YouTube downloading application is its light-weight and unobtrusive way of allowing you to grab audio or video from YouTube. Couple that fact with its many powerful customization options, and it's easy to see why this application has quickly become my go-to for downloading from YouTube. No longer will I have to rely on other applications that try to mimic YouTube's UI or fiddle with python scripts – arkTube wraps up the best youtube-dl features in a minimalist UI.
arkTube is truly underappreciated for how well-made the application is, and I would like to give a shout out to arter97 for their exceptional work!
Check out arkTube from our forums!
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XDA Senior Member nvertigo67 has created a camera mod for the OnePlus 3T based on CAF source code. The mod is tested for stabilization and supports 4K recording and panorama shots. If you want to give it a shot, the flashable zip and instructions can be found over the linked thread.
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We haven't heard much about Samsung's 2017 flagship tablet, but now there are some new rumors circulating that claim to give us an idea of what we can expect. The last time we saw rumors about the device was back in October of last year when it was said this new tablet would be released sometime during the first quarter of 2017. This information came to us from a trusted source of SamMobile, who has a history of being right when it comes to Samsung leaks.
They were also able to confirm that the device would come with the model numbers SM-T820 and SM-T825, with the T820 being the WiFi version and the T825 being the LTE variant. It seems this detail was right on the money as we see there's an FCC database entry for the T825 model already. So this new information comes to us from a Korean publication called Naver, and their leak goes even further with details about the hardware, price point and release window.
If true, Samsung will be releasing the Galaxy Tab S3 with a 9.6″ display that has a resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. This would mean the Galaxy Tab S3 will have the same 4:3 aspect ratio that we saw in the Galaxy Tab S2, and continuing to move away from the widescreen style of the original Galaxy Tab S. The leak suggests the upcoming Galaxy Tab S3 will have 4GB of RAM and will be using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC to power the whole thing.
The tablet is said to be 5.6mm thick, have a 12MP camera on the back, a 5MP camera on the front, and Android 7.0 Nougat installed out of the box. Pricing for this new tablet should be around 700,000 won (which is about $600) and it is being reported that the Galaxy Tab S3 will be launching sometime in March. With Samsung advertising a new product launch at MWC 2017, we wouldn't be surprised if the Galaxy Tab S3 made an appearance in Barcelona.
Story Via: SamMobile Source: Naver
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Samsung made a big splash last year at MWC 2016 with the announcement of both the Galaxy S7 as well as the Galaxy S7 Edge. We got to see how the RAM management of the Galaxy S7 was compared to the Galaxy S6, and they even showed off Samsung Connect Auto as well as some customization options for Samsung Knox. Their biggest news was obviously the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, but we were privy to a number of its features thanks to a leak from Evan Blass.
It's been pretty quite so far with the lead up to MWC 2017 though. Granted, we have seen a number of rumors about the upcoming Galaxy S8, including alleged renders of it. And we have also seen rumors of a refreshed tablet for Samsung's Galaxy Tab S series with the upcoming Galaxy Tab S3. But we haven't heard about any of these making an appearance at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year. The Galaxy Tab S3 is rumored to be released sometime in March though, with the Galaxy S8 possibly coming sometime in April.
MWC 2017 starts on February 27th and will run until March 2nd. So while it would be a big event for Samsung to show off their new flagship, that would leave customers waiting a long time until they could actually buy the smartphone. It seems more likely that Samsung will use MWC 2017 to show off the upcoming Galaxy Tab S3 as their main attraction. They could then talk about smaller projects the company has been working on, like w saw with Samsung Connect Auto and Samsung Knox optimizations last year.
This is purely speculation though based off of the current rumors and reports that we have to go on. Samsung does tease the outline of a device in their press invite that shows either the top or bottom of a device. With the outline in the bezel either being an ear speaker cutout or possibly a home button. Either way, we'll have to wait and see what Samsung announces on February 26th at 7PM CET.
Source: Samsung Newsroom
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Google has four core principals for Chrome that include Speed, Security, Stability and Simplicity. The company is constantly working on the speed aspect as there are generally always some type of improvements to be made with the current system. Their goal is to make websites display at 60 frames per second and doing this means Chrome only has 16ms to render each frame. Chrome likes to break up pages into tiles so it only needs to redraw the tiles that are being changed.
This idea is being taken a step further with the latest changes as there are times when an entire tile doesn't need to be redrawn. So while this is a lot better than redrawing the entire page, there's definitely room for improvement here. Take the image below as an example. Tapping on the input field would generally cause the entire tile to be redrawn when that just isn't necessary. Instead, the only part that needs to be redrawn is the blinking text cursor.
So instead of redrawing the entire tile, Chrome saves time and resources by simply redrawing the exact pixels that are needed. This helps to keep the 60 frames per second target for heavy websites and it improve the overall experience of Chrome for the end user. Google says this isn't the only changes that have been made recently to help improve the overall speed of Chrome. Google's web browser of choice is now better at figuring out how to complete its workload depending on the type of hardware that is available.
Videos and canvases have been GPU accelerated since 2012, but there are other parts of a website that can benefit from utilizing the GPU. With Chrome on Android, macOS and Windows, you should see it uses your GPU more often to render websites that have complex layouts. This change helps to improve animation performance, input latency, and scroll smoothness for modern SVG and HTML5 pages.
Source: Chromium Blog
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LG's much-awaited flagship device, the LG G6, has been subject to rumors and leaks for the past couple of weeks. Earlier reports have shown that the G6 will likely sport a 5.7-inch "QHD+" display with an unusual aspect ratio of 18:9, it will be the first ever non-Pixel device to come with Google Assistant, and that it will feature a waterproof design.
Last week we got our first ever look at the LG G6 in a leaked press render; now, some images obtained by Droid Life of what appears to be a prototype of the LG G6 gives us a closer look at the LG's upcoming flagship. The images shared by Droid Life match previous leaks and reports regarding the device which claimed that the device will ditch the modular design and will feature super-slim bezels.
As you can see in the first image, the device has very slim bezels all-around, with front camera sensor sitting in the top left corner. Moving to the back, there is a dual-camera setup similar to the G5 with a fingerprint sensor sitting just beneath it. The back side of the device also shows off a sleek chamfer around the frame as well as usage of metal exterior. Elsewhere, the leaked images show a USB-C port with a single bottom firing speaker, and a 3.5mm headphone jack on top.
If the steady stream of the rumors is anything to go by, the LG G6 is shaping up to be a pretty impressive device so far. Hopefully, we won't have to wait long to find out more about the G6 as LG is expected to officially launch the G6 on February 26 in Barcelona, Spain.
Source: Droid Life
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