Lollipop

[sawbones999]

I've had my ADT-1 android tv dev box for a few months now and been working on it off and on since i got it. Shipped with android L developer preview and now updated to lollipop 5.0.3.

I spent all day working on it today just to get some progress. I now have hideable soft buttons for back, home, 3 dot menu, reboot, power off. More to list. Can you believe all those features are missing in the leanback launcher?

I also set up tincore keymapper to map the analog sticks on my gamepad for mouse functions (for web browsing and use with non gamepad enabled apps)and the d pad for directional movement in leanback, splitting the function keys between mouse and gamepad buttons.

I also finally got around to installing the new xposed framework alpha for lollipop. Was just testing some modules right now.

I don't think it will ever be possible to get a proper status bar in leanback. I'm still looking, but it seems as though I'd have to change launchers(already tried a few).

Whatever idiot at Google designed leanback needs to be bitch slapped in the face. It's the Windows phone 7 of android UI's.

Anywho, that's been my experience with lollipop so far.

My rk3288 R89 is better in every single way and I can't imagine wanting it to be more like leanback (maybe it's called leanback because that's what whoever was designing it was doing while designing, leaning back right onto a big fat one, you know where, lol).

Cheers,
-SB

[clarkss12]

I've had my ADT-1 android tv dev box for a few months now and been working on it off and on since i got it. Shipped with android L developer preview and now updated to lollipop 5.0.3.

I spent all day working on it today just to get some progress. I now have hideable soft buttons for back, home, 3 dot menu, reboot, power off. More to list. Can you believe all those features are missing in the leanback launcher?

I also set up tincore keymapper to map the analog sticks on my gamepad for mouse functions (for web browsing and use with non gamepad enabled apps)and the d pad for directional movement in leanback, splitting the function keys between mouse and gamepad buttons.

I also finally got around to installing the new xposed framework alpha for lollipop. Was just testing some modules right now.

I don't think it will ever be possible to get a proper status bar in leanback. I'm still looking, but it seems as though I'd have to change launchers(already tried a few).

Whatever idiot at Google designed leanback needs to be bitch slapped in the face. It's the Windows phone 7 of android UI's.

Anywho, that's been my experience with lollipop so far.

My rk3288 R89 is better in every single way and I can't imagine wanting it to be more like leanback (maybe it's called leanback because that's what whoever was designing it was doing while designing, leaning back right onto a big fat one, you know where, lol).

Cheers,
-SB

I concur with your assessment, I have had my ADT-1 for several months also, but can't figure out who it is intended for. I crank it up every now and then, just to see if there are any improvements, but it is lacking in too many areas that I want in a TV box. I think it may be for people that just wants a simple media player, similar to an Apple TV.

[sawbones999]

I concur with your assessment, I have had my ADT-1 for several months also, but can't figure out who it is intended for. I crank it up every now and then, just to see if there are any improvements, but it is lacking in too many areas that I want in a TV box. I think it may be for people that just wants a simple media player, similar to an Apple TV.

Well, it's entirely possible to replace the launcher with something like GO Launcher EX or ADW Launcher, or even one of the manufacturer launchers from one of the Chinese boxes. I've done it. For some reason I feel this masochistic need to try and reimplement all the missing features in leanback.

Either way, you're screwed on controls if all you have is the gamepad, because most apps won't respond to it, so to use most non-android tv apps requires some form of mouse emulation(which most apps do work with). The catch is, most apps made for leanback ONLY work with a gamepad or the arrow keys of a traditional keyboard. Only having 1 USB port hurts on there, too. Luckily I have a wireless keyboard/mouse that connect through same dongle.

But that is where tincore keymapper comes in. I made a layout where the left analog stick moves mouse(emulated), right stick is scroll wheel, A button is for left click, B right click, then the Y button is the Menu button, which is very important if you're using apps which are not compatible with leanback and expect at very least a menu button in the nav bar (which leanback doesn't have a navbar).

I made the gamepad D pad still the D pad, for navigating leanback and ADT-1 apps, the X button is remapped as A button so that you can select things in leanback.

The rest i mapped for media functions. Right trigger 1 is vol up, left is down. Right trigger 2 is FF, left is rewind. Right analog stick click is play, left is pause.

Home is still home, and back is still back.

So now I can operate the majority of apps, whether they were intended for leanback or not. It's very easy to browse the web in Firefox now, or download apps from aptoide. As well add i can easily navigate leanback and apps designed for it because most apps only rely on the A button to select and back to go back, plus d pad for directional.

Much more functional now with only the gamepad. Only problem is tincore is a bit buggy sometimes.

As I mentioned I also added disappearing soft keys for back, menu, home, petrus root reboot app (soft reboot, reboot, reboot to bootloader, etc), couple others very handy, it's like a nav bar kind of, but it disappears to a very small transparent dot, which you click you want menu back. Forgot the name. Got it on aptoide.

The only thing I can't get working at all so far is status bar, notifications, notification bar mods like toggles, and a few other things along those lines.

Maybe I'll turn all this hard work into a pre-rooted custom ROM for the thing. Haven't seen any yet.

Gotta run.

Cheers,
-SB

[clarkss12]

Well, it's entirely possible to replace the launcher with something like GO Launcher EX or ADW Launcher, or even one of the manufacturer launchers from one of the Chinese boxes. I've done it. For some reason I feel this masochistic need to try and reimplement all the missing features in leanback.

Either way, you're screwed on controls if all you have is the gamepad, because most apps won't respond to it, so to use most non-android tv apps requires some form of mouse emulation(which most apps do work with). The catch is, most apps made for leanback ONLY work with a gamepad or the arrow keys of a traditional keyboard. Only having 1 USB port hurts on there, too. Luckily I have a wireless keyboard/mouse that connect through same dongle.

But that is where tincore keymapper comes in. I made a layout where the left analog stick moves mouse(emulated), right stick is scroll wheel, A button is for left click, B right click, then the Y button is the Menu button, which is very important if you're using apps which are not compatible with leanback and expect at very least a menu button in the nav bar (which leanback doesn't have a navbar).

I made the gamepad D pad still the D pad, for navigating leanback and ADT-1 apps, the X button is remapped as A button so that you can select things in leanback.

The rest i mapped for media functions. Right trigger 1 is vol up, left is down. Right trigger 2 is FF, left is rewind. Right analog stick click is play, left is pause.

Home is still home, and back is still back.

So now I can operate the majority of apps, whether they were intended for leanback or not. It's very easy to browse the web in Firefox now, or download apps from aptoide. As well add i can easily navigate leanback and apps designed for it because most apps only rely on the A button to select and back to go back, plus d pad for directional.

Much more functional now with only the gamepad. Only problem is tincore is a bit buggy sometimes.

As I mentioned I also added disappearing soft keys for back, menu, home, petrus root reboot app (soft reboot, reboot, reboot to bootloader, etc), couple others very handy, it's like a nav bar kind of, but it disappears to a very small transparent dot, which you click you want menu back. Forgot the name. Got it on aptoide.

The only thing I can't get working at all so far is status bar, notifications, notification bar mods like toggles, and a few other things along those lines.

Maybe I'll turn all this hard work into a pre-rooted custom ROM for the thing. Haven't seen any yet.

Gotta run.

Cheers,
-SB

Wow, sounds like you have done a lot to make is more usable....
thanks

[The Rogue Tomato]

Most people are so excited about changes to the UI and other little changes, but the biggest difference is the switch from dalvik to ART.

I don't know if this is due to ART or some other changes, but Lollipop on my phone uses less RAM and runs faster than Kitkat. That caught me by surprise. I expected it to be slower and more RAM hungry.

I was reading that some apps fail on ART that worked fine on dalvik. I haven't experienced that yet.

[sawbones999]

Cool! I hope that this will be true for all devices. Maybe Android is still getting leaner. Kit Kat had a lower minimum memory requirement than JB so it's possible. ART is supposedly faster than dalvik. I'm not sure if lollipop still includes some dalvik support for compatibility or not. I do know that it is still possible to odex an app and in that way modify it in lollipop, a la lucky patcher, because I have done it. Dex is a feature of dalvik so I'm not sure if when you next run the app it is converted to ART, or if there is a fallback for dalvik compatibility.

I would definitely expect lollipop to be faster/leaner on any Google nexus devices or any Google edition devices(and possibly ports thereof). Different manufacturer UI's could still be fatter/more resource hungry. Do you mind if I ask what model your phone is?

Cheers,
-SB

[The Rogue Tomato]

Cool! I hope that this will be true for all devices. Maybe Android is still getting leaner. Kit Kat had a lower minimum memory requirement than JB so it's possible. ART is supposedly faster than dalvik. I'm not sure if lollipop still includes some dalvik support for compatibility or not. I do know that it is still possible to odex an app and in that way modify it in lollipop, a la lucky patcher, because I have done it. Dex is a feature of dalvik so I'm not sure if when you next run the app it is converted to ART, or if there is a fallback for dalvik compatibility.

I would definitely expect lollipop to be faster/leaner on any Google nexus devices or any Google edition devices(and possibly ports thereof). Different manufacturer UI's could still be fatter/more resource hungry. Do you mind if I ask what model your phone is?

Cheers,
-SB

Not at all, go ahead and ask.

Just kidding... it's a Galaxy Note 4.

I use the 360 Security app, which gives you a constant look at how much memory is being used, and turns red when you go over a threshold (I think 85%). It always went into the red after using any app on Kitkat. That's not a bad thing, necessarily, just explaining to show the comparison. It hasn't gone into the red once in the 2 days I've had Lollipop, and I've used a lot of apps during that time.

The Antutu benchmark also says it's running faster. It was about 47k on Kitkat, and 55k on Lollipop.

[sawbones999]

Not at all, go ahead and ask.

Just kidding... it's a Galaxy Note 4.

I use the 360 Security app, which gives you a constant look at how much memory is being used, and turns red when you go over a threshold (I think 85%). It always went into the red after using any app on Kitkat. That's not a bad thing, necessarily, just explaining to show the comparison. It hasn't gone into the red once in the 2 days I've had Lollipop, and I've used a lot of apps during that time.

The Antutu benchmark also says it's running faster. It was about 47k on Kitkat, and 55k on Lollipop.

Nice. I hope if/when we get lollipop on RK3288 we see performance increases like that.

Cheers,
-SB

[no_spam_for_me]

It seems to start now:
The Firefly-RK3288 preview version of Android 5.0 Lollipop firmware release http://bbs.t-firefly.com/forum.php?m...extra=page%3D1

[scooter2014]

Let me know if you need anything tested. Moe123 looks like they use the older kernel not the 4.0 one i seen out wonder why not stable?

[scooter2014]

That is great then. has anyone tried this on the dev board yet? I know they say not ready yet But rk say months ago the have running on 3288. Don't get me wrong here just anything that seems to run on the TV boxes seems to need lean back launcher and not something I want or need. I've paid for my launcher and like them. And every device that I have has lollipop but I can still use my launcher if I want too so iam nor sold on lollipop.

[Gormar]

I know they say not ready yet But rk say months ago the have running on 3288.

I wouldn't press for immediate lolipop release from RockChip. If it hadn't have too many unsolved problem they would do that till now.
One thing is to talk about doing something and another to make it reality.

The same situation as with their RK3288 SoC which is advertised as 1.8GHz but in reality they limited it's clock to 1,6GHz (on every factory firmware I know) to avoid problems with overheating and stability (mostly overheating). What's more repulsing is that Android firmware or rather kernel display maximum CPU speed as you want. In this case as by advert 1,8GHz. You can make it even 4GHz . Limit is deeper and what's more lower frequency isn't reported back. You can't do similar trick with whole firmware. There isn't any single parameter which will resolve the most pressing problems.

[Paul Taraneh]

Hello. I've read your posts and wanted to share what's working for me. Im using a cloud net cr13 rk3288 box android 4.4.2 but with nova launcher beta #27 which is materialized. Then applied xposed (last stable) and used xstansa to mod the status bar and nav bar, monster ui to throw a coat of lollipop on the 4.4 rom, no heating problems even after i used rom tool box to set the on demand gov to min 600/max 1480 changed the boot image as well to my liking and so what, it's not lollipop but it's customized and works and looks like lollipop, using dakvik and applied rkcrew version of twrp for 3288 of course after rooting with towel root. I dldd super user and set to allways allow so i never see prompts. Busy box as usual. Mx player, spmc, and non crucial android APIs that id normally use for tablet. This is the one time i didn't even have to install market helper. It might work for yall. And yeah, in at 1.8 with antutu x reading 43000 Lmk your thoughts.. Paul

[cappybob]

Many are familiar with "OMA" CrewRKTablets and web site. He has released a "Lollipop"5.1.1 pad build and has several custom built kernels for some r-box devices in his RK32 Kernel download section. http://crewrktablets.arctablet.com/?p=5207 is the link for the program and kernels, sorry haven't had time to look into this yet, but looks to be rooted and also with a Oma favorite APK download. (EDIT). Have done some work on this and have not been able to get a proper boot for my Firefly yet, but some good info here to get something started, also using Windows 10 IoT Pro to flash with, which may be a hidden problem.

later----cappybob

[mo123]

Many are familiar with "OMA" CrewRKTablets and web site. He has released a "Lollipop"5.1.1 pad build and has several custom built kernels for some r-box devices in his RK32 Kernel download section. http://crewrktablets.arctablet.com/?p=5207 is the link for the program and kernels, sorry haven't had time to look into this yet, but looks to be rooted with a Oma favorite APK download. I have always had good experiences with his programs and software, basically replace in the image files of the included Android tool, the Kernel and Resource images you have download from the kernel repo. Sorry usually have time to run and use, but my better half is ill and I am playing nurse.

later----cappybob

KitKat kernels on Crewtablets are very different to Lollipop ones and won't work with this Lollipop build.
So it's not usable on TV Boxes until we have a stable Lollipop Kernel source.
The Firefly Lollipop kernel source doesn't have TV Out, Remote control support, HDMI Settings etc.
I will try making a new Lollipop kernel from Firefly source and see if it works better with this firmware, maybe it works better?

But manufactures' will release Lollipop for RK3288 TV Boxes in mid June in 2-3 weeks and then it will be much more optimized.