Newsletter #7 - February 2019 (Patreon)

Welcome back my loyal patrons!

It's that time of the month again where I take an hour of my time to sit down, enjoy a cup of coffee with you guys and summarize what has been going on in my life since the last time we've been doing this.

Addressing the elephant in the room first: The Alldocube X Android Tablet PC has finally been released to the public along with its SPFlash update package!

This is big news for us, given it runs on near-identical hardware when compared to our beloved GPD XD+ while also supporting Treble V1.

For those that don't know what this means I'll put it in simple terms: Give these files a little bit of spit and polish and we might be able to use these to secure us a hassle-free way of updating our GPD XD+ to Android Oreo (and beyond) without ever having to touch any MTK-proprietary SDKs.

To do this though I first need to secure myself a sacrificial secondary GPD XD+, as the experiments required to get us what we need aren't for the faint of heart, and could very well result in me frying a GPD XD+ in the name of science. (Toasty~ if any of you want to get rid of a semi-broken XD+, get in touch with me!)

Onto other news: CleanROM and where the project will go from here!

Fellow friend & moderator PsyOps and I have started gathering ideas for some upcoming CleanROM features to bring it up to par with what some other custom ROMs out there have on offer.

These will mostly be convenience / ease of use type of features, given that most mission critical issues concerning the GPD XD+ hardware have been dealt with by now (yes, I know some HDMI related issues remain... I'll resume work on these shortly).

While these modifications aren't quite ready yet I hope I'll find enough time during the coming weekend to get a majority of them implemented. No promises here, but I'll try.

As part of this feature update you'll be presented with a variety of new settings, the biggest one (IMO) being the new WIP "A2DP Keep-Alive" setting. When toggled this function will address an inherent flaw that a lot of Bluetooth audio devices share: flawed power-saving functions.

If you've ever used a cheap Chinese pair of wireless earphones / headphones / speakers you probably know what I'm talking about: Repeated connection losses, unexpected cut-offs during silent sound passages, etc.

This function works around these issues by keeping the Bluetooth transport open / active by forcefully injecting samples into it at regular intervals.

Given that this issue isn't limited to just the GPD XD+, but rather faulty / bad Bluetooth devices in general, I've decided to make this fix / workaround available as a standalone APK in the Google Play Store as well.

This way people should be able to utilize their Bluetooth audio devices better, regardless of which Android device they are using. A Windows-based version of this fix will follow sometime after the Android one goes live, so don't throw that troublesome Bluetooth device of yours away just yet if you are a GPD Win 1 or 2 owner.

And finally... some real-life talk, aka. what has been going on in my life that isn't strictly related to this Patreon page.

Life has been busy, as always. For those that don't know it yet, my wife and I have decided to stop renting and instead build ourselves a new home on top of a inherited plot of land.

To cover the costs linked to this I've been doing overtime wherever possible, penny-pinched where I could and also put my own labor into getting things done myself (where physically possible).

All of this has been a straining experience, but things are moving along at a pace that I'd call "above average" (thanks to the support of my parents and two of my uncles).

Because of this "side-project" of mine I've found myself at a constant lack of time though which negatively influences my productivity outside of the aforementioned areas.

I keep setting myself little goals and challenges to keep my mind occupied, motivated and healthy, but do cut me some slack should I ever miss one of my self-set Patreon deadlines.

I'll try to not let that happen, but if it does, know that I'll make up for it post-haste.

Until next time!

- Black-Seraph