It was quite a blow when it was announced that Cyanogen Inc. would be shutting its doors. While this meant the death of CyanogenMod, luckily the community would once again come together to back another Android project, LineageOS.
Since its initial release, the OS has branched out to offer support for over a hundred devices and is still being improved and updated on a regular basis. The team has now issued an update, giving users an idea of future plans and what new handsets will be supported. Lineage is currently working on an update to Android Oreo but will take what it's done so far and push it to a release that will be based on Android 8.1. While there are unofficial builds available, the team has not stated when the official one will be available.
As far as changes go, the following are the major ones since September 23:
- Recorder app has gotten a major redesign, it’s now better thanks to the feedback provided in the Summer Survey.
- If you are interested in reading more about the design changes, our very own jrizzoli wrote a Medium post on the thought process
- A LiveDisplay tile has been added
- KRACK Wi-Fi vulnerability has been fixed in both LineageOS 14.1 and 13.0
- October security patches have been merged for both LineageOS 14.1 and 13.0
- November security patches have been merged for LineageOS 14.1 and 13.0
- Bypassing the lockscreen by switching to a lockscreen-less profile from quick settings has been blocked (BUGBASH-1095)
- The updater, among other minor improvements, now supports device unifications: when a device gets build merged with another one, the user will directly receive updates without requiring the user to manually flash the new build.
- Added support for extended length NFC (needs to be enabled per-device, if supported)
- Two new touchscreen gesture options have been added for lowering and raising the media volume
- Battery icon has been improved; the percentage will be shown in battery saver mode when the “show percentage” option is set. The exclamation mark in the battery has also been given more contrast so it’s easier on the eyes
- The Calendar app now shows week start and end in the title when in week view, instead of showing the month and year
- Gallery has received some stability improvements
- Making emergency calls without a sim card is now possible, in regions that allow it
- Issues with the “Install” button being greyed out when installing APKs should now be fixed (REGRESSION-1262)
Lastly, the following handsets have been added as supported devices:
- BQ Aquaris X5 Plus
- BQ Aquaris U Plus
- Sony Xperia Z5 Compact
- Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet LTE
- Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet WiFi
- LG K10
- Fairphone 2
If your handset is in need of an update, you can always check out the website. As stated before, the team has worked hard getting as many handsets as possible supported, which means you can potentially breathe new life into your device, if the manufacturer has forgotten about it and left you without updates for quite some time.
Source: LineageOS
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