[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] Sami Kabir:
Sami OS 1.3 Update

Sami OS 1.3 Update

!​

Before I begin, I'd like to thank everyone for their kind words and patience. I'm really busy with my studies and so, I can't really do much with the amount of free time I get everyday. I also found out that my ROM reached

6000 downloads

yesterday, and I'm really grateful for that. Thank you all for your interest in my work. So without any further ado, I'd like to introduce the third update to my ROM.

Sami OS 1.3 contains bug fixes, battery and performance improvements, introduces some small but new features and refinement to the existing Dark UI.

Below is a list of all the features that this update packs with it:

- Did some subtle changes and minor improvements to the theme and UI - inspired by Android KitKat 4.4 and Lollipop 5.0

- Revamped AOSP lockscreen and Pattern lock grid - inspired by Android Jellybean 4.3, KitKat 4.4 and Lollipop 5.0

- Remade the WATCH_DOGS boot animation and also made it a little longer

- Replaced the old Galaxy S5 shutdown animation with a new one, inspired by WATCH_DOGS

- Freed up a few MBs from the System partition by mostly reducing the size of many system APK files and also by removing some unnecessary (apk and lib) files

- Slightly tweaked some of the existing init.d scripts and services.jar (ProcessList.smali and ActivityManagerService.smali) for better RAM management and smoother phone usage

- Updated various parts of the ROM (including system apps, framework and lib files, browser core and bluetooth service) using Samsung's VJLPE firmware

- Did some miscellaneous changes and performance improvements to the Phone (Dialer) and Contacts app. Its also based on VJLPE firmware's ones

- Enabled Call Recording feature

- Added a Call button next to Contacts and Logs

- Disabled "End Call" screen (thanks to nijel8)

- Added an Accounts & Sync sub menu (now all your accounts will be displayed under one sub menu)

- Added the missing Horizontal Calibration feature which Samsung's Gingerbread firmware had but Jellybean firmware doesn't

- Edited (fixed) some of the default values set in power_profile.xml file in framework-res.apk

- Re-enabled CPU rendering for 2D and 3D applications (this might give a slight bump to graphics performance)

- Disabled Journaling in system and cache partition. (WARNING: Sudden power loss due to random reboot or due to a system crash will result in loss of data! More info at the end of this post)

- Tweaked build.prop and services.jar (ProcessList.smali and ActivityManagerService.smali) for better RAM management and overall performance

- Performed some miscellaneous changes for both Battery-life and Performance enhancements

- Better thumbnail generation - thumbnails should now occupy very little space (NOTE: In order for it to take effect, all your existing thumbnails have to be deleted. More info at the end of this post)

- Partially fixed the "Home button" bug - now pressing it while the screen is off for a long time will just wake the screen. It won't minimize the app which is running

- Made some changes to reduce laggy scrolling through lists and also slightly improved its speed

- Added a potential fix for Media Scanner Wakelock (thanks to isaak)

- Added the ability to either hide or show alarm icon on status bar (look under Settings > Display > More Settings)

- Fixed some minor layout issues in "expanded" Quick Settings toggles. Also, replaced all the toggle icons with the ones from Galaxy S5

- Fixed all the layout problems in AOSP Browser. Now it shows suggestions properly as you type on the URL bar

- Updated hosts file. Also reduced its size from ~12 MB to just 890 KB

- Slightly edited gps.conf for (possible) improvement in overall GPS performance

- Fully disabled app verification (apps with broken/mismatched signatures can now be installed - thanks to CNexus)

- CRT-Off animation is now a bit more smoother. More info can be found down below

- Added Hebrew language

- Fixed the buggy Messaging app in Sami OS 1.2 by replacing it with a new, bug-free and slightly themed CM 10.1 Messaging app

- Updated the default file explorer, MiXplorer to version 5.1. It now has new UI and a design inspired by Material Design. It also supports custom themes! (Visit this link to checkout themes made for MiXplorer)

- Replaced Google's DeskClock with an alternative one (its the one that was introduced in Sami OS 1.0 - but now its far better than before and is slightly themed by me)

- Replaced Samsung's Voice Recorder app with MiSoundRecorder (its MIUI's default Voice Recorder ported by HootanParsa and completely themed by me)

- Updated Nova Launcher to version 3.3

- Updated Google Play Store to version 5.1.11 (not 5.2.12 - i.e the latest version)

- Slightly themed TouchWiz Launcher to make it look a bit more like the one in Samsung Galaxy S5

- "Smooth spinners" - (the spinning/loading animation in apps is now played much smoothly than before)

- Updated the icons of some System apps

- Changed some of the UI sounds and added 2 new Notification tones

- Added some new wallpapers. Removed a few old ones. Now there are a total of 50 amazing wallpapers

- Replaced the default android emojis with the ones used in WhatsApp and in iOS​

And that's all I can remember. I have obviously left out a few things but try it out and tell me how your experience was...

Screenshots:

Downloading Sami OS 1.3:

Please visit its webpage for the Download links! :o

Updating to Sami OS 1.3:

The instructions are the same as before; and they are quite easy to follow:

- Make sure you're running Sami OS 1.2

- Download SOS_UPDATE_1.3.zip and copy it to your External SD Card

- Reboot to Recovery

- Make sure that you have a Backup of your current System and Data (just to be safe)

- Flash the SOS_UPDATE_1.3.zip to Install the update

- And when that's done, all you have to do is Reboot your phone. The first boot takes 5-10 minutes to complete, so please wait patiently and wait for the "Android is upgrading" process to complete...

- After the device successfully boots up (i.e when you see your lockscreen) please don't use your phone for at least 2 minutes (because media scanning service along with many other services will start running and so its going to be very laggy)

- And that's pretty much it. Congrats, you're now running Sami OS 1.3!​

A few more things I would like to add:

- In order to prevent any loss of important user data, journaling is still enabled in Data partition.

- Download Enable_Journaling.zip to enable journaling in system and cache partition. Disabling journaling results in better performance but sudden power loss due to random reboot or due to a system crash will result in loss of data!

- Thumbnails generated will now occupy very little space. To make use of this, please go to /sdcard/DCIM/.thumbnail/ and remove all the existing thumbnails.

- If you deleted the thumbnails, browsing through pictures/videos in the Gallery will be a little slow for a while. It'll be okay once the thumbnails are generated again.

- Since the new alarm app replaces the old one, all your alarms will be deleted.

- The smoothness of CRT-Off animation can be controlled by changing the value of debug.sf.electron_frames in build.prop. You can set it to anywhere between 24 (fast) to 35 (slow).

- All the work on the lock screen was done by me.

- Reduced the size of SecSettings.apk by 2.2 MB, framework-res.apk by 2.7 MB, Gallery3.apk by 2.4 MB and SecWallpaperChooser.apk by 7.5 MB.

- You can install this Dark theme on MiXplorer if you don't like its default White theme. Speaking of themes, there a lot to choose from.

- Apps Removed: DeskClock, Hangouts, Samsungservice, VoiceRecorder. Some unnecessary lib files (e.g- removed Google+ related libs) were also deleted.

- Hangouts users: Please uninstall Hangouts and then reinstall it from Playstore.​

Note for i9070P Users:

After updating to Sami OS 1.3, please flash this (updated) file: i9070P_Compatibility_Fix.zip

Credits:

Thanks to these folks, whose work has helped me a lot:

- BOOTMGR (for many miscellaneous help and advices)

- EnricoD (for his KitKat UI guide)

- HootanParsa (for all the Mi apps)

- isaak (for a potential media scanner fix for our phone)

- jineshpatel30 (for his hosts file)

- acl1 (fpr Status Bar Icons tips)

- fbs (for HBBTweaks)

- SimonGleinert (for http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=50099965)

- hastalafiesta, loserskater, CNexus, gu5t3r, Oliwe, nijel8 and a few more people!​

And once again, thanks to everyone for their support and their keen interest in my work. Cheers! :D