[Samsung Galaxy S 5 Unified Development] curiousrom:
Disabling System Apps - FlipFlap, Smart Cover or S View

Edit: - [MENTION=2693412]haggertk[/MENTION] I enabled in Settings > Apps > 3-dots > Show system > FlipFlap, rebooted & activated the Smart cover 5 times with a magnet & now I can see > Settings > Connected devices > Connection preferences > Smart cover. See the last attachement in this post.

Why the need to trigger the Hall sensor to make the Smart cover setting visible? Why not having it right of the bat? :confused:

Edit 2: - After enabling the Smart cover setting, searching in Settings with either smart or cover returns no results.

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I did not do a clean install, just wiped System coming from unofficial 16.0 & flashing both firmware & Open GApps as described in Official 16.0 for S5 2019-03-01 - Dirty Flash Report.

I could see the Smart Cover settings in unofficial 16.0 & not in Official 16.0 build 2019-03-05 after activating with a magnet this morning as seen in the attachments.

I was writing this long post while you posted this, might as well post it now.

Meanwhile disabling FlipFlap is a workaround if you don't see the Smart Cover setting & don't have a magnet handy to activate it. Don't wait to get locked out of your phone by accident like it happened to me.

If rooted there are a number of third-party apps that can disable (they call it freezing) System apps in Settings > Apps > 3-dots > Show system when the Disable button is greyed out like SD Maid which I use for lots of stuff but I use also App Freezer because you can add some apps to Favorite & when pressing on them you get infos like path, services, etc as seen in the screenshots.

View attachment 4717765 View attachment 4717766

I also use it for freezing some annoying hard to tame apps that I only use once in a while. You can also export your disabled apps & import the list after a clean install.

Edit 3: - If not rooted you can use the adb command method described in How to disable any pre-installed system app bloatware on Android without root using adb. These tweaks will survive updates.

Just go to > Settings > Apps & notifications > 3-dots > Show System > app's name > Advanced > scroll all the way to the bottom to get the package name to be used in adb. In this case it is:

Windows Command Prompt: adb shell pm disable-user --user 0 org.lineageos.flipflap

Mac/Linux Terminal: ./adb shell pm disable-user --user 0 org.lineageos.flipflap

Be very careful & don't disable stuff without researching it otherwise brace for system freeze & boot loops. A recent full TWRP backup is a good thing when tinkering with this.

For example Cell Broadcast (Wikipedia) is not enabled in my country but could be in yours. That's related to Settings > Apps & notifications > Advanced > Emergency alerts.

Sometime there are no gains like disabling the NFC app. Last time I checked that caused several errors in logcat as the system tries to find it repeatedly wasting CPU. You can simply disable it in Settings.

There is no point in uninstalling System apps as they are small, you can't use the gained space unless you are looking for trouble & hack the system partition, they get reinstalled after an update while freezing the apps survives it.

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Way back when running haggertk's unofficial 16.0 build I was surprised when the phone locked to a blue clock & all the buttons were disabled except that I could capture a screenshot with Volume down + Power button.

"...I'm usually resetting every time it happens" - Yes a reset by pressing the Volume down + Power buttons until you see the Samsung logo works as well as passing a magnet over the left button. Turning the screen off & waiting for a minute or so then with the screen on & pressing the Home button brought back the Home screen for me once.

I rebooted the phone using adb reboot after capturing a logcat and made a post about it here. [MENTION=8915476]BlueCyclone[/MENTION] replied to me:

I tested it with a 5mm diameter magnet on the end of an old Magnetix construction toy bar over the left capacitive button where is located the S5's Hall effect sensor & you can see in the attachment the zone in red that is sensitive to the magnet.

View attachment 4717767

So I checked & in unofficial 16.0 Settings > Connected devices > Connection preferences > and Smart cover was there but it's missing @ the present in Official 16.0 build 2019-03-05 as seen in the screenshots. Edit: it's visible now, see Edit in the top of the post & the last attachement in this post.

View attachment 4717768 View attachment 4717774

After disabling FlipFlap (org.lineageos.flipflap) the magnet has no effect. LineageOS calls it Smart Cover & Samsung calls it S View. Attached a photo of a Samsung S View Cover (Galaxy S5).

View attachment 4717776

Note that @ the present FlipFlap/Smart cover does not show all those notifications & no settings for a camera shortcut, etc.

Added an image from https://news.samsung.com/global/10-sensors-of-galaxy-s5-heart-rate-finger-scanner-and-more

View attachment 4717777 View attachment 4717779 View attachment 4717820

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