OnePlus News Daily Dose #40: OnePlus 7 hints, GPS vulnerability, NYC photowalk and more!

In the early days of Android, Google started a tradition which is still being used. They decided to give unique code names to their phones, which was proven to be an effective measure for the developers to identify the corresponding codebase.

Interested readers can take a look at the site, where the Mountain View company is hosting the factory Images for Nexus and Pixel Devices to discover the codenames of Google devices.

While Google prefers to name their phones after fishes, OnePlus is particularly interested in foods. Yes, the Chinese smartphone maker named their first phone, i.e. the legendary OnePlus One as ‘bacon’.

However, they did deviate a little with subsequent phones. 2015’s OnePlus X was given the name ‘onyx’ – probably for its appearance and ceramic edition. On the other hand, the codename of OnePlus 2 was… what should I say… ‘oneplus2’!

OnePlus 3 (codename: oneplus3) and OnePlus 3T (codename: oneplus3t) got the same reluctant treatment. However, the Shenzhen based OEM was back in form with 2017’s OnePlus 5 (codename: cheeseburger) and OnePlus 5T (codename: dumpling).

Without breaking the pattern, the current lineup of OnePlus 6 (codename: enchilada) and OnePlus 6T (codename: fajita) were named after US/Mexican dishes.

What will be the codenames of the upcoming OnePlus 7 and the unnamed OnePlus 5G phone? Let us know your guesses by commenting below!

OnePlus fans must be aware of the recent shenanigans regarding the leak of closed beta Android Pie builds for OnePlus 3/3T. However, looking inside the Hydrogen OS (meant for Chinese OnePlus phones) Pie build for OnePlus 3 revealed something intriguing.

Before going into the matter, allow me to give a short introduction of build.prop:

The “build.prop” file is a system file that exists on every Android device. The file contains build information and other system properties which are used throughout the operating system.

System properties are string key-value pairs. You can create or modify a system property in the build.prop file which will be loaded when your device first boots.

The file is located at /system/build.prop. The build.prop file allows single line comments that start with a ‘#’ character.

The build.prop of the HydrogenOS (also known as H2OS) closed beta listed the following:

ro.build.description=OnePlus3-user 9 PKQ1.181203.001 taokai release-keys

Is the OnePlus 3 internally called ‘taokai’?  Well, we can’t answer that at this moment.

Credit goes to developer ZVNexus for spotting this little but fascinating detail.

Talking about the leaked build, we highlighted that the current Pie build for OnePlus 3 and 3T is prone to a nasty data corruption bug.

Fortunately, OnePlus engineers are aware of the issue – as assured by David Y.

Meanwhile, OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei posted a somewhat normal looking tweet yesterday.

https://twitter.com/getpeid/status/1111284197405057024

The OnePlus clan got immediately ignited, and started to find clues and hints. One person claimed to locate a prototype of OnePlus 7 in the picture.

Another guy interpreted the picture as a hint about the moonstone white edition of OnePlus 7.

Someone went one step ahead and actually deciphered a gullible thing out of it.

The first line looks like “Warp Car…” – probably they are going to rebrand the existing Dash Car Charger.

On the other hand, Team PiunikaWeb found a serious flaw in the OxygenOS builds. OnePlus engineers actually overrode standard AOSP policies and shipped debug build of gps.conf in OxygenOS.

The flaw can force the OnePlus phones to download some GPS data over insecure channels, thus opening a chance of MITM attacks. For details, head over to our article.

In another part of the globe, the OnePlus USA team is going to organize the first ever photowalk in New York City.

All you need to do is fill out the online form and leave a comment on the announcement thread by answering the following question:

What do you enjoy photographing and what’s your trick for doing it well?

They further mentioned

If you’re selected, we’ll email you on April 4th with the event details. If you’re not in NYC but love this idea, let us know where in the US you think we should come next. We look forward to hosting more photography events in the future.

Give this a go OnePlus NYC fans!

Allow me to call it day! Let’s enjoy the weekends. ?

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