Create your own skin – like every other Asian Android OEMs, Asus is also under the spell of this mantra. The Taiwanese company created the Zen UI which began its journey alongside the ZenFone and ZenPad series of devices. Not an absolute iOS clone, but the UI is drastically different from AOSP.
Meanwhile, plenty of smartphone makers associated themselves with Android One initiative. Eventually the vanilla Android running Nokia and Xiaomi phones became the competitors of mid-range Asus ZenPhone lineup.
Asus tackled the situation with ZenFone Max Pro M1 and their successors. These phones come with a near stock version of Android instead of Zen UI. Matter of fact, the OEM launched their 2019 flagship – Asus ZenFone 6 (sold as Asus 6z in India) – with a revamped and close-to-AOSP variant of Zen UI (v6).
Asus followed the footsteps of Motorola while designing the leaner but innovative Zen UI 6. Which means, end users should experience a handful of first party apps rather than excessive bloats. Although some of those apps can be installed from Play Store, getting everything working is a tough job.
And here comes someone with the answer to that puzzle. XDA Junior Member TheRealPochinki created an easy-to-use Magisk flashable package of stock Asus apps which should theoretically be installed on any Android phone running Pie.
Wait, there’s more! The modder also managed to port all the required permissions so that users will not face random force close (FC) issues with these apps. The OEM specific compatibility XML is also included so that the apps can be updatable via Play Store as well.
The following list of stock Asus apps extracted from Zen UI 6 based firmware of Asus 6z/ZenFone 6 are now part of this Magisk module:
- ASUS Calculator
- ASUS Clock
- ASUS File Manager
- ASUS Gallery
- ASUS Sound Recorder
- ASUS Screenshot+
- ASUS Weather
- ASUS ZenUI 6 Live Wallpaper (Lock Screen only)
- ASUS ZenUI 6 System Sounds
- ASUS XML Permissions (Downloadable Vendor apps via Google Play Store)
The Screenshot+ app is hidden by default, so you need something like the Tiles app to pin it on the Quick Settings panel as a new tile. Necessary support came from XDA Recognized Contributor / Themer AL_IRAQI.
The current version (v1.3) of the ported app package can be downloaded using this link, while the Screenshot+ (long screenshot) module is separately available on this link. For further info, please take a look at the original discussion thread in XDA.
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Kingshuk De
896 Posts
I came from a mixed background of Statistics and Computer Science. My research domains included embedded computer systems, mobile computing and delay tolerant networks in post-disaster scenarios. Apart from tinkering with gadgets or building hackintosh, I like to hop on various subreddits and forums like MyDigitalLife and XDA.
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