Android

Excerpt:

Hello everyone.

For a while, the project felt stagnant. Progress was slow, and it often felt like we were waiting for something to happen. That's changing. In the last few weeks, we’ve taken more active leadership to inject new energy into Lawnchair, and the release of Lawnchair 15 Beta 1 is just the first step.

Welcome to Lawnstate, a blog that will now be a regular check-in on our progress, our challenges, and our path forward. No more long silences.

Quoting their description:

An open-source keyboard for Android which respects your privacy. Currently in early-beta.

Excerpts from the Changelog:

What's Changed

• Add support for reproducible builds by @patrickgold in https://github.com/florisboard/florisboard/pull/2719
  • Many thanks to Izzy for his assistance with this!
• Add time based theme switching by @lm41 in https://github.com/florisboard/florisboard/pull/2977
• Add support for physical keyboard settings by @lm41 in https://github.com/florisboard/florisboard/pull/2981
• Fix files with spaces causing UI issues by @patrickgold in https://github.com/florisboard/florisboard/pull/2982
• Remove checks for api 26 by @lm41 in https://github.com/florisboard/florisboard/pull/2972
• Update ROADMAP.md by @lm41 in https://github.com/florisboard/florisboard/pull/2980
• Update README.md by @patrickgold in https://github.com/florisboard/florisboard/pull/2984

This release also marks an important developer milestone, as its release commit is the 2500th commit on the main brach :tada:

Full Changelog: https://github.com/florisboard/florisboard/compare/v0.5.0-beta01...v0.5.0-beta02

It looks like a large update, with the previous feature release 6 months ago

Excerpts from the Changelog:

Map

• New: Show geofences for lab stages (UnifiedMap) - enable "Circles" in map quick settings to show them
• New: Option to set circles with individual radius to waypoints ("geofence" context menu option)
• Fix: Map view not updated when removing cache from currently shown list
• Fix: Number of cache in list chooser not updated on changing list contents
• Change: Keep current viewport on mapping a list, if all caches fit into current viewport
• New: Follow my location in elevation chart (UnifiedMap)
• New: Enable "move to" / "copy to" actions for "show as list"
• New: Support Elevate Winter theme in map downloader
• New: Adaptive hillshading, optional high quality mode (UnifiedMap Mapsforge)
• New: Redesigned routes/tracks quick settings dialog
• New: Long tap on map selection icon to select previous tile provider (UnifiedMap)
• New: Allow setting display name for offline maps in companion file (UnifiedMap)
• New: Long tap on "enable live button" to load offline caches
• New: Offline hillshading for UnifiedMap (VTM variant)
• New: Support for background maps (UnifiedMap)
• Fix: Compact icons not returning to large icons on zooming in in auto mode (UnifiedMap)
• New: Long-tap actions in cache infosheet: GC code, cache title, coordinates, personal note/hint
• Change: Switches cache infosheet long-tap for emoji selector to short tap to resolve the collision

Cache details

• New: Offline translation of listing text and logs (experimental)
• New: Option to share cache with user data (coordinates, personal note)
• Fix: Speech service interrupted on screen rotation
• Fix: Cache details: Lists for cache not updated after tapping on list name an removing that cache from that list
• Fix: User note gets lost on refreshing a lab adventure
• Change: Log-date related placeholders will use chosen date instead of current date
• New: Collapse long log entries per default

Wherigo player

• New: Integrated Wherigo player checking for missing credentials
• Change: Removed Wherigo bug report (as errors are mostly cartridge-related, need to be fixed by cartridge owner)
• New: Ability to navigate to a zone using compass
• New: Ability to copy zone center coordinates to clipboard
• New: Set zone center as target when opening map (to get routing and distance info for it)
• New: Support opening local Wherigo files
• Change: Long-tap on a zone on map is no longer recognized. This allows users to do other stuff in map zone area available on long-tap, eg: create user-defined cache
• New: Display warning if wherigo.com reports missing EULA (which leads to failing download of cartridge)

General

• New: Redesigned search page
• New: Inventory count filter
• New: Support for coordinates in DD,DDDDDDD format
• New: Show last used filter name in filter dialog
• New: Coordinate calculator: Function to replace "x" with multiplication symbol
• Fix: Incorrect altitude (not using mean above sea level)
• Fix: Nearby distance limit setting not working properly for small values
• Fix: Sorting of cache lists by distance descending not working correctly
• Fix: Lab caches excluded by D/T filter even with active "include uncertain"
• Fix: Color issues with menu icons in light mode
• New: Add "Remove past events" to list "all"
• New: Show connector for "user-defined caches" as active in source filter
• New: GPX export: exporting logs / trackables made optional
• New: Added button to delete log templates
• Fix: Importing local map file gets random map name
• Fix: Map downloader offering broken (0 bytes) files for download
• New: Added mappings for some missing OC cache types
• New: Move "recently used" lists in list selection dialog to the top on pressing "recently used" button
• New: Share list of geocodes from cache list
• Change: "Navigation (car)" etc. use "q=" parameter instead of outdated "ll=" parameter

UnifiedMap roadmap & "old" maps deprecation notice

c:geo has an all-new map implementation called "UnifiedMap" since some time, which will ultimately replace the old implementations of Google Maps and Mapsforge (OpenStreetMap). This is a deprecation notice to inform you about the further roadmap.

UnifiedMap got published about a year ago. It still supports Google Maps and OpenStreetMap (online + offline), but in a completely reworked technical way, and with a lot of exciting new features that the "old" maps do not support, some of which are

• Map rotation for OpenStreetMap based maps (online + offline)
• Cluster popup for Google Maps
• Hide map sources you don't need
• Elevation chart for routes and tracks
• Switch between lists directly from map
• "Driving mode" for OpenStreetMap based maps

UnfiedMap has proven to be stable since quite some time, thus we will remove the old map implementations to reduce the efforts for maintaining c:geo.

Roadmap:

• "Old" maps are in deprecation mode now - we won't fix bugs for it anymore.
• UnifiedMap will be made default for all users in fall of 2025.
• "Old" map implementations will be removed in spring 2026.

Until then, you can switch between the different implementations in settings => map sources.

I REALLY don't want sam's ung on my phone.

Excerpts from the Changelog:

What's Changed

• Added ability to scan barcode directly from input image without opening camera
• Fix consistent update checking when update checking disabled
• Fix firebase icon by #1736
• Fix crashes when using Turkish language
• Added ability to restore settings when sharing backup file to the app by #1737
• Added tool for exporting audio album covers from metadata by #1742
• Improve Highlights And Shadows filter by #1744
• Added logs sending feature by #1755
• Items reordering now called by long press by #1757
• Android 16 support
• Added ability to use collage maker with single image by #1774
• Added ability to read text from images to file or relative metadata by #1773
• Support unicode symbols in USER_COMMENT exif tag by #1791
• Added ability to add Digital watermarks (Steganography) by #1815
• Fix TIFF crash (change default quality to deflate) by #1797
• Added ability to set output scale ratio in collages by #1804
• Added Auto red eyes remover as filter by #1799
• Fix collage aspect ratio by #1801
• Select scale mode directly from sheet by #1796
• Fix Crash - Negative sizes are not supported by #1825
• Added ability to create Template from current filter chain by #1820
• Fix large zip archives not saving by #1835
• Fix Can't Create PDF of large amount of Photos by #1835
• Change default output dir name to ImageToolbox
• Added Tone curves as filter by #1838
• Added Fullscreen image preview to image reorder carousels by #1855
• Add ability to open and convert password protected PDFs on android > 12
• Added new PDF viewer for android > 12 that can remove password by #1845
• Increase precision of Image Cutting tool by #1858
• Fix large image crash in color picker by #1862
• Improve Image Preview tool with sort ability by #1866
• Fix Using Crop in OCR by #1873
• Fix group button height calculation by #1884
• Fix Gradient Maker issues
• Added Mirror filter by #1912
• Fix Compare Image tool crash
• Added ability to control crop rotation more precisely by #1886
• Change MozJPEG title by #1963
• Updated Bilaterial Blur filter
• Fix colors of icon containers by #1941
• Split open source libraries info to separate screens
• Added IOS26 switch type
• Added ability to save image as static GIF by #1960
• Other bug fixes and improvements
• Fix possible OOM's and improve app speed
• Material Expressive UI

Full Changelog: https://github.com/T8RIN/ImageToolbox/compare/3.2.0...3.3.0

On one hand I'm like this is a shameless money grab and on the other, I'm hoping more OEMs do this.

Though of course the best solution would be USB-C right into the watch.

Google is quietly rolling out its Gemini AI tool as the default assistant on Android, even on devices where users never explicitly enabled it. In many cases, Gemini replaces Google Assistant by default, making it increasingly challenging to disable fully.

This deep integration means Gemini can still be active in the background, accessing your apps, system features, and personal info.

Here's what Gemini can access:

Gmail 
Google Calendar 
Google Drive & Docs 
Maps, Keep, Tasks
Messages, Phone, and even WhatsApp

Even more concerning:

Your data is used to train Google’s AI.
Human reviewers may see your chats.
Data can be shared with 3rd parties.
As of July 2025, Gemini stays connected to apps even when activity tracking is turned off.

🛑 You can’t fully disable Gemini, but you can limit it:

How to limit Gemini on Android:

Turn off activity tracking
Revoke permissions
Uninstall it (if possible)

Further options, if you’re privacy-conscious:

Reduce your reliance on Google services or fully de-Google
Consider a privacy-first OS like GrapheneOS or CalyxOS

⚠️ Google is making Gemini the default assistant for all Android devices by the end of 2025.

Choose privacy over AI surveillance.

If you want tools that respect your data, ensure you use encrypted email, a private calendar, and a secure cloud, with no AI training or human review.

IronFox is Firefox ESR-based, completely de-Googled, has zero telemetry, and comes pre-hardened for privacy.

IronFox is a fork of Divested Computing Group's Mull Browser, based on Mozilla Firefox. Our goal is to continue the legacy of Mull by providing a free and open source, privacy and security-oriented web browser for daily use.

Version IronFox v140.0.4 released, .apk available for download here.

More discussion about the browser here.

~~Unfortunately, not available in FDroid yet.~~

FDroid Link: https://fdroid.ironfoxoss.org/fdroid/repo/index.html