Yandex.Kit is a new custom firmware for Android smartphones. Yandex Kit - review of the new firmware Yandex kit firmware for Android

Six months ago I was choosing a phone for myself and my choice fell on the budget model Flame Explay, which had the Yandex.Kit firmware. By all characteristics, the phone was excellent for its price of 5,000 rubles, and the young firmware from the domestic search engine called for supporting the manufacturer, in the hope that soon many applications would be adapted to Yandex.Store and everything would be fine.

But time passed and from time to time I was faced with the fact that I could not install some necessary application. Either I couldn’t get a free guide at the museum, or I couldn’t connect to the action camera - Yandex.Kit confidently refused me all applications without a million-strong audience, and at the beginning of May Yandex completely closed the Yandex.Kit project, so that something urgently needed to be done with my phone.

*Chinese programs for Android from Syma and HT quadcopters on the Flame Explay phone

It should be noted that I am currently busy developing a service for selecting quadcopters and I need to test online broadcasting from a phone, and for these purposes I need either a full-fledged Android or an iPhone. The Chinese, alas, do not write to other platforms. So there was only one way out - to reflash your phone, installing normal Android there.

In general, it turned out to be not so difficult if you know what software to use and where to get it. Before starting, I recommend formatting the flash drive in your phone so that there are no problems and, of course, saving all the data (phone numbers, photos, etc.), since everything will be deleted.

In total we need 4 files, you can immediately download them and put them in the root of your flash drive (which is in your phone):
1. The AOSP firmware itself (Android, as Google made it...)
2. Mobileuncle MTK Tools - to start flashing (directly on your phone)
3. Framaroot - to get root access (full access, that is)
4. Custom recovery (for example this)

If you do not have an account on the forum 4pda.ru/forum, then create one to download files.

We also need some kind of application for installing .apk files, I entered “APK” in the Yandex.Store search and found APK Installer (In the Yandex store it is called a little differently, but it has more than 1000 installations and there is no other similar one there , so don't get confused).

Next we proceed like this:
1. Using the APK Installer application, find the Framaroot program file in the root of the flash drive. The phone will curse, saying that it is not allowed to install third-party applications and will transfer it to where you need to check the box next to “Unknown sources”. After this, the program installs smoothly.

We do not install Mobileuncle MTK Tools yet, otherwise it will not get Root access

2. Go to Framaroot, leave “Install SuperSu” by default, select the last Barahir method and see: “Success :)... Root rights are installed. You must reboot your device."

Reboot the phone.

4. Using the APK Installer application, find the Mobileuncle MTK Tools program file in the root of the flash drive. We install.

5. Go to Mobileuncle MTK Tools. When you first log in, the phone should ask you for full access - we allow it.

6. We are looking for “Recovery Update”. Click.

7. At the beginning of the list, select the recovery that was downloaded to the root (if it can only be seen from the Internet, it means it was put in the wrong place)

8. Reboot in “Recovery” mode, the phone will ask where to find the ZIP firmware - we show it to it. And the installation has begun.
…
If you get an error like “I can’t open the file”:
1. Reboot
2. Go back to Mobileuncle MTK Tools
3. Select “Firmware update (Easy update from sdcard)”
4. Confirm the correctly found firmware file and launch it.

That’s it, in a few seconds you will see an unusual “Android” on your phone, but to make it as convenient to use as before, I recommend finding it in “ Google Play» Yandex.Shell application and after a couple of seconds you will see the familiar interface:

So in the end we get the same phone, only on an updated platform and with full access to Google Play applications. It is worth noting that now I am really happy with my phone, a good large screen and sufficient performance are complemented by high-quality software and, it seems to me, it has become a really good offer for its little money, and in particular for using it as a monitor for online broadcasts from quadcopters.

Thank you for reading, I hope my experience will be useful to you and many thanks to the guys from the 4pda.ru forum who posted all the programs for free.

And so, the tradition of creating custom firmware has reached Russia. Of course, local programmers know better the needs of the market and average users, so the product is primarily intended for residents of the post-Soviet space. What is it Yandex.Kit, what are the main features of this innovation and what does the whales have to do with it - we will try to explain in this article.

Of course, at the core Kita lies AOSP, it couldn’t be otherwise. It's surprising why Yandex Only now have they decided to take this step, because both companies have been competing with each other for a long time, the Russian search engine is in every possible way cosplaying all Western innovations, but it couldn’t decide on the firmware for the most popular operating system. Creators Yandex.Kit They emphasize that the search engine processes more than 250 million requests from Russian users every day, which means it thoroughly knows about all the needs and characteristics of the local audience.

In addition, Keith understands Russian much better than his competitors. First, the built-in keyboard knows what cases are and how to apply them in practice. Thus, the input of words and the output of hints occur taking this feature into account. The keyboard also displays Cyrillic and Latin at the same time. Secondly, Keith is not unfamiliar with the different forms of names inherent in our speech, so it will be more difficult to get confused in the address book, the latter, by the way, is endless. True, the developers do not explain why you need so many contacts, but the marketing move is not bad. Another feature of the address book is integration with Yandex.Directory, this allows you to search for organization phone numbers directly in the application. Interaction with the service will also allow you to identify some unknown incoming numbers. Data will be downloaded from the cloud, which means a timely Internet connection will be required.

And, of course, everything available in vanilla Android"e services (or almost all) are replaced with theirs Yandex analogues. On the one hand, this is good, since these analogs are more consistent with the needs of the market (as, in fact, it was stated), but their quality in some places is very different from the originals, which is actually bad. Let's start with Yandex.Maps– all applications that use geolocation will be linked to them (all that are subject to Yandex). Another important point is voice recognition technology Yandex.SpeechKit. There should be no complaints here, because it’s our native language. Will there be Yandex.Kite? It’s unlikely, because Yandex has its own application market. Will I be able to get access to a normal market? Most likely yes, but there is a high probability that you will have to hack something.

Also in favor of the absence Google Play says the fact that in Yandex.Kite there will be no list of applications, instead they will be sent straight to the homescreen, which means that the developers expect that you will not have many applications. In such a situation, access to a normal market can be blocked so that there is a temptation to install a lot good apps did not have. By the way, this will also fail for the reason that the memory on smartphones will be negligible, especially on more budget ones.

Used as a homescreen in the firmware Yandex.Shell. According to the developers, the new home screen completely redrawn and refurbished to suit all needs. As a result, users should receive an "ergonomic, intuitive interface." It looks like a carousel, but the screenshots don’t inspire much confidence. Maybe this solution will look more mature on the device.

In addition, the developers announced moderate power consumption of smartphones on Yandex.Kite and increased operating time. And all by minimizing the number of processes running simultaneously on the device. It looks something like this: developers sacrifice multitasking to extend the operating time of the device. At the same time, you can save on hardware.

It is not clear why such an emphasis is placed on the convenience of switching from an old smartphone to a device on Kite. If in the case of normal Android devices can back up and move from one smartphone to another, then the developers from Yandex boast that " Yandex.Moving will help you transfer the most important thing - contacts from your address book." But what about installed applications, call lists, text messages?

Install Yandex.Kit There will be no separate option for a smartphone. At least that's what the firmware creators say. In this case, anyone can sign up as a tester and receive the necessary files. To do this, you need to write a letter about who you are, why you need Whale and what experience do you have in testing new firmware? Anyone interested is asked to write here: [email protected]. It is clear that after some time Yandex.Kit will appear somewhere on XDA: members of the forum there simply cannot help but become interested in such a phenomenon.

Smartphones that are easy to use

You can see this slogan on the page Yandex.Kit dedicated to smartphones on Kite: Huawei Honor 3 Yandex And Explay Flame. Sales of these devices will begin in the spring of 2014, and users should first of all expect “built-in applications and technologies that help millions of people every day” and 50 bonus gigabytes for Yandex.Disk. Concerning technical characteristics, then they are as follows: Huawei Honor 3 Yandex will be equipped with a 4.7-inch display with a resolution of 1280x720 and a pixel density of 312 PPI, a quad-core Hisilicon K3V2E processor at 1.5 GHz, 2 GB of RAM, 8 GB of memory with support for microSD up to 32 GB, a 13 MP main camera and a 1 MP front camera ,3 MP, 2150 mAh battery and operating system Android 4.2.2. Concerning Explay Flame, then it will be simpler: a 4.5-inch display with a resolution of 960x540 (pixel density is not specified, as it is negligible), a quad-core MTK 6582M processor at 1.3 GHz, 8 and 2 MP cameras, 1 GB of RAM, 4 GB of memory , 1700 mAh battery, Android 4.2 OS. Pricing is not yet known, but more information will appear on MWC 2014 in a week.

Well, the whale here most likely symbolizes power.

Russian smartphone and tablet users can rejoice. Yandex has officially announced the release of a new Yandex Kit firmware based on Android. The firmware is specially made for Russian-speaking people, adapted to the requirements and specifics of the CIS countries and should become revolutionary.

Yandex Kit - an innovation among standard firmware

Cyanogenmod is an excellent firmware that is an alternative to the standard one. She has already found many fans and is actively joining the masses. Yandex also decided to keep up in this direction and is releasing its own version of the OS for mobile platforms, which is called Yandex.Kit.

One of the nice features is that it takes into account local and geo-dependent interests. The built-in keyboard perfectly understands cases and knows many slang words.
Kit has built-in data from Yandex.Directory, so finding the nearest contact information will not be a problem at all. This will also make it possible to determine the name of an incoming unknown call.

You can change your smartphone and transfer your entire contacts very easily through.

The slang innovation will be very visible when using the address book. For example, when the user enters Sash, Shura or Sasha, all matching options will be shown to him. In addition, data from the online directory will be loaded into the book.

The most common way to come up with or set a complex password is to enter it in Russian letters in the English layout. Kit will provide a unique feature for a special keyboard mode, in which both Russian and English letters will be displayed simultaneously.

Yandex Kit implements careful battery consumption, which minimizes the number of ongoing processes.

The interface will look like familiar desktops, only in 3D. Full list applications are completely removed, and all new ones are added to the main screen.

Unfortunately, Yandex Kit will only be available on Huawei Honor and Explay Flame smartphones for now, but that’s it for now. Also, users of this firmware will receive 10 discounts on purchases in the application store and 50 GB of cloud disk service.

The first models will be available in spring 2014.