Yandex kit firmware for android. Yandex.Kit

An operating system for smartphones and tablets, developed based on the open source Android code. A former member of the Yandex.Kit development team announced the closure of the Rusbase project. The information was confirmed by an employee of the partner company.

According to the same source, the Kita development team has been disbanded, and its members are scattered among other projects. In addition, some of the developers of "Kit" left the company. In April of this year, the team that worked on the design of Yandex.Kit posted on Facebook page"Goodbye Yandex" entry.

The core of the team working on the project were employees of the St. Petersburg company SPB Software, acquired by Yandex in 2011. The studio specialized in complex software products for mobile platforms, including the alternative SPB Shell for Android.

Yandex representatives deny that the project is being closed:

“We launched Yandex.Kit on February 19, 2014. Last year, we agreed on the pre-installation of Yandex.Kit on Explay, Huawei, Smarto, DEXP devices,” the Yandex press service reported. “Now this product is not actively being developed, including due to opposition from Google. Currently, as far as we know, some Smarto and DEXP tablets remain for sale on Yandex.Kit.”

In February of this year, Yandex filed an application with the Federal Antimonopoly Service demanding that Google be checked for violations of Russian antimonopoly legislation. Yandex believes that Google is violating the principle of free competition in the Android smartphone market, as it puts pressure on manufacturers who want to use their own firmware versions. In mid-April, the FAS granted Google's request to postpone the consideration of the case - the next meeting of the commission on this issue is expected to take place in the second half of May. Yandex's statement was supported by the FairSearch alliance (including Microsoft, Nokia, Oracle and others), which back in 2013 called on the European Antitrust Commission to consider a proposal to separate the Android operating system from Google.

In April of this year, the European Commission sent an official statement to the search giant with claims - the document claims that Google is using its dominant position in the Internet search market in the European Economic Area (EEA) to promote its own services for the sale of goods and services. If Google is proven guilty, the corporation faces a fine of 10% of its annual revenue (about $6 billion).

For Yandex, the value of "Kit" was the replacement of all pre-installed services from Google with the corresponding Yandex services (maps, browser, calendar, etc.). Google Play is replaced by “Yandex.Store”, and Yandex.SpeechKit is used instead of Google Voice. The company needed its own mobile OS, since the sharp increase in sales of Android smartphones on the Russian market in 2012 began to threaten the dominance of the company's services in the CIS markets and Yandex's revenue from search. In 2010, Android had a share of 11% in Russia, in 2011 the share grew to 29%, and in 2012 - to 58% (data from J’son & Partners Consulting). In 2014, Android was installed on 86% of all smartphones in Russia.

For smartphone manufacturers, Yandex.Kit was distributed free of charge, but this did not have much impact on the market position. Analysts believe that Yandex.Kit failed to interest users.

Owners of Android devices increasingly prefer to search for information on Google. According to a Morgan Stanley survey, 51% of Android smartphone users prefer Google search, and only 41% prefer Yandex. According to Liveinternet.ru, Yandex is the most popular search engine on the Runet. But Liveinternet.ru also records a drop in the share of Yandex: over the year it decreased by 2.8 percentage points to 58.9% (at the end of January 2015), and the share of Google over the same period increased by 5.9 percentage points. p. up to 32.8%.

Tablets and smartphones with Yandex.Kit pre-installed are currently available for purchase in Yandex.Market. The Yandex.Shell interface for smartphones, based on SPB Shell, is also available for download. A source close to the company told Rusbase that the Erica project continues to exist within Yandex, implying an even deeper modification of Android. It is no longer led by the former SPB Software team, but by Tigran Khudaverdyan, the head of mobile and software products at Yandex.

At the end of 2014, Yandex earned 50.767 billion rubles. Net profit amounted to 17.02 billion rubles. The majority of revenue (90.2%) came from contextual advertising services.

Anton Nekhaenko and Elina Asfaganova worked on the material.

Yandex.Kit is a launcher from the firmware of the same name for Android, created by a famous Russian company. This solution is intended for those who like the "Kit" interface, but do not need to install the firmware itself. In fact, we have before us a slightly redesigned and rethought version of the very popular Yandex.Shell graphical shell. Working with this launcher has become even more comfortable and enjoyable than with its “progenitor”, and besides, it has received a modern “material” interface that will surely appeal to even the most demanding users.

Among the useful functions that this shell provides are provision of quick access to branded Yandex applications, a very stylish lock screen with support for a variety of unlocking mechanisms, a very interesting “curtain” design, an ergonomic screen for entering a phone number, a set of “branded” clock widgets, weather and much more. In addition, the application has a large library of beautiful high-resolution wallpapers. An undoubted advantage of Yandex.Kit can also be considered that it works quite quickly even on devices with relatively weak hardware. You can download and use this launcher completely free of charge.

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. In all respects, 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 the Yandex.Shell application in Google Play and in 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.

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. The full list of applications has been 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.