Welcome back to another Ingress teardown. For those new to Teardowns, we simply compare the previous release (1.64.0) to the current one (1.65.0) and note the differences. You would be surprised at the amount of changes that go un-announced or simply hide in the APK for an upcoming release. With that out-of-the-way. Lets dig into 1.65.0.
Changes on Changes
Usually a new version has around 300-1200 files changed. This is because Proguard (the obfuscator) used for Ingress shifts the naming of variables among the source files which causes quite a lot of false alarms in the diff reports. As versions have come out, my tools have become “smarter” at handling this.
1.65.0 changed all of that. We are looking at a newer iteration of obfuscation and a bit more effort into hiding whats in the APK. Directories shifted locations and even Unicode variables were added to just relocate data for the purpose of obfuscation. This can be seen overall via the diff report of 1.64.0 compared to 1.65.0.
7109 files changed, 236,284 insertions(+), 202,269 deletions(-)
This is a huge diff report. On top of a new obfuscator version, new versions of the internal Google Play Services, JSON Parser and libGDX have been included. This seemed like a version to just update all the dependencies on.
New Item: EXTRA_SHIELD
There are a few files I watch when looking for new items. This time I was quite surprised when I saw a new item named “EXTRA_SHIELD”. Usually when items are in development (like Capsules), their entry in this file includes a human readable name and a description. (Like EMITTER_A = Resonator). In the case of EXTRA_SHIELD, the value for the human readable string was null along with a null description. This is probably because Niantic is getting tired of teardowns revealing information before they can, so they keep the descriptions blank till such item is ready to launch. An image was included for this mod, but the image is completely blank.
There were new models and sounds for this item. The sound can be played below and the model can be seen in the video below the sound.
The sound appears to say “AXA Shield”. Thanks to Morgan Jones, we have a video of the item which confirms our guesses.
https://youtu.be/TTHytFt9FYA
Read on for what we think this item is doing.
Android Wear?
An application requires an update to the Android Wear app.
Update Android Wear
This app won't run unless you update the Android Wear app.
It is quite possible these strings are added in the upgrade to Android SDK Build Tools 19. I’m not sure, however the strings are in the APK regardless. So I thought I would mention it, because it might actually be an extension for Ingress to Android Wearables.
Ads?
Allow Ad to store image in Picture gallery?
Allow Ad to create a calendar event?
Once again, these strings seem strange because there is no picture gallery or calendar in Ingress. Yet, the strings are there. So just reporting.
Google Wallet / In App Purchases ?
There were some unique references in the colors to
res/color/wallet_[primary/secondary].xml
Along with the following layouts
Theme.IAPTheme
WalletFragmentDefaultStyle
and the string
Buy with Google
With a new item, possible ads, and wallet. It makes me wonder if this new item potentially plays into our wallet. I’m really reaching there, but all these features were added in this version so they could possibly be connected. Then again, this version was completely reorganized code wise. Its quite possible the code base is shared among other mobile apps (Endgame) and the changes don’t directly affect Ingress.
Nitty Gritty Knobs
- [new] enableIOSGridPhotoViewer
- [deprecated] enableIOSRecruit
- [deprecated] enableIOSPortalDiscovery
- Built November 14, Obtained November 17
Conclusion
A new cycle of development has started for Ingress. Code has been reorganized, dependencies updated and a new item/change is coming. Development seemed to have stalled with nothing but bug fixes since the release of missions. It’s safe to say active feature development has started from our point of view.