Xposed Framework for Android Nougat 7.0 and 7.1.x is finally out; early Christmas for Android root lovers

If you are an **Android** user and know how to root devices then it is highly likely that you are aware of Xposed Framework. Even if you have not used the Xposed framework, you must have stumbled on the name ‘Xposed’ somewhere on mobile software development community XDA. [caption id=“attachment_4123767” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Image credit: Xposed[/caption] Considering that you are aware of Xposed and have used it extensively, you must be aware of the long waiting periods to get your hands on the official framework for a new Android operating version. It is likely that some of you are still running Android Marshmallow 6.0.1 because there is no official and stable version for Xposed out there. Some of you may have jumped to Android Nougat or even Oreo growing away from the Module-assisted world. However, all of the waiting ends today as Rovo89 has finally launched the first official version for Xposed that is compatible with Android Nougat 7.0 and 7.1. It took almost a year in the making and comes months after Google launched **Android Oreo 8.0** , the next version of Android. It is likely to think that what is the point of launching this so late, especially when Xposed does not support Android Oreo 8.0 and the net result is almost the same with no support for the latest version of Android.

But keeping in mind the **market share** and the number of people using stable builds of Android Oreo, it does make sense for Rovo89 to launch the Nougat-compatible version of the framework. For the uninitiated, Xposed Framework is a Java-based software framework which allows users to change the behaviour of any app on their Android smartphone without making any changes to the APK file. This is done with the help of ‘Xposed Modules.’ Each module is made by individual developers to change a particular aspect of any given app. The module ‘hook’ in the official app makes changes to the app interface at the runtime of the app. This makes it much easier for both developers to maintain their modules and for users to ensure that they don’t have to go to any third party website in the search of ‘modded APK’ files which may pack malicious code. It’s not to say that Xposed module could not include any malicious functionality and one needs to download modules from the Xposed repository or XDA threads of well-known developers and community contributors. Most of the modules are open source and you can contribute to the development of the modules including reviewing the code to check for any mischief. [caption id=“attachment_4123773” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] Image credit: XDA[/caption] The release of Xposed for Nougat is likely to renew the focus on many of the modules that were losing their relevance with each passing week. XDA Developers posted a detailed report announcing the launch of the latest version. One of the most important things to note here is that Rovo89 pointed out that Xposed for Oreo should not take much time as he will not need to work from scratch as he had to do while building Xposed for Nougat. This comes months after an **unofficial port for Xposed** in the form of an ART submodule for AOSP 7.1.2 was released by an XDA developer ‘abforce’. This framework functioned without any need to root your device to install. It was only limited to custom ROMs which meant that normal users who didn’t play around with custom ROMs could not directly install the framework. The reason for this was that ROM developers, the developers who make custom ROM (Android operating system) had to add the submodule while making the entire operating system. This way, all the changes that were usually needed to be done on a working Android installation were already done. Almost hours after this method was posted on the XDA forums, ‘The PurifyOS Team’ took the submodule that ‘abforce’ was working on to create a zip file that could be flashed using any custom recovery. Rovo89 issued a warning stating that the unofficial port did not offer any improvement in terms of performance and it was extremely buggy and unstable.