The new builds of Paranoid Android are slowing building up an impressive list of features, and one of the best looking ones is Notification Peek. But if installing custom ROMs is a little bit too much hassle just to try it out, fear not. Zhe Lu, a Computer Science student, has kindly ported the feature over to an APK for us all to enjoy.
In case you missed it, Notification Peek closely resembles the Active Display function from the Moto X, which allows users to see and respond to new notifications without having to unlock their device. If you want to see PA’s Notification Peek in action, check out the video below.
The feature first appeared in the Beta 1 build for Paranoid Android 4.2, so you will need a device running Android 4.4.2 KitKat for the APK to install. For this reason, I haven’t been able to try it out for myself yet.
If you are running Android 4.4 and would like to try it out, start by downloading the latest APK file from GitHub onto your handset and follow these simple steps.
- Turn on installing from “unknown sources” in your handset’s security settings
- Go to your downloads folder and install the APK
- Open the app and enable both of the settings to grant the app the required permissions
- Done, just wait for a notification to come through
Just remember that this is still a bit of a work in progress. It isn’t guaranteed to work with every handset configuration and might be susceptible to the odd force close. Hopefully Zhe Lu can continue with his daily builds for a little while longer, and give this APK the love it deserves.
If you do happen to try it out, let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
