Magisk v13.0 Will Be Ready For Android O, with Introduction of Unified Binary

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XDA Recognized Developer and Contributor, topjohnwu, is the author of one of the most highly-regarded XDA applications — Magisk. The project allows you to manage root on your device and automatically hide it for certain apps. Magisk is one of the must-have Android apps if, for example, you are planning to use Pokémon Go or Android Pay. It might also be a solution for Netflix users.

The upcoming version of Magisk is set to bring many changes. As for now, the project will rely on pre-compiled binaries that replaced complicated scripts. The transition to binaries took place in the most recent version, v12.0. Topjohnwu details that these binaries (magiskhide, magiskpolicy, resetprop etc.) are scattered and communicate with themselves poorly. Magisk’s author spent a lot of his precious time trying to combine everything as a single program (similar to busybox), and managed to create such binary (now finishing the debugging process). In short, everything should work much smoother now.

Starting on v13.0, Magisk will not feature busybox. Initially, it was added into Magisk due to a lack of proper commandline tools in the native Android environment. Unfortunately, some of the custom ROMs have it built-in already and this caused issues. However, the developer managed to handle everything by natively calling system calls or by implementing the functions directly into the binary.

Finally, Magisk will also be compatible with Android O. The newest version of the most popular mobile operating system will bring many security changes, and these kind of alterations often break popular modifications and apps every year. Nevertheless, Magisk works properly with Android O DP1. There is no release date of Magisk v13.0, but topjohnwu wants to release a fully tested and stable version. Be patient, and don’t ask for ETAs!