Justin Case

Justin Case is a 28yr old father of four. He owns a HTC Thunderbolt, Samsung Fascinate, Motorola Droid 1 and a Droid Eris. He develops on the Android platform in his free time, and is one of the administrators of AndIRC IRC Chat, at irc.andirc.net #droideris

Jun

Exclusive Download + Video: Root-Friendly Flashable Gingerbread Update For HTC Droid Incredible 2 [Leak]

Posted by Justin Case in Gingerbread 2.3, HTC, Incredible 2 (Vivow), News

Last Updated: June 27th, 2011

Yesterday, a signed Gingerbread RUU was leaked for the HTC Incredible 2 by MobileUnderground member Football. xgunther and I over at the AndIRC Incredible 2 chat repacked it and made it root-friendly.

Right now, you have to be one of the lucky few to be set S-OFF and rooted by AlphaRevX and running ClockworkMod recovery in order to flash the pre-rooted ROM. For those who are not that lucky (yet), enjoy the pictures and videos while we all wait for AlphaRevX to release the full unlock for the Incredible 2.

Note: Please note that we recommend against flashing ...

Jun

Exclusive Leak: HTC Thunderbolt MR2 OTA Update (1.66.605.2) - Stock And Rooted Downloads

Posted by Justin Case in Mods, News, Thunderbolt (Mecha), Verizon Wireless

From Chingy and TeamAndIRC comes Maintenance Release 2 for the HTC Thunderbolt. The OTA update should be hitting stock phones on June 15th, but we're giving it to you early.

The major improvements brought about by MR2:

Fixes random reboots
Improves GPS locking
Improves signal strength
Add 3G/LTE toggle in settings
And more... (we don't have an official changelog yet, unfortunately)

Un-rooted Stock MR2 Update

First up, the full, signed RUU. (This is NOT the same as a simple OTA - it is a full "image" of a phone running the new MR2 update) This is for you developers or ...

Apr

[Instructions] How To Root The Verizon Samsung Droid Charge

Posted by Justin Case in Droid Charge / i510, Mods, News, Samsung, Tutorials, Verizon Wireless

Last Updated: May 7th, 2011

Neither z4root nor SuperOneClick is currently working on the Charge (though I'm sure someone will come up with a one-click method soon enough), but guess what - Gingerbreak sure does. Follow these instructions, and you should have root and full /system unlock on your Droid Charge in a few minutes. Credit goes to the Exploid Crew and unnamed testers.

No custom recovery, such as ClockworkMod or RA, is available yet, but it is surely going to arrive very soon.

Pros

Permanent root
Read/write access to /system
The bootloader is factory unlocked, so no additional fiddling is required
All Droid Charges

...

Apr

[Updated] Exclusive: Vulnerability In Skype For Android Is Exposing Your Name, Phone Number, Chat Logs, And A Lot More

Posted by Justin Case in Dev, News

Last Updated: April 15th, 2011

Update #1: Skype is investigating the issue, we've been told.

Update #2: Skype's official first response can be found here.

The safety of our personal information is often a concern of mine - who has my email address, my phone number, my date of birth? How can I keep my private information safe while still enjoying the internet? These concerns have prompted me to take a deeper look at Android apps more than once, and often this can yield some frightening information.

On April 11, a leaked version of Skype Video hit the web and, having a Thunderbolt, ...

Mar

[Tutorial] How To "Un-Root" The HTC ThunderBolt And Return It To Stock

Posted by Justin Case in HTC, Mods, News, Thunderbolt (Mecha), Tutorials, Verizon Wireless

One of the most popular questions about rooting the ThunderBolt is how to undo the process and return to stock, which renews your eligibility for customer support. Well, here you go:

Instructions

Please read the whole tutorial first, and pay attention to every detail. Note that your battery needs to be charged to at least 40% at the beginning of the process, and remember to check the MD5 sums of all downloaded files before diving in. As always, neither Android Police nor Team AndIRC are responsible for any damage this may cause to your phone, and, needless to say, returning ...

Mar

410

Updated (4/21/2011): [Exclusive] How To Root The HTC ThunderBolt And Unlock Its Bootloader

Posted by Justin Case in HTC, Mods, News, Thunderbolt (Mecha), Verizon Wireless

Last Updated: April 21st, 2011

HTC tried to stop us. They made signed images, a signed kernel, and a signed recovery. They locked the memory. In short, the ThunderBolt is their most locked-down phone to date.

We fixed it for you. Unlike the root method we described yesterday, following the instructions below will provide S-OFF, remove signature checks, and unlock eMMC. Enjoy!

Rooting The ThunderBolt - Version 2.5

Update: This guide was updated to include some steps into the upgrade RUU, making it faster and safer

Pros

Root with read/write access to /system
Ability to downgrade and flash any RUU (i.e. signed firmware)
S-OFF

...

Mar

[Exclusive] How To Root The HTC Thunderbolt - Instructions By Team AndIRC (V1.02 2011/03/18)

Posted by Justin Case in HTC, Mods, News, Thunderbolt (Mecha), Verizon Wireless

Last Updated: March 26th, 2011

Update: This method is outdated - please refer to this guide instead.

Jamezelle, jcase (that's me), and all of AndIRC (i.e. everyone - AndIRC is an open dev group), the same folks who rooted the pre-production Thunderbolt in February, proudly present:

A Very Dirty HTC Thunderbolt Root V1.02 2011/03/18

Pros

Root with read/write access to /system
Ability to downgrade and flash any RUU (i.e. signed firmware)

Cons

No custom recovery [yet]
No custom kernels [yet]
The root procedure currently requires flashing a slightly older version of the firmware (RUU_Mecha_VERIZON_WWE_1.05.605.0_Radio_1.07.00.0108r_NV_8K_1.38_9K_1.54_release_166255), which could potentially have more bugs. Right now, we

...

Sep

Exclusive: Samsung Fascinate Live Wallpapers Leaked, Available For Download

Posted by Justin Case in Applications, Fascinate, Mods, News, Samsung, Verizon Wireless

Today, Jamezelle and I ripped apart the leaked system dump from the yet-to-be-released Verizon Samsung Fascinate and patched together six live wallpapers that are not present on other Galaxy S devices.

Like the previous Galaxy S live wallpapers, these must be flashed from a custom recovery, which also means you need to be rooted.

Download the zip below and flash it through your recovery menu like any other flashable zip. Depending on your device, the flashing process may take a minute, so just sit back, relax, and let your phone do its thing.

Do NOT try to unpack the

...

Sep

Now We're Talking - Google's Latest Follow-up To The License Verification Fiasco Showcases 4 Methods To Make Pirates' Jobs Much Harder

Posted by Justin Case in Apps/Games, Dev, News

Update: Tim Bray responded in our comments letting us know Trevor Johns, a hands-on guy in the Android back-rooms, was the author of the post.

After we blew the faults behind Google's License Verification Library out of the water last week, Google's Tim Bray promised us some tips for protecting our applications against piracy, and in the latest post at Google's official Android blog he delivered them. Tim's article is loaded with easy to follow sample code, and advice that just makes sense. Mr. Bray covers several protection methods including:

obfuscation,
customizing the Licensing Library,
making your application

...

Aug

Android Piracy By Country

Posted by Justin Case in Apps/Games, Dev

We received an email from David Keyes at KeyesLabs today, with a detailed analysis of piracy in various countries. For those that don't know, David is the author of the battery saving app Screebl, and the open source licensing library AAL. A true pioneer in Android app copy protection.

According to David's data, the often used excuse of "Paid apps are not available in my country" is at least partly bogus. He has customers from countries such as Nigeria, Kuwait, and the Ukraine who have found ways of purchasing apps through the Android Market, without the full market ...