Found 467 articles
29
Sep
root_android

A few days ago, the code for the Nexus One's 2.2.1 update went AOSP (Android Open Source Project), meaning that the source code became available to developers. It was comprised mostly of bugfixes and other things that weren't major... oh, and it also patched the exploits that allowed Universal Androot to unlock your device. We had a short conversation about it on Twitter with Cyanogen (the conversation starts at the bottom and goes up):

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As if breaking Universal Androot wasn't enough, apparently the new update also prevents existing installations of Swype and some other aftermarket keyboards from working. An easy solution exists though - just uninstall your existing keyboard and reinstall it.

27
Sep
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This is what happens when you try to one-up the open-source community. Just when we were beginning to think HTC Sense might have come up trumps with a real killer feature in their Fast Boot, CyanogenMod creator Steve Kondik's right there with a cheeky "Yeah, CM6 "does" too :)". Tweeting that the feature will be committed to the CyanogenMod source soon (possibly with the arrival of version 6.1), Cy noted that the Nexus One would likely last in this hibernation state for about a week. Now, let's see what it looks like in action:

Of course, as we have discussed before, this is not a real, clean reboot, but we can still see plenty of potential use cases - switching off in areas of areas of no coverage, periodic check-ins on hikes, and other scenarios where something quite close to instant-on would be.

24
Sep
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Here’s something to get your teeth into. Over at LaptopMag, a whole host of Androids have been put through their paces in a grueling battery life endurance test. The goal was to keep the phones’ screens on while doing a moderate amount of processing, namely cyclically browsing a collection of web pages. Despite the supposed power savings afforded by AMOLED screens, the phones employing that screen technology fell quite a ways behind in comparison to the traditional LCD phones.

Why is that? AMOLED is supposed to only use up power on non-black pixels, right? Well, as LaptopMag points out, the majority of webpages are actually dark text on a light background, a scenario in which AMOLED actually uses more power than an equivalent backlit LCD.

24
Sep
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Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Modder's Column, formerly known as Modder’s Monday, is a column dedicated to rooting, hacking, and other forms of modifying Android and is written by Jaroslav Stekl, a man who spends his days coding, hacking, hiking, and of course, writing for Android Police.

As I mentioned in the last edition of Modder's Column, one of my favorite things about Android is how customizable it can be, even for novice users who would rather not spend all day hacking their phone.

Unfortunately, one thing Android does not allow you to do right out of the box is install custom ROMs, which allow you to further customize your device by adding features, removing useless apps, and possibly even speeding it up or improving battery life.

20
Sep
cm6_evo

Good news for what's likely to be a whole crapton of users: CyanogenMod, Android's most popular ROM, will be coming to a handful of new devices with CM6.1. Namely:

There will also be support for a few new devices- Acer Liquid, HTC Wildfire and Samsung Vibrant. My eye is also on the new HTC phones that are about to get released like the G2.

cyanogen-mod

It looks like their doors are still open to new devs and currently unsupported devices, as well - to quote Cyanogen once more:

A lot of people ask me about adding support for their phone, but we can only support phones that we actually own.

20
Sep
CM6

It turns out that some Nexus One owners running CyanogenMod 6 (CM6) have been experiencing issues when trying to update a handful of system apps. As such, XDA-Devs forum member unforgiven512 has thrown the updates into a tidy package. The updated apps are:

  • Amazon MP3
  • Google Maps
  • Google Search
  • Google Voice
  • ROM Manager
  • Street View
  • Superuser
  • TalkBack
  • Twitter
  • Voice Search
  • Not only does this fix the app updating bug, but it moves the app info from the "data" partition to the "system" partition. There are two benefits to doing so:

    2. Updates to system apps are stored on the "data" partition.

    19
    Sep
    http://www.ryancartwright.com/cm.png
    Last Updated: August 1st, 2012

    CyanogenMod 6 is one of the most popular Android custom ROMs, and for a good reason - besides supporting a myriad of devices, it is built from AOSP (Android Open Source Project), which means no extra garbage that normally comes installed by carriers and customizations/improvements for the people, by the people (the CM contributor community is huge).

    Sprint has abandoned our beloved HTC Hero (it was my first Android device a bit under a year ago now and holds a special place in my heart) but the Android community hasn't. The Hero lives on - in fact it has been enjoying Android 2.2 Froyo for a while now in alpha/beta/RC form, not thanks to Sprint yet again.

    18
    Sep
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    This article mentions flashing of custom ROMs. If you’re unfamiliar with this term, hit up our primer here:

    CyanogenMod 6, a very popular custom Froyo ROM for a whole slew of Android phones, has given thousands of Android users something device manufacturers tried to take away - absolute freedom in customizing your Android experience. One glaring omission from the bunch is the Motorola Milestone, which Motorola decided to lock down way harder than its US counterpart, the original Droid.

    All of this changed the other day with the announcement of Milestone support for CyanogenMod 6.1.

    09
    Sep
    image
    Last Updated: September 15th, 2010

    One of the most common complaints about the recent builds of CyanogenMod 6 has been that Nexus One owners’ GPS would suddenly take ages to get a fix or wouldn't get a fix at all. The most frequent solution posted has been to change your Mobile Network APN type to “default,supl” to enable A-GPS through your cellular network. However, for some people this still didn’t solve the problem, including myself.

    Well, today on the CM forums, user kursed posted a fix that may be the end of many frustrated N1-ers’ woes. The fix involves resetting your location data using GPS Status with your SIM card removed, getting a fix, and then restarting your phone with the SIM inserted and getting a fix again.

    09
    Sep
    P9060174_1
    Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

     P9060178_1 P9060204

    Getting my hands on the Charm was no mean feat. Motorola didn’t seem keen to send out review units to anyone in a hurry, so I took it upon myself to go buy one, under the pretext of it being a gift for my girlfriend (she has a Nokia 1661 for chrissakes).

    That in itself was quite a quest, as not a single store in the state of Maine seemed to have one in stock. Several broken promises later, and I was on the bus to Boston, having been assured that there were “less than 10” units in stock in T-Mobile’s downtown store.