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Upcoming Chromebooks will use a dark recovery screen to save your retinas
Fingers crossed for a dark themed startup screen next
Let's face it: the retina-burning startup animation on Chrome OS is incredibly annoying. Thanks to Chromebooks ramping up the brightness during boot, I find myself closing the lid to shield my eyes, especially at night. With Google working hard to bring a system-wide dark theme in the OS and its apps, many users hoped that the developers would also apply a dark background to the boot screen. Unfortunately, there's no evidence that Google is currently working on a dark startup animation, but it does look like the recovery mode UI on Chromebooks will soon get the dark mode treatment.
Around a week ago, BLU issued a broken software update for its Life One X2 phone. In at least some cases, users who applied the update were locked out of their phones. Late this afternoon, BLU's official Twitter account—which, much to the chagrin of affected users, was silent on the subject for almost a week—issued a statement that the problem had been fixed via a new update.
If you've been modding your Android devices for any amount of time, you're probably familiar with Chainfire, developer of the extremely popular SuperSU root permissions manager and various other mods and apps. His latest work attempts to solve an annoyance that has bothered Android power users for years, but has become particularly annoying since the introduction of Android 5.0. Chainfire's new experimental method for rooting Android phones, tablets, and other gadgets does so without modifying any of the files on the /system portion of the device's storage, instead using a modified boot image.
You knew this was coming sooner or later. Android Auto has been viewed as a mostly closed system, if not by nature of the software itself (which is technically open source) then by the fact that it's an extension of Android running on a big chunk of metal installed in your car. But some intrepid developers over on enthusiast forum AVIC411 have discovered a way to boot software directly from the SD card slot on Pioneer's NEX series of aftermarket Android Auto head units. That paves the way for custom ROMs in your car, or at least your car's entertainment system.
Technically the Developer Preview builds of Android L that Google issued are meant only for, well, developers. But of course a ton of regular users have downloaded them to try out Lollipop, and those users tend to be the same ones that like to use root apps. The updated Android 5.0 preview builds for the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 2013 issued yesterday broke the existing root functions, so SuperSU developer Chainfire issued a quick fix.
A few days ago, it was confirmed that Google had started asking manufacturers to brand boot animations with a specific "Powered by Android" lockup as part of Google's Mobile Services license. Samsung's Galaxy S5 and HTC's new One M8 both carry the branding, and today Motorola's Moto X and Moto G have joined the party, but Motorola has something else in store as well - a new boot animation just in time for April Fools Day. The animation features a UFO, bigfoot, and the Loch Ness Monster, all exposed by Motorola's spotlight. Check out the full sequence below.
Last night, 73v1n, the author of the last few CyanogenMod boot animations, posted an updated and completely revamped version designed for CyanogenMod 10. It's very likely going to become the official animation of the ROM in the future, but if you want some of this goodness on your device stat (especially if you're running CM 7 or 9, as the version number doesn't appear in the newest animation), you don't have to wait for CM10 at all - 73v1n has now uploaded it for everyone to enjoy.
73v1n (a.k.a. @Xevin, a.k.a. Cameron Behzadpour), the creator of official CyanogenMod boot animations, dropped the version for CM10 a couple of minutes ago. Jelly Bean-colored, clean, and simple, yet, in my opinion, highly attractive, the animation hits the nail on the head. There no Cid, no controversy surrounding him, no outdated skater dude - just pure awesomeness. I won't spoil the fun - just watch.
[Video] CM9 Finds Itself On The Nexus Q – CyanogenMod: "This Should Serve As An Indication Of Potential"
In a feat that, according to the CyanogenMod team, serves "as an indication of potential," Jason Parker (aka kornyone) has managed to boot
In a feat that, according to the CyanogenMod team, serves "as an indication of potential," Jason Parker (aka kornyone) has managed to boot CyanogenMod 9 on the Nexus Q.
The boot animation from CyanogenMod 7 still ranks somewhere towards the top of my personal list, but this new one, created by the same designer Cameron Behzadpour (73v1n) using Adobe After Effects, is definitely a step-up.
I'm surprised this didn't come sooner, but better late than never, right? The full Galaxy Nexus (presumably GSM) system dump, together with boot and recovery images were leaked earlier today by none other than Paul O'Brien, the founder of MoDaCo, a talented developer, and creator of many custom ROMs. If you remember, previously only the apps as well as certain bits and pieces of Ice Cream Sandwich were made available for download.
Last night, I sent out a message from our social accounts praising the Epic 4G Touch's boot times. They amazed me as soon as I turned this Galaxy S II Sprint variant for the first time last Friday and haven't ceased to amaze me ever since. I have loaded up all the same apps and then some compared to any of my other phones, and still - the Epic 4G Touch blazes by the competition like no other device I've seen.
The elusive Droid Bionic is finally within weeks of release (it should drop September 8th for $299.99), but if you want to pretend you already have one for a moment or if your current boot animation is not a gorgeous fiery bionic eye (is such a thing even possible?), then download this official Droid Bionic boot animation and sound. It won't grow you an extra arm, but it will make you the coolest chap in town (not really).
All of Motorola's recent devices (save for the XOOM) have featured bootloaders that are locked down like Fort Knox, and despite publicly stating that they would be reversing that policy, the company has yet to take any action. Although they stated they wouldn't begin making bootloaders unlockable until late 2011, many people held out hope for the newly-released Droid 3. An apparently lost hope, unfortunately, as a Motorola Support forum admin has confirmed that the hot new Droid is as locked as its brethren.
Notch another victory for the Android community: shortly after Motorola publicly stated they would be moving towards unlockable bootloaders - even retroactively where possible - it appears that the Gingerbread update for the Atrix does just that. Brief Mobile laid hands on a leaked early build of the Android 2.3.3 update, and to their delight, found that unlocking the bootloader was as simple as using a simple console command.
A few weeks ago, the Android community notched another victory: HTC formally announced it would no longer be locking its bootloaders, though they hadn't really worked out all the details yet. Add another device to the "it won't be locked, we just don't know how or when" list: the HTC Sensation.
Welcome back to another lovely edition of our Boot Animation Roundup! We've been scouring the net for the past couple of weeks looking for the coolest boot animations that we could find, and here's what we came up with: a hungry Android, the guts of a Gingerbread man, a new take on a classic, some TRON-esque lovin', and a little somethin' somethin' for all the gamers out there.
When we leaked the official ROM and radio image for the HTC Thunderbolt's Gingerbread update last week, users were understandably excited. An official Sense, Gingerbread ROM was probably highest on the list of demands for Thunderbolt users (aside from better battery life, perhaps).
I know, I know... it's only been a week since the last roundup, but when you just happen to stumble upon a gaggle of awesome animations all at one time, what else can you do? If you were thinking "post 'em up for everyone to enjoy," then you win! What do you win, you ask? Why, some sick new boot animations, of course! How sweet is that?
Welcome to the third iteration of our super-awesome bootscreen animation roundup. It's been about six weeks since our last one, so it's definitely about time for another go. I'm sure at this point no introduction is needed, so let's get right into the screens.