custom

Feb

[Weekend Poll] Are You Using A Custom Launcher?

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Polls

This is the latest in our Weekend Poll series. For last week's, see Do You Use Live Wallpapers?

We've said it many times before, and I'll say it again: one of the best things about Android is how customizable the entire experience is. One of the easiest and most comprehensive ways to customize your device - aside from rooting and ROMing, that is - is to use a custom launcher such as ADWLauncher EX, GO Launcher EX, and Launcher Pro. Even stock, these apps can revamp your device's appearance and basic behavior, and coupled with the bevy ...

Jan

Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet Finally Rooted - Here's How To Do It, And Install ClockworkMod Recovery

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Lenovo, Mods, News, ThinkPad Tablet

Owners of the Lenovo Thinkpad tablet have long been waiting for a way to root their devices... in fact, the situation is so dire that there is a $785 bounty for root. Or was, anyway: Dan Rosenberg has figured out a way to root the device, and Justin Case and utkanos have managed to get ClockworkMod Recovery (CWM) up and running without a hitch. Luckily, both rooting and installing CWM are quite simple (though you do need an SD card to install CWM).

This article deals with a couple of advanced topics. If you’re unfamiliar with some of the terms,

...

Jan

CyanogenMod 9 Music App Officially Released For Download, Coming To Market Soon

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, Mods, News

All-around awesome guy Andrew Neal has released the result of his project in recent months: a new music app that will be coming soon to CyanogenMod 9. The good news is that you can download it now, before it's merged, and install it on your device. The (pretty major) bad news: it's only available for phones running Ice Cream Sandwich. So unless you've got a Galaxy Nexus, ICS-running Nexus S, or any phone rocking CM9, you're pretty much S.O.L. on this beauty.

What's so great about the new music app? In a nutshell: custom themes (and even the default ...

Jan

[Monthly Home Screen Challenge, January 2012] Post Your Android Home Screen, Win An Android Police Shirt

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Home Screen Challenge, Mods

Creating an aesthetically pleasing home screen for your phone or tablet has become an art in itself, and an entire ecosystem packed with widgets, themes, wallpapers, launchers, and custom ROMs has built up to support it. Sometimes, it can be tough to find a winning combination of elements to create a beautiful and enduring home screen that provides both form and function.

For this reason, we have decided to open up a monthly call for gorgeous, well-decorated home screens of all shapes and sizes. Each month we will select the very best home screen configurations and completely break them down ...

Nov

206

Editorial: Android Custom ROM Developers, I Think We Need To Have A Talk

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Editorials, Mods

Dear Android Custom ROM developers: I love most of you. Really. You're part of what makes Android so awesome, because you're so enthusiastic about it, and about making it better. Because of you, we have awesome things like CyanogenMod.

I want to give you some numbers. Let's just look at some popular Android devices:

T-Mobile Galaxy S II: 9
AT&T Galaxy S II: 8
HTC ThunderBolt: 23
DROID BIONIC: 7
Epic 4G Touch: 10

What do these figures represent? The number of different custom ROMs found on the first page of the XDA forums for the above devices. The ThunderBolt's ...

Nov

[Monthly Home Screen Challenge, November 2011] Post Your Android Home Screen, Win An Android Police Shirt

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Home Screen Challenge, Mods

Last Updated: January 3rd, 2012

For this reason, we have decided to open up a call for gorgeous, well-decorated home screens of all shapes and sizes. Each month we will select the very best home screen configurations and completely break them down into ...

Oct

[Coming Soon] ROU Launcher Looks To Bring A Whole New Experience To Android

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

One thing that makes Android so versatile is all of the available apps that allow for extreme customization of nearly any device. Out of those apps, one of the easiest ways to customize the look and feel of your device is with a custom launcher. We've seen interesting takes on the launcher before, but Team ROU is looking to bring a whole new kind of interface to Android -- and it looks damn good. Check it:

Unfortunately, ROU Launcher is still in its pre-alpha stages, so it's still a ways off from public availability. With that said, though, Team ...

Oct

Stable Release Of CyanogenMod 7.1 With Support For Android 2.3.7 On 68 Devices Is Finally Out; CyanogenMod 9 Is Up Next

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Gingerbread 2.3, Mods, News, Videos

The road to CyanogenMod 7.1, undoubtedly the largest Android custom ROM, now covering a mind-boggling number of devices (68), has been long and rough. We've been hearing rumblings that the final release was almost here for a number of days (just watch the video of the CM sessions from the Big Android BBQ below), but a couple of hours ago it really did seep through and end up at CM download mirrors across the web.

What's New

CM 7.1 adds support for the following (note that not all of these have stable releases out):

HTC Desire S, Incredible S,

...

Sep

[Editorial] Let Android Be Android: One Year Later

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Android OS, Editorials

Introduction

It's now been exactly a year (minus one day) since I published my very first editorial for Android Police, Let Android Be Android. A lot has changed since - dual-core CPUs are now table stakes for a high-end smartphone; Android has evolved from an exclusively mobile OS to a software powerhouse for phones and tablets alike; and we've been given several seminars on stretching the truth about the speed of a wireless network (yep, that would be the "4G" drama).

Sadly, one thing has remained almost entirely stagnant: the diminutive amount of vanilla Android devices on the market. ...

Aug

[Weekend Poll] What Type Of Custom ROM Are You Running?

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Off-Topic, Polls

Last Updated: September 3rd, 2011

I'm curious to see what percentage of our readers who run custom ROMs are using AOSP (Android Open Source Project - something pretty close to vanilla Android, such as CyanogenMod), and what percentage are using something based on stock device ROMs. More specifically, I want to find out if people on certain manufacturers are more likely to go AOSP than others - in other words, is Blur/NinjaBlur pushing more people to AOSP than TouchWiz, or is there no difference?

^{Left to right: AOSP (ex. CM7), Manufacturer's Stock (ex. HTC Sense), MIUI}

So here's the deal: below you'll see ...

Jul

[Update: Nightlies Are A Go!] Samsung Fascinate Officially Joins CyanogenMod

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Fascinate, Mods, News, Samsung, Verizon Wireless

Verizon Samsung Fascinate has finally joined the official ranks of the ever-growing CyanogenMod custom ROM empire, following its brothers Captivate, Vibrant, Nexus S 4G, the original Galaxy S, and Nexus S.

Update 7/28/11: After some delays, nightly builds are finally up! Proceed here to download.

This article deals with a couple of advanced topics. If you’re unfamiliar with some of the terms, hit up our primers here:

Rooting Explained + Top 5 Benefits Of Rooting
Top Android Apps Every Rooted User Should Know About: Part 1 (Apps 1-8), Part 2 (Apps 9-16), Part 3 (Apps

...

Jun

[Weekend Poll] Manufacturer UIs: Love 'Em Or Hate 'Em?

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Devices By Manufacturer, Polls

Last Updated: September 3rd, 2011

This is the latest in our Weekend Poll series. For last week's, see Google Doesn't Allow Rooted Devices To Use Android Movies - What Are Your Thoughts?

Manufacturer user interfaces (UIs) can be a bit of a hot-button topic in the Android world. Some prefer vanilla Android, à la CyanogenMod. Others have no issue with them whatsoever, and even actively seek to restore some of the functionality. (Others still prefer to roll their own, or like the ability to switch at will... but I digress.) Further, your feelings on manufacturer UIs may depend on which manufacturer and ...

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 ...

Jun

[Video] A Closer Look At Samsung's Upcoming TouchWiz UX/4 Tablet Interface - It's Not As Bad As You Might Think

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Galaxy Tab 10.1, News, Samsung, Tablets, Videos

While we've had a chance to put Samsung's upcoming flagship Tab 10.1 tablet through 3 weeks of rigorous testing, there was one thing left that we could not touch - the custom TouchWiz UX tablet interface, also known as TouchWiz 4.0. If you remember, Samsung announced last week that the first tablet units would be running pure Honeycomb, just like our review unit, with the TouchWiz upgrade arriving over-the-air sometime after.

This didn't stop Phone Arena from acquiring some Tab 8.9 hardware with TouchWiz UX already pre-installed and digging through it, looking for goodies Samsung packaged with their soon-to-come ...

May

129

13 Ways CyanogenMod 7 Makes My Android Phone Feel Future-Proof [Deep Review]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in EVO 4G (Supersonic), Mods, News, Other Reviews, Phone Reviews, Reviews, Tips

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

After spending almost a year with my EVO 4G in what was essentially rooted stock condition (Fresh ROM, based on stock Sense, minus bloatware), I finally got frustrated to the point that I was ready to make the jump to CyanogenMod and see just how much better the fully unlocked stock Android experience with CM improvements is.

The Sense ROM offered by Fresh, even in its supposedly optimized form, was starting to get quite slow and would sometimes start choking for no reasons whatsoever. Whenever I was installing apps, I could forget about getting any useful response out of the ...