Mods - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Dec

CyanogenMod Team At It Again - Nightlies Arrive For Several Xperia Devices

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Dev, Mods, News, Xperia Active (Satsuma), Xperia Pro (Iyokan)

Just after expanding Nightly support to Samsung's Epic 4G and a slew of LG handsets, the CyanogenMod team has brought nightlies to a handful of Xperia devices, including Coconut (the Xperia Live with Walkman), Iyokan (the Xperia Pro), and Satsuma (the Xperia Active).

In a Google+ post earlier today, CyanogenMod announced that CM7 support had arrived for multiple new devices, throwing out a special hint to Xperia users.

For those not familiar, a "nightly" is a brand new released, built on a daily (or nightly) basis with a day's worth of new code. ...

Dec

103

[Exclusive] How To Easily Root The Amazon Kindle, Regardless Of Its Software Version

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Amazon, Kindle Fire, Mods, News

Last Updated: December 31st, 2011

Update: Justin has repackaged the Kindle Fire root app apk, removing encryption and open sourcing the file.

Update: BurritoRoot may not work on version 6.0 firmware. If you're having trouble, update your firmware and try again.

On the historic date of December 20th, 2011, Amazon pushed out software version 6.2.1 to its Kindle Fire. The update was fairly minor -- its main additions had to do with improved scrolling and WiFi passwords -- but it brought about one devastating change: it broke all previous methods of root.

Seeing the issue, our own Justin Case got right to ...

Apr

[HTC EVO 4G] Undervolt Your AOSP Kernel To Improve Battery Life

Posted by Cameron Summerson in EVO 4G (Supersonic), Mods, News

This is for rooted users only.

We all want to squeeze every last little bit of juice out of our devices that we can, and if you happen to have a rooted HTC EVO 4G running an AOSP kernel (such as the one that ships with CyanogenMod), then XDA member -viperboy- just made your life a little bit better. Thanks to him, there is now an easy to way to undervolt your kernel, by way of four flashable .zip files.

Generally speaking, AOSP kernels are volted to support several different devices, so it stands to reason that some devices could ...

Apr

Increase Your SD Card Read Speeds By 100-200% With A Simple Tweak [Hands-On, Benchmarks]

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Mods, News, Tips, Tutorials

Poor SD Card performance can definitely have a negative effect on overall experience with your device, especially when considering apps that rely on speedy SD Card access, like the Gallery, or features, like Apps2SD.

XDA forum member brainmaster has been hard at work on tweaking some settings in Android to improve the situation in this very department. By adjusting a certain SD card cache value, he, along with many others on xda who tried this out, were able to significantly improve read speeds, usually at least doubling or tripling them, and in certain cases going even higher.

I thought it ...

Mar

HTC ThunderBolt Gets Overclocked To A Mind-Blowing 1.8GHz, Achieves Stunning Quadrant Scores

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in HTC, Mods, News, Thunderbolt (Mecha), Verizon Wireless

In an awe-inspiring display of the ThunderBolt's raw horsepower, Derek Rodriguez (@drod2169) has thrown together a kernel which enables CPU speeds of up to 1.8GHz - a figure to which even the mighty Motorola XOOM can't lay claim. What's more, when @TheRealBeesley ran the kernel through Quadrant, he was met with (nearly) unprecedented results - have a look:

The kernel has not yet been released, which is simultaneously fortunate and tragic for ThunderBolt owners - on one hand, 1.8GHz is an undeniably crave-worthy speed; on the other, well, you know you don't want to leave your handset ...

Mar

It Wasn't Just Verizon - The HTC Incredible S' Bootloader And Recovery Are Signed As Well

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in HTC, Incredible S (Vivo), Mods, News

Conspiracy theorists would have you believe that the ThunderBolt's signed (and locked) bootloader was all Verizon's doing, but it appears that isn't quite the case - the Incredible S, one of HTC's unlocked GSM phones, is shipping with a similar failsafe system. That basically means no custom ROMs for you (at least until a viable workaround is discovered).

Proof? Look no further than the contents of this Incredible S RUU:

From what our friends at AndIRC can tell (note that they don't have a device in hand), the Incredible S includes a signature check much like the one on the ...

Jan

Honeycomb Logos Galore - Which One Do You Like The Most? [Poll]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, Off-Topic

Buried deep in the depths of the Honeycomb SDK that was released yesterday, this Tron-inspired Honeycomb logo, which, as we later found out, was actually part of the Honeycomb Easter egg. Whether this logo is THE Honeycomb logo or not remains to be proven, but it is definitely official, as it came straight from the SDK. Judging by my reddit submission, many of you liked it quite a bit but had ideas of your own of how it could be modified to be more in tune with the Android theme. Here are some of the mods.

Original

...

Dec

Modder’s Column: How To Remap Your Android Phone’s Hardware Buttons Without Touching A Single Line Of Code

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Editorials, Mods

So maybe you've recently upgraded your Android phone and haven't gotten used to the new device's button alignment yet... or maybe you never use that pesky Search key and want to turn it into the camera key your EVO 4G has always wanted... or maybe you just enjoy tinkering with your phone. If you're in one of those situations, what you may be lusting after is a way to remap your phone's hardware buttons (i.e. making the Search key take on the duties of the Home key, or vise versa).

Up until now, there haven't been any user-friendly methods of ...

Sep

Front-Facing Camera Hacked Into T-Mobile Vibrant

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Galaxy S, News, Samsung, Vibrant

All of Samsung's Galaxy S family have the same 4.0" Super-AMOLED screen, share a common iPhone-esque UI, and ... well, that's about it. The disparity between features in the SGS line has certainly caused some frustration with users; two have a flash, one has a keyboard and 4G, one has Bing (not really a feature worth crowing about), and two have front-facing cameras. Those two are the appropriately-named Epic 4G and the mothership, the Galaxy S i9000, which is mainly sold in Europe and Korea.

Considering the striking similarity in the appearance of the i9000 and the Vibrant, ...

Aug

Modder's Monday: Hacking Without Hacking - A Guide to Customizing Your Android Device Without Voiding Your Warranty

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in App Reviews, Applications, Editorials, Mods, Reviews, Tips

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Modder’s Monday is a weekly column about rooting, hacking, and other forms of modifying Android written by Jaroslav Stekl, a man who spends his days coding, hacking, hiking, and of course, writing for Android Police.

One of the many things that I love about Android, especially after spending several years with an iPhone, is how customizable it is - right out of the box. You can change your keyboard, tweak the status bar to make it work any way you like, change apps’ icons, and even install home replacements that alter how your homescreen works. The best part about all ...

Aug

HTC Wildfire Gets Access To Root-Only Apps With Soft Root

Posted by Nate Kimmey in HTC, Mods, News, Wildfire (Buzz)

It may have taken a little longer than other HTC phones, but the Wildfire has finally been rooted… in a way. This method doesn’t unlock NAND on the phone (which means you can't remove stock apps or install custom ROMs), but it does allow running applications that require root (here are 8 great root-only applications if you need inspiration).

XDA user MartinEve, who accomplished the soft root, is already in talks with the developers of unrEVOked to make a more permanent solution, but until then, you can follow the instructions below to root your Wildfire (to find the most up-to-date ...

Jul

Unrevoked 3 Finally Brings Easy 1-Click Root, Recovery, Nandroid Backups, And Custom ROMs To HTC Droid Incredible. [Explanation + Instructions]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Aria (Liberty), Desire (Bravo/BravoC), Droid Eris, Droid Incredible, EVO 4G (Supersonic), Mods, News

Unrevoked, a tool that brought the ability to run applications that require root and originally developed for the HTC EVO 4G and HTC Hero, was just updated to version 3.

Unrevoked 3

With this new version 3, Unrevoked finally brings a 1-click root solution to the HTC Droid Incredible that also allows you to flash a custom ClockworkMod recovery, custom ROMs, and take backups of your phone with Nandroid Backup.

Compared to version 2, you no longer need a previously rooted phone - Unrevoked 3 roots for you.

The only thing that Unrevoked doesn't do is unlock NAND ...

Jul

Verizon’s Motorola Droid X Uses Same Bootloader Encryption As The Yet-To-Be-Defeated Milestone. Translation: Good Luck Unlocking

Posted by David Ruddock in Droid X (Shadow), Motorola, News

According to two separate sources on the XDA forums, the Droid X is loaded with the now-infamous locked bootloader present in the Milestone. If you’re unfamiliar, this site explains the current methods being deployed to defeat the Milestone, but none have managed to succeed without killing the phone functionality. Motorola locks the bootloader using a proprietary encrypted private key scheme, and without access to Motorola’s encryption method, the hope for unlocking lies in exploits. Currently, an exploit known as the “kexec” method ranks highest in terms of hopes of success.

What does this mean for Droid X users? Custom ...

May

Froyo Ported To The EVO 4G!

Posted by Chris Dehghanpoor in Carriers, Devices By Manufacturer, EVO 4G (Supersonic), News, Sprint, Videos

This article mentions rooting and the flashing of non-stock roms. If you’re unfamiliar with either term, hit up our primers here and here for additional information

I’m not sure what Google was expecting, but when you give a phone out to a room of hackers, chances are the phones going to be hacked. First, we saw the EVO get rooted shortly after I/O and now it seems Froyo has been ported over as well. All this before the phone’s even hit the store shelves.

The details haven’t been publicly released yet as hacker ‘toastcfh’ over at the XDA-Developers ...