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.

23
Sep
freshhh-square

Last night we posted about Flipzmod3's caffeine-fueled rampage on the new OTA update for the HTC EVO. The OTA got rooted really-really fast, and now we have a fully-working, stable ROM based on it.

screen3

Last night, flipz, the author of Fresh ROM, sent out a test version of Fresh ROM 3.3.0 to all the donors/testers, and we did our job well. We nitpicked every tiny little bug, and the result is that tiny little .1 at the end of the public release flipz announced this morning, with fixes for all known bugs. Here's the changelog so you know what to expect going from Fresh 3.2 to 3.3.0.1:

Changes from Fresh Evo 3.2.0.0 to 3.3.0.1:

  • Based on a new Sprint OTA (3.29.651.5)
  • New kernel by HTC (ge2fb08e)
    • Modified slightly to allow apps2sd and remount to work
    • Has fps unlocked by default, straight from HTC’s source!

14
Sep
2680757677_7ecc6bda46

There is talk of rooting and ROMs throughout this article. If you aren't familiar with the process or its pros and cons, you can check out our primers here:

Well, SDX didn't waste any time rooting the Epic 4g, so it should be no surprise that they have now gotten a custom recovery running on it. Apparently it wasn't easy but, after much trial and error, the SDX devs finally arrived at this beautiful, beautiful screen:

Picture 21

They were even so kind as to create a one-click, dummy proof method, the hardest part of which is the installation of the Android SDK.

21
Aug
Capture

It seems a few community developers (@barakinflorida) have been inching towards releasing a functional, bone stock version of Android 2.1 for the Samsung Galaxy S (That is, without Samsung's TouchWiz interface). Their efforts are paying off, as this video shows.

The only big issues remaining lie in getting the camera/camcorder to actually, well, work. A relatively minor inconvenience, and a problem many developers have struggled with when developing full-ROM releases for phones with UI overlays.

Android 2.1 is starting to seem a little dated to be utilizing for development of ROMs - maybe a stock FroYo update will follow?  But now that members of the CyanogenMod team are working on a CM6 build for the Galaxy S, it's hard to say if there will be much demand for a stock Froyo.

15
Aug
cyan

Get ready for another scoop of blue Froyo: CyanogenMod 6 has just been updated to RC3 for the Nexus One, Droid, Droid Incredible, Dream (G1) and Sapphire (myTouch 3G), RC2 for the EVO, and was just released as RC1 for the myTouch 3G Slide and Hero CDMA.

Update #1: added RC3 for Droid Incredible (thanks monkey droid)

Update #2: added RC3 for Droid (thanks Justin), RC1 for Hero CDMA (thanks Kenshiro2112)

Nexus One

Download Links

INSTRUCTIONS:
- First time flashing CM 6 to your Nexus (or coming from another ROM)?

13
Aug
hiu

We don't have a whole lot of info on this, but apparently Clockwork Recovery (a custom recovery image) has been loaded onto the DROID X. This could imply custom ROMs based specifically on Motorola's ROM may be finding their way to the DROID X. Also, this means if your phone "softbricks" (ie, bootloader not corrupted), you can makes a nandroid backup, and then restore it.

hiu

To be clear, this doesn't mean the DROID X has been unlocked, nor has the encrypted bootloader been circumvented, it just potentially allows flashing custom software to the system partition (ROM).

Source: @koush

11
Aug
unrevokedforever

This tool does appear to do a permanent NAND unlock, irreversibly voiding your phone’s warranty, proceed with caution.[/note]

This night keeps getting better and better. The unrevoked team just announced the release of their anticipated Unrevoked Forever tool. What does it do? While the summary provided by unrevoked is a far better explanation, I’ll keep it short and sweet: once you install unrevoked forever, your phone can flash unsigned updates, no matter what, forever. At the moment, “your phone” must be an EVO 4G or an HTC Incredible and run the specified baseband versions as shown below.

Your phone must be rooted and running a custom recovery to apply the unrevoked forever update.zip.

27
Jul
froyoincredible

The following post by XDA member scuccia popped earlier today on the HTC Droid Incredible section of the XDA forums:

Here is a Stock 2.2 ROM with Sense based off the upcoming Froyo OTA. This is completely stock with the additions of su, Superuser.apk and busybox.
Everything has been confirmed working. Camera, camcorder, Wifi, bluetooth, GPS, MMS, etc...
A full wipe and 2.x radio is required.
If you don't have a 2.x radio already you can find instructions instruction here.

Get the ROM here!
There are quite a few new additions that have been included. HTC Flashlight, FM Radio widget, Calculator widget, SMS widget, Sync all widget, profile widgets, 3g mobile hotspot, genie widget, App sharing program, messaging app changed a bit, 720p recording, built in flash on camcorder, and more stuff that I can't think of off the top of my head.

26
Jul
7-25-10-psx4droid600

ZodTTD and yongzh have released Android’s first PlayStation emulator application, now available in the Android Market for $6.99USD. Remember, that $6.99 does not get you any games or a working BIOS (required to run the emulator), you have to “legally” obtain these on your own time (please do not post links to ROMs or BIOS images in comments, they will be deleted).

But words don’t really do this justice, hit the jump for some sexy video:

Ridge Racer, Final Fantasy, Earthworm Jim, and Warcraft on Galaxy S

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW7CxT0l20s&feature=player_embedded

Crash Bandicoot on Nexus One

Final Fantasy VII with Wiimote on Dell Streak

Yes, you read right: Wiimote.

26
Jul
CyanLogo_huge11_thumb

CyanogenMod users rejoice: Cyanogen and the CM team are continuing to work feverishly to get CyanogenMod 6 into official release territory.

CyanogenMod 6 Release Candidate 2 ROMs for the Nexus One (and unofficially, the Droid), Dream, Magic, G1, and the MyTouch 3G are now available for download, along with Release Candidate 1 for the HTC EVO 4G.

Nexus One/Droid

Nexus One CM6 RC2 Download links (This will work on a Motorola Droid as well, see this CM forum post):