Development - 50/87 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Apr

Updated Fresh 4.0 ROM For HTC EVO 4G (Beta) Now Serving Delicious Gingerbread To All Donors, Includes Fast Boot

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, EVO 4G (Supersonic), Gingerbread 2.3, HTC, News, Sprint

Flipz, the developer of Fresh ROM for the EVO 4G and the HTC Hero, has been quiet since the release of Fresh 3.5, and it's no surprise - Sprint hasn't pushed out anything to our beloved EVOs in months. Since Fresh is a Sense ROM that follows official releases, as opposed to being built from AOSP like CyanogenMod, I didn't really expect to see another Fresh release until either the next leak or an official Sprint release.

With the arrival of a test build carrying Gingerbread for the EVO 4G yesterday, the situation changed - while being a test ROM, it seemed relatively fully baked and signed by Sprint's release keys, meaning its authenticity was undisputed.

Apr

[Rumor] Samsung To Continue Leaving Bootloaders Unlocked On Future Devices

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Development, News, Samsung

It appears that Samsung may be following in Sony's footsteps by actually giving users what they want where bootloaders are concerned. According to this tweet from Android app developer Supercurio, a source at Samsung has stated that bootloaders on future Sammy devices will be unlocked as long as Google doesn't require otherwise. If true, this means really good things for the dev community, who will never have to deal with the trials and tribulations that tech-savvy Motorola owners have had to face.

François went on to say that this may or may not apply to tablets, as they're "still young" and his source "doesn't know about bootloader plans for those devices."

Of course, as with any rumor, we question its validity.

Apr

Samsung Is On A Roll: Two Kernel Source Code Releases In As Many Days (Droid Charge And Fascinate Froyo)

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Charge (i510), Development, Fascinate, News

We all know about the update woes that owners of Samsung handsets have faced over the past several months - owners of the VZW Fascinate are still waiting on their update to Froyo. It looks that wait may be coming to an end as the source code has finally shown up on Samsung's Open Source Release Center. Even if the official OTA doesn't hit phones soon, you can rest assured that XDA devs will be hard at work hacking and compiling this source, so you'll be able to enjoy all of the Froyo goodness that you can handle soon enough.

Apr

Pyramid/Sensation Ports Are Starting To Show Up, Desire HD First In Line

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Desire HD (Ace), Development, News, Sensation / Sensation 4G (Pyramid)

Last Updated: April 18th, 2011

Let's go back in time for a moment, shall we? Think with me, if you will, back to when we first told you about the Sensation ROM leak. Do you remember? Ah, the nostalgia. It seems like it was only yesterday that we were trying to get the download mirror set up so all the devs could get to work on porting this ROM to other devices and... Oh, yes. It was just yesterday.

It didn't take long for the first port of this smokin' new ROM to show up, and thanks to XDA member capychimp, the lucky winner of said ROM is the Desire HD.

Apr

[Updated: On The Market!] Universal Kernel Manager: It's Like ROM Manager, For Kernels

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, Development, News

If there's one thing that most rooted users love to do, it's flash their devices. While ROM Manager has always made flashing new ROMs particularly easy, what about new kernels? ROM Manager does support kernel flashing, but it's pretty basic compared to the app's other features. That's all about to change though, because XDA member Shinzul along with TeamWin have been working on a ROM Manager-esque app for kernels, appropriately named Universal Kernel Manager.

The idea is simple: Kernel developers will submit their kernels to TeamWin, where they will be uploaded to a centralized location and readily available to download via Universal Kernel Manager.

Apr

Download: HTC Sensation/Pyramid Wallpapers

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, HTC, News, Sensation / Sensation 4G (Pyramid)

This morning, an HTC Sensation ROM featuring Sense 3.0 got leaked online, and while we're waiting for it to be ported to various devices, I thought it'd be a good idea to download it and see if it has any new wallpapers, ringtones, or notification sounds. While I was a bit disappointed on the audio front (both notifications and ringtones don't contain anything new), most of the wallpapers were indeed brand new, except maybe bokeh (I ran them through TinEye's reverse image search).

Have a look at the wallpapers below and download them from our mirror if you like what you see.

Apr

[Updated] Exclusive: Vulnerability In Skype For Android Is Exposing Your Name, Phone Number, Chat Logs, And A Lot More

Posted by Justin Case in Development, Exclusives, News

Last Updated: June 5th, 2012

Update #1: Skype is investigating the issue, we've been told.

Update #2: Skype's official first response can be found here.

The safety of our personal information is often a concern of mine - who has my email address, my phone number, my date of birth? How can I keep my private information safe while still enjoying the internet? These concerns have prompted me to take a deeper look at Android apps more than once, and often this can yield some frightening information.

On April 11, a leaked version of Skype Video hit the web and, having a Thunderbolt, I had to try it.

Apr

HTC Sensation (Pyramid) Test ROM Leaks, Includes Sense UI 3.0

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Development, HTC, News, Sensation / Sensation 4G (Pyramid)

I know that everyone loves leaks, so here is a good one for all of the devs out there, especially ones that are looking to port Sense 3.0 to devices that HTC says won't get it (at least not all of it anyway). A test ROM for the HTC Sensation (yes, the one we just told you about on earlier this week, also known as the Pyramid) has publically leaked with all goodies, including Sense 3.0, intact.

So there you go Thunderbolt, Inspire, Desire, and all other HTC handset owners - hopefully the full blown Sense 3.0 interface will end up coming your way shortly.

Apr

Tiamat Kernel Adds SD Card Support To Motorola XOOM, Modders Show Up Google Once Again

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Development, Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless, XOOM

The XOOM's currently nonfunctional microSD card slot has likely turned off many a potential buyer, but – if you're willing to take your chances with unofficial software from the Android dev community – the problem has finally been solved.

The solution comes by way of an update to Tiamat, a custom kernel from XDA member bigrushdog. Installation is more or less identical to any other kernel, but if you need instructions, knock yourself out:

1. Reboot into the bootloader by running:
adb reboot bootloader
2. Flash the boot image to your boot partition, then boot back into Android by running:
fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot reboot
3.

Apr

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

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Development, EVO 4G (Supersonic), 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 handle lower voltages.