Android phones, apps and tablets

Useful list on the progress of ICS ports...

That's mad they've got it working on the G1!

I'm tempted to root my HTC Desire before long, what are the main perks of me rooting it?

anyone know how to root a galaxy s2 on a mac?
heard just doing that, you can delete/freeze all the crap samsung stuff and double your battery life

You need to use either odin in a virtual machine running windows or get Heimdall from here:

http://www.glassechidna.com.au/products/heimdall/

Then grab yourself a rooted kernel that matches your current firmware as close as you can. You can get your firmware version by dialling *#1234# and grabbing the phone version.

I'd go with CF-Root initially. Go here:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1103399

read everything in that thread before you make any changes, and good luck!

Was it faulty or something else happened?
I'm only 4 days in with my Desire S.

The mobo on the Desire S fried itself and has been replaced under warranty, took it in 17th and got it back today.

I found this thread where people seem to have same thing happen to them when phone does multiple app updates simultaneously and I asked my wife it it was updating stuff just before it died and she definitely thought it had been.

Note to self - stop posting to forums when you're in a rush to leave the office.

I meant the PDA version, not the phone version. Phone version is your radio.

anyone know how to root a galaxy s2 on a mac?
heard just doing that, you can delete/freeze all the crap samsung stuff and double your battery life

Post back if it does make any difference to battery life, I had heard that 2.3.4 was going to make a load of difference but didn't notice any..

You need to use either odin in a virtual machine running windows or get Heimdall from here:

http://www.glassechidna.com.au/products/heimdall/

Then grab yourself a rooted kernel that matches your current firmware as close as you can. You can get your firmware version by dialling *#1234# and grabbing the phone version.

I'd go with CF-Root initially. Go here:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1103399

read everything in that thread before you make any changes, and good luck!

there is 300+ pages in that thread......grrrrr!!!
big thanks though.
but has anyone successfully done it?
on a mac that is

You don't need to read the whole thread, just the first couple of posts. It goes through the process in detail. If you read that first, then read the flashing process from the heimdall documentation you're good to go.

If you stick with CF Root then all you are doing is flashing a new image on top of your current one which includes a stock kernel which has been rooted, CWM and some other root utilities.

I've done it before, but to be honest, only once. Now I either flash from a zip that's on my SD card using CWM which you get with the kernel package you're going to flash or I use odin at work.

Here are some super-simple instructions for flashing a new kernel using heimdall:

http://www.freeyourandroid.com/guide/root-galaxy-s2-i9100

Post back if it does make any difference to battery life, I had heard that 2.3.4 was going to make a load of difference but didn't notice any..

I'm currently running Androidmeda which is a Samsung base rom with some extras added in and a custom kernel. It's running 2.3.5 and is slightly underclocked by default to improve battery life. It's definitely superior to the stock Samsung rom.

You also get all the tools you need to modify the clock speed and voltages if you want to.

anyone know the difference between rooting and gingerbreak?
in terms of updating android version after doing either?
gingerbreak, looks alot easier to do.

i'm liking this ice cream sandwich

I doubt it would work on your SGS2. Having read the instructions it scared the crap out of me. I'd stick with CF Root.

Out of interest, why are you trying to root your phone? If it's to allow you to update your rom to a new OS version then I would seriously recommend that you use CF Root because you will want to use the utilities that come with CWM to back up your phone before changing rom.

i'm liking this ice cream sandwich

Which rom did you use? The teamhacksung release? Is it stable?

I doubt it would work on your SGS2. Having read the instructions it scared the crap out of me. I'd stick with CF Root.

Out of interest, why are you trying to root your phone? If it's to allow you to update your rom to a new OS version then I would seriously recommend that you use CF Root because you will want to use the utilities that come with CWM to back up your phone before changing rom.

basically yes, but won't titanium fully back up your phone?

Yes/No. You can use Titanium to back up your user and/or system data with titanium but you it's not the same as a complete system backup. If you use the backup system integrated into CWM (called a nandroid backup) then it does a backup of your complete OS including apps and state information, and it does it from outside of the OS so it's complete.

You can wipe your system and with three clicks totally restore it using a nandroid backup.

I'm using the other one, seems pretty stable so far, a couple of apps don't work, but that's to be expected, new UI stuff is nice and it all seems pretty quick for a beta, little bit of a fuss getting it installed, had to resort to heimdall after getting caught in a recovery/boot loop, if your gonna try it stick a cm7 rom on your internal sd, might end up needing it

this one

Cheers, I'm running a SGS2 and there aren't any ICS roms available yet so I'll have to wait, but I always keep a backup of CM7 and my current rom on my SD card so if it all goes horribly wrong I have a functional OS waiting for me ;)

Yeah, I had some non-cm7 ones on there but they wouldn't load, only seemed to work after flashing cm7 then flashing ICS

Bloody google have stopped me from watching movies on my phone because I rooted it.

Grrrrr.

ICS browser seems faster on 3G than gingerbread ever did on wifi, like mobile browsing + cheap whizz

I've just plugged my Galaxy Nexus into my windows laptop via usb - I was expecting to be able to grab the photos off it (using MTP protocol), but the 'Pictures' folder is empty when explored. Using PTP didn't make any difference.

Has anyone successfully done this or know if drivers are required to do so (seems unlikely...)

Apologies if a re-post, but worrying times. Seems to be US only though:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/30/smartphone_spying_app/

Also, best price I've seen the Eee Pad transformer (16gb) (and they're local to me!)

http://www.ballicom.co.uk/laptops/ipads-and-tablets/asus-eee-pad-transformer-tf101--tablet--android-3x-honeycomb--16-gb--101.p636183.html