Perhaps the most popular custom Android ROM in the world, the mighty CyanogenMod just reached a major milestone last night. Over one million unique installs. Although it may be relatively small percentage-wise to the entire Android ecosphere, a million users is a pretty impressive for a single ROM to achieve.

For those that want to leave behind the ways of manufacturer’s customized skins and move to a more stock Android experience with complete control of their device, CyanogenMod has been offering that oasis since the early days of the Android 1.5 and the T-Mobile G1. With the upcoming release of the Android 4.0 based CyanogenMod 9, I wouldn’t be surprised to see that number keep growing by leaps and bounds.

[CM Stats via CyanogenMod Google+]

The obvious blame could be placed on manufacturers and carriers not pushing out updates fast enough. In addition to that, there’s major handsets still launching with Android 2.2 many months after Gingerbread was standard, think the HTC Thunderbolt, LG Thrill 4G and others. There’s really no excuse for releasing a new phone with an OS version that’s already outdated.

Once carriers and manufacturers recognize the benefits of running the latest version of Android, perhaps they’ll change their tune. Running the latest version means users will have all the latest security and bug fixes. Hence less work for their customer service and warranty departments. Also running Android 2.3 or higher brings new features users wouldn’t have access to with an older device. Apps will work better, the phone will run faster, and an all around better experience will be had. After all, Google wouldn’t keep working on new Android version if the last version was “just good enough”.

Meanwhile three different versions of Android 3.x Honeycomb have been slowly climbing in share to a total of 1.4%, finally overtaking Android 1.5 Cupcake. It’s baffling how phones could still be in use running Android 1.5, but let’s not forget about those sad few that manufacturers simply refuse to update.

 
[Android Developers Site]

While I don’t think there were too many people that were excited about these two phones in the first place, but the people that did buy the Motorola Charm or the Flipout will be a little disappointed by this news. Motorola has updated their Software Upgrade page and the Charm and Flipout are stated to remain on Android 2.1, with no upgrade. Ever.

Sure you could blame it on ho-hum sales or just the fact that they’re low end phones, but that’s no excuse. HTC, just issued updates for the Tattoo and Hero, some of the lowest and oldest phones in their portfolio.

Although not as unfortunate as the CLIQ XT or i1, which will remain on Android 1.5, but Motorola really needs to take a page from the HTC play book and support their older hardware. That or quit adding MotoBlur on top of Android since it apparently hinders you from updating the firmware to the latest version.

[via Android Central]

[Press Release via UberGizmo]

The second Android phone from T-Mobile, the MyTouch will be available for preorder to current customers starting July 8th. The MyTouch is of course just a T-mobile named HTC Magic/Sapphire/Ion. The phone will feature a 3.2-inch 480 x 320 touchscreen, AWS 3G, WiFi, a 3.2 megapixel camera, and of course Android 1.5 that we’re all now familiar with.

[via T-Mobile]

Fresh from a post over at xda-developers, someone got the link to the US version of Cupcake. Get it now, while it’s hot. You can download it here. No more waiting for the T-Mobile OTA update, this is the real thing.

As always, here’s how to apply the update:

1. Download the image.

2. Rename it to update.zip, and place it at the root (the very top directory) of your Micro SD card. (If you added the file to your microSD card by connecting the handset to your computer via USB [rather than using a dedicated microSD card reader], make sure to unmount it and disconnect the USB cable now.

3. Turn off your G1, then turn it back on by holding the Home+End keys until you see an icon popup after the T-Mobile G1 logo.

4. From the icon screen, open the keyboard and hit Alt+L. This allows you to see what’s going on during the update.

5. Press Alt+S to begin the update. Remember, the update needs to be in the root of the Micro SD card and needs to be named update.zip.

6. Once it finishes, follow the onscreen instructions and press Home+Back to finish.

7. The G1 will reboot a few times to flash different parts of the firmware.

And while you’re waiting for it to update, you can read through the official feature list.

Thanks to everyone that that sent this in.

Update: Those of you running rooted ROMs like JF1.5 check this link: http://code.google.com/p/android-roms/wiki/Unroot Thanks BenderUnit9000

I cleaned up the instructions a bit, because the grammar was horrible. I also uploaded to a third mirror and PirateBay, since RapidShare wouldn’t let me download and SendSpace was throttling the download. If you can mirror this somewhere else, please share the bandwidth and drop a link in the comments. But here you go, from the t-mobile.com forums:

Download the image:

http://rapidshare.com/files/234560998/update.zip.html – Mirror 1

http://www.sendspace.com/file/amcvxn – Mirror 2

http://uploading.com/files/2GDTJMY3/update.zip.html – Mirror 3

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4906690 – TPB Torrent

Download one of these and copy to your MicroSD card.

1)Turn your phone off. Boot while holding the home button.

2)When you see the triangle, hit Alt+L

3)Then Alt+S

4)Press Home and Back when it tells you to (to reboot your phone)

5)You’ll notice it says installing Radio after you hit Home+Back (thats normal and fine)

6)You’ll see it reboot like 2 times then you’ll see the new android loading screen. and there ya go! android 1.5 without having to root/jailbreak and you’re good to go.

7)when 1.5 for the US comes out, just repeat the same process except with the TMobile USA update.zip

Please note, just like the JF1.5 image and others currently out, this does not include the IM application, only Google Talk. It’s also reported that Amazon MP3 and Google Voice Search are not included.

Fresh from the T-Mobile forums, looks like the OTA Cupcake 1.5 rollout is being pushed back “approximately a week”. No specifics on what the hold up is, probably some minor technical issue specific to T-Mobile, such as MyFaves. Hopefully this won’t piss too many people off. But if you’re feeling frisky and you can’t wait for T-Mobile, you can always upgrade yourself.

Another screenshot of the HTC Hero Android 1.5 firmware. This time showing the HTC Footprints software from the HTC Cruise. Which let’s you capture “Postcards” and tag them with GPS coordinates for review by place. Nothing groundbreaking here, but it’s cool to see some new software running on phones we can’t get our paws on yet.

If you have US-RC30/UK-RC8 or higher, you will first need to downgrade your phone to a previous version. (Skip these steps otherwise)

1. Format your phone’s SD card to FAT32 mode:
   • Hook your phone up to your computer using a USB cable and then wait for the notification to show up in your title bar of your phone.
   • Click the notification, and then click “Mount”.
   • A new removable disk should show up on your computer. Right click it and select Format, and select FAT32 as the file system type.
2. Download and unzip the RC29 or RC7 image file. Copy the DREAMIMG.nbh file to the SD card. (RC29 for US, RC7 is for UK)
3. Turn the device power off.
4. Hold Camera button, and press Power button to entry bootloader mode. You should see a gray/white screen with instructions to flash your phone with the update on your SD card. If you don’t see that, make sure you followed the instructions properly.
5. As per the on-screen instructions, press the Power button to start upgrade procedure. DO NOT DO ANYTHING TO INTERRUPT THIS PROCESS.
6. After it is finished, perform the restart your phone.

Once you are running RC29 firmware:

1. Download recovery.img and copy it to your SD card (see the previous instructions on how to copy from your computer to your Phone’s SD card).
2. Download the Hard SPL and copy the zip file to the SD card.
3. All files must be on the root of your SD card.
4. Restart your phone. Wait for your phone to start up fully and show the home screen.
5. After your phone starts up, hit the enter key twice, type “telnetd” and press enter. (Yes, it will start up a contact search, don’t worry. Just type it.)
6. Download an Android “Telnet” application from the Market and connect to localhost.
7. If you connect successfully, you will have a root prompt “#”.
8. Type the following into Telnet (these commands will give you root access easier in the future):
   • mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
   • cd sdcard
   • flash_image recovery recovery.img
   • cat recovery.img > /system/recovery.img

Now you have root!
Now that you have root, you will want to apply “Hard SPL” to your phone. HardSPL is what will allow you to apply flash images from other regions (like UK on US phones, and vice versa), create full backups of your phone, install the latest build from the Android source, and usually resurrect your phone if it is “bricked”. You have already downloaded the file to your SD card, so now you can apply it.

1. Power off your phone.
2. Start up in recovery mode by holding home and pressing power.
3. You will now enter recovery mode. You should see an exclamation.
4. If you do not see a menu on screen, press Alt-L to show the menu.
5. Press Alt-S to apply the update from the SD card.
6. After the update is complete, hold Home and press Back to restart.

And now, the last step! You are still running an old version of Android, but you want to upgrade to the latest and greatest update! You can do this, and not lose root by downloading modified versions of the updates.

Download one of the latest ROMs to install, I recommend JF1.5:

JesusFreke 1,51

Haykuro Builds

The Dude’s Cupcake 1.2 Full
The Dude’s Cupcake 1.1a Lite (No 3rdparty/dev apps/Manup Blue Theme)

You will also want to apply the latest radio update from HTC. Install the same way as the system image:

HTC Downloads Page

To install the latest build (instructions from Haykuro):

1. Gain root (follow the various threads available on the forums to accomplish this).
2. Download the latest build above.
3. Copy to your sdcard as update.zip
4. Power off your phone.
5. Hold the Home button, and power on the device. (This should send you into recovery mode).
6. Press ALT+B to create a nandroid backup (if you wish to fall back without losing any data later, if you do go back to RC33 [or any other firmware 1.0 update] you will need to reflash your radio, users have reported problems using the new radio on the old firmwares.)
7. Press ALT+W, then ALT+S.
8. wait for it to finish, then home+back.

There you have it. I hope I gave proper credit and backlinks to the awesome people that make this possible. Now you can brag about your new Cupcake and also do all the cool stuff with root, like install full Linux distros, tether your phone, and install apps on the SD card.