The Android Site

So you got your new Motorola Backflip then found out that AT&T locked it down so you can’t install apps from the SD card? Or maybe you knew that and went ahead and got it in hopes of rooting very soon. Well, rooting hasn’t happened yet for the Backflip, but we still have the solution for you.

1. First you will need to install the Android SDK, which you can download here.
2. Then download and install the Motorola USB drivers for 32-bit or 64-bit, depending on your OS.
3. Once everything is installed, on your phone go to Settings > Applications > Development > Enable USB Debugging.
4. Back on your PC, with the phone plugged into USB, copy the .apk files to the /tools folder where you extracted the SDK.
5. Then from a command prompt, navigate to the /tools folder and type adb install application.apk where application.apk is the file you want to install.
6. Congrats, the application should now be installed.

For more information on Android Debug Bridge and other cool stuff you can do, check out this guide at xda-developers.

Ben Marvin AT&T, How-To, Motorola adb, AT&T, BackFlip, How-To, Motorola

Here’s a video showing how some crafty developers got Android running on the Sony Ericsson X1. Both Android 1.6 and 2.0.1 have been successfully ported to the X1, with a few things yet to be fixed, such as the camera, GPS and bluetooth. But that’s not the point right? It’s about using Android on whatever device you want. From the video you can see it’s not exactly perfect, but if you’ve got an X1, and you feel a little frisky, head over to xda-developers for all the details.

[via GadgetVenue]

Ben Marvin Hacks, Hardware, How-To 1.6, 2.0.1, Hacks, How-To, ports, Sony Ericsson, videos, X1, xda, xda-developers

First off, this is not a guide to pirating apps. There are legit reasons for wanting to backup your applications. Sometimes an older version of the app worked better, or had features you liked better. Sometimes new versions don’t work with specific phones and you need to revert back. Now, you can use AppManager to backup most apps, but protected apps are not included in this because they are stored in a different directory. With a rooted phone, you can access this directory and copy the apps to your SD card or to your computer. After all, you paid for it, it’s yours. If you want to pirate apps, or buy an app, copy it then return it, that’s on you, I’m not advocating that.

First method, copy with your phone to SD card:

1. Install and open a Terminal Emulator on your phone.
2. Enter su to be superuser (root).
3. Enter cd /data/app-private/ to enter the protected application directory.
4. Use ls to view the apps in the directory.
5. Enter cp filename.apk /sdcard to copy a single app to your SD card.
   (Or to backup all the protected apps: cp * /sdcard)
6. If you want to backup all your apps, they can be found in /data/app/

Second method is to use Android Debug Bridge with your PC:

1. Install the Android SDK on your PC
2. Connect your phone to your computer via USB cable, and make sure USB debugging is enabled on your phone (Settings > Applications > Development)
3. Enter adb shell to fire up Debug Bridge and enter shell mode
4. Enter su to become superuser
5. Enter cat /data/app-private/filename.apk > /sdcard/filename.apk to copy the file to the SD card.
6. exit
7. exit
8. And finally adb pull /sdcard/filename.apk filename.apk pulls the .apk file from your SD card to your computer.

Success? Problems? Moral issues with copying software? Let us know in the comments.

Ben Marvin Hacks, How-To adb, android debug bridge, hacking, Hacks, How-To, Paid apps, protected apps

Remember the excitement when the G1 was first rooted? Now there’s the same for owners of the Sprint Hero and Samsung Behold 2. For the Hero, there’s a thread over at xda-developers with clear instructions on how to Root your Sprint Hero. Not much yet in the way of custom ROMS or other goodies, but you can run applications that require superuser such as wireless tethering.

For Samsung Behold 2 owners, head over to All Droid for your rooting instructions.

I don’t have either of these handsets, so I can test myself, but if anyone successfully roots (or doesn’t), let us know in the comments how it went. And as always with hacking and modifying your phone, do so at your own risk.

[Thanks Ted for the tip on the Behold 2]

Ben Marvin HTC, Hacks, Hardware, How-To, Samsung, Sprint, T-Mobile Behold 2, hacking, Hardware, Hero, How-To, HTC, root, Samsung, Sprint, T-Mobile

Yeah, I got this from one of the Blackberry blogs I still read. But it’s good all around advice for owners of expensive phones. I know first, second, and third-hand how horrible it can be if your $400+ smartphone gets water (or other liquid) spilled on it. Or even worse, dunked in water.

1. Pull out the battery. (Some also recommend pulling the SIM)

2. Put your device near sunlight.

3. Rotate your device so all sides get sunlight.

4. Leave it near sunlight for 24 hours. Some suggest in a bowl of uncooked rice or with silica gel packs.

5. Do NOT put your battery back until the 24 hours are up.

6. After 24 hours, put the battery back in and power on.

Yes, the bowl of rice trick does work. A friend of mine got drunk and dropped her Blackberry in the sink, over night in a cup of uncooked rice brought it back to life. If this doesn’t work for you, hope you have insurance on your phone, suck it up and pay the deductible. And don’t try and sucker you way out with a warranty claim, your carrier will find out. It’s not hard to tell if a phone has been water damaged. And above all, just be careful around water!

Ben Marvin Hacks, How-To Android, Blackberry, G1, How-To, insurance, tips, tricks, warranty, water, water damage

First off, I take no credit for this guide, this is straight from the xda-developers forums, which is an excellent place to learn about HTC phone hacking. So let’s get started. Make sure you backup anything important on your phone as this will erase everything. There are several apps in the Market that will backup apps, SMS, and other data for you. So don’t complain if you’ve lost your data. Your contacts and email should still synch with Google once you reinstall the new OS.

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.

Ben Marvin Hacks, How-To, Software Android 1.5, Cupcake, G1, hack, hacking, Hacks, Haykuro, How-To, HTC, JesusFreke, root, Rooting, Upgrade, xda-developers