For those of you with a rooted, ClockworkMod Recovery enabled Sony Xperia (may work with any model of Android phone) device with: Superuser, terminal and BusyBox installed, there is a time saving tool that will allow you to make Nandroid back-ups without the annoyance of booting into recovery!
If you have yet to make a Sony Xperia Nandroid back-up, what are you waiting for!? Having a Nandroid back-up will give you a safeguard in case anything goes wrong with your phone.
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ADB is a powerful tool. It allows you to send commands to your phone and push files via the command line. It is considered by many to be ‘pro-tier phone use.’
This usually means downloading the entire Android SDK which is fairly large and cumbersome to install. Fortunately you can download a stripped down version:
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Install ICS on the LG Optimus 2X
A few days ago we announced that the LG Optimus 2X will not be getting the ICS update until Q3 of this year. To me, this is a long time to wait. Fortunately though, you can install an unofficial build of Cyanogen 9 (based off ICS) that will give you Ice Cream Sandwich goodness and more!
Usual rules apply. Your phone’s warranty will be voided and Mobot takes no responsibility for any damage caused to your device! Your phone will be wiped so back up anything important...
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One Click Root for the AT&T HTC One X
Here's one for the US Mobotniks! Thanks to an exploit discovered by sparkym3, your AT&T HTC One X can now be rooted using a very simple ‘One-Click-Root’ method!
Usual rules apply. Your phone’s warranty will be voided and Mobot takes no responsibility for any damage caused to your device! Your phone may be wiped so back up anything important.
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Flashing the Nokia N9
After much nagging to one of my employers to have a play with the Nokia N9, they finally caved in and allowed me use of one for a time. The only catch was the phone was (in their terms) “bricked”. It was not quite true as there was obviously life still in the device as it would switch on, but it would then restart every 10 seconds in an endless loop, never getting past the Nokia logo.
On searching Google, this seems to be a common problem with the Nokia N9. However, guides to fixing seemed few and incomplete with a huge majority aimed at Linux users. So I’ve decided to write a more broken down version for Windows users.
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Motorola Xoom Root and Ice-Cream Sandwich Upgrade
The Motorola Xoom is still a mighty popular Android tablet that is long overdue its Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade in the UK. It’s been promised by Motorola for an OTA update in Q2 2012 but until then, if you want to get your hands on the update here is a guide to rooting and sticking a stock ICS ROM on your Motorola Xoom Wi-Fi (not the 3G version).
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A guide to installing Android on an iPhone
It may be a rare occurrence but believe it or not there are some iPhone users that look upon Android users with great envy. Whether it’s the use of widgets on homescreens, access to apps that would normally be blocked from the iPhone or just a genuine passion for Google; this small crowd has its reasons.
Fortunately, if you have an old iPhone (1st or 2nd generation) that is jailbroken and has the correct version of iOS installed you can enjoy some Android Gingerbread goodness on your old trusty device.
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Access US Netflix in the UK
A few months ago, the mighty goliath of movie streaming Netflix finally hit the shores of the UK after a painfully long wait, hoping to give LoveFlim a kick up the backside. For just £5.99 a month, we were excited at the opportunity to gain access to all the films and TV shows our US friends have access to.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t quite the case as it appeared that browsing the selection available on UK Netflix is the same as browsing the DVD and even VHS sections at your local charity shops.
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How to root the Sony Tablet P and S
Sony's rather unique tablets – the dual-screen Tablet P and drop-shaped Tablet S – haven't quite taken off, but since they're based on Android, you can do with them pretty much whatever you want.
That is, if you've got root access. Luckily, the Tablet P was just recently rooted, and the method is pretty easy.
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Asus Transformer Prime Can Have Windows 7 and Microsoft Office
Android tablets, and just tablets in general, have been blurring the line between mobile devices and everyday computers since the first tablets were introduced. Each new generation can do more things, has more power and comes ever closer to being able to all but replace a computer. In some cases, you could actually put a computer operating system on an Android device and have your own little touch computer experience.
One of those cases is the Asus Transformer Prime. Using a nifty application and signing up for a free online service called OnLive, you can have a full Windows 7 desktop experience with a few useful Windows applications, including Microsoft Office, at your disposal.
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Samsung Jigs in 45 Countries
The Samsung jig is one of those accessories that everyone should not only know about, but everyone should have unbridled access to. They can do magical things to Samsung devices, like force them into Download or Odin Mode so users can flash stock firmware and unbrick their Samsung phones. On some, they remove a certain disgusting yellow triangle from several Samsung phones that have them. But unfortunately for some people, Samsung jigs are only available online and that presents a very big problem for those without PayPal accounts, bank accounts or debit cards.
Just because someone may have an understandable distrust for things like banks and online money mediating services, such as PayPal, doesn't mean that they don't deserve help when they need it. That is the premise for a list that has been compiled where volunteers give up their names and locations so anyone in their area can swing by and use their USB jig free of charge.
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Play more Android games using a PS3 controller
To regular readers, this topic should sound familar – we've previously shown you how to use a PS3 controller to play Android games. As a quick refresher, many smartphone games rely on on-screen buttons, which is a bit problematic since touching the screen invariably obscures the view. As such, modders have found a way to map those emulated buttons to the Sixaxis controller of Sony's PlayStation 3.
But wait... mapping... that sounds pretty complicated, right? In fact, it is, because for this mod to work, you have to create a special profile for every game, since every game has a different button layout. So, to keep your gaming needs satisfied, here's an update that adds three more games to the supported list.
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HTC Desire HD: Get Sony XLoud Engine
The HTC Desire HD is getting a little old, but that doesn't mean it isn't receiving development love from the community. One of the more recent modifications to the aging Android phone is the porting of the Sony XLoud Engine. For many who don't know, the Sony XLoud Engine is an audio enhancement engine that allows for clearer, louder and higher quality audio in a very similar manner to Beats Audio. The difference being, of course, that you can actually get Sony XLoud on your HTC Desire HD.
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After hackers discovered in January that the bootloader on the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime was locked and encrypted, a huge outrage ensued – and ASUS quickly backed down, promising to develop an officially sanctioned unlock tool. It has now made good on that promise and released the tool to the public
To fully take advantage of an unlocked bootloader, however, you'll need some special software known as a recovery, which can allow you to flash custom ROMs and backup your data, among other things. The most popular custom recovery, by far, is ClockwordMod, and it was promptly ported to the Transformer Prime soon after the unlock tool became.
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Barnes & Noble Nook Color: Triple Booting
This triple booting tutorial is mainly for Mobotniks in the US, for anyone who has bought a Nook Color.
Being able to dual boot an Android device is pretty freaking awesome. You can use the separate installations to hide your second life or you can use it for more socially acceptable practices, such as having one installation for work and one for play. So, what does that say about triple booting? Without knowing anything about triple booting at all, one can assume that it is at least 150% more awesome than dual booting...
For those Mobotniks out there who are rocking a Barnes and Noble Nook Color, triple booting can be a reality for you. The process is a little tough, but if you follow it out you can boot not just one, not two but three separate installations from the spunky little tablet.
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HTC Evo 3D: You May Still Be Able to Get Root
Unfortunately for some HTC EVO 3D owners, getting rooted isn't as easy as we all would like it to be. If you're rocking an hboot version that is 1.5 or higher, then you can only get fake root through the htcdev.com website, but not the full s-off, bootloader unlocked root that we'd all rather have. Of course, that doesn't mean that there aren't people working on that.
Well, Mobotniks, if you're rocking an HTC Evo 3D and you're on Vodaphone, there's a chance that you may yet be able to achieve full root with relative ease as there has been a method uncovered that will allow people to downgrade from the 1.5 hboot and achieve full s-off goodness.
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Design your own Live Tiles on your Windows Phone with WizTiles
The only customization options you have in Windows Phone 7, are, by default, pretty limited: You can choose between black and white backgrounds, and several different colors that are used throughout the system, for example on your homescreen. It all does look pretty nice, depending on your taste, but if you crave to customize the look of the Live Tiles a bit more, beyond different color options, you might want to give WizTiles a try.
With WizTiles, you can not only choose from several included themes, but take any picture and apply it to your tiles, like a wallpaper on steroids.
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ContactPrivacy protects your iOS address book from social and rogue apps
After a developer discovered that the social network Path, which is available exclusively through its iOS app, was automatically uploading your address book with all contact data to its servers, there's been a big outcry over the issue of address book privacy. Since then. several other popular social networking apps have also been found to be accessing the address book on iOS without the user's explicit permission, such as Foursquare, Instagram and Twitter, but most – including Path, whose CEO has even publicly apologized – have now received updates that ask the user before transmitting private contact data.
However, this does not prevent other sloppily coded or even malicious apps from doing just that – instead, you'll have to rely on a little jailbreak tweak called ContactPrivacy to block access to your address book from third-party apps.
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Video shows Windows Mobile 6.1 running on Windows Phone 7 HTC HD7
While Windows Phone 7 has now more or less established itself as the 'third' ecosystem in the smartphone space, there was a time before it. Before Metro – and even before iOS and Android were available. For the better part of the last decade, Windows Mobile was one of the biggest smartphone platforms out there, among the admittedly few people that were already using smartphones in the early 2000s.
Its interface may now seem clunky and, frankly, unusable, but at the time it was a very powerful OS that brought over many of the concepts of desktop Windows. It was also extremely customizable, and had a thriving modding community – which is exactly why we're pretty excited to see Windows Mobile 6.1 running on an HTC HD7, a Windows Phone 7 device.
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Access Your Android Phone From a Web Browser
There are a number of solutions for connecting your Android phone to your computer. There's the USB connection and various iterations of so-called pro software by manufacturers. You know them as Kies, Kies Air, HTC Sync, etc., and, if you've had the guts to attempt to use them, you know what enormous epic failures they can be.
Thankfully, there is someone out there who wants to do the whole Android phone to PC connection thing correctly and is currently developing what is probably one of the coolest applications I've ever used. It is called Paw and it is available for download on the Android Market.
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