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1. Ask around basically.

2. a guy on xdadevs whomped up an app to detect (requires root) and remove (requires root and 99 cent donation) CIQ, among other things. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=17612559&postcount=109

Hell it can't even play H.264 Main/High profile video at 720p.

Both my Transformer and my Xoom have been able to play H.264 Main/High profile since Android 3.1 came out. The original problem was caused by software problem, not hardware. Link.

Yes, you still have that integration and dont need sense.

I'm using the Oxygen ROM, it's great.

Sense was the flashing thing that made me get the HTC Desire, not that I have my Desire without it, I love it even more.

Head over here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=594

Possibly/probably. I don't know if this falls within your definition of dubious hack, but the 1st gen transformer is the subject of a drive to get it running ubuntu:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1191141&page=125

it is still an active and ongoing project, and so-far they have most components working though it is pretty hands-on.

The transformer appeared on my radar precisely because folks were getting ubuntu to run on it natively. And the word natively is important, as any other implementation of linux on an android tablet that I have seen involves lots of pseudo tricks such as running it on top of android and vnc'ing in to it - or variations on that theme. These folks have got ubuntu running as root from the internal ssd rather than an sd card. And hopefully if they can do it for the 1st gen then they will have a go at the 2nd as well.

Not as good as Asus providing support for this - but I get the feeling that a lot of people want to keep us in walled gardens these days - even android ones.

Unfortunately, there's a barrier in Mango (whether you use the marketplace developer account dev-unlock, which has been available from day 1, or ChevronWP7 Labs which is essentially the same thing from the phone's perspective) that prevents apps from getting high-permission access (specificlaly, prevents opening a handle on a driver, which is the standard way to break out of the low-privilege app sandbox on WP7). To do this, an app needs to specify the "INTEROPSERVICES" capability in its manifest, and by default Mango blocks installing or running non-marketplace apps with this capability. NoDo and below did not - that's how people were able to do file browsers, registry editors, tethering apps, and so forth - but this restriction is part of Mango.

You can still run some homebrew apps, including native code, but only with low permissions. While it's useful to know there's limits on what an app can do, I'd really like to be able to remove those limits on apps I trust. A webserver that demonstrates access to the full socket API, including TCP server sockets (the official API only has client sockets) is cool, but there's a lot more that you could do.

Fortunately, there's a way around this restiction also built into the OS. The process of removing this restriction is called "interop-unlock" by the guys who discovered it, and is possible easily on LG phones (change the MaxUnsignedApp registry value to 300 or more using the built-in registry editor), possible on Samsung phones (instructions and app here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1271963), and difficult if possible at all on HTC phones (requires rolling back to pre-Mango, which isn't possible on new devices). No solution at all for Dell, Toshiba, or Nokia yet.

...over at xda-developers.com.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1319529

That was their good deed for the week. Now for the bad deed of the week, they refuse to remove an ARP poisoning app so people can kill individual users on public wifi networks: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1282900

Probably worthy of it's own /. article.

...over at xda-developers.com.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1319529

That was their good deed for the week. Now for the bad deed of the week, they refuse to remove an ARP poisoning app so people can kill individual users on public wifi networks: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1282900

Probably worthy of it's own /. article.

Installing a new OS on my locked-down Milestone is somewhat problematic, unfortunately.

Actually its fairly simple. Start reading here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=670 CyanogenMod 7.1.0.2 and FroyoMod 2.9.3 function nicely on the Milestone not to mention the assortment of other ROM available. Try it out! You won't regret it!

O RLY?

http://www.xda-developers.com/tag/samsung-nexus-s/

Already being ported. Most SDK builds are going to suck, but there are one or two dev source builds leaked that are nearly 100% functional at this point. ...and we still don't have an official ICS device on the market yet...so what's your rush?

Really? They released gingerblur for my atrix via sideloading loan before gingerbread came to the artix. Obviously my boot loader was locked too. It's unlocked now and I'm waiting for cyanogen on my phone like some of my colleagues have :) (I think it's still in beta with some bugs that prevent me from wanting to go to it)

Start here
http://www.xda-developers.com/tag/motorola-milestone/

Looks like you have to do something similar.

In the end I unhacked my phone and upgraded to gingerbread when Motorola made it available. Works great.

Lesson to be learned from all this: if you want to hack your phone under no circumstance... buy Motorola.

Ahem.

Mobiles are often locked down, similar to consoles. Both can be cracked. Of course, depending on the competence of the security and the competence of any crackers who want to open up the platform, not all will be.

He wasn't asking how to pick the lock. He was asking why the door has a lock in the first place.

Reading comprehension: it's great!

Ahem.

Mobiles are often locked down, similar to consoles. Both can be cracked. Of course, depending on the competence of the security and the competence of any crackers who want to open up the platform, not all will be.

There are tons of good builds out there for almost every platform. http://www.xda-developers.com/ is a prime spot to start looking. Heck, my phone started as a Windows Mobile 6.5 and I'm running Android on it. http://www.cyanogenmod.com/ runs on a large number of platforms also. Who cares if the vendor continues to support it, most people wipe the stock image as soon as they get it home and put a better build on it. Nothing better than free support.

sorry no open moko or opie did it earlier

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=304826 windows mobile april 1st 2007 version 1 presumably there are earlier alpha beta's
qtopia had it in 2007
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=251584&page=179

The first iPhone was unveiled by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007 and released on June 29, 2007 seems slide to unlock was available for windows mobile 2 months before the first iphone was released

sorry no open moko or opie did it earlier

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=304826 windows mobile april 1st 2007 version 1 presumably there are earlier alpha beta's
qtopia had it in 2007
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=251584&page=179

The first iPhone was unveiled by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007 and released on June 29, 2007 seems slide to unlock was available for windows mobile 2 months before the first iphone was released

Absolutely, I wish I could reply in as many words as you do. But "Coward Anonymous" is just being a full-time arrogant, I don't know why but perhaps whatever gene enables social intelligence has malfunctioned. But I'm always fascinated by how brains work, so that's my usual theory.

Over at XDA, people are constantly trying out new things and posting the results. Some of them even develop complete ROMs you can install packed with customisations, having only little development experience (which is sometimes worrying but the good ones always stay around longer). The things that can be accomplished is just amazing. Besides rooting and overclocking, there's TouchWiz on HTC and Sense on Samsung, mtd repartitioning, alternate cli shells, native SIP over UMTS/HSPA, backtrack for ARM, various webservers, qemu and bochs... too much to mention. If your phone is on the list of forums, the community developments are just wonderful. And the people of Stack Overflow are great, too. The site has become an invaluable resource of answers to common development problems (started out as mainly .net orientated but covers a wide range of topics).

But I like my home screen easy and simple, though. So I just adb pull Launcher2.apk from an AVD for the version I'm currently running and adb install them onto my phone. Switching home screens can optionally be done with EasyHome. OTOH it could definitely be fun to customise it a bit more then that!

Wow, I can tell you did a *lot* of research. http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=606

It's been possible to side-load apps on WP7 since launch, but you needed a developer account ($100).
Within a few weeks, the ChevronWP7 Unlock hack was available, and let anybody do it for free. Notably, this didn't actually require an exploit in the phone's code the way iPhone jailbreaks do; you just installed a cert on the phone (trivially easy) and ran the software on your PC (also very easy).
The original Chevron unlock doesn't work anymore, but there's an "official" Chevron unlock from the same guys that apparently costs $9.

The WP7 homebrew community is smaller than the Android or iOS ones, obviously - it's newer and the user base is smaller. It certainly exists and is quite active, though. Poke around XDA-Devs for a while (they also do Android phones, incidentally) and see what the community is up to. It sure as hell doesn't take a PhD, either.

Can't see the NookTouch mentioned on this particular thread so I'll mention it here. I've got it doing these things already, including VNC to Firefox for when you get tired and your laptop screen goes fuzzy, RSS readers, better PDF support, dropbox, Bitcoin wallet and tickers, ssh tunnelling, offline maps via MapDroyd (can see in sunlight), ReaditLater & Kindle.

Rooting is very simple, but the Sony build quality might be better. Things would be simpler if both devices had Cyanogenmod7.

Feel free to join us, or developers on the XDA forum section at http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1198

I bought a NookTouch with the only intention to root... after selling an iPad2 actually (no joke, it's not a comparasble thing). Have fun!

Don't chuck the Eris out. Hit XDA-Developers and root it, put a custom ROM on it (CyanogenMod 7.1 gives you the latest Froyo build and is great on my DesireHD) and see how it performs. If it's crap, put it on eBay. If it's not, you just got a free phone upgrade. Yes, it's not a vendor approved upgrade path, but it's out of warranty anyway. Might as well give it a go.

The Sensation looks remarkably like the DesireHD with a higher DPI screen and extra 200Mhz clockspeed. As such, you may find a custom ROM more stable and responsive than a bloated carrier ROM.

Having said that, Sense is a very nice UI and I never had any issues with it. I just prefer ADW and like the ability to trim the permissions of certain apps (game with read phone identity? DENIED). There really is very little going against rooting an Android phone. You should be able to find all the information you need here

:o)

I'm just waiting for someone to port Linux to it.

It's almost done

XDA member seshmaru posted a guide that explains how to flash Ubuntu onto Tegra 2 based devices. This is not just running it from an SD card but actually flashing this onto the nvflash of the device, so for those of you who were still wondering what use was the security key, this is one such reason. Keep in mind that this is not complete yet as the tools required to flash anything to nvflash are currently under development. However, if you wanted to have a more robust OS than Android, this is certainly something to keep your eye on.

http://www.xda-developers.com/android/want-to-run-linux-in-your-transformer-there-may-be-hope-soon/

If you're really brave (and lucky) the workaround to get Karmic running on Tegra devices is here.
http://tegradeveloper.nvidia.com/tegra/forum/workaround-run-ubuntu-now

The most likely candidate for this at the moment seems to be Asus Transformer, since its boot key has been leaked, and so the device is fully exposed for mods now.

So far as I can tell, the trick is getting all the needed drivers. Here is where it's at right now.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1177969

The modified/optimized version works great for me. Stop crying and learn to use Google.

Your phone may be fragmented, but my phone only has a bit of a dead spot in the upper left corner of the screen because I dropped it about 45 minutes ago. Nothing's fallen off it yet though.

But seriously, you're either grossly uninformed, a rabid fanboy parroting talking points, have never used an Android device for more than a few minutes, or just a weak troll. Fragmentation is largely irrelevant when you have a developer community like the folks at XDA working on pretty much any android device they can get their hands on. I count 94 devices being actively supported in that forum, many with tens of thousands of posts.

Even if you can come up with a dozen real-world, legitimate reasons that "fragmentation" ought to matter to me (I've heard exactly zero so far), I'd still choose it over your iPhone's walled garden any day.

Or if you don't want to wait, download the apk from XDA:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1166152

Thanks for the link, works perfectly.

Or if you don't want to wait, download the apk from XDA:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1166152

The time spent doing this could have been spent on a billable (or freelance) project that would have paid for a new phone (and then some).

What time? TFA author could have rooted the XT in 1 click: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=834428

But how many times will you have to root the same phone model?

Never.

Will the process be similar or completely different with your next model?

Rooting manually is always the same: copy the 'su' binary and the 'Superuser.apk' app to the phone. It takes less than 5 minutes after doing it for the first time.

Sometimes the upgraded features are worth your time & effort, and other times it's worth the cost of a better phone.

Would you tell a Windows 95 user to not upgrade to Windows XP? Because that's exactly the level of difference between Android 1.x and 2.x.

It's astounding that some phones are still running 1.5 Android. I had an HTC G1 (the 1st Android phone) running 2.1 more than 1 year ago. The official firmware for the G1 (Android 1.6) was an awful awful experience. After updating to 2.x, many tasks, like browsing, were usually just as fast with the Droid.

I had to do the same with my wife's Cliq. I was told when I bought the phone it would get 2.1 in less than 2 months. I told them I wouldn't get it if it wasn't going to get the update. 10 months later and Motorola is telling me 2.1 will not work because it only has 256 Mb RAM. Well XDA and Simply-Android to the rescue. I was rocking Gingerbread in no time and with a little tweaking the phone is stable and fast. Somebody handed me a stock G1 yesterday and I'm thinking it's just not fast enough or enough RAM. 2 hours later I have it rocking a custom Gingerbread ROM and it is quite snappy. My son replaced his dumbphone and is enjoying Android goodness via WiFi.

Been done, look it up in the XDA Developers Forums. Bought mine Friday, unlocked the bootloader, flashed it and it's running like a kitten with the Pudding ROM with the Debian Webtop mod. Webtop Mod w/Full Debian Install - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1093790 Unlocking and flashing your Atrix - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1136261

Been done, look it up in the XDA Developers Forums. Bought mine Friday, unlocked the bootloader, flashed it and it's running like a kitten with the Pudding ROM with the Debian Webtop mod. Webtop Mod w/Full Debian Install - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1093790 Unlocking and flashing your Atrix - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1136261

mplayer for Android has been ported: http://www.xda-developers.com/android/mplayer-ported-for-android/

Android source is here: http://source.android.com/

Go ahead and make your own distribution, dozens of people already do. Cyanogenmod is probably the largest.

Other utilities you want that aren't there, but available in GNU? Port 'em. Source is there. Nothing is keeping it from happening.

Give me a tablet form factor with an SSD drive and Ubuntu on it ... Give me HDMI out and a real USB port... I'll plug in a seperate monitor, mouse, and keyboard when I need to do my homework.

For the most part, what you've described is Asus Transformer. The only exception is that you can't easily install Ubuntu in dual-boot on it today. You can install Ubuntu in chroot under Android and VNC into it, but it's not particularly fast (though it does let you run OpenOffice when you really need it).

That said, as soon as we get nvflash, we should be able to do full dual-boot on that thing.

It becomes obvious quickly once you start accessing the COM interop functionality, because the native functions are all the same. If you look at a ROM dump, the DLLs look a lot like WinCE.

However, if you're too lazy to dig through all that, I believe these will have the info you are looking for.

That's correct. Getting rid of those crapware apps is the major reason I looked into rooting my phone.

The procedure is pretty straightforward and if you are reading this you're probably geeky enough to be able to handle it. Go to XDA's wiki for the procedure.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/index.php?title=HTC_Vision#Rooting_the_Vision_.28G2.2FDZ.29_and_DHD

I've rooted three phones using the procedure. It would probably be a good idea to read up on the xda-developers forum for G2/Desire, too, just to have get some useful background. Note, there are alternate instructions that include using the Visionary app. I have never used it. XDA has a lot of horror stories about visionary, so I've always steered clear of it.

Really? Check out the XDA Developer's Forum for the Milestone - this is only one Moto phone and there are over 28.5K posts in this forum. Even if that IS only 0.5% of their installed base outside of the USA (because the original Droid has an unlocked bootloader in the US, but was called the Milestone and locked tight everywhere else) that's still not a small amount of interest in non-standard ROMs.

If Motorola wants to keep everything locked down like an iphone they're of course welcome to do so. I really think that they'd do well to just offer an option to unlock the bootloader to whatever percentage of their userbase asks for it, along with voiding their warranty of course. It's not going to hurt anything if they do and they'll only reap goodwill and more fans because of it. We may be a minority but we're a vocal minority, and currently we'll all buy a non-moto phone when it comes time for our next purchase.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to push customers away, but then again I'm not a huge hardware company so there are probably many more factors involved in the decision. I'm only speaking as a disgruntled customer who will do my best to prevent anyone I know from getting a Motorola product from here on in. It's a safe bet that I'm not alone.

Requirements
**NEEDS ROOT**
Works on Android 2.0 and above.
Tested on various devices and firmwares, but not tested on Android 3.0 and 3.1 devices.

Current Features
1. Block unwanted send SMS / call phone operation
2. Block unwanted access to phone location, contacts, SMS/MMS conversation database, IMEI/IMSI/ICCID/phone number.
3. Integrated low-level firewall, no netfilter/iptables required, works on pre-froyo devices

Market Link
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.lbe.security

I'm sure android users will find a workaround as already mentioned. However, it's not that useful when netflix is already on android en masse. Although the netflix app was already pulled from the market (and only "made" for a handful of phones), it has been integrated into nearly every android phone able to run gingerbread roms as root. If you're an android user and want it, go over to the xda developer forums and find your phone and take a look. I added it to my phone the other day and it works perfectly.

Before you go with the hacked versions, give the original apk a shot. Works on my Droid running CM7. Got it from xda-dev before the hacked versions were posted (it's also posted in the thread with the hacked versions).

I did have it sort of lock up once (kept playing, but wouldn't react to any input and couldn't exit it), but that was the only issue and it's worked fine since.

Go to http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1076150, there's2 different modified versions of the Netflix.apk which people have reported success with. Root not required.

Unless you root it...

http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/13/how-to-install-netflix-on-most-android-devices/

There's no reason to have to root for netflix.
The guys over at xda-dev hosted the app for all of us, and hacked it so it doesn't require a certain phone to run.
Tested and working on my droid 1

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1076150

...for buying an Xperia X10a. Although maybe I will after I RTFA.

Then again, maybe this is all a clever strategy to get Android hackers to develop updated OSs for their phones, since they can't seem to manage it in a timely fashion.

B.S. GTalk will be update via the market. If you can't wait just follow:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1056793

I didn't do it on Transformer, but so long as you can root it (which is done), you can run anything in chroot.

Yes, right now you need to use VNC. This is because Android itself doesn't use X. In theory, it should be possible to write an X server that runs on top of Android, and then tell programs running inside the chroot to connect to that. There actually was a single-person project that tried to implement that, but it seems to have died - I can't even find the link anymore.

Anyway, on existing tablets this feature is not particularly useful because most apps running within are not touch-enabled, and can be very hard to use. Now when you get a proper keyboard and a mouse cursor, we're talking business, so there might be more people interested in implementing such a thing (heck, I'd give it a try myself).

It's easier than you think

Make sure you head over here once you get it home.

Buying a Nook was the best $250 I've spent in a long time.

They didn't re-implement the DHCP client. They are using DHCPCD. DHCPCD isn't exactly problem free:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=907772

People have a full Ubuntu install running on the Atrix, running through just HDMI.
[MOD] Full Ubuntu on the Atrix http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1000316
[MOD] Webtop Via HDMI Without a Dock http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=980193

People have a full Ubuntu install running on the Atrix, running through just HDMI.
[MOD] Full Ubuntu on the Atrix http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1000316
[MOD] Webtop Via HDMI Without a Dock http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=980193

I use Gingerbread as my daily driver on my MT3G (original). Works fine, seems just as fast as CM6/Froyo. A little swap and overclocking goes a long way, as does the new (well, months ago new) radio that frees up about 10MB of RAM.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=932118

I'm running RC6.1 as we speak.