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The 10 Best Android Hacks
Barence writes "The Android vs iPhone debate will continue until the apocalypse, but there's no doubt Android wins on customability. PC Pro has listed its ten favorite Android hacks, which include the ability to open your garage door with your smartphone, install Ubuntu on your handset, and overclock your phone's processor. There's also instructions on how to replace your dashboard satnav with Google's version."
Well, if you make up words, I guess you get to define them to mean whatever you want. If "Android wins on customability," then iPhone wins on appleability.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
My favourite android hack is when I set the alarm last year and it still works this year!
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
... but it could be nice to have anything usefull among those hacks, don't you think ?
In this war between Android and iPhone, the customer wins.
The "Droid Does" (multitasking) ad campaign spurred Apple to develop iOS 4.x, which allows multitasking. The first Droid smartphones got Apple off the dime with cut and paste. Customers continue to win here, no matter which phone they purchase
Personally I have an iPhone (4) and I like it. I had the original iPhone and retained it well past my contract with AT&T. I have a client who purchased a Droid Incredible and asked me to set up his email (from my server) on it. Took all of about a minute. I was very impressed by the phone and shall always retain that impression.
I think the real losers here are RIM with the Blackberry and the Palm WebOS smartphones. While Palm has innovated, they have been passed by and are now in a niche. RIM is trying to play "catch up" and the only real difference they offer in their phones is complete integration with secure Exchange Servers. They have lost utterly in the easy app purchase field.
Apple's biggest mistake so far in the United States has been the exclusivity contract with AT&T. Initially, it was a boon for Apple, but the Android smartphones are selling faster than the Apple smartphones because they are available on more networks. To the extent Apple stays with the phone company we all love to hate, they will lose market share versus the Android smartphones.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
Wait - I thought [insert favorite-company-to-hate] did that!!
I'm glad I held on to my WM 6.5 phone. Personally, I think having a phone you can hack is part of the fun of owning a smartphone.
Most people who look at my setup give a 'WTF is that?!?' expression. But it works for me, and that's what counts. (Yes, it's stable, I just had to un-HTC ware the freaking thing and it became stable, cooking my own ROM is was part of the fun)
My next phone will be Android based, because MS is too busy playing iPhone catch up to actually release a real smartphone. I'll most likely cook up my own Android ROM when the time comes.
Ok, in order:
1. Um, connect your Android video-out-capable phone to your in-car video. If the hack is replacing yoru in-car satnav system, you did that with the Android phone without the video. Now, hooking up YouTube to your in-car video, that's a hack. And illegal in many states.
4. Playing classic games on your Andriod? That's an *app*, not a *hack*. The controller hack is nice tho.
7. Installing root-only apps? How about "Getting root on your android"? After that, well, the apps come.
8. Controlling your Media Centre? Um, My Palm III did that. And that was before I *had* a mnedia centre.
10. "Get the latest Android versions, fast" What? If you're referrring to getting custom ROMs from those intrepid developers out there, fast is relative. Getting Froyo on my G1 took waiting for Froyo to be released into SDK, then waiting for it to be ported to the G1 (which required waiting for the DangerSPL), then waiting for a stable candidate, then finally the 2708 hack to make it useable long-term. Now, this is admittedly faster than waiting for the OPTA release, cause neither TMO, HTC, or Google will ever release any Android 2.x for the G1, but that's sort of like saying it was a clever hack to play DNF at PennyArcade before anyone else, since for all purposes DNF is a DNF, but the demo is not a release. Well, maybe not quite like that, but calling an alternative ROM release 'fast' is relative.
Stupid list. Mostly apps, not hacks. Show me the RAM stack hack for the G1 and I'm nominating it for #1.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I read the garage door opener and was excited to see how it worked. It involves hooking a Linux box up to your door opener that is connected to the internet. That is kind of lame , certainly in environments where it would be impossible to put a pc in essentially a outdoor setting and I would suspect it wouldn't be that hard to do on other smart phones.