How To Jailbreak and Upgrade Old Android Phones

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Serdar Yegulalp provides an in-depth tutorial on how he rooted and upgraded his Motorola Cliq XT, one of many Android phones made infamous for not receiving further Android updates beyond 1.5. 'It turned out to be quite an odyssey, with twists and turns I describe here in order to help those who wish to embark on a similar journey,' Yegulalp writes. 'Was it worth the trouble? Yes, in the sense that learning how to jailbreak your own phone is a valuable skill, and I got much more functionality out of the Cliq, when I was expecting to simply junk it. '"

Comments

Was It Worth It?

[WrongSizeGlass]

Was it worth it? Maybe.

Was it worth the trouble? Yes, in the sense that learning how to jailbreak your own phone is a valuable skill, and I got much more functionality out of the Cliq, when I was expecting to simply junk it.

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).

Yes, it's a good feeling to know you beat the technology. And yes, it's your phone and you should be able to do whatever you want with it. But how many times will you have to root the same phone model? Will the process be similar or completely different with your next model? Sometimes the upgraded features are worth your time & effort, and other times it's worth the cost of a better phone.

Re:Was It Worth It?

[DJRumpy]

Although the practice of rooting this phone probably wasn't worth the effort for one phone, the fact that it was documented will help others with the same model, so I can see a definite benefit to this. The beauty of information sharing...

Re:Was It Worth It?

[John Hasler]

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).

The time you spent writing your comment could have been spent on a billable project. Don't you ever do anything just for the hell of it?

i thought

[smash]

android was open, and all this jailbreaking malarkey was something only iphone users trapped by steve jobs had to deal with