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As many of you know by now, last couple of weeks have been quite intense in terms of what is happening in this little underground world of ours. Just as a means of providing you with a brief tl;dr summary, essentially one of our own devs, who goes by the name of XDA Recognized Contributor and Developer jmztaylor was sent a take down request by HTC of North America. The issue/explanation for this request was two-fold. Part A involved the fact that our dev had his own personal website under the address htcruu.com. Now, Unless you have direct, explicit permission . . . READ ON »
While we know that this is a US-specific issue, it also serves as a great opportunity to ensure that the entire world is reading so that they don’t make the same mistakes we do in this country. As many of you are aware, our entire Government seemingly has a bad tendency to listen to extraordinarily greedy people and agree on things that make people wonder what in the world were they thinking? Some of the most notable examples include (but are not limited) the consideration of a small bill that “almost came to be” known as SOPA. Unfortunately (for . . . READ ON »
Here at XDA, we take the responsibility of carriers and OEMs to provide timely updates to their devices (and to honor their GPL requirements) seriously. There are those who do a good job (Samsung is one of them), those who don’t always do a good job (HTC, Motorola, LG), and those who do a terrible job (Huawei, ZTE, Rockchip to name a few). But there is one who right now is doing a terrific job, and that is Sony Mobile.
Back at the end of 2012, we selected Sony Mobile as our OEM of the Year for . . . READ ON »
What is ADB?
Most of you reading this will no doubt be aware of the Android Debug Bridge (or ADB for short), and have used it for one thing or another. However, if you are still relatively new to tweaking your device, ADB may seem almost like some kind of intimidating and geeky black art. In reality, it’s actually rather simple and can be an incredibly useful tool to have at your disposal for a variety of reasons. The ADB tool itself is explained by developer.android.com, which is a very handy resource, as;
” a versatile command line tool
. . . READ ON »
TrustZone (a.k.a. TZ), in conjunction with Secure Element, is becoming more prevalent in modern devices. The TrustZone acts as a buffer between the kernel and the hardware. It prevents the kernel from directly interfacing with the hardware, but it also does so much more.
We all want secure devices for certain things like keypad inputs, payments, secure information transfer, and the TrustZone provides all of this. It does so by operating at a higher privileged level than the operating system, running applications and preventing access to certain information.
Think of a TrustZone like a cloaking shield, when you make certain system calls . . . READ ON »
Another wonderful International CES has passed us by. The event was filled with many exciting displays, like the Intel Ultrabook Tree, but most important were the announcements made by many manufactures. Some announcements are still years out, embodying nothing more than an idea. Other announcements having working prototypes, while still others are in the final stages before release or have been released.
While the exposition portion of CES with flashy booths, models in revealing clothing, and the latest wares on display only occurs Tuesday through Friday, the announcements are often made before. The Monday before the opening of the . . . READ ON »
Bootloaders are like locks on a cookie jar: They’re just begging to be unlocked. When users on XDA see a locked bootloader, they immediately start looking for the accomplished developer who is working on hacking the device. It is for this reason that we like to hold Google Nexus devices as the gold standard for how manufacturers (and carriers) should approach their bootloaders, as well as firmware openness.
Nexus devices are easy to unlock: You go into fastboot mode, type ‘fastboot oem unlock’, and you’re done. Easy peasy. Of course, Google’s method involves an automatic wipe . . . READ ON »
If you visited the Ubuntu home page early this morning, you couldn’t have missed the countdown timer that promised something, “So close, you can almost touch it.” Most assumed it to be about a fully touch-optimized UI for the next version of the popular Linux distribution, but it turned out to be something even more significant. In an announcement earlier today, Canonical unveiled Ubuntu for phones, a fully working Ubuntu distribution meant for existing and future mobile handsets.
If you are thinking “Wait, wasn’t Ubuntu for Android already announced last year,” you aren’t alone. Upon first hearing the news, that . . . READ ON »
When you buy a product, you count on being the one in control so you can do whatever you want to: dress it up, throw it on the ground, or hang it from the ceiling. Mobile carriers, and some manufacturers for that matter, have a very different idea. Since you bought the device at a discount (read: subsidy) they feel they own the device, at least until the contract term is up—and they do have a point. Often, the manufacturer and mobile carrier have come to an agreement that a device must have its bootloader locked during the life of . . . READ ON »
There’s still a little over a month left in 2012, but we’ve already had quite the eventful year. This year saw the launch of Android 4.1, Android 4.2, and several flagship devices. We featured plenty of ups, plenty of downs, even more downs, and few stories that made us all ask if the whole world around us had gone slightly mad.
On the XDA Developer TV front, we saw various XDA Unboxings and a series on app production by XDA Elite Recognized Developer AdamOutler. We were kept up-to-date on the . . . READ ON »
There have been a plethora of new devices added to our forum as of late. While many had large scale launches, such as the Nexus 4 and the Galaxy Note II, there are others that didn’t get as much of the limelight. One such device is the Samsung Galaxy Camera. It’s a unique device. It has all the specs of a high end smartphone, except it’s a 16 MP point-and-shoot camera, and developers here at XDA have been hacking the daylights out of it.
Heading up the development is XDA Elite Recognize Developer Adam Outler. We’ve . . . READ ON »
Apple is the forbidden fruit in the mouths of virtually everyone in the mobile device world. We have seen the company’s tireless crusade against Android manufacturers due to mainly Android’s ever increasing user base and Apple’s infinite claims that others steal their ideas. One of the longest battles in this saga has been against HTC, which has lasted almost 3 years—pretty much ever since Android was introduced into the world of mobile devices. Apple bombarded HTC with various patent claims, most of which were just being awarded at the time the lawsuit was being shelled out. This took a lot . . . READ ON »
In a move for which no level of facepalm can suffice, the USPTO granted Apple a patent for a rectangle with rounded corners last week. Regardless of how ridiculous it may sound, sadly it’s true. According to patent no. D670,286, design rights for a “portable display device” with an external shape that is a rectangle with rounded corners are now owned by Apple.
See for yourself:
Note that only the solid line is part of the patented design; the dotted lines serve as mere reference, or more likely influence, to make it look more like a patentable product, but . . . READ ON »
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