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March 2, 2013 By: egzthunder1
Since the introduction of Ice Cream Sandwich, Android has been rather stringent on developers because of the whole Holo requirements set forth by Google. Essentially, ROMs are required to have this theme in the ROMs in order to be able to access the Play Store. Because of this and because a seamless aesthetic always looks better, many app developers have focused on trying to implement the Holo look on all their creations. The result is a myriad of launchers, themes, widgets, etc that tend to give those on AOSP (and variants) a nice and lightly themed device. The latest inclusion to the “Holo family” is a file browser and manager created by XDA Forum Member uncopt.
UNCOPT File Browser is, as its name clearly states, a file manager capable of doing what most file managers can do today and more. One of its biggest features is something that TotalCommander fans will certainly appreciate, which is a split panel view to easily move files from one directory to the next. Panels are independent of each other and can be resized, which is a handy feature for devices that lack a bit on the screen real estate department. The app also has a very nice way of handling compressed archives which makes it stand out a little more. The files, upon being opened, are not decompressed or extracted on temporary directories or even on memory, which is a great way of not hogging down resources on your device. This last bit is of particular use for lower end devices, which may not have as much available internal memory. Moreover, the app offers the ability to view and open nested archives.
Some other features include full keyboard navigation, automatic sync of MTP and MediaStore, and all the root level access goodness that you are used to having (navigate up to root, change permissions, mounting system storage as read or read/write, etc). The dev is looking for some feedback to make the app better. If you have any features that you think may be worth considering, please let the dev know by posting your feedback.
UNCOPT File Browser is the nicest and most innovative Holo styled file browser for Android with root capabilities.
You can find more information in the original thread.
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February 25, 2013 By: egzthunder1
For most people, this is an old tune, one to which they have danced before: the eternal promise of extending battery life, making your device smooth and silky as the time it was taken out of the box. We have had these programs such as task managers, app killers, RAM savers, and so on for a very long time. The truth of the matter is that Android is actually quite capable of handling apps in a very efficient manner, and more often than not, these are not normally needed. Also, the available RAM on most newer devices certainly makes them obsolete (for newer gen devices anyways). Furthermore, leaving programs in RAM (when available) prevents the need to relaunch them the next time you open them. However, when a new approach is tested, it is always worth looking into it, and that happens to be the case with Greenify by XDA Forum Member oasisfeng.
The app itself acts like a bit of a task killer, hunting down applications that may be active in memory but not being used. This app, however, uses a different method to kill an app. The method used here not only disables the apps, but it prevents it from coming back to life, which is the failing point of most app killers. There are other ways to achieve a similar result, such as using the freezing feature of Titanium Backup, which essentially completely disables the app temporarily. However, using this approach also disables your ability to use said app. Greenify uses a method known as am force-stop pkgname as opposed to the commonly used kill. The app hunts for alarms and active ServiceRecords, which act as restore points for the app being killed and gets rid of them. This way, the app is completely disabled without actually completely disabling the app.
The app requires root, but other than that, it has no special requirements. Please take it for a spin and make sure that you leave some feedback for the dev. Also, please leave your experience as well. Did it help? We would love to know.
No more envy of your friends’ iPhone which never become slow and battery hungry after lots of apps installed. With Greenify, your Android device can also run almost as smooth and lasting as the first day you have it!
You can find more information in the original thread.
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February 25, 2013 By: Jimmy McGee
There was more discussion about Ubuntu Touch this week, and XDA Developer TV Producer and News Corespondent Jordan reviews this and all the other important stories from this week on the XDA Portal. Jordan talks about the Ubuntu Touch Porting Guide from Canonical. Jordan mentions the article talking about porting Ubuntu Touch being similar to porting CyanogenMod.
In rooting news, Jordan talks about the root exploit for the Jelly Bean-laden Motorola Atrix HD. Jordan talks about the petition to stop the Sim Unlocking ban reaching the required 100,000 signatures. Pull up a chair and check out this video. And if you any news to report, feel free to contact any XDA News Writer.
February 25, 2013 By: egzthunder1
Android 4.1 brought quite a few surprises, improvements, and extensions in functionality since it was introduced last year. Needless to say, many of the OS’s features require hardware elements, such as NFC and Beam functionality. The concept is simple and it works quite well. However, the implementation of this on Google’s AOSP as well as manufacturer’s variants is limited to a few things such as pictures or video. Having said that, there is more to life than just sharing visual media. What if you wanted to share a song, a document, or an APK? Sure, you can always try to send them via WiFi direct, e-mail, DropBox, and a myriad of other alternatives. However, again, the current implementation of the service is limited
Due to limitations being the fuel for innovation, XDA Forum Member MohammadAG thought about the possibility to use the NFC API to do a little more. In this particular case, he took upon the file type limitation and created a small add-on to enable Beam transfer from any app (so as long as the app has the ability to use the Share Intent). What it does is it adds a new option to transfer via Android Beam to the “Share” menu on most apps. The add-on is capable to transmitting the file to any other NFC-capable Android 4.1 device, and the dev also claims that this even works on the NFC-equipped Nokia N9. Having said that, the latter will only act as a receiver but it is more than plenty as you are not likely to try and send too many things from a Nokia N9 anyways.
Just remember that NFC is not magic or an instant faster-than-lightning data transfer service. NFC is just used to create the connection between the two devices in question, and Bluetooth really takes care of the transfer process itself. Please take this for a spin and leave any feedback you may have.
Ever wanted to send someone a document, a song, a video, or just about any type of file?
With File Beam, you can!
You can find more information in the original thread.
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February 22, 2013 By: Conan Troutman
Users of the Motorola Atrix HD received a little bit of a raw deal when their device was updated to Android 4.1. Although they were updated to a more recent OS, Motorola had decided to really go to town on securing the device against being rooted. It was possible to upgrade from a rooted version of ICS and protect root access throughout the upgrade procedure. However, many people couldn’t contain they rampant urge to upgrade, and neglected to do so.
Thankfully though XDA Forum Member djrbliss has made something of a habit of finding root exploits for Motorola devices as well as several other devices, and was able to do just that with the Atrix HDs running Jelly Bean. This exploit though is a little more complex than your regular one click affair, so you may want to make coffee before attempting this one.
First off, you’ll need to access to a Linux distribution of some kind. If you don’t already use Linux and don’t feel like installing it permanently, a live CD will suffice for this procedure. Next, you’ll need to set up a Samba share that can be mounted from your device before placing the relevant files on this share, accessing them and actually using them to gain root access.
There are quite a few steps and a fair bit of Terminal-based jiggery pokery to contend with. But if it’s root your after, it will all be worthwhile. All the steps are thoroughly explained by djrbliss in the forum thread, right through from setting up the Samba share to pushing SuperSU to your device. Some of you whippersnappers might even learn a thing or two about what rooting was like in the good old days, before the advent of the “one click” exploit.
Check out the original forum thread for more information.
February 20, 2013 By: egzthunder1
Often times, we find certain aspects of flashing ROMs, kernels, and anything that needs to be installed via recovery a bit of a pain. For instance, on older Samsung Galaxy devices (anything before the Galaxy S3), having a custom recovery involves having a kernel lumped alongside because the recovery and boot partition are stored in the same location. This means that updating the kernel will wipe your custom recovery. Now, most owners work around this limitation by flashing what is known as a repack, which is a stock or tweaked kernel that includes a custom recovery image. The likes of HTC and Motorola don’t do this, albeit they do have a few other issues, which we will not talk about right now. Sony Xperia devices are no different from Samsung in that regard, as they also lump boot and recovery in the same area. However, the Sony Xperia T had a little something that was different than other devices with the same “issue.” Upon taking a closer look, XDA Recognized Developers lilstevie, Dees_Troy, and XDA Elite Recognized Developer Rebellos found a small gift from Sony at the very end of the eMMC memory: unused, unpartitioned 300 MB worth of memory. So, ideas started flying around and the devs got to work.
After several weeks of looking into things, and doing some major trial and error, they took that unused space and turned it into a new home for the recovery image. This is completely separate from the kernel (to a certain extent anyways), which means that flashing a new ROM with a new kernel will not replace the custom recovery image. What has been done was to replace a single stage of the entire boot process known as appsboot, which is patched/replaced by LK. It then loads a new stage (mmcblk0p16) that contains the kernel. From that point, the kernel will listen to commands to call upon recovery, which is located on FOTAKernel. The best part is that even after this, there may be enough free space at the end of the chip to do some more creative things such as the ability to store more kernels—perhaps even space for a multi-boot style menu (thanks XDA Recognized Developer cdesai for the explanation). Other added benefits include the ability to use either Sony .elf files or regular Android boot.img, and the ability to go into recovery from the ROM (reboot into recovery).
You will have to make sure that you are running a 4.1.2 official kernel (no CM or other AOSP variants supported as of yet). Also, ICS is not supported either by this release, mainly due to differences in the 3.0 kernel which will cause the device to not boot. Lastly,please understand that this will modify your partition tables. If you are OK with the inherent risks, make sure that you read and understand the installation instructions and take it for a spin.
Since getting the Xperia T the biggest annoyance is only having one bootable partition.
To combat this issue I have spent some time porting the Little Kernel bootloader. This
allows booting different kernels for recovery and boot as well as a full implementation
fastboot.
You can find more information in the original thread.
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February 20, 2013 By: egzthunder1
One of the biggest possible hacks for most current Android devices is the ability to completely remove security flags from the bootloader. Most companies these days will give you some way to unlock your device’s bootloaders, but many are simply partial unlocks, while others are entirely not unlockable. HTC is one such company that offers what is known as a “developer unlock” through the htcdev service. However, as stated already this is but a partial unlock, which allows you to do a few fun things like flashing custom recoveries and using them to flash new ROMs. This is good, but it is quite limited, and you must have access to a PC to use fastboot commands in order to do more. This is normally overcome by disabling the HBOOT security flags, which is not an easy task. Every time HTC releases a new HBOOT, it comes loaded with patches to try and keep people from achieving a complete unlock (S-OFF). If you have either an One S, One XL, and Droid DNA your luck has just changed, courtesy of XDA Recognized Developers beaups and XDA Elite Recognized Developer jcase.
The process involves flashing a file through fastboot, which essentially removes eMMC write protection. After that, a second file is pushed into /data/local/temp, which removes all the S-OFF flags on the device. The only real requirement to perform this procedure (aside from having a PC with adb and fastboot) is that you are SuperCID. The latter (which stands for Super Country ID in case you are not familiar) is a protection to prevent you from flashing a RUU meant for a different region. This is a protection that has been around since the days of the HTC Wizard, and it is still present to this day. The flashing of the original zip requires you to have SuperCID off (rooting and custom recovery are not required for this to work). Luckily, this has already been achieved for all three devices, but it seems to have been blocked yet again after a recent OTA update. So, if you have not SuperCID’ed your device yet, do not attempt to do this! Having said that, stay tuned; a fix is on its way.
Please read the procedure carefully and thoroughly. Achieving S-OFF does involve some risk, and as such, there is a chance of bricking. That being said, rewards await you once the device is fully S-OFF, so make haste! Oh and just as your momma told you… don’t accept candies from strangers or OTAs from manufacturers. Have fun and happy unlocking!
Welcome to Facepalm S-Off for modern HTC phones
You can visit the original threads in the One S, One XL, and DNA sections for more information.
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February 19, 2013 By: egzthunder1
I have been a Sense fan for a very long time—ever since it was known as Manila, to be more precise. It offered all the eye candy that you could handle at the expense of not having much RAM left over, but as phones became more powerful, this became less of an issue as time went by. Among all the pretty weather animations, fancy clocks, and sliding homescreens, there was one feature that always captivated me: the picture frame. I am not entirely sure how or why. Maybe it was a mistake or an Eureka moment, but HTC got it right the first time around with this feature. Going from WM to Android, the Photo Widget was adapted into Sense and retained much of the same look and functionality that it had before. During the days of Sense 3.5, the widget was given an alternative look, and that pretty much completed what was missing: a grid preview that shows an array of pictures from your folder, all laced with a beautiful tile-style transition animation as you swipe your finger through it. On top of all this, the standard photo frame in Android is just plain bad.
The issue with this is that, much as it is the case with all Sense widgets, you need to have Sense to run it. Not everyone is a fan of Sense-based ROMs or even have access to a Sense device. And even with one of these on hand, the idea of running lighter ROMs such as AOSP-derived works pretty much makes this into choosing between your choice of OS versus your choice of home screen contents. Well, attempting to work towards a future where such choices need not be made, XDA Forum Member itandy decided to make a widget to bridge the gap between both worlds. While still a work in progress, the dev’s Photo Frame/Grid Widget aims to bring most functionality of the infamous Sense widget while retaining your right to run AOSP, TW, or any kind of ROM you want to have on your device. You can choose from either design, and the grid sizes as well as spacing between pictures can be fully customized. On top of that, if you feel that you want to have separate widgets for separate albums, the app allows you to have multiple widgets, each with its own settings, which can be changed on the fly without having to scrap the widget every time.
As mentioned, the widget is still under development, but it is certainly a breath of fresh air over the stock Android widget. Please provide some feedback for the dev if you run into any bugs.
This is my first Android app. Basically I want to replicate the grid-style photo widget from HTC so it can be used by other phones or in AOSP ROM.
You can find more information in the original thread.
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February 16, 2013 By: egzthunder1
Not too long ago, we brought you news about one of Samsung’s eye candy features being successfully ported to the Epic 4G Touch‘s Jelly Bean leaks FL16 and GA10. Regardless of how useless this is in terms of device functionality, one cannot brush aside the fact that a lot of work went into the porting process and reverse engineering of device specific code. The amount of work put by all the devs involved was substantial, and anyone who had followed the development thread could attest to that. Now, the challenge is complete and in order to have it installed, the only thing anyone would need to do is flash the zip file through recovery and presto! 18 shades of color are automagically added to your ROM. However, if you are here for the journey as opposed to the destination, then you might enjoy what XDA Recognized Contributor tdunham has prepared for you.
As you have seen in recent days, tdunham has been hard at work writing up and putting together guides on how to manually add your own mods to your JB ROMs on the E4GT. As stated earlier, this is a great way for anyone to learn and get dirty into the huge world of Android modding. The guide revolves around having to modify android.policy.jar and secsettings.apk, much as what was the case for the previous tutorials. However, due to the complexity of this particular mod (and the pre-requisite of having other mods before this one), the guide is a little more involved than others. Tdunham not only explains how to enable this mod, but also explains how to add up to 18 colors for the effect. Keep in mind also that the work involved in this guide involves smali edits, which has been described by many as a “spawn from hell”. So, make sure that you know what you are getting into before proceeding. There is no harm in doing a little bit of research before diving into this. You know… just in case.
Since all this is done out of your phone, there is little risk involved. However, once you are done and ready to flash your mod, make sure that you make a back up since there is a chance for messing things up and your phone going into a bootloop, which would likely force you to reflash your ROM. Again, this is a great way to get involved into coding and Android modding. Please make sure that you understand this and happy learning!
Ripple effect must already be enabled for this mod to work.
This mod is pretty complex and requires a good deal of tedious work.
You can find more information in the original thread.
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February 15, 2013 By: Jimmy McGee
Android 4.2.2 is rolling out to most current Nexus devices. That story and more are covered by Jordan, as he reviews all the important stories from this week. Jordan talks about the other video released this week on XDA Developer TV. XDA Developer TV Producer TK released an app review this week comparing two gesture control apps, Trigger and LMT.
In Sony Xperia news, Jordan talks about the kernel source release for the Sony Xperia Z, a device that isn’t even available for purchase. Additionally, Jordan talks about the app fine-tuning and debugging tool released by Sony developers. Pull up a chair and check out this video. Finally, be sure to check out all the other news from XDA-Developers.
February 13, 2013 By: Conan Troutman
Those of you with Nexus devices will most likely have received an update to Android version 4.2.2 by now. The news of the OTA was broken on the forums yesterday by XDA Senior Member kataria.vikesh. Those of you who have not are no doubt on the verge of applying the update manually after a lengthy session of gawping at your status bar awaiting that notification. Nexus 4 owners may find themselves waiting a little longer than the rest, as there doesn’t seem to be any sign of an update for the device yet. However, the changes have already been merged into some custom ROMs. This latest version, build number JDQ39, was also pushed to AOSP yesterday meaning that we should soon see this latest update becoming unofficially available on a whole host of devices.
So what exactly are the changes in 4.2.2? Well, we already know from the version number that this isn’t a huge update, there are however some notable additions to functionality and tweaks to the UI. Most of these are directed more towards the end user, but one of which will no doubt be a welcome addition for some developers out there so let’s start with that one.
ADB Whitelist: Connecting your device to a PC with USB debugging enabled will now bring up a prompt which displays your PC’s RSA key and offers the option to add this information to a whitelist. Unless a specific computer is allowed access via this prompt, the device will be inaccessible via ADB. This of course adds an extra level of security to the device. Providing you use a secure lock screen any potential thief with a little ADB knowledge will be unable to access the prompt and add themselves to the whitelist. Unfortunately, it seems that this feature may not provide much more security for users with an unlocked bootloader, according to the guys at Android Police.
Other changes include:
There’s speculation as to whether the issue of streaming music over A2DP has been addressed. Some users are reporting an improvement, whereas others are not. If anyone is able to spot this in the commits then please let us know in the comments.
If you’re still awaiting the update for either a GSM Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7 or Nexus 10, you can download them directly for manual installation. Happy flashing.
February 11, 2013 By: Jimmy McGee
With the mountain of snow on the east coast of America, you may have missed some of the news released on XDA-Developers this weekend. In this video, Jordan reviews all the important stories from this week. Jordan talks about the release of Paranoid Android 3 for some Nexus devices. Additionally, Jordan talks about learning to add the Jelly Bean lock screen on top of Samsung’s TouchWiz interface.
In application news, Jordan talks about easier file management with DatFM. Jordan talks about the new open source privacy solution OpenPDroid. Pull up a chair and check out this video. And if you any news to report, feel free to contact any XDA News Writer.
February 10, 2013 By: egzthunder1
There is no better feeling than making your own device, truly your own. The way we do this at XDA is by tweaking the daylights out of it. However, there is more to life than simply installing APKs or flashing zip files through recovery. There is a far more rewarding process in tweaking your device, and that comes from the joy of doing things oneself. If not for the eye candy pleasure provided, it is great for the sake of learning how to do something new. But, wait! Where to start? Android files are numerous, large, and require a certain skill set to master and modify, right? Well, yes, but luckily we have people like XDA Recognized Contributor tdunham who can definitely lend a hand during the learning process.
In this particular instance, the dev shared a way to enable the AOSP lockscreen on the Epic 4G Touch (running Jelly Bean leaks). Because most manufacturers like putting their own flavor on their devices, it is highly unlikely (with a few exceptions) that you will purchase a device that comes with a stock Android lock screen, and Samsung is no exception. The guide that the dev has posted will allow you to see and understand what code is used to enable the missing, infamous AOSP lockscreen to the device’s already wide arsenal of eye pleasing effects. This is particularly useful if you like the stock ROM and really don’t feel like flashing to AOSP ROMs. And again, the end result is that you get the look that you want and leave a more knowledgeable individual at the end of the process.
What are you waiting for? Get the tools needed to decompile the required files (namely android.policy.jar and secsettings.apk), put on a fresh carafe on your Mr. Coffee machine, and let your hungry curiosity take over. Remember that you will need certain tools to do this (other than coffee), so make sure that you are ready. Please share your experiences and any tricks you may have learned along the way.
nable Aosp Lockscreen with toggle in Jellybean
Credits to Mirko DDD for original guide.
You can find more information in the original thread.
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