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May 8, 2012 By: Will Verduzco
Another day, another forum here on XDA-Developers. And today, we bring you several. Starting with the tablet world, we added forums for the Asus Transformer TF300T and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (both the 7.0 and 10.1 variants). The Asus offering brings similar features to that of its sibling, the Transformer Prime, but with a more wallet-friendly price. Swapping out the acclaimed Super-IPS display for a more standard (but still vibrant) IPS panel, but retaining its Nvidia Tegra 3 powerhouse, the TF300T is no slouch. On the other end of the alphabet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 and 10.1 offer fantastic displays and competent dual-core processors for $250 and $400, respectively.
On the phone end of the spectrum, two HTC phones have found their home on our forums: the Verizon HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE, and the Sprint HTC EVO 4G LTE. The Sprint phone clearly demonstrates its HTC One XL lineage by offering a 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, 4.7″ 720p Super LCD2 Display, a full gig of RAM, 8 MP rear-facing camera, Sense 4 running atop Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and of course 4G LTE connectivity. The Verizon phone, on the other hand, appears to offer traits of the One XL and the One S by giving users the same 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, a smaller 4″ qHD Super LCD Display, a full gig of RAM, 8 MP rear-facing camera, Sense 4 running atop Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and access to Verizon’s robust and speedy 4G LTE network. Regardless of differences in screen and size, both devices seem to be the go-to phone on their respective carriers.
So which device are you most excited about? Let us know in the comment section below, or jump straight to the Asus Transformer TF300T, Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, Verizon HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE, and Sprint HTC EVO 4G LTE forums.
April 30, 2012 By: Will Verduzco
Have you been on the hunt for fast, free, and reliable hosting for your development work and themes? If so, we don’t blame you. Ever since Mega Upload went down, it hasn’t exactly been easy. Now thanks to the fine folks at Dev-Host, this is no longer a problem.
Dev-Host offers free hosting for all, while delivering a number of advantages over its competitors such as no wait times, uncapped transfer speeds, and 40+ GB of storage. And the benefits don’t stop there.
Because Dev-Host realizes the valuable role that developers, themers, and contributors play; they would like to extend free premium memberships to all of our Recognized Developers, Recognized Themers, and Recognized Contributors. As a special perk in addition to premium membership, RDs, RTs, and RCs will be given a special badge showcasing their contributions, and their uploads will have no age limit.
If you’re a Recognized Themer or Recognized Contributor and would like to get in on the action, head over to the original thread. Recognized Developers should head over to the the stickied thread in the RD area.
Thank you all for your contributions to the site, and happy devving, contributing, and theming; and thank you to Dev-Host for making all of this possible!
April 1, 2012 By: Will Verduzco
Here at XDA-Developers, we pride ourselves on being able to eke out the absolute most performance and functionality from our mobile devices. And as Portal Administrator / Editor-in-Chief for the site, it is my duty and responsibility to ensure that this information is highlighted through our media outlets.
A month an a half ago, when the XDA Portal reached its second birthday, I took it upon myself to evaluate market standings and determine which platform(s) would have the most meaningful impact in the years to come. Through this, I came to a startling realization:
iOS is simply better than Android.
It is with great pleasure that I announce today our new (and improved) focus. Rather than wasting our time with inferior mobile OSes, we will simply concentrate on the best: Apple iOS. While other OSes have downright copied Apple, some resorting so far as to traveling back in time to the year 2000 to launch their products, we can only recognize Apple iOS as the true grandfather of everything smartphone. Furthermore, OSes like Android and Windows Phone simply lack the resources and efficiency to compete in the modern mobile market. HP’s webOS and Nokia’s Symbian showed promise, but even they are simply no match for the Apple juggernaut.
Now rather than talking about our past mistakes, let me present to you our new websites:
Thank you for your support and for making this transition a success. I look forward to a great year with iOS!
OK, you didn’t REALLY think that we’d give up Android and WP7 in favor of iOS did you? And you didn’t honestly believe that Google was hosting a second week of I/O or that we were shutting down our marketplace. And most of all, I really, really hope you didn’t step on your Gorilla Glass-laden tablet or smartphone and use it as a scale.
Happy April Fools Day, everyone! We hope you enjoyed our pranks. Here are some other notable April Fool’s Day Pranks seen across the web:
[Thanks to XDA Forum Member Aoi_sora9x for the graphic!]
April 1, 2012 By: egzthunder1
As you are all probably aware, the XDA Marketplace has been under heavy scrutiny for quite some time. Our entire moderator team has been putting large amounts of time and effort on constant and never ending flock of scam reports coming from the WTS and WTT areas from people who are simply stealing, for lack of a better word. Devices are being sent out by some reputable members and either are claimed to have never been shipped out, or accusations about materials in conditions other than promised are simply flooding our inboxes.
The MP is an area that does not, officially anyways, have moderator or administrator involvement of any kind due to potential liabilities on xda-developers. However, as of late we have been involved in numerous cases of people complaining about others for fraudulent or “gone sour” transactions. We have tried putting new regulations in place, which went into effect on March, 10th, but it seems that people are still pretty much ignoring them if they can by trading via pm, buying devices in bulk of off-load them elsewhere to make a profit, and people who simply are using MP as a store front.
Due to the aforementioned extenuating circumstances that involved far more scamming than anticipated, we (the moderator and administrator team) decided to shut down marketplace indefinitely. This will last until we can find a better model for it or simply will keep this as a “failed” experiment in our book. The on-going transactions will have to be finalized in the General-Off Topic section of xda, so please avoid using other areas to finish off deals. Also, please avoid using PM to complete transactions. While the forum is closed, if you started a transaction under that forum, you are bound by its rules whether the forum still exists or not.
Please feel free to let us know if you have any questions.
Want something published in the Portal? Contact any News Writer.
Update: The Marketplace forum has been restored. Happy April Fools Day, everyone!
March 29, 2012 By: admin
Here at XDA-Developers, we are keen to recognize the time and effort that our members put into the site. As an extension of our existing Recognized Developer program, we are announcing three new titles. As always, the goal of the Recognized Developer Program is to reward the very members who make this site great.
READ ON »
March 28, 2012 By: egzthunder1
Here on XDA-Developers, we tend to cater to everyone’s needs and wants. From the most experienced developer to the newest user, who literally just picked up his/her smartphone exactly 25 minutes ago and is curious about what it can do, anyone can find something that will get them hooked on xda and smartphone modding. The latter of the two groups normally tends to either be too busy to try and sit down and read or simply is not interested on how things work, only caring about the final outcome (I can haz root?!). Funny enough, half of these people will likely never understand what they are truly asking for when they are asking for root and likewise will never open SU as they see it as a perfect way to break the devices, almost taboo if you will.
Now, at this point you are all likely wondering what the title of this article has to do with my little opening rant. Well, because of the meteoric rise in numbers of the second class of people stated above, we have seen a large increase in production of tools to simplify the processes that we carry out in this site. Rooting a device, which can be a rather tedious process depending on how well protected things are has become as simple as opening a batch file that you download from a thread on XDA. However, please do not get me wrong, making things easier has been paramount in allowing humanity to advance to more interesting projects, but as with many of these advancements, there is something to be learned, something that should be taking place inside of the user’s head, creation of neural connections that will allow him or her to later retrieve this knowledge if it ever becomes required for other activities. Sadly, this is not the case due to most processes being automated and the end user simply being interested in the final outcome as previously stated.
Over the last couple of weeks, we have seen some very awesome mods and developments from people who have spent countless hours reading, researching, and risking their investments in the name of science (sort of). One of the most crucial ones was the HBOOT downgrade process for the EVO 3D and the Sensation (I will focus on the 3D one as I am more familiar with it). Out of that thread, if you follow every step as directed by the dev, you will leave with:
This was as of last week. This week we see that there are a few tools that somewhat automate a big chunk of the process, effectively killing the opportunity to learn very valuable information out of the thread. I am not saying that this will make you a developer overnight, but learning bits and pieces of processes like these certainly will aide you in the future. On top of that, if you rely too much on processes like these, what will happen when one of these fail and you end up with a brick? Will you have the necessary know how to fix your device, or even to understand what went wrong? Don’t you think that understanding how things work before proceeding could potentially save you from a quasi-certain catastrophe? Think of it this way, I will release a tool tomorrow that is supposed to give you S-OFF on your device. All you need to do is turn off the PC and boot it back up from MS-DOS and type the following command (having your device connected):
c:\format c:
Then simply reboot your computer. If you had previous knowledge of this, you would understand that I just gave you clear instructions to wipe your computer hard drive as opposed to giving you root on your phone. Did I do this on purpose or simply because I didn’t know what I was doing? Obviously, the example is a tad too obvious, but the point I was trying to illustrate is that tools without knowledge can lead to disaster.
So, this takes us back to the original title and point of this article. If automation is a thing that eventually will allow us to be more efficient and smarter, why is it that when you look at the general level of knowledge it is much lower than when things were manual? Do we simply need to step back and sit down to read how we got to where we are? If you go by the ethos of our site, the answer is “yes”. You are here because you are interested in learning about development and how to expand the capabilities of your devices and not simply to make your phone “kewl” (thanks kyphur). If you don’t learn the path that you are following, you are likely going to get lost.
Thanks for reading and please use your time on XDA wisely.
[Thanks to XDA News Writer PoorCollegeGuy for the image!]
March 13, 2012 By: orb3000
Just yesterday, we gave the HTC One X a home in our forums. While some of us are desperately waiting for the April 5th release date, we are glad to see that a Superboot root tool has been released by XDA Forum Member paulobrien.
Running the root tool is as simple as executing a batch file on Windows or a script on Linux and Mac. In the words of the developer:
Superboot is a boot.img that when booted, will root your device the first time you boot (installing su and the superuser APK). No need to flash any partitions, no need to mess around with ADB, no messing with the contents of your data partition, no overwriting the shipped ROM on your device, just boot the boot image using the instructions below and you’re done!
Superboot image is also ‘insecure’, allowing you to use ‘adb remount’ as well as having full ADB root access to your device until such time as you reboot after running this process (it’s a non permanent ADB root as it’s a ‘fastboot boot’ and not a ‘fastboot flash’).
You can join discussion thread and obtain the goods directly on Paul’s site.
March 12, 2012 By: Will Verduzco
Remember the HTC One product line that we examined during our time at MWC? Now as their launch dates creep ever closer, we are giving the product family a home on our forums. All three high-end devices are poised for flagship status, fusing premium internals and top-notch build quality.
The HTC One X features a 1.5 GHz quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, a 4.7″ 720p Super LCD2 display, 32 gigs of storage, and a full gig of RAM. The HTC One XL offers similar specs and an almost identical design, but swaps out the Tegra 3 processor for an extremely speedy 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor and LTE connectivity. The HTC One S also looks appetizing, boasting the same 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor and 1 GB of RAM as its XL brother, but with a smaller 4.3″ qHD Super AMOLED display and 16 gigs of internal storage. And most importantly, the three will feature unlockable bootloaders, courtesy of HTCdev.
Eager to discuss of these killer devices? Visit the newly created One X, One XL, and One S forums to get started!
March 3, 2012 By: orb3000
Welcome to another interview with an XDA Recognized Developer. This time we will speak with Incalza Dario who goes by the nickname h4oxer. He is a student currently studying Computer Science – Electrical Engineering at K.U. Leuven in Belgium.
orb3000: Hi h4oxer. Thanks for giving us some of your time to talk. First, how did you get started in the mobile world?.
h4oxer: About two years ago 2 friends (Henri P. and Michiel S.) of mine bought smart phones that had the Android OS on it. -Nexus One and HTC Desire-. They were very pleased about the capabilities of the device and the powerful Android OS. Around that time my old cellphone broke down and I was searching for a new one. However I didn’t feel to spend a lot of money on a device, so I started surfing the web looking for a decent but not too expensive device and came up with the HTC Wildfire. The priority for me was that the device had to run Android because I wanted a device that I could use to start developing, which Android is all about.
orb3000: How did you get into XDA?
h4oxer: When I finally bought the device and started to look for help regarding development issues I always came back to the XDA Forums, and that’s where I learned almost everything I know about Android till today. (Aside of some pdf’s).
orb3000: You are working on a desktop application for downloading a ROM, and installing it with a single click. Please tell us more about it.
h4oxer: The desktop application started from the idea that it took too much time to search through the forum looking for download links for a particular ROM, so I decided that if you just need to install/flash quickly a new ROM you would just want to download it and flash the damn thing without spending a lot of time on finding the thread on the forum.
Don’t get me wrong, you should still go to the specific thread if you want more information about the ROM or if you experienced some bugs, but the essential meaning of my application would be that the user already knows which ROM he wants to download and flash. The initial release will only be for the HTC Wildfire because I first want to see if there can be any improvements, before I cover other devices.
orb3000: You wrote a very interesting article entitled “Building an Android ROM.” What made you decide to write such a guide?
h4oxer: The article is the result of my own learning experience. Sometimes I just needed one article or one pdf that just sums up all the basic stuff a person needs to know to start developing. Almost all tutorials just began randomly assuming the reader already knows a lot of these terms they use. So I decided to write this article to stimulate beginning developers, to first get to know the bigger picture on how an Android device works before specializing in a particular field : Kernel development, Rom Development.
orb3000: You also are a ROM chef. What are the devices you work with now?
h4oxer: For now I only developed for the HTC Wildfire, because I don’t have any other devices I can test on. I would love to start cooking for the HTC Desire or something; we’ll see what time will bring.
orb3000: What’s your “secret ingredient?” What differentiates your work from that of others?
h4oxer : I started developing on ROM’s because I wasn’t satisfied with the performance of my Wildfire because of the CPU shredding Sense part. So the first thing my ROM couldn’t have was Sense! I started from a Sense version and tried to delete as many Sense dependencies as possible. Because I was just a noob starting, I couldn’t build from source. I just started HEX editing files, playing with the build.prop and repackaging kernel and apps. This resulted in a ROM that responded snappier and more stable something I didn’t suspected. This ROM was finally named ImPrOS (Improved OS – found by Danilo C.).
When I started on WildGinger I was more experienced in developing and started to build from source. A great advantage is the fact you can truly alter the source code without difficult and vague HEX editing. The things that made WildGinger differ was the fact that I studied on how the CPU used the memory, by tweaking this and putting it in categories I managed to get a positive increase in performance. Also I managed to solve the bug where the browser crashed because of the wrong architecture tag in the source code. I also added some theming like every other dev, although the ROM wasn’t just a theme like most of the ‘repackaged ROM’s’ out there.
PS : This is one of the first Gingerbread compiled ROM’s for the Wildfire, after Cyanogen. Also without some patches coming from these guys, I maybe had a couple of bugs more.
orb3000: Are you planning to cook for more devices in the near future? If so, which?
h4oxer: Sadly I have to give you a negative answer on that. The fact is, I have some other projects going on and can’t find the time to truly support and code a ROM from scratch again. But if a develop team is reading this, I surely am interested if I can work in a team .. hehe :p
orb3000: You are a Recognized Developer in XDA. Do you feel that this gives you any sort of special responsibility?
h4oxer : I think of it as an example role for all starting devs, I am trying to help as much devs as I can. I can do this because I have a lot of experience in Android development that I want to share with other devs. As part of this commitment I will write some tutorials for a new starting section on XDA which will come on-line soon.
orb3000: What advice would you like to offer other members wanting to enter the development world?
h4oxer : Everybody once starts as a noob, but ask as many questions you can think off. There will always be someone that will answer you or give you a different view on the problem. A lot of talented devs are roaming the forums here! Try not to just repackage a ROM, but try to truly understand the Android source and find/add better options or functionality.
orb3000: Finally, what you do for living? I mean, outside of the Android and XDA world?.
h4oxer : I am still a full time student , so besides doing a job in the summer , I don’t do anything else for a living.
orb3000: Any final words or comments you would like to share with our readers?
h4oxer : All of my work can be found in my site or here on XDA. Thanks for this interview orb3000, thanks to XDA for being such a great place of knowledge! Hope I will see some of you readers in the Wildfire forums or the Android development forums, cheers!.
orb3000: Thanks a lot for your time.
And more important, thanks to you readers! Do you want us to interview your favorite developer? If so, please let us know.
March 3, 2012 By: orb3000
Mobile World Congress 2012 has now come and gone, and we would now like to share with you some of the highlights from Barcelona this past week.
HTC seems to have stolen much of the attention surrounding the event, with the introduction of their new One line of devices. The One X, One S, and One V will hit the UK first, and will be available in SIM-free form in April. The ONE XL, contrary to what its name implies, is not the One X’s larger American cousin. Rather, the XL dons LTE-enabled attire and swaps out the Cortex A9-based quad-core Tegra 3 for an A15-based dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4. The new product line will all launch with Beats Audio, Ice Cream Sanwich, and Sense 4.0. Find out more about the One line and HTC’s plans for the future in our XDA TV interview with Jeff Gordon and watching HTC’s MWC presentation.
Sony’s KalleD, the man who brought us Ice Cream Sandwich for various Xperia devices, introduced us to the Xperia P and U that are slated to hit shelves in April. Toshiba also made a showing with an all new, Tegra 3-based 7.7-inch tablet. It’s thin, it’s fast, and it looks good. Asus presented the highly-anticipated Padfone and the Transformer Pad Infinity, which refines on the Prime with a higher resolution screen and redesigned chassis. Fujitsu introduced a Tegra 3-powered waterproof phone prototype. Samsung has you covered if you want a phone under 4-inches with the Galaxy Ace 2. And finally, the LG Optimus 4X HD is available in UK and they’re taking pre-orders now
On the Windows Phone side, the long awaited Tango update will arrive sometime in the Spring, and will improve SMS functionality. Windows Phone Marketplace will expand to 23 new countries. And coinciding with the event, Microsoft released Windows 8 Consumer Preview, which was met with 1 million downloads on the first day.
Visit the XDA TV channel on YouTube to watch our own James Bricknell bring us even more from the event. Saying that much has happened this past week would be a massive understatement. What are you most excited about?
February 26, 2012 By: orb3000
You may not be aware, but the XDA Portal—our little news outlet—is celebrating its second birthday! From the start, the main objective of the Portal has been to serve as a virtual window into the endless supply of development here at XDA.
Our first article was posted on January 16th, 2010; and since then, we’ve been dedicated to covering content that ranges from development works, various guides and tutorials, and interviews with Recognized Developers.
Under the leadership of our new Portal Administrator and Editor-in-Chief Will Verduzco, we will be sure to keep sight of our focus of making the Portal your “insider guide” to XDA. The rest of our team consists of the following writers: Egzthunder1, ElCondor, mic_888, jasecloud4, PoorCollegeGuy, Bentenrai, conantroutman, HQRaja, ben_duder, azrienoch, samcaplat, and of course, myself. You can contact any of us if you have any tips or article suggestions. And if you have any suggestions for any particular type of content you would like to see, please send that over to Will.
Seemingly overnight, we went from 1.3 million monthly page views in February 2010 to 4.9 million this past January. In this time, we have managed to rack up more than 4,700 published articles! Going forward, we wish to raise these numbers by doing our best to provide you with the content you want to see. To all our supporters around the globe, thank you for giving us a reason to write and for making the XDA-Developers Portal the place it is today.
Here’s to a great third year! Cheers!
February 24, 2012 By: Will Verduzco
In February of last year, we released a premium version of our mobile application for Android phones. A few months later, we offered an update to support the Thanks function and a few other added features. Later, you asked for a tablet-optimized XDA version. I am happy to report that we’ve listened.
Today, we are announcing the public release of the XDA Premium HD application for Android tablets running Android 3.x Honeycomb or later. The tablet-optimized app offers intuitive tab-based navigation to quickly switch between PMs and your favorite forums. And because the application is one of our premium apps, there are no ads to be found. Currently, not much other than the navigation has changed compared to our previous mobile apps. However, we will update the app in the Spring to share the look and feel of Ice Cream Sandwich.
To get started with the app, and support your favorite mobile hacking forums in the process, head over to the Android Market listing. Feel free to check out our other apps while you’re at it. Regardless of whether you choose to partake in our mobile app, we look forward to seeing you on our forums!
February 20, 2012 By: orb3000
Most of all graphing calculators applications this days still have -8bit like- low-res monochrome screens. Since tablets and smart phones are basically general purpose computing devices, why shouldn’t we have a nice graphing calculator on board too?
XDA member ZeroManArmy shows Graph 89; an emulator for Texas Instrument ROM images. You need to have the software off a TI-89 for it to work, but once you have copied the image to your phone or tablet, you essentially have the real deal on your precious Android.
You will find much of your favorite mathematical functions such as: Graphing, derivatives, stats, amongst others. The app still in public alpha and looks a bit strange on small screens, so it´s better you use app on tablets for now.
Your feed back is much appreciated during alpha testing, thanks for reading.
Proceed to the original thread to find more
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