Hasta La Gadget!

HTC is legendary for its tacit support of the Android ROM cooking community. Motorola… not so much, thanks in large part to the company’s policy of locking down the bootloader as a means to prevent unapproved software from running on its Droid handsets. An annoyance recently exacerbated by a moderator of Moto’s YouTube channel who suggested that customers looking to install custom ROMs should “buy elsewhere.” Ouch. The resulting public relations kerfuffle then prompted Motorola to publish a clarification to its bootloader policy on Facebook:

We apologize for the feedback we provided regarding our bootloader policy. The response does not reflect the views of Motorola. We are working closely with our partners to offer a bootloader solution that will enable developers to use our devices as a development platform while still protecting our users’ interests. More detailed information will follow as we get closer to availability.

Obviously, we’ll have wait for said details to get official before calling this a shift in strategy. It’s certainly an improvement over Moto’s previous approach of lawyering-up with cease and desist orders. Perhaps Motorola is taking a cue from Microsoft who seems to have recently discovered that it’s better to embrace than to annoy a motivated hacking community — customers who tend to be a company’s most dedicated fans and evangelists.

Motorola ready to make sweet love to Android ROM devs and rooters? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Jan 2011 03:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While its original OS might be yesterday’s news, the 4.3 inch HTC HD2 with 1GHz Snapdragon processor still has plenty of life in it thanks to the industrious efforts of the global development community. A new Windows Phone 7 ROM has just been released by DFT (Dark Forces Team) for your flashing pleasures. While it’s said to be working at nearly 100 percent, it does come with the caveat of lacking access to any Windows Live services. As such, you won’t be downloading apps or media from Marketplace or setting up your avatar on Xbox Live — pretty serious omissions for a WP7 device. Nevertheless, if you’re an HD2 owner just aching for a taste of Microsoft’s newest OS then now’s your chance. Video of the ROM in action after the break.

Update: Well, that was fast. A video and instructions showing hacked access to Live services has now been posted. See the proof after the break.

[Thanks, br0adband]

Continue reading HTC HD2 gets its very own Windows Phone 7 ROM (video)

HTC HD2 gets its very own Windows Phone 7 ROM (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 07:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You can have your doubts about when your phone maker will finally get around to delivering an Android 2.3 update (March if you’re with HTC, June if Samsung, 2017 if you’re unfortunate enough to own a Sony Ericsson), but the smartphone dev community doesn’t work that slowly. The guys who build custom ROMs just for the sheer pride of it have already begun work on delivering Gingerbread to owners of HTC’s EVO 4G, Droid Eris, and Wildfire. It’s all in the very nascent stages and warnings abound that you should only install these ROMs if you intend to contribute to the development process, but it does give us hope for a consumable new OS in the not so distant future. One thing that does look ready to be gobbled up, however, is Gingerbread’s new software keyboard — you’ll find the download and installation instructions at the Droid-Life link below, just remember to bring your rooted Android phone along.

[Thanks, Jacob]

Gingerbread ROMs start cooking for HTC EVO 4G et al; keyboard ported for rooted Androids originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 02:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Advent Vega seems to be gaining some serious traction overseas, but despite the low price, not having access to Google’s bona fide Android Market is a huge Debbie Downer. Well, it was. The fine folks over at MoDaCo have cooked up a custom ROM for the 10-inch tablet, and if you’ve nothing better to do on a Black Friday than tinker with software, the v1.04 build hosted in the source link promises a “full Google experience” including Gmail, Maps with Street View, Talk, Voice Search and even Android Market access. All the steps you’ll need to follow are just a click away, so allow us to ask you this: what’s the holdup?

Advent Vega nabs Android Market access courtesy of MoDaCo custom ROM originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 27 Nov 2010 05:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Clearly a lot of folks out there are pretty passionate about the quality of their cameraphone pics. So too is cellphone modder hyperX, who is developing some custom tweaks to improve the quality of the stills and vids coming out of Nokia‘s latest darling. First is a hack to enable 720p30 video, a slight improvement over the 720p25 default. That’s demonstrated after the break, along with a continuous autofocus mod. More notable, however, is a tweak to enable nearly uncompressed images. Stock JPEGs coming from the camera clock in around 2MB, but the example image he’s provided (on the other end of that source link) is a rather heftier 11MB — truly a hack that won’t do your memory card any favors, but it’ll sure make those pixels shine. Sadly without back-to-back before and after images we can’t say for sure what kind of tangible improvement this makes, but we hear if you ask nicely he’ll let you try it out for yourself.

Continue reading Hack improves Nokia N8’s image and video quality, puts a hurting on your memory card (video)

Hack improves Nokia N8’s image and video quality, puts a hurting on your memory card (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Oct 2010 08:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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