Android Root

August 25, 2009 · Sheldon

Okay, so the hackathon of my Google Phone is over.  I decided to "root" my G2 (Google Ion, myTouch, whatever) phone so that I can install other versions of the operation system.  The primary reason was the speed advantages but I was also interested in wifi tethering.  There are a ton of options but I went with Cyanogenmod (at the time it was v4.0.1 but a few days later I installed v.4.0.2 and it was easy) because it has the most "play" (i.e. I read about it all over the place).

It's funny because supposedly it's a "one click" process but wherever you read that headline you'll see 50 links and 10 pages of text.

Advantages:

• It does seem faster but it's no iPhone (probably not even as fast as the first iPhone let along the 3GS)


• Wifi tethering!  I can tether with a laptop or netbook to my data connection using just wifi.  The irony is that I would need to plug the phone in with USB anyway for power but still, tethering!


• Multi-Touch browser.  Again, not as responsive as iPhone be still nicer than the +/-.  Would be really nice in maps and I suspect that might come soon.


• More "screens" so I can have more widgets and icons in the locations that I want.  Not all that big a deal as 3 was enough, really, since I could get to the stuff I didn't use much from the "pull up" menu


• Couple of new apps I couldn't have gotten otherwise . . . pdf viewer and an office viewer.


• Discovered "MyBackup" which is an app that takes care of backup for apps and data so at the end of it all restoring back to the phone I had before took about 10 minutes . . . with the exception of my background image, ring tone, and some setup inside a few apps like latitude.  I had to install all of the apps one but with MyBackup I just had to okay each install one by one but it all went really fast . . . at least I didn't have to remember what I liked and download it all one by one.


• Three keyboards to choose from . . . though, I already had two after installing an alternate a while back.

• Takes forever to boot up (but that was just the first time . . . it has to run some script)


• It was kinda scary though it was actually one of the easiest hacks ever.  More scary that most other projects because I *need* my phone whereas if I bust a PSP or my Wii or an XBox I'm just out some entertainment which is no big deal.