When Rogers decided to debut Android phones in Canada, most people got excited about the possibilities of Open-Sourced apps. However, there’s been one problem–Canadians can’t buy paid apps from Android Market yet. Why? Well, the answer isn’t very clear, but let’s take a look at what countries DO have paid apps.

According to the Android Market’s support page, here are the countries that are allowed to distribute free apps:

* Australia
* Austria
* Belgium
* Bulgaria
* Canada
* Czech Republic
* Denmark
* France
* Germany
* Greece
* Hong Kong
* Ireland
* Italy
* Japan
* Netherlands
* Norway
* Poland
* Portugal
* Singapore
* Spain
* Sweden
* Switzerland
* Taiwan
* United Kingdom
* United States

Now take a look at this special group of 8, the only countries allowed to distribute paid apps:

* Austria
* France
* Germany
* Italy
* Netherlands
* Spain
* United Kingdom
* United States

Canada is not on the paid apps list. When will Canadians get to download apps? We will never know and Google so far has been pretty mum about the issue.

How to Bypass this and Download Android Apps in Canada

There is one way to download apps from the Android Market in Canada. You can venture out at YOUR OWN RISK and “r00t” your Android phone. For full instructions on how to do this, follow the guide below that was posted at HowardForums:

First, setting up your PC (I’m going to assume you’re using windows for this) to work with Android in a debugging enviroment.

1. Get the latest Android SDK from here (http://developer.android.com/sdk/1.5_r2/index.html) and unzip it into a convienent directory (most people use C:\Android\, so I suggest you do the same). The result should be something along the lines of C:\Android\android-sdk-windows-1.5_r2\.

2. Set up your phone to work with debugging drivers. The method of doing so can be found here (http://developer.android.com/guide/…ing/device.html) in the “Setting up a Device for Development” section, steps 2 and 3. To test that it works properly, open up a command prompt and navigate to the tools directory (C:\Android\android-sdk-windows-1.5_r2\tools). Type into the prompt:

Code:

adb devices

If it returns your device and serial number, then you’re all set.

3. Lastly, grab fastboot.exe from here (http://www.htc.com/www/support/android/adp.html) and place it in the tools directory of the sdk.

Next up, rooting.

If the phone that you have is a HTC Dream (hardware keyboard), Haykuro on XDA has provided you with all the necessary files which you can grab here:

http://drop.io/ii4t2ax

Unzip all files into the tools directory of the SDK. The readme inside states the following (I would open a command prompt and navigate to the tools folder, as steps 2, and 6-8 are entered in the command prompt)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Haykuro 1. Place update.zip on SD card. 2. fastboot boot recovery.img 3 [optional]. make a backup with nandroid 3. apply update. (LET IT FINISH, DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING UNTIL YOUR PHONE IS COMPLETELY IDLE. DO NOT TOUCH AFTER FIRST REBOOT (WHEN CHIP APPEARS) UNLESS YOU LIKE A BRICK. ) 4. HOME+BACK to reboot out of recovery mode. 5. power off phone, hold camera button and power to boot into fastboot again 6. fastboot flash boot boot.img 7. fastboot flash recovery recovery.img 8. fastboot reboot enjoy!

From what I can tell, this is an all-in-one way of doing it, as the first part flashes a good hboot (SPL, essential for recovering Nandroid backups), and the second part flashes the rooted boot.img with a rooted recovery.img. If you follow this, then you should be all set. The easiest way to test if the device is rooted is to open another command prompt in the tools dir and type

Code:

adb root

If it returns that adab is already running in root, then you’re all set.

If the phone you have is an HTC Magic (no hardware keyboard), the method is pretty much the same. I modified Haykuro’s zip with files that were meant for the Magic. You can grab it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?zznzximgino

Again, open another command prompt as steps 2, and 6-8 are entered in the command prompt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Haykuro-ish 0. Place update.zip on SD card. 1. power off the phone and boot into fastboot (hold back and power) 2. fastboot boot recovery.img 3 [optional]. make a backup with nandroid 3. apply update. (LET IT FINISH, DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING UNTIL YOUR PHONE IS COMPLETELY IDLE. DO NOT TOUCH AFTER FIRST REBOOT (WHEN CHIP APPEARS) UNLESS YOU LIKE A BRICK. ) 4. reboot out of recovery mode. 5. power off phone, hold back button and power to boot into fastboot again 6. fastboot flash boot boot.img 7. fastboot flash recovery recovery.img 8. fastboot reboot enjoy! These are pretty much the Haykuro instructions for the Dream, which I modified to apply to the Magic. The boot and recovery images were made by Amon_RA. Happy Rooting!

Just like with the Dream, the first part flashes a good SPL, the second flashes a rooted boot and recovery. The easiest way to test if the device is rooted is to open another command prompt in the tools dir and type

Code:

adb root

If it returns that adab is already running in root, then you’re all set.

Once again, the above should be done at your own risk. Unless you’re willing to tamper with your Android phone, then you’ll just have to wait patiently for paid Android apps to arrive in Canada.