Android in Canada Blog » Android Firmware

Cyanogen Base Roms Start Popping Up for Galaxy S II LTE (Skyrocket)

Tom Gray — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:12:04 +0000

As a Galaxy S II LTE (Skyrocket) owner, I know this phone has very little developer support compared to the more popular models. The Galaxy S II LTE doesn’t even have its own ClockworkMod recovery yet, we are forced to use one made for the T-Mobile Galaxy S II. That aside, some pretty impressive roms have been popping up recently and I want to share them with you.

Seanzscreams has put together a rom based on the Cyanogen rom as well as playin4sheezy‘s CM7 build ported rom from T-Mobile to the Skyrocket.

playin4sheezy’s Cyanogen port was one that was getting lots of attention and showed a lot of promise. Due to recent events, he has gone M.I.A. There is a lot of speculation and cooked up stories such as running from the police, becoming homeless, sick, etc. All that aside, sadly we lost a very good dev who made great roms for the skyrocket.

Back to the point. Seanzscreams released Cyanogen TouchWizzery with an Ice Cream Sandwich Twist. Though this rom is in early stages and has many reported problems, it’s showing a lot of promise.

If your interested in trying the latest Cyanogen based rom on your Galaxy S II LTE/Skyrocket, I suggest giving this one a try. Of course a rooted phone is necessary.

You can find his rom and a full list of instructions here at XDA

Cyanogen Base Roms Start Popping Up for Galaxy S II LTE (Skyrocket) is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Touch ClockworkMod Recovery Officially Released (Video)

Tom Gray — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:05:10 +0000

A couple days ago I talked about the touch based clockworkmod recovery that was floating around Google+. If you missed that article, you can find it here.

( I rarely make videos, so please be gental of my mistakes )

As you can see from the video, It looks and acts exactly the same as the classic clockworkmod. Obviously touch interaction plays a roll now, but you’re still able to use the volume and power keys if you still feel comfortable with that input method.

Currently the touch based recovery only supports the following phones:

Galaxy Nexus – GSM
Galaxy Nexus – CDMA
Galaxy S
Galaxy S 4G
HTC Desire
HTC Desire HD
HTC Evo 3D
HTC Evo
Motorola Atrix 4G

The list is small, but as time goes on Koushik Dutta will defiantly be working on bringing us more compatibility for a wider range of devices.

If you’re looking to score this recovery for free, you can find it here.

If you want to support the developer (Please do!) you can download Rom Manager from the Android Market and buy the touch recovery from there. Remember, all devs rely on our support verbally and finically to keep producing quality apps.

Link to Rom Manager via Android Market

I personally would like to recognize and thank Mark Lastiwka. He bought this recovery to my attention, and has done a fantastic job keeping me informed on this and various other stories.

Touch ClockworkMod Recovery Officially Released (Video) is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Franco Kernel for Galaxy Nexus

Tom Gray — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:00:15 +0000

Not to long ago I posted about my favorite rom for the Galaxy nexus by the developer named Bigxie. Since then, that particular rom has been given the name ‘Apex’. If you missed that article, you can find it here.

Today I’m going to talk about my favorite kernel to flash along side my favorite rom.

A developer by the name of Franciscofranco has produced an outstanding kernel called the Franco Kernel. This kernel is by far the most popular kernel for the Galaxy Nexus on the XDA forums today.

Franciscofranco has been hard at work for nearly two months, trying to provide maximum performance and battery savings. Allowing the user to control the voltage and CPU clock speeds on their favorite 4.0.3 custom roms.

With his latest release, he has also created two new CPU governors.

30th January – nightly #15
* Two new governors added – francoTurtle and francoGazelle. They are both based on Conservative and they have different purposes. francoTurtle is for battery hungry users. By default it will be set with 700min and 1000max and it will take a lot more cpu load to increase his frequency. In my testing 700mhz is used around 95% of the time. francoGazelle is mainly for performance users. While it maintains some battery saving that its inherited from Conservative, it will ramp up aggressively to the max frequency and far more often than francoTurtle.
* francoTurtle governor is set by default
* CFQ I/O scheduler is now the default. While this decision looks pretty idiotic since CFQ is made for rotational devices, after I’ve read some IBM articles I’ve seen that it can be tuned to work as well for flash devices, so after I did that I was…overwhelmed with the performance that it produces compared to deadline or FIOPS.
* CIFS is now included inside the kernel instead of a module
* CM9 compatibility added – Gamma control isn’t present here yet because ColorControl does the same thing
* Block rq_affinity is now working aggressively – means that the IO tasks are not bound to the cpu that it was being destined, so if cpu0 is overwhelmed with tasks it will be migrated to cpu1 which is always nice
* CFQ scheduler updated to 3.1 kernel code
* Ezekeels Voltage Control added and removed coolbho’s implementation
* Stock GPU clock – I’ll give you two options: first, if you cry about this search the thread and you’ll find an email that Colin Cross (Google Android team) sent me explaining why stock GPU clock is better. Second option, if you keep crying and asking for “UMFG GAVE ME 512GHZ CLOCKZ” after you’ve read what Colin said I’ll send you a link to listen Cry me a river song from Justin Timberlake
* Some minor optimizations and tweaks – visit my repo for more information

Francisco listens to his commenters very well, and makes changes based on his own research and feedback left by his loyal followers. With Franciscofranco’s strive for perfection, he is very reliable and releases updates every couple days. When a problem arises, he normally spots it and patches it within the same day.

If you’re looking for that perfect kernel to complete your Galaxy Nexus 4.0.3 experience, I highly recommend the franko kernel for your use and pleasure.

You can find out more about the Franco Kernel and Franciscofranco on his XDA page found here.

You can also find the Franco Kernel Updater on the Android Market here.

If you like the franco kernel, please consider donating a little to support him. It’s our donations and support that keep him working hard for our pleasure.

Franco Kernel for Galaxy Nexus is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Motorola to Release a Developer Edition of the RAZR

Tom Gray — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:27:39 +0000

For everyone that has been complaining about Motorola locking their bootloaders, I’m sure this is going to make you very excited.

Motorola has announced though their blog that a new version of the Motorola RAZR will be coming first to Europe and then to the U.S. “in the coming months.” This is a spin on the original RAZR, not the recently released RAZR MAXX, and will be known as the RAZR Developer Edition. The big headling feature of this newest rendition of the RAZR is an unlockable bootloader. There was no mention of a Canadian release, but for the true developers at heart will have no problems ordering online for the Developer edition of the Motorola RAZR.

Motorola stated on their website:

We have some news for the community of people interested in unlockable/relockable bootloaders. Today, we announced a step forward in Europe with the availability of an unlockable version of our most in-demand product: the Motorola RAZR Developer edition. This solution allows us to continue meeting our carrier and regulatory obligations, but also meets the needs being expressed by our developer community.

They also mentioned a U.S release in the future as well. Shortly after this went live, it was pulled back off the internet. It would appear someone was a little too trigger happy about this exciting news.

There was no mention of a Canadian release, but the true developers and rom cookers will have no problem finding a place online to ship them to Canada.

[Source: AndroidAndMe]

Motorola to Release a Developer Edition of the RAZR is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Touch ClockWorkMod Recovery for Galaxy Nexus & Nexus S (Download)

Tom Gray — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:32:21 +0000

After Koush showed users the first official touch-based ClockworkMod Recovery interface two days ago, CWM has been popping up all around Google+ and posted download links for the official beta, making CWM Touch Recovery available to Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S users.

It’s currently in beta stages right now, but available for the Nexus S’ GSM variant, and for both CDMA and GSM versions of Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus.

Download: Galaxy Nexus
Download: Nexus S

Keep in mind that this recovery is meant to be flashed through Fastboot.

If you have to ask how to flash this file, I suggest leaving it alone and moving on.

Flash at your own risk.

If you have used this touch based recovery, let us know what you think of it in the comments below.

- Thanks goes to Mark Lastiwka for pointing this out to me.

Touch ClockWorkMod Recovery for Galaxy Nexus & Nexus S (Download) is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Nova Launcher for Galaxy Nexus

Tom Gray — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:46:35 +0000

I’ve been playing around with the Nova Launcher for a little while now. It’s not exactly the new kid on the block, but it’s defiantly getting better with each update.

Nova Launcher has made the Galaxy Nexus’ home screen more customizable than ever. Thanks to Kevin@TeslaCoil

Compatible with Galaxy Nexus and other ICS devices. Will NOT work on gingerbread devices.

Features include:

Custom grid size (default 5×4 on the Galaxy Nexus)
Scrollable Dock
User setting for auto-rotate
Resize any widget
All/New/Downloaded categories in App Drawer
Widgets-in-drawer (requires install as a system app) or from system picker
Shortcut or resizable information in Widget Drawer
Edit App Shortcut and Folder icons and labels (Supports ADW Icon Packs)
Wallpaper scrolling options (Disabling scrolling improves performance of live wallpapers)
Cube desktop effect
Infinite scroll of desktop and dock
Various other smaller tweaks/optimizations

Best of all, there is no rooting your phone required to use this launcher. It will install side by side with your stock launcher. This launcher is still in beta stages, so you may experience the odd force closure, but otherwise it’s very usable and stable for day to day use.

To grab more details, you should head over to guys at XDA here.

If you want to get straight to the action, you can download Nova Launcher here (no root required)

Nova Launcher for Galaxy Nexus is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Sony Announces Tablet ICS timeline

Ryan Moore — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:48:51 +0000

We had reported a while back that Sony will update their Tablets S & P to Ice Cream Sandwich, but they hadn’t given a timeline.

Well, the other day they provided a little more clarity, according to the Verge.

I’ve updated our running list of “Androids getting ICS”.

Sony Announces Tablet ICS timeline is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Original eeePad’ers will have to wait until mid-February for ICS

Ryan Moore — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:05:58 +0000

The nail biting will have to hold on for a little bit longer for those original eeePad TF101 users who want the Ice Cream Sandwich update.

Originally I had let you know that it was going to be late January.

However, a recent update from their Facebook page gives mid-February as the ‘un-official timeline’.

Original eeePad’ers will have to wait until mid-February for ICS is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

My Favorite Galaxy Nexus Rom

Tom Gray — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:00:36 +0000

I covered Galaxy Nexus roms a little while ago, but things have updated with many great features. With all these features in mind, I just couldn’t help posting about again with all the new updates.

I did a really small post about it on Google+ a couple days ago, I figured I would go in to much greater detail for those who are looking for that perfect rom to flash.

I stumbled across Bigxie and his AOSP Rom 4.0.3. What’s so great about Bigxie, is he leaves the rom mostly stock with a lot of under the hood enhancements and customizations, so you still get that pure Google experience. Of course, these under the hood enhancements make the Galaxy Nexus experience more snappy, smooth and in general more enjoyable to work with.

Along with Bigxie’s rom, there is also a black theme for his rom. I have mentioned black Google apps before, Bigxie has included an optional black theme flashable pack that includes all the black Google apps, taking all the work out of trying to make everything black one app at a time. I took a bunch of snapshots to give you a general feel of the black theme.

Click to enlarge

Obviously you need a rooted Galaxy Nexus to flash these roms. If you need a little help doing that, I posted a very easy root guide found here.

If this is something you’re interested in trying out, you can find Bigxie’s Rom here.

You can find the Black Theme for Bigxie’s rom as well as a few other here.

If you have used this rom before, please share your thoughts with our community.

My Favorite Galaxy Nexus Rom is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Telus Updates HTC Desire HD to 2.3.5

Ryan Moore — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:49:29 +0000

Got an HTC Desire HD?

Go grab the 2.3.5 Gingerbread update now!

Telus Updates HTC Desire HD to 2.3.5 is a post from: Android in Canada Blog