From Iphone to Android - why?

[strangedays]

I have owned an Iphone 3G for 2 years almost.

At first I liked it but eventually Apple slowed the phone down down down. Its put me of upgrading. Plus I don't want to shell out more money - I can get HT Desire XXX? (Im waiting t see thats next) for nothing other than contract payments.

Now my biggest thing is I wanted to jailbreak the Iphone but everytime I did it messed it up. I don't now why I am quite savvy with computers.


I heard the Android OS lets you do much more, then I hit a bombshell when I heard about certain apps require the phone to be Rooted. I figured out this is like SU on a Mac. But also it means that you need to Jailbreak your Android basically. So its not a completly open source phone.


I understand the reasons but I am really stuck now, the big reason for me to go to Android was so I can do what I want to my phone. If I want to overclock it and send it to the moon why can't I just do that? Its my fault if I screw it up.

I've been a IT techy for sometime now and this phone was sounding like my phone, but I wonder now if I am better looking at the Windows mobile phones.




Plus I want Tethering (a bull*** word I am sure invented to make a payable service available on the Iphone as it really is just a wireless access point nothing special about it)

I want to use my phone for storage in anyway I want to. Be able to access file systems and perform any maintanence. The Iphone blocks this, but when I did jailbreak it I found that it was messy from previous backups.

What else can I do thats really handy from a techys point of view? I am not into app development but would like to know what this phone really gives me that my Iphones don't.

 

[novox77]

I've rooted my Android phone, and I've jailbroken my iPad. There's a world of difference between the two.

Literally, rooting means getting superuser access, but you'll find that you go much deeper with android. The idea is that freedom doesn't just stop at tweaking the OS. You can completely replace the operating system if you choose. You can also tweak your hardware to do things that the manufacturer never intended to allow.

Google embraces rooting. That's why you see apps for rooted phones on the Market. It's allowed and welcome. Unlike iDevices, which require a 3rd party market (Cydia) to provided rooted apps. It's the carriers that tend to be against rooting, especially when features like tethering, which is part of Android, is enabled when you root. Ironically, the open source project that enables wifi-tethering once you are rooted is hosted by Google (Wifi Tether).

Despite the popularity of iOS products, the jailbreaking community is puny compared to Android. It's hard to find a good place to really learn about the process and what jailbreaking enables to do. Everything is just scattered all of the place on the web, and most of it deals with how to jailbreak.

In the Android, sites like this one allow people to find exactly what they need. Despite the alleged "fragmentation" of a thousand Android phones, we actually can find what we need. I'm an Evo owner, and the "All things root" subforum under the Evo forums is extremely active. Lots of people on asking questions and lots of experienced users offering help. I see none of this cooperation on the Apple side.

Overall, rooting an Android phone is just a much more enjoyable experience no matter what your goal is. There's always people who've been there, done that, and are willing to share with you what they know.

 

[AmneonX]

Rooting is really simple. Especially since there are apps that do all the work for you. What features on windows phone interest you?

 

[novox77]

What else can I do thats really handy from a techys point of view? I am not into app development but would like to know what this phone really gives me that my Iphones don't.

Install QuickSSHd and you can SSH/SCP into your phone wirelessly. That is how I administer my phone and get files on/off it these days. To be fair, I can do the same with my iPad, but there's less reason to access the filesystem on the ipad because nothing I do there can be seen by iOS. But even without root, Android provides you with a shell that allows you terminal access to the phone. You just can't write to the /system partition without a rooted phone.

Carrier crapware can be moved by mounting the /system partition read/write. It's as simple as deleting the .apk file.

If you're a unix junkie, you can install busybox to have access to most of the common shell commands. Install bash and you get tab completion and syntax highlighting in your terminal.

People have installed ubuntu on their phones. Neat trick but not really that practical.

Lots of server apps to choose from: httpd, ftpd, VNC server, etc. Basically turn your phone into a portable linux box.

Onto more mainstream stuff:

--ability to flash a custom operating system. Some of these ROMs support theming, so if you like to tinker with the look and feel of your UI, you'll want a deodexed ROM.

--ability to flash a custom kernel. Typically these kernels will enable your phone's hardware to do more than they do out of the box. On the Evo, for example, custom kernels do the following:

+remove the framerate cap
+improve touch sensitivity
+increase multitouch from 2 pts to 5 pts
+allow overclocking/underclocking of the CPU
+increase max volume of phone
+VPN support
+lots of other config tweaks

--setCPU is a popular app+widget that allows you to set how much to overclock/underclock. You can create profiles with unique clocking settings based on certain conditions (screen on/off, temperature, battery level, etc) This app proves to be a HUGE battery life maximizer.

--ability to make an image of your phone's internal memory (aka NANDroid backup) so you can tweak with relative impunity. If you somehow end up with a broken OS (get stuck in a boot loop), you can boot into recovery and restore your last good image.

--ability to partition your sdcard and completely store your apps there. There's a similar feature that comes with Android 2.2, but it's not quite as good.



Finally, there are features of Android phones that don't require root and are simply not possible with iOS, jailbroken or not:

--ability to mount your phone as a USB mass storage device. With Android, you can mount your sdcard as a disk drive. For cars with USB ports, you can play music from your phone when you do this and have control of your music from your car's controls. iPhone/Pad mounts as a read-only camera. Pretty worthless, and there's nothing you can do on the phone-end to change that.

--ability to set profiles for your phone. There are apps in the Android Market that allow you to set your phone's behavior based on time of day, location, etc. Great for putting your phone on vibrate/silent when you are in school or work, or during sleeping hours. Louder volume if you're in the car, etc. iOS doesn't allow this type of control of the phone via an app.

--ability to add files to your device and have the OS automatically pick it up. In Android, if I want to upload photos, music, videos, ringtones, I can drag and drop the files onto my sdcard and Android will find them. No need to root. If I'm rooted, I can SCP/SFTP/FTP these files to the sdcard wirelessly, or I can even put them with the /system media. Not possible with iOS because iOS only looks in specific locations dictated by iTunes. You can't just create a folder inside an existing folder containing music and expect iOS to see them. The exception are system sounds. If you create the file with the expected file format and metadata, iOS will see those. Jailbroken ability only.

 

[strangedays]

Very tasty start, thanks for the replies.

So rooting isnt hard. Cool! I dont think I would ever go as far as installing ubuntu - as cool as it is. I just like to know that I can do stuff. The limitations and difficulty getting information on breaking those limitations on the Iphone annoy me.

So my next thing is getting the right phone. his is personal choice I guess. My contracts up in about 3 months so I have given myself a bit of time to learn about the options. I noticed the HTC desire HD2 is due to come out soon with dual core? That to me makes me very wet!

Ive noticed some other goodies coming out from Motorola (Atrix) and a few others all Dual core.


So I feel right in saying if I just hold of till the summer I am going to get some great phone choices.

 

[czechplastik]

So I feel right in saying if I just hold of till the summer I am going to get some great phone choices.

True, but then if you waited to winter you would have even better phones to choose from.

Be wary of the HTC Desire, good as it is it's nearly a year old, a decade in phone years. Also the battery sucks!

 

[strangedays]

Its tricky as the Atrix looks amazing. Obviously the dual cores are the next choices. Hopefully they will put batterys in that get me to the end of the day.


Whats everyone go their hearts set on?

 

[novox77]

True, but then if you waited to winter you would have even better phones to choose from.

Be wary of the HTC Desire, good as it is it's nearly a year old, a decade in phone years. Also the battery sucks!

Phone improvements tend to happen in bursts, not in steady streams. There was a burst of awesome phones released last summer. But this past fall and winter phones were all about the same. We're about to see a new burst in new tech, mainly ones with dual-core processors. I'd say early Spring is a good time to jump in, assuming you have no contractual obligations to to fulfill.

BTW, if you plan to tinker with a rooted phone, you'll want to consider the rooting community and support for your device. The most root-friendly devices are HTC. Most HTC phones can be rooted with "unrEVOked," pretty much a one-click root. Tons of custom ROMs and kernels to choose from. Motorola community is pretty decent as well, although ever since the Droid X release with the eFuse (locked) bootloader, and their announcement that this will become standard practice, their phones are now considered root unfriendly. Samsung, the other leading manufacturer, makes good phones, but their rooting community hasn't taken off yet. That will change over time, I think.

 

[AmneonX]

One thing I'm surprised no one brought up that android has that the iphone doesn't is flash.

 

[dan330]

For rooting and after support ...not all Android phones are the same.

Just look at the rooting section for each phone and you can see how active or inactive each is .. evo is one of the bigger ones