• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

I have a few question

Just picked up my new Acer A500 yesterday and have been playing with it just a little bit. It has the unupdated 3.1 OS (honeycomb I THINK). So i have a few questions but first let me explain my purpose for the tab and my background.

My purpose for the tablet is for my Masters project, to interface it to a IOIO (pronounced YOYO) controller board in for motor and senor control. The IOIO is an android driven device hence an android tab. Also the tab is going to the the brains and face of a telepressence robot i am building. My background in mobile devices is windows mobile (forget the version) which i did not mod very much and my IPHONE 3GS which i have jailbroken and modded for my amusement. I also have a background in C# and VHDL but not so much in mobile application development (which i suspect should not be too difficult to pick up)

Now on to some questions. I plan to root this just to have root access but is there any other benefit such as an underground app store. My favorite is book access such as stanza. Is there a way to tether my iphone to the Acer? I could really use bandwidth since at&t are being unfriendly about sharing my unlimited data (which i guess is a limited to one device unlimited) plan to my tab via Sim card (i know it does not have 3G capabilities, they are the reason i did not pay extra for it. I could use the 3G data to extent the range of my bot. Can i host a web server on the tab or will i have to remote into it using some other utility? And i thought i had another question but i think that will do for now. Anyways thanks for any help and i look forward to future interaction.

SD
 
You can go into the settings and allow yourself to install non system apps and the rooting isn't really worth doing as it comes from the factory. It can be done but not always sucessfully. Wait till you get the 3.2 update to do anything. The update makes it a much more useable tablet. As far as I know you can tether it but I think you have to tether with an android phone. I don't believe Android and IOs are compatible with eachother. You can probably get alot more answeres with the XDA forums. There are a few more techies over there but they are much more arguementative there. Most of the folks who root are doing a Rom mod or something. So XDA is the place you might ask your questions to. Sorry if I'm not alot of help but thought I'd help point you in the right direction. You might c heck out Easynews.com for books. I have my acount there and there are more books than you can read in a life time. I pay $14.95 a month for 40 gigs of down loading and that includes books, movies and just about anything you might want to find. Check out the App store as well and AppBrain site for tethering help. You can find the apps there to help you connect. you will find the apps are reasonable priced and more free apps with Android that with the " Other" os.
 
Hi superdave, sounds like an interesting project.
I think it's easier to root the tab while you're still on 3.1. I saw a post somewhere about how to root from 3.2 but it meant going back to 3.0 first.
Google is much less restrictive with the android market than Apple is with iTunes, so I don't think there is a need for an underground app store. Although some developers make their apps available outside the market. I had one app that the market said wasn't compatible with my device but I downloaded and installed the apk 3rd party and it works fine.
Tethering depends on your phone, the A500 can certainly handle it, but it's easiest is if your phone can work as a mobile wifi hotspot. If you're still using your jailbroken iphone 3Gs with iOS4.3 it should be no problem.
The ConnectBot app sounds perfect for your project, but there are several web server apps available, just search in the market for "web server". Cheers
 
Hi superdave, sounds like an interesting project.
I think it's easier to root the tab while you're still on 3.1. I saw a post somewhere about how to root from 3.2 but it meant going back to 3.0 first.
Google is much less restrictive with the android market than Apple is with iTunes, so I don't think there is a need for an underground app store. Although some developers make their apps available outside the market. I had one app that the market said wasn't compatible with my device but I downloaded and installed the apk 3rd party and it works fine.
Tethering depends on your phone, the A500 can certainly handle it, but it's easiest is if your phone can work as a mobile wifi hotspot. If you're still using your jailbroken iphone 3Gs with iOS4.3 it should be no problem.
The ConnectBot app sounds perfect for your project, but there are several web server apps available, just search in the market for "web server". Cheers
Yes you are right. You will want to root before you updateto 3.2also if you do root you will have much more functionability like backup of all your files removal of bloat programsyou don't want. Also it is very easy to root the Acer.I this k I have a post with all the info on rooting the divide but not sure I will look and see if not I will post some links for you.
 
Thanks for the help, i posted my questions to the xda guys to see what they have to say, i'm also attending a conference on mobile technology including the andriod OS(not sure which flavor) tomorrow. So hopefully i will get some good answers and direction on the programming/rooting side.

If you want i can keep a lot of my progress of my project here, did not want to take up thread time unless there was an interest. Thanks again.
 
Back
Top Bottom