[Q] Can I fool the market about my system version? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I have a tablet with android 2.3.5 on it, but I notice there are lots of apps written for android 3.0 honeycomb. I'd like to play with some of them, but the market tells me the apps are not compatible with my device. And it won't let me even download them.
Is there a way I can make my tablet report to the market that it's running 3.0?
Thanks.
Dan

Even if you did that, the apps still wouldn't work. They would just say "error parsing package" before even installing. If they "happened" to install, they would just force close on start.

Theonew said:
Even if you did that, the apps still wouldn't work. They would just say "error parsing package" before even installing. If they "happened" to install, they would just force close on start.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm going to disagree with this. There are plenty of apps that don't work on certain devices according to the Market yet run perfectly fine on those devices. When it comes to apps made specifically for 3.0, you're more likely to run into problems with functionality, force closes, or screen size. Parsing errors are generally from a problem with the download or package itself, but I could be wrong.
Your options are to change the build.prop to read 3.0 (assuming that's how the Market discovers your build) or to download from another source. I don't know if Amazon does some type of device check or not, but you can try that.
If you decide to try editing your build.prop, back it up first just in case.
Sent from my Evo + MIUI using Tapatalk!

plainjane said:
Parsing errors are generally from a problem with the download or package itself, but I could be wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, this is wrong (in some cases). Parsing package errors occur based on firmware version. If you tried to install an app made for Gingerbread on Froyo, you would get this error. Since the OP wants Honeycomb specific apps to be able to run on Gingerbread, this error is highly likely to occur. Even if the an app worked, then there would be major functionality problems.

I think I follow: if the functionality the app is expecting isn't there, then there *will* be a problem. That makes sense.
However, I have managed to get my hands on a Motorola utility (MotoPrint) from a xoom image I found on the web, that *did* work. Admittedly, it was either going to work or not.
In this instance, it piqued my interest. And made me think that the app creators *may* be, um, overselling the "newness" of their apps by promoting them as "honeycomb." And I just wanna play. XD
I've already tried editing build.prop to no avail tho. So that's why I'm soliciting ideas.
Dan

Try and sideload the apps in question? But as posted some apps that require HC will not run or run correctly on GB.
:edit:
cranky_dan said:
However, I have managed to get my hands on a Motorola utility (MotoPrint) from a xoom image I found on the web, that *did* work. Admittedly, it was either going to work or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You already figured it out

Okay then. Thanks for ringing in, everybody.
> You already figured it out. <
I always wonder if there's another way that my noob eyes and brain don't know. So thanks.
Dan
Golleeee. Ah sure am smurt!! XD

Dealing with apk files can be easier than the android market.
And everything is free if you know where to look *cough*
Based on your first post, google will not allow you to buy the apps you want, correct?
That's not a fault of anything you are doing. Google doesn't want you to buy those apps apparently. That doesn't mean you can't "get" them.

BenKranged said:
Based on your first post, google will not allow you to buy the apps you want, correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All of the apps I have been viewing on Tablified are Honeycomb. Many are free. There are few nice ideas that I'd simply like to see if they work on my VeganGinger G-tab.
Google simply says the app is incompatible with my tablet, and greys out the install button.
So far, this is the most annoying thing in Android to me. Dammit, just let me try it. I know I may not get *all* the functionality. I'd just like to see if it's a tolerable thing for me. Without needing to jump thru hoops.
Dan

Welcome to fragmentation.
Heres a legal source for free apks.
http://androiddev.orkitra.com/download/apps/
On a sidenote I use a Galaxy S Captivate with 2.2 froyo.
There are some apps (games mostly that I have encountered) that will not run at all on less than android 2.3.x regardless of where you get the apk from.
So I can only assume the same is true with 2.3.x/3.x

Thanks! I appreciate it!

Related

Android Market Support (Vending.apk)

Has anyone had any luck sideloading the vending.apk to the nook?
(edit: possible that it will work based on youtube.apk after sign in to you tube. )
some people are reporting success!
I think the issue is that before it's installed the Market app needs to be made to work on the device. Odds are by default that the market app will not work until someone will be able to edit it's properties.
The Market (vending.apk) has dependencies which be installed before it can work. The Setup Wizard that is normally present which links the device to a particular Google account is not present.
Even with the Market working, the NC isn't licensed for use with Market so it likely would have to use another device's fingerprint such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab. This is change is typically made to the "build.prop" file.
epakrat75 said:
The Market (vending.apk) has dependencies which be installed before it can work. The Setup Wizard that is normally present which links the device to a particular Google account is not present.
Even with the Market working, the NC isn't licensed for use with Market so it likely would have to use another device's fingerprint such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab. This is change is typically made to the "build.prop" file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Shamelessly stolen from this forum:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6636260&postcount=14
/system/etc/permissions/com.google.android.datamessaging.xml
/system/etc/permissions/com.google.android.gtalkservice.xml
/system/framework/com.google.android.datamessaging.jar (often absent, seems works without it)
/system/framework/com.google.android.gtalkservice.jar
/system/lib/libgtalk_jni.so
Also, the market should work without a fingerprint, BUT some copy-protected apps might be hidden. I'd get the market up and running first, then worry about the fingerprint stuff.
Also, yes, you'll probably need SetupWizard, but that can most likely be grabbed from...well, pretty much anywhere, including an emulator image.
I'd try it myself, but I won't be getting my NC til tonight.
I think the issue currently is that Setup Wizard doesn't appear to want to work over wifi.
I was able to get all of the Google apps installed last night but the Setup Wizard won't use wifi to sign into my account. Market and Gmail appear to want to work, but shoot you over to the Setup Wizard. The logcat doesn't show much with regards to fatal exceptions.
I'm open to ideas. It got really late last night so I didn't really get to try much.
clockworx said:
Shamelessly stolen from this forum:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6636260&postcount=14
/system/etc/permissions/com.google.android.datamessaging.xml
/system/etc/permissions/com.google.android.gtalkservice.xml
/system/framework/com.google.android.datamessaging.jar (often absent, seems works without it)
/system/framework/com.google.android.gtalkservice.jar
/system/lib/libgtalk_jni.so
Also, the market should work without a fingerprint, BUT some copy-protected apps might be hidden. I'd get the market up and running first, then worry about the fingerprint stuff.
Also, yes, you'll probably need SetupWizard, but that can most likely be grabbed from...well, pretty much anywhere, including an emulator image.
I'd try it myself, but I won't be getting my NC til tonight.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried this? Where did you get the dependencies? I tried a gapps that was suggested from CyanogenMod, and it runs, but will not log in. The assumption was that it was trying to connect over 3G rather than Wifi. As of last night I thought it was still unsolved.
The last line of my post says "I'd try it myself, but I won't be getting my NC til tonight."
I don't see any particular issue with connecting over Wifi unless the Nook has a weird setup. We did the same thing with the Pandigital Novel and it worked fine (and that doesn't have 3G either).
Hopefully I'll have time to give it a shot tonight.
clockworx said:
The last line of my post says "I'd try it myself, but I won't be getting my NC til tonight."
I don't see any particular issue with connecting over Wifi unless the Nook has a weird setup. We did the same thing with the Pandigital Novel and it worked fine (and that doesn't have 3G either).
Hopefully I'll have time to give it a shot tonight.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It also worked fine on the g-tablet, but something is configured different on the NC. The more eyes looking at it the better!
clockworx said:
Shamelessly stolen from this forum:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6636260&postcount=14
/system/etc/permissions/com.google.android.datamessaging.xml
/system/etc/permissions/com.google.android.gtalkservice.xml
/system/framework/com.google.android.datamessaging.jar (often absent, seems works without it)
/system/framework/com.google.android.gtalkservice.jar
/system/lib/libgtalk_jni.so
Also, the market should work without a fingerprint, BUT some copy-protected apps might be hidden. I'd get the market up and running first, then worry about the fingerprint stuff.
Also, yes, you'll probably need SetupWizard, but that can most likely be grabbed from...well, pretty much anywhere, including an emulator image.
I'd try it myself, but I won't be getting my NC til tonight.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SUCCESS!!!
I was able to get Vending.apk to install but I also had to install the following:
SetupWizard.apk
GoogleApps.apk,
GoogleCheckin.apk
gtalkservice.apk
But since I can't seem to get it to register my Google account it does no good.
So how do we get the SetupWizard to work?
SystemIdleProcess said:
SUCCESS!!!
I was able to get Vending.apk to install but I also had to install the following:
SetupWizard.apk
GoogleApps.apk,
GoogleCheckin.apk
gtalkservice.apk
But since I can't seem to get it to register my Google account it does no good.
So how do we get the SetupWizard to work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If by the chance you're being able to put files above somewhere i would definitely join your quest.
david_beholder said:
If by the chance you're being able to put files above somewhere i would definitely join your quest.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Market.7z
I pretty much got to the same place. I'm not really sure why SetupWizard wouldn't go through, if it is an issue with something they modified or something else. Unfortunately, they're using a really non-standard Settings.apk, and if I push that over and boot the Nook won't start until I revert it.
clockworx said:
I pretty much got to the same place. I'm not really sure why SetupWizard wouldn't go through, if it is an issue with something they modified or something else. Unfortunately, they're using a really non-standard Settings.apk, and if I push that over and boot the Nook won't start until I revert it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is there maybe a way to set this information without going through the wizard? Maybe a db or prop file somewhere?
Thinking that it might be the AccountAndSyncSettings.apk I tried installed it however, got the following error.
[INSTALL_PARSE_FAILED_INCONSISTENT_CERTIFICATES]
I wonder if it can't go through the wizard due to a cert not being loaded.
SystemIdleProcess said:
Thinking that it might be the AccountAndSyncSettings.apk I tried installed it however, got the following error.
[INSTALL_PARSE_FAILED_INCONSISTENT_CERTIFICATES]
I wonder if it can't go through the wizard due to a cert not being loaded.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would it be poisible to to just push the accountsandsyncsettings.apk
I'll probably play some more tonight. One error message that stuck out to me was "GoogleLoginService not available", though that is supposed to live in Google Apps (which was pushed), so I'm not sure why it's having issues.
clockworx said:
I'll probably play some more tonight. One error message that stuck out to me was "GoogleLoginService not available", though that is supposed to live in Google Apps (which was pushed), so I'm not sure why it's having issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Clockworx if you get market working that would be amazing!
Kdragon75 said:
Clockworx if you get market working that would be amazing!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm probably spoiled from working on the Pandigital before this. That was a piece of cake, push over the appropriate stuff and Google Apps worked. I'm not really sure what the issue is in this particular case. It's most likely that Pandigital did a really lazy job building their ROM from an emulator image, and BN has done some more customization and removal of stuff, which in turn may be causing problems.
Hopefully it won't be a huge issue.
SystemIdleProcess said:
Market.7z
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks Man, gonna play with it tonight!
Not sure if this'll be of any help...
http://www.smartqmid.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1731&start=30
I'm trying to play with it a little, though my knowledge of Android's internals is quite limited.
I'm a PC guru though... it's gotta count for something

Finaly got a fully working market (2.3.2) (all apps shown).. somehow.

So, after a bit work working and jerking, i actually got my Nook to show everything on the market; sad thing is, i can't say exactly what step did it. But i know overall what i tried, so i can at least mention here...
The first thing first - 2.2.11 and 2.2.7 are out of date. The newest is 2.3.2, and there are some great customized versions here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=957331
From here, i did a couple of things:
1) Did the standard clear market cache, force close, clear framework data, force close
2) Mounted /system and pushed Vending
3) Fixed permissions (on this, i went overboard, and basically did a chmod 777; but i am sure it doesn't really need that)
4)reboot
5) try to install it a few times (each install failed)
6) Use market enabler, with t-mobile (US) (i ended up buying the key, so i can fake it always on boot)
7) a couple more reboots in there
All said and done, the themed market finally showed up, and even better, EVERYTHING that was once hidden is there. Flash, Angry Birds, Dolphin.. all accessible. Even better, market.android.com now shows the nook, and doesn't say that my device is not able to run whatever. The website itself shows:
Unnamed Device LogicPD Nook Color (zoom2) T-Mobile February 17, 2011 February 16, 2011
Anyway, ill try to answer questions as people have them, but it looks like with the newest market, and (maybe) the faker, we can get full market access.
Well not sure how to get it working, did the easy try with just trying to install the .apk , but it says something about a problem parsing the file or something. I am new to android so not sure how to do the other stuff you talked about. I have root explorer btw.
Hmm.. when trying to install, i didn't run into any parsing errors - it just said it couldn't install.
For Froyo only?
Saw the framework data clear cache which is not seen in Eclair. Just checking.
I found this app that makes the market work with all the apps showing up. It's called MarketAccess. I couldn't find it in the android market, but you can download it here h t t p://amip.org.ru/android/MarketAccess. I have been using the T-Mobile US setting and it seems to work.
Interestingly the site claims MarketAccess is a complete rewrite of MarketEnabler. Not sure whether that's a good thing or not (yet). However, the site does detail why the rewrite was done and what was changed to a degree. Sounds good anyway from the bits I read.
Divine_Madcat said:
All said and done, the themed market finally showed up, and even better, EVERYTHING that was once hidden is there. Flash, Angry Birds, Dolphin.. all accessible. Even better, market.android.com now shows the nook, and doesn't say that my device is not able to run whatever.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
W00t have had everything but flash in market (always had to sideload) updated market, cleared stuff then faking T-Mobile worked for me
sent From a NC on eMMC Froyo
camwinnn said:
W00t have had everything but flash in market (always had to sideload) updated market, cleared stuff then faking T-Mobile worked for me
sent From a NC on eMMC Froyo
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really? I was even able to find Flash on the market, and update my version.
Divine_Madcat said:
Really? I was even able to find Flash on the market, and update my version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol sorry worded it weird normally can find birds an such but never flash, after updating and faking T-Mobile I could.
sent From a NC on eMMC Froyo
epakrat75 said:
Interestingly the site claims MarketAccess is a complete rewrite of MarketEnabler. Not sure whether that's a good thing or not (yet). However, the site does detail why the rewrite was done and what was changed to a degree. Sounds good anyway from the bits I read.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I bought MarketEnabler (donation key) and it appears to open up some apps, but not others. I'll try this one and see if it's any better.
Divine_Madcat said:
So, after a bit work working and jerking
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe if you were working with more than 1 hand you would have remembered what you did
Are you guys seeing Need For Speed Shift? That was a test case I was using.
Couldn't find Need for Speed: Shift. My test app to find was the original Angry Birds...
Bawb3 said:
Maybe if you were working with more than 1 hand you would have remembered what you did
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Man that's just...... Wrong LOL
Gonna try market stuff on the wife's nook in a few minutes. Thanks.
i cant seem to get this stuff to work on the nooter root/market on stock firmware.. any thoughts before i cry?

[Q] Fix Market Limitations

I've looked around for some possible solutions to give the eris full market capabilities (regardless of compatibility) with no success. Is there any way to modify the build prop (or something else) to allow the market to think the eris is another phone which has unlimited access to the market? I have had no success with the Eris Market Fix App by the way.
Not sure if it helps but in another thread a while back I noticed tenzomonk posted this:
"as for the build.prop... you'd want to find the following line: "ro.build.fingerprint="
i've provided two (2) examples below... first being from an HTC Incredible running a 2.2 ROM... second being from a stock Eris (2.1 ROM).
ro.build.fingerprint=verizon_wwe/inc/inc/inc:2.2/FRF91/231334:user/release-keys (Incredible)
ro.build.fingerprint=verizon/htc_desirec/desirec/desirec:2.1/ERD79/185970:user/release-keys (Eris)"
I don't have the knowledge to help you trick the market into thinking you have a different phone, but why don't you just download the .apk files for the apps you want and sideload them? I guess that isn't a good idea for non-free apps but for free apps it works fine. That's what I did with angry birds before it was available for the Eris. Honestly though, if it doesn't show up on the market for the Eris it probably wont run well if at all. Developers don't want to limit the number of people that can download their app. They generally only do it if there are issues with their app on a particular phone.
Sent from my GSB Eris
cstone1991 said:
I don't have the knowledge to help you trick the market into thinking you have a different phone, but why don't you just download the .apk files for the apps you want and sideload them?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why not think of the big picture and "solve" the core problem ?
Sure, your suggestion will work until then, but do we do this forever ?
tyler1524 said:
I've looked around for some possible solutions...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Personally, I believe the issue is with the Market itself, especially since Gingerbread was released. People on multiple phones and in turn, multiple ROMs, are having similar issues. This isn't unique to the Eris or any of the ROMs from here.
hallstevenson said:
Why not think of the big picture and "solve" the core problem ?
Sure, your suggestion will work until then, but do we do this forever ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I guess you would have to sideload any apps you can't get on the market but I don't see the problem with doing that. The VAST majority of apps can be found in the market.
Sent from my GSB Eris
cstone1991 said:
Yeah I guess you would have to sideload any apps you can't get on the market but I don't see the problem with doing that. The VAST majority of apps can be found in the market.
Sent from my GSB Eris
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats the key. Just find the APK. Someone has put it out there you can be sure.

Any way to trick apps into thinking they are running in Honeycomb?

I'm mainly wanting the Honeycomb Gmail layout and hopefully a similar layout for reader and Docs (which docs doesnt work at all right now). So my guess is we need to make the app think that we have Honeycomb installed. So is there any way to do this? It would be kind of like a user agent option that browsers have.
It's much more complicated than that, unfortunately. When you spoof the API level, the apps will still call the Honeycomb API's. When it can't find the API's or if it calls an API that has changed, it will force close.
So would there be any easy way to get the Gmail and Reader Honeycomb versions running on the Touchpad?
tbodary said:
So would there be any easy way to get the Gmail and Reader Honeycomb versions running on the Touchpad?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Waiting for a port of 4.0 is an easy way. Spoofing Honeycomb would cause nothing but problems
Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk
tbodary said:
So would there be any easy way to get the Gmail and Reader Honeycomb versions running on the Touchpad?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What we have here is a failure to communicate...
tbodary said:
So would there be any easy way to get the Gmail and Reader Honeycomb versions running on the Touchpad?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So in every operating system there are API/Librarys however you want to term it. What they are is a common set of functions or ways of doing something that programs can use so the developer of said program does not have the recreate the wheel EVERY time they make a program. Thats how we have so many apps in the market.
Now Honeycomb and Gingerbread have very different API/Library's from each other. So what that means is if you were to install the gmail app form honeycomb and "trick" it into actually running what will happen is the program will ask the OS "Okay i need this set of instructions so i can execute" and the OS will reply "WHAT THE **** ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT HOMEBOY YOU BE STRAIGHT TRIPPIN BOO" and will promptly shoot that app in the face and will result in a force close.
So the only way to fix that would be to have all the honeycomb api/librarys. We don't actually have a good way of making that into the tablet because the sorce has not been released. All we have is and SDK which helps us make honeycomb apps but not run them on other devices.
hope that helps... i may be a little wrong in explaining but it should be roughly accurate
tbodary said:
So would there be any easy way to get the Gmail and Reader Honeycomb versions running on the Touchpad?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Trying to run an app made for honeycomb on gingerbread is like asking if you can use the calculator app made for windows 7 in windows xp (or the paint app).
So,what your saying is,if you trick it I to running,sometimes it works,sometimes it crashes,and sometimes its flakey ....
Actually, I'm sure that's NOT what you were trying to say. you were saying it would not work at all,ever,which honestly,I find very hard to believe. In windows,unless your talking windows 16 bit vs 32bit vs 64 bit binaries,your results are dependant on the app. Some programs runfine if you trick them,some don't run at all.
what MAY be the case here though is that there might be something going on with the libraries they are compiled against.However, all I hear are people repeating what they read elsewhere. I agree with the OP,I would like to be able to force the issue. I don't need the OS, OR some guy on the internet telling me that it wont run. If I want to fruit,I'd prefer the OS to do what I tell it an run it,even if it crashes the whole deviceand requires a reboot.
Well, the replies make perfect sense to me ( I used to be a decent programmer)
Alan
alan sh said:
Well, the replies make perfect sense to me ( I used to be a decent programmer)
Alan
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
don't get me wrong,I dont think that you can magically make HC apps run on GB by flipping a few bits in an executable. however,experience on other platforms tell me that there my well be some allocations that really are GB apps,with minor tablet optimizations,but marked as HC apps,because a developer just used the GB stuff he was used to instead of anything specific to HC. Wheter or not this is possible on android,I don't know,but its.certainly seen on other platforms. As such,I'd like the ability to try to force an app to run. honestly,who cares if hangs or force closes. its no big deal. I understand why a developer does not want that to happen,as a gracefully warning and refusal to run does not give his app a bad Rep. I however will not be confused. If it hangs,force closes,or even corrupts data,I will understand why it did it. I first. with nanny android telling me its a bad idea to run it,but if.I dont believe her she should step aside and let me grab the hot pan.handle on-the-job stove.
pflatlyne said:
don't get me wrong,I dont think that you can magically make HC apps run on GB by flipping a few bits in an executable. however,experience on other platforms tell me that there my well be some allocations that really are GB apps,with minor tablet optimizations,but marked as HC apps,because a developer just used the GB stuff he was used to instead of anything specific to HC. Wheter or not this is possible on android,I don't know,but its.certainly seen on other platforms. As such,I'd like the ability to try to force an app to run. honestly,who cares if hangs or force closes. its no big deal. I understand why a developer does not want that to happen,as a gracefully warning and refusal to run does not give his app a bad Rep. I however will not be confused. If it hangs,force closes,or even corrupts data,I will understand why it did it. I first. with nanny android telling me its a bad idea to run it,but if.I dont believe her she should step aside and let me grab the hot pan.handle on-the-job stove.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its true that other apps may run. But we are not talking about other appswe were talking about the gmail app specifically. Which in android is dependant on many of the other Google apps. So no, in that case even if you could trick the app into thinking it was on HC it would immediately close because it willtry to call the contacts app and so on. So then we get into making a majority of the HC gapps run on gingerbread. No Dev would waste their time on this knowing ICS is only a few months away.
So while many third party apps are ports from GB anyway and would run the first party gapps will not period
Sent from my MB860 using xda premium
this would be useful for an app that i would like to run....
wizz bar
anybody have any alternatives maybe?
Treello said:
Its true that other apps may run. But we are not talking about other appswe were talking about the gmail app specifically. Which in android is dependant on many of the other Google apps. So no, in that case even if you could trick the app into thinking it was on HC it would immediately close because it willtry to call the contacts app and so on. So then we get into
making a majority of the HC gapps run on gingerbread. No Dev would waste their time on this knowing ICS is only a few months away.
So while many third party apps are ports from GB anyway and would run the first party gapps will not period
Sent from my MB860 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree,knowing nothing else,I would expect the Google apps to be real honeycomb apps. I would like to be able to force any app I want to try to run. How does android know what version an app is for?
I believe its on build.prop
Sent from my MB860 using xda premium
The next best thing is to force apps to work in Landscape, Orientation Control app does this.
Hi I have an old tablet with froyo running Facebook in tablet mode. How can i get fb to show the navigation bar on our touchpad? Fyi, I installed the same apk on my tp that was installed on my old tablet and it will not show the navigation pane on my tp.

Why Root?

I may be missing something here, but I was just wondering:
With the ability to sideload apps, what's the point in rooting? What can you do with a root that you can't do via sideloading?
I could understand if the root was permanent and couldn't be removed via a software update, but as I understand it, this is not the case.
So why root? What are the benefits? I'm willing to give it a shot, but before I do, I really need to understand what the upside is. Possibly I'm just not educated enough on the subject, so if anyone has any thoughts- I'd love to hear them.
jimmysuggs said:
I may be missing something here, but I was just wondering:
With the ability to sideload apps, what's the point in rooting? What can you do with a root that you can't do via sideloading?
I could understand if the root was permanent and couldn't be removed via a software update, but as I understand it, this is not the case.
So why root? What are the benefits? I'm willing to give it a shot, but before I do, I really need to understand what the upside is. Possibly I'm just not educated enough on the subject, so if anyone has any thoughts- I'd love to hear them.
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Click to collapse
Ability to side load apps doesn't mean we can get all apps to work. For example: android market, 3rd party keyboards, etc... Will not work on this device without root permissions to change what the permissions of the app is itself. I believe the developer who was able to override the n button to take you to a 3rd party home launcher also requires root. You can remove unwanted apps (chess, whatever other lame games were built in) that you wouldn't be able to otherwise.
MOST importantly (at least for me) you can run titanium backup and backup apps+data to avoid losing info and having to re-download everything all over again in the event of a reset.
Okay, good points, thanks for the info.
I'm a little scared to give this a shot but maybe I'll bite the bullet and try it.
The n button app doesn't require root, least not the original. Haven't check it since then as it worked perfectly for me in the first iteration.
Until we can load CM on it, mine will be staying unrooted. Got everything else I needed with sideloading.
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You can sideload everything, but will you be able to receive updates?
Dfroelich said:
You can sideload everything, but will you be able to receive updates?
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Quite a few of us hope that we can not receive updates. BNs handful of crappy apps really can't benefit from updates and the truncated version of Android they've used doesn't have enough substance to be worth updating. Those of us who have sideloaded this into a modern, useful device often prefer to be left to our own devices (pun intended).
I think he may have meant can you get updates to the apps you sideload. And I'm pretty sure the answer to that is no. But I could be wrong about that.
jimmysuggs said:
I think he may have meant can you get updates to the apps you sideload. And I'm pretty sure the answer to that is no. But I could be wrong about that.
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Ah, you may be correct. If that was the question then what I'm finding is that I'm getting market updates just fine. Some of the apps I have sideloaded from non-market sources are updating too, some might not be but how would I know? The few apps I have needed to copy to the root will not be able to update as far as I know.
My first response incorrectly assumed you meant OTA (over the air) updates of the whole shebang from BN.
You can always update the same way you got the initial program, sideloading. I haven't had any trouble updating my Amazon Market apps though.
I don't have googles market currently.
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Installing adfree is worth it.
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jimmysuggs said:
I think he may have meant can you get updates to the apps you sideload. And I'm pretty sure the answer to that is no. But I could be wrong about that.
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If the sideloaded app installs appropriately then updates should not be a problem. It your choice to accept the update or not.
...btw, yes I was referring to app updates, and not OTA.
skeeterpro said:
If the sideloaded app installs appropriately then updates should not be a problem. It your choice to accept the update or not.
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How do you get updates to sideloaded apps? Do you just download the updated apks and install? I'd imagine that would not be able to save any app data. You could use titanium...but no root!
Dfroelich said:
...btw, yes I was referring to app updates, and not OTA.
How do you get updates to sideloaded apps? Do you just download the updated apks and install? I'd imagine that would not be able to save any app data. You could use titanium...but no root!
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On unrooted devices I have sideloaded apps with when an update to that program is posted by the developer, a notification is automatically sent out. Granted, that is with Market apps but I have not seen a difference between Google Market apps, AppBrain, Amazon or Android Market. Don't recall ever loading anything from BN Market as I never wanted anything from there. They have a habit of charging for apps that can be had for free on other Markets.
You could always manually login and check each app for an update, too.

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