Cell Phones

Remember that T-Mobile G2 build that leaked out earlier this week? Even if you didn’t, the ROM still managed to find its way onto other Android devices by way of some clever (if not elementary, dear Watson) hacking, and from that very binary comes some vivid imagery. Nothing too surprising or earth-shattering, unless of course you find a Google Voice widget absolutely mind-blowing. And if you do, well, you’re welcome.
VIA:TmoNews
SOURCE:Phandroid

Despite Motorola’s best intentions to the contrary, the Droid X has been making steady progress toward viable custom ROMs, first with root access, then with a recovery method… and now, at long last, we’re starting to get the first few glimpses at legit cooked firmware. The two options we’re seeing so far are Sapphire — originally designed for the Droid of old — and a so-called “FlyX” ROM from longtime contributor Birdman. In both cases, the benefits of eschewing Motorola’s standard builds are pretty obvious: you get Froyo, root, and a host of apps and capabilities preferred by the superuser crowd like surcharge-free mobile hotspot access. The process is a little involved to get these bad boys installed at this point, but with time, we’re willing to bet it becomes a pretty painless endeavor. Follow the break for a quick video of Sapphire booting into stock Froyo on the X — a tantalizing sight, indeed.

[Thanks, Clift]

VIA:BGR, Droid Life
SOURCE:Android Central, Steven Bird

The rich landscape of Android versioning just got a bit richer, with word of an official Froyo update for the Droid Incredible being launched tomorrow (based on the screencap pictured above), while the EVO 4G’s recent Froyo software just got rooted. If you’re crazily impatient, an Android 2.2 ROM for the Incredible just leaked out into the wild, and can be installed with a bit of work, but from the official-looking-ness of this leak from Droid Life, a painless official update is not far off. Meanwhile, in Sprint land, the xda-devs have a rather complicated, rather scary method posted for rooting 2.2 on the EVO 4G — you’ll have to ask yourself how much that freedom is worth to you, or just wait for the inevitably easier methods to come along and hold your hand.
VIA:Android Police
SOURCE:xda-developers, Droid Life

The Droid X got rooted just about a month ago, but still users are unable to run their own custom ROMs — something seen as a basic right amongst the Android community. Now those chaps are a good bit closer to getting there thanks to a new recovery mechanism posted by Koush. What’s taking so long? The security mechanisms on the Droid X are said to be “a real bitch” and, to circumvent them, Koush had to hijack a logging process that runs at boot-up. This process runs in place of that, allowing a user to restore their phone to a previous backup generated before trying to do something wild and crazy. What does this mean? ROM runners now have a means of safely retreating if they find themselves cornered (or bricked), allowing them to try more daring assaults more often, and meaning we could be only days away from Droid X users being allowed to fully express themselves.
VIA:Android Police
SOURCE:My Brain Hurts