I rooted my Android phone. What cool things can I do with it?

Planterz, did you try posting any of this on AndroidForums or XDA forums? Those guys probably could have given you better advice than we can.
 
Planterz, did you try posting any of this on AndroidForums or XDA forums? Those guys probably could have given you better advice than we can.

I'm already being sent a replacement phone.
 
I thought this was going to be a real interesting thread to root something has a whole different meaning down here :-)

Richard

If the process fails then the phone has been properly rooted. ;)

I knew a girl from Redbank Plains years ago and she explained the meaning. ;)
 
I was going to wait for the S4, but a tech wizard I know already has one, and likes the Nexus 4 better.
He started telling me all the tech stuff about it and as my head began to spin faster I just went for the Nexus 4.

A buddy of mine was going thru the detectors at the courthouse last week and when I looked at his phone, I realized he needed a new one:)

" Rooted" I don't even know what that means, and no I'm not looking it up:)
 
If the Nexus 4 had expandable storage, it'd be an awesome device. But with the storage limitations (only 8 or 16gb) you're kinda neutered.
 
I just noticed something that makes absolutely no sense to me. When I first got my phone, it came with a couple games pre-installed. Madden NFL (just a demo I think) and some crappy golf game. When I did the factory reset, those games showed up again. And of course, I promptly deleted them like I did the first time.

So why/how would it reinstall games that I deleted, but won't reinstall the Play Store?
 
So I tried to get creative and re-install the Play Store. Didn't work. Every time I loaded it, it crashed.

I'm pretty sure I know what I did wrong now (apart from messing with it in the first place). When I re-installed the Play Store, I'm guessing it was only a "user" app, and not a "system" app, and Play Store probably only works properly if it's set as a system app, especially since it has to create registries and allow permissions when installing an app.

I'm tempted to try and fix it, just to prove to myself that I can, but then I'd have to screw it up again or mail back a perfectly good phone.

Still don't understand why it won't show up after a factory reset though...
 
Did you have the Market App after you did a factory reset? The marketplace app updated to Google Play Store within the last year.

If you were to do a factory reset on a two year old phone, it wouldn't have the google play store, because the google play store didn't exist two years ago. You should have the marketplace app...

The reason those games loaded back is because the factory reset is essentially a ROM that is an identical image of the whats on the phone as it leaves the factory. So, whatever is on it the first time you used it: Apps, settings. Will be on it again after you factory reset.
 
Did you have the Market App after you did a factory reset?

No, that's the problem.

The marketplace app updated to Google Play Store within the last year.

If you were to do a factory reset on a two year old phone, it wouldn't have the google play store, because the google play store didn't exist two years ago. You should have the marketplace app...

The reason those games loaded back is because the factory reset is essentially a ROM that is an identical image of the whats on the phone as it leaves the factory. So, whatever is on it the first time you used it: Apps, settings. Will be on it again after you factory reset.

The factory reset doesn't actually reset it to the factory ROM. The factory ROM was 2.3.5 Gingerbread. Recently this phone was updated to 4.1.2 Jelly Bean. Doing the reset doesn't change that. It's still on 4.1.2 JB. The settings are reset, not the ROM. At least, not in this case with this phone on this version.

Clearly, when I uninstalled Play Store from the systems apps, it did something that's preventing it from reinstalling after a factory reset. I guess that resetting to factory settings doesn't re-flash the ROM, and that any system/root level changes that were made aren't unmade in doing so. It makes sense in that regard, I suppose.

Whatever, I get a new phone to hopefully not mess up tomorrow morning.
 
Never said factory reset changed the version of android your running, just that it resets your apps and settings. Not having marketplace (app is actually called android market) is strange. Because all you would need it to do is update to google play.

Either way, why don't you just flash the latest gapps package? Generally when flashing custom ROMs, google apps aren't included. Google knows this, so they created .zip file that has all of their apps on it. That way you aren't SOL.

Clear your cache/dalvik cache and flash the gapps package and you'll have the play store.
 
Never said factory reset changed the version of android your running, just that it resets your apps and settings. Not having marketplace (app is actually called android market) is strange. Because all you would need it to do is update to google play.
As I said, I tried reinstalling whatever it's officially called from an .apk, and it installed, but would only crash upon opening, most certainly likely because I didn't change it to a system app.

In any case, I got my new phone yesterday. First thing I tried was to buy an app with my main account, and it wouldn't. Same problem as before. Oh well. My debit card expires this month, so hopefully when I update my info with Google, the new card will work. Otherwise I'll just deal with using 2 accounts.

I rooted my new phone, and set up Nova Launcher to my preferences. Basically it's the same as I had my stock interface, but with added gestures on the home screen for quicker access to things, namely pinch-in to display all windows (something so many phones have, but not Motoralas).

First thing I noticed when I brought my phone to work was that the colors were off. They seemed cool, with almost a purplish tint. At first I was disappointed (kinda pissed really). I tried downloading some apps that change color settings, but they didn't do anything that I wanted. When I got home though, I compared it to my old phone. WOW what a difference. It's not the new phone with colors that are off, it's my old one. The screen is dimmer at max brightness, and are very warm, with a yellowish tinge. I don't know if my old phone's screen was always like that, or it slowly degraded over time. Either way, I'm happy I have a new one.

The second thing I noticed is that AdAway doesn't just block the ads within games and apps, but it also blocks ads in the web browsers. This alone is worth it to me to root my phone. My browser of choice is Dolphin. Firefox has an Ad Blocker Plus plug in, but Firefox browser sucks. Not having to deal with ads on a mobile browser is invaluable. Apart from pages loading faster, you don't have to deal with those extremely frustrating translucent overly ads. It's one thing on a desktop, because you just click the X. But on a phone, the overlay recenters itself whenever you try to move the page to find the X, making it practically impossible to close it.

I'm also really digging this app called Clean Master. It's basically a task killer on steroids. It also cleans up unused or leftover files from apps you no longer have.

I purchased Rom Toolbox Pro. It has a ton of utilities, a few of which are particularly useful for me. It's the app I use to freeze (and maybe uninstall) bloatware/crapplications. It has a rebooter widget, which is handy because from the powerbutton, I can only turn off my phone, and then I have to wait until it's done turning off before I can start it up again. The rebooter widget lets me do a fast reboot, full reboot, or shut it down completely. Saves me time. It also has a CPU control, which I might tinker with. Because my Razr Maxx has such a big battery, my juice running out usually isn't a problem. But there are times, such as a long drive, or a long bike ride (when I like to use My Tracks to trace my ride), where I might want to extend my battery life by lowering the clock speed of the processor.

And of course, I've got the free use of my data as a mobile hotspot or wired tether. Invaluable, not just for when I get a tablet, but for when a laptop needs internet access away from wi-fi. I've worked on co-workers' laptops at work on numerous occasions. One time, a some (I work at a pizza place) couldn't get a promo code for a free pizza to work on our company's phone app, so with the use of my phone's wi-fi and a laptop they had with them, they were able to get their free pizza, and I got a generous tip. These are small things, but the convenience to me is invaluable. My single favorite aspect of the smartphone is access to the wealth of the world's knowledge at my fingertips via the internet. But apply that same internet access to a computer anywhere...without paying out the nose for extra "services" (in the same way a bull is "serviced"), and that's a golden combination.
 
Thanks for sharing.
Yeah Guys, I have found a tubemate android download site except from google play, you can find specific apps, software apk from the site.
Wish it will useful to you guys, let cheers.
 
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