Category Archives: Android

All about Android

Get Nexus 5 features KitKat ROM on your Nexus 4

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Android 4.4 KitKat is a beautiful and smoother experience from Jellybean. While as of writing this post, it is only officially available for the Nexus 5. Those of us on the Nexus 4, 7 and 10 shall be getting it in “the coming weeks” as announced. However, if you can’t wait long enough to taste the sweetness of KitKat, here’s how you can get it on your Nexus 4. Nexus 7 and 10 should be a similar procedure, just check your XDA for it.

The official KitKat factory image is here. However, Google has excluded the beautiful transparency in the launcher and lock screen on the stock ROM. To get all the features of Nexus 5 on your 4, try this ported ROM that combines official Nexus 4 KitKat binaries with Nexus 5 features.

1. If you’re on a stock ROM like 4.3 and haven’t yet unlocked bootloader or rooted your phone, here’s an easy way. Download Wug’s Nexus Toolkit. Once done, simply connect your phone, and follow the initial steps shown in the toolkit, to grant USB debugging access to your computer (if on 4.3).

Next, unlock your bootloader and root the phone, using the options in the toolkit.

2) Go to Options menu at the top and change Custom Recovery to CWM. By default, the toolkit downloads TWRP for you, however this doesn’t work with certain 4.4 ROMs like the AOKP, so set it to CWM. Then go to the toolkit main dialog and install the CWM recovery.

3) Now download the Nexus 5 KitKat port for Nexus 4 ROM.

4) Either use the toolkit for this, or simply paste the zip you just downloaded into your device, and then boot into CWM recovery to “install the zip”. Make sure to wipe data/factory reset and wipe cache before that.

5) Now boot into your newly installed KitKat! As of now you have lost root access. To regain it, download and flash SuperSU from CWM.

Please note that this is NOT an official update for KitKat, simply something that was ported from another phone, and hence things may or may not work, there may be occasional crashes. However I haven’t faced any kind of issues at all over the last two days that I’ve been using this. Everything seems to be working just fine.

Bon appétit! 😉

Sony Xperia Arc launcher for Galaxy Ace

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This is the Sony Ericsson home launcher app from the Xperia Arc, ported to Galaxy Ace. While I was initially not so keen on trying out a stock launcher (owing to the fact that I dislike TouchWiz, and not a fan of Sense either), this one feels pretty good, mostly for the fun animations – the bubbles at the corners, the dragging of icons, the trash can giving two vibrates while closing the lid after deleting an app, and more. True, being a stock launcher, it doesn’t have the amount of customization options that ADW or GO or LP offer, but doesn’t hurt to try out.

For Galaxy Ace:

Ace-Sonerhome-5x.apk

Widget.zip

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CyanogenMod 7 on Galaxy Ace

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Back when my phone was new in the dev scene, around May 2011, there was just 1 custom ROM (VillianROM) which I played around with and ended up screwing up my phone and faced service center woes. Finally gathered up the courage to return to the flashing scene, after having dozens of ROMs out there for my phone now, and having gotten bored of the same old look and feel past few months.

CM 7 Galaxy Ace bootscreen animation

CM 7 Galaxy Ace bootscreen animation

CyanogenMod is one of the most popular ROMs out there for Android phones, and it being currently in RC stage for Galaxy Ace, I decided to try it out. Kind of pleased with the smooth window animations and power features available; however most excited about the Theme Chooser, which is one step ahead of theming simply your launcher, by applying new looks to your status bar/its icons/keyboard/and the rest of the system UI (best part being any MDPI CM 7 theme downloadable out there will work, nothing device specific I suppose). Quite a few bugs around the ROM for now, since it isn’t yet a final version. I’m having to mess around with the system files then and now. But surely try it out if you’re a rooted user.

How to install CM 7 on Galaxy Ace

I don’t intend to make this a detailed walkthrough post, but in case the snapshots tempt you, here’s a little setup in brief, assuming you’re an advanced user.

  1. You must be on a stock or custom Gingerbread ROM. (eg. KPE, DDKQ6, etc.)
  2. Install ClockworkMod Recovery for Galaxy Ace by copying the zip to SD Card and applying it from the stock recovery.
  3. Stock recovery will be replaced by CWM. Download CM 7 cm-7.1.0-RC1-Cooper-KANG-10.10.11-Grif_07.zip and fixes cm-7.1.0-RC1-Fix1-12.10.11-Grif_07.zip
    New stable version by FrozenAceTeam (Maps working now): http://www.mediafire.com/?dg4r4hl4k6bxdr4
  4. Boot up CWM and backup your current ROM first (Make sure you have enough space on SD card ~300MBs else backup will be broken). Next, clear data/factory reset/cache. Install zip from SD Card and select CyanogenMod. After it is installed, download FM Radio Fix and flash it, if you require FM Radio.
  5. Reboot phone and enjoy CM 7!
UPDATE to CM 7.2

If you’ve already installed the above CM 7.1, here’s the update to it.

  1. Download CWM 5 and flash it in Recovery.
  2. Download  CyanogenMod 7.2-COOPER-KANG-AXEL-RC1 and flash in Recovery. Wipe cache. (Data wipe not needed since upgrading from CM 7.1) Reboot.
  3. In case you have issues with Google apps, flash GAPPS in Recovery. (If apps like GMail still force close, restore the previous working version using Titanium)

Screenshots

Sharing a few awesome snapshots of my CM 7 revamped Galaxy Ace. Themes applied vary.

[nggallery id=1]

 

First post from my Android

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image

Hopefully I shall be posting more often now since I got WordPress on my new Android device, about which I have yet to write about as well.

This should cut down my laziness of blogging, as typing on a touch screen QWERTY keyboard in the comfort of your hands, should be easier than having to type on the desktop. Also having left Facebook, I would need another place to share my thoughts and experiences, and what better place can there be other than my personal blog!

P.S.: Yay I’m  a Moblogger now!