Tag Archives: Ice Cream Sandwich

Samsung

How to Root Samsung Galaxy Nexus

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This is one of the many reasons why I love technology. Sometimes, before a product is even made public, we get to know crucial details about it, even possible details on how to root it. Samsung and Google unveiled the Galaxy Nexus sometime back, and there’s already a way to root it. This feat is accomplished by using the rooting tool Superboot, which is developed by guys over at MoDaCo. 

The Galaxy Nexus is the latest Google smartphone that comes with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and dual core processor and what not. This phone is not yet available in many countries and yet they’ve managed to get their hands on one these and root it using this tool. So, what is Superboot and how does it work. Let’s take a lesson from the developers themselves;

Superboot is a boot.img that when booted, will root your device the first time you boot (installing su and the superuser APK). No need to flash any partitions, no need to mess around with ADB, no messing with the contents of your data partition, no overwriting the shipped ROM on your device, just boot the boot image using the instructions below and you’re done!

There you go, it’s simple as that! All you need to do now, is wait for your Galaxy Nexus to arrive. If your device bootloader isn’t unlocked, then you can do so by typing this command in the CMD in Windows ” ./fastboot-windows oem unlock “. Google for appropriate commands if you’re on a Mac or Linux. Anyways, here’s how to go about with the Rooting of Galaxy Nexus.

  • Firstly, download this zip file of Superboot. Extract it on to a folder, preferably placed on the desktop. Remember to connect your device to the computer and turn of USB debugging.
  • Now, turn of your Galaxy Nexus. Power it back on and hold the Volume Down + Volume Up key to enter the Bootloader of Galaxy Nexus.
  • In Windows, double click ‘install-superboot-windows.bat’ present in the extracted folder. In Mac, open a terminal window, head to the directory containing the files, and type ‘chmod +x install-superboot-mac.sh’and ‘./install-superboot-mac.sh’. In Linux, open a terminal window, head to the directory containing the files, and type ‘chmod +x install-superboot-linux.sh’ and ‘./install-superboot-linux.sh’
Your device will now reboot and you should have root access and SuperUser already installed. Your Galaxy Nexus is now rooted.
Android

How to Install Android Ice Cream Sandwich on Nexus S

Google announced the latest iteration of Android, the Ice Cream Sandwich at the Samsung and Google Unpacked event last week. They also announced the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the first ever phone to come with Android 4.0. However, the SDK was released to developers, since it’s an open source OS, and was right away ported to an old Google Nexus One. The Nexus S will be getting the Ice Cream Sandwich and it has been confirmed, but the Nexus One has been pushed aside.

In case you happen to own a Google Nexus S and can’t wait to try out Android Ice Cream Sandwich, this post will definitely help you. Also, if you can’t wait till the official release of Ice Cream Sandwich for the Nexus S, then you should definitely give this a try as it can be used for daily usage. Remember, there will be bugs as this is a direct port of the SDK and users with heart conditions shouldn’t try this.

Before we begin, the first step to a successful Custom ROM installation is to backup your device, all the data that you need should be backed up. This process is going to erase and Factory reset your Nexus S, but will also let you experience and show-off Android 4.0. You also need to own a Google Nexus S that must be rooted, have an unlocked bootloader and have Clockwork Mod Recovery installed. If you haven’t done any of that, you can do so by download and running this batch.exe file, while your device is connected to your Windows PC and USB debugging is turned off. Make sure you run the file in administrator mode. Once you’ve done that, your Nexus S will be rooted, have an unlocked bootloader and CWM recovery ready.

  • Download the latest build of Ice Cream Sandwich for Nexus S from here.
  • Copy/Paste the downloaded zip file to the root of internal storage of your device.
  • Turn of your device and hold the Volume Up button with the Power button to enter CWM Recovery mode.
  • Select Wipe Data/Factory Reset, Wipe Cache, Wipe Dalvik and finally “Install zip from sdcard”.
  • Select choose zip from sdcard and scroll down to the zip file that you copied and hit the Power button.
  • The installation will start and your phone will reboot to Ice Cream Sandwich
  • Enjoy!!
That’s it. You’ll now be running Ice Cream Sandwich. It may be a little slow after the first boot, so you will have to reboot once more to make it run smoothly. Some apps may crash for the first time, but they should be alright later on. Face Unlock and NFC may not work properly.
Do try this out and let us know how you find Ice Cream Sandwich on Nexus S.
Samsung

Samsung Galaxy Nexus Price and Availability Revealed

The much awaited Ice Cream Sandwich(Android 4.0) phone was announced very recently on 19th October 2011 and created a huge amount of appreciation as well as excitement throughout the world especially to the techies. The only news on availability of Samsung Galaxy Nexus on its launch was that it would be hitting the stores in the next month, November.

There was no word on the pricing of this Android 4.0 phone and that’s why the top sites came up with huge guesses and many of them failed, as usual. Making things easier and better for all, Samsung has revealed all the pricing and availability details that were required. Read on to find out.

As already told above, Samsung Galaxy Nexus would be coming to market in November. It will firstly come to United States, Norway, Japan, Canada and United Kingdom. The carriers which will are used for this phone are Verizon(for United States), NTT Docomo(for Japan), Three, Vodafone and O2(for United Kingdom).

  • The price range in United Kingdom for Samsung Galaxy Nexus is from £429 to about £515.
  • In United States, the cost will be around $800.
  • In Denmark, the cost will be around 4400 DKK.
  • In Finland, the cost will be around €649.
  • In Sweden, the cost will be around 5500 SEK.
  • In Netherlands, the cost will be around €649.

Sadly, the price and availability for India hasn’t been revealed but if we convert the United States price to Indian Rupee, it shows Rs. 39,840 which may be the real cost but we cannot be sure yet for that. We have to wait some more for Indian pricing details.

If you want to know about the phone, click on the link. If you see the specifications, you will know that this phone is great and quite worth of your money. As a techie, even I was looking out for this phone for a long time and the announcement really made me excited and the specs, especially the Android 4.0 has made it a desire for a lot of people out there which may include you as well. Try to wait if you can, otherwise you may try ordering it from US in November itself.

Share your views and opinions in the comments.

Android

After Ice Cream Sandwich, It Could be Android Jelly Bean

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Recently, Google announced that the successor to Gingerbread was going to be a universal operating system called Ice Cream Sandwich. They did not provide any details as to what version it’ll be or what it’s main features will be other than that they’ll unify Gingerbread and Honeycomb and will be an OS for all Android devices. There have been many rumors about certain phones coming with the Ice treat, but many have turned out to be false. Also, Google’s Eric Schmidt let out some details that mentioned a Q4 2011 release date for Ice Cream sandwich, but forgot to mention the version number again.

Google has this weird tradition of naming things based on sweets and delicacies, such as Banana Bread, Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, HoneyComb and then Ice Cream Sandwich. They’re all in the alphabetical order, which means that the next release of Android will be something from ‘J’. My friend and I were discussing potential names for the next release and we did think of Jelly. Behold, now there’s some information stating that the next version of Android, after Ice Cream Sandwich of course, could be known as Jelly Bean.

According to This Is My Next, they’ve received credible information about the next major release of Android. But, the name Jelly Bean could well be a wild guess since Google doesn’t have many options to go with and this sounds like them. An expert from the report by This is my next;

We’re hearing from another well-regarded source that Jelly Bean is in the running for the name, but that the choice hasn’t yet been finalized by Google; for what it’s worth, the pickings are fairly slim for desserts with “J” names, so Jelly Bean seems like a solid choice. The source goes on to say that there are some fairly major architectural, functional, and design changes in Ice Cream Sandwich, so by all appearances, this is still going to be a big-time release. Of course, that doesn’t mean Jelly Bean (or whatever Google ultimately calls it) won’t have a big outing in its own right, but the indication is that ICS won’t just be a warmed-over Gingerbread or Honeycomb.

Android is growing and thus everyone will be interested in knowing what the next version after Ice Cream Sandwich will be called as. We’ll leave Google’s geniuses to work on that.

Meanwhile give us some potential Android names beginning with the letter ‘J’ that you think might work.