Walmart’s working on a media streamer powered by Google’s Android TV software. The company hasn’t actually announced the new product yet, but an FCC listing spilled the beans. Meanwhile Evan Blass has spilled the beans on Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy A72 smartphone, Windows Future has spilled a few beans about Qualcomm’s next-gen Snapdragon processor for mid-range […]
custom rom
Lilbits: Giving old gadgets new life
Pebble was one of the first companies in the smartwatch space, and even though it’s been years since a new Pebble device was released, aging Pebble smartwatches have a loyal following. And that’s led to some interesting developments, including the formation of a Rebble Alliance that built a cloud service that would allow old Pebble […]
Paranoid Android returns with a stable Android 10 ROM
Once upon a time Paranoid Android was one of the most innovative custom ROMs for Android smartphones. Its developers added features for power users, and spent time rethinking Android’s navigation buttons, notifications, and other core features. But things have slowed down in recent years, and the last stable build of Paranoid Android was released in […]
Now you can install custom ROMs on the Amazon Fire HD 8 (2018)
After Amazon released an updated Fire HD 8 tablet last September, it didn’t take long for folks to figure out that you could install the Google Play Store on the 8 inch tablet. A few months later, folks figured out two methods for unlocking the bootloader and rooting the device (1)(2). While that theoretically opened […]
Maru OS lets you use Android 8.1 on a phone, Debian 9 when you plug in display
You can do a lot of things on smartphones these days, but there are some things that are easier to do on a device with a big display and a full-sized keyboard. So most of us probably use multiple devices including phones, laptops, and maybe desktops or tablets. In recent years there have been a […]
Samsung Gear S3 hackers working on custom kernel, recovery, and maybe even Android Wear port
Samsung’s first smartwatch may have shipped with Google’s Android Wear software, but every smartwatch the company has released since then has been powered by the Linux-based Tizen operating system. But hackers have a history of creating custom ROMs for Samsung watches that let you do crazy things… like install Android Wear. Now xda-developers forum member […]
Playing with Fire: Hacking Amazon’s $50 Fire tablet
The Amazon Fire Tablet may not be one the best tablets money can buy, but more than a year after its launch, the $50 Amazon Fire is still one of the cheapest tablets that’s actually good enough to consider worth buying. But there is one big catch: while the tablet runs a customized version of Android, it’s […]
TWRP alpha released for Google Pixel phones (but you might not want to use it yet)
It’s been nearly a month since Google’s Pixel and Pixel XL phones have hit the streets. They’re the first phones to ship with Android 7.1 Nougat software with support for file-based encryption and seamless updates, thanks to a new partitioning scheme. But hackers who have been rooting smartphones and flashing custom ROMs for years have […]
CyanogenMod 14.1 brings Android 7.1 to some older phones
Phone makers may be slow to update some older phones to the latest version of Android (if they ever update them at all), but there’s a robust team of independent developers building custom ROMs for many phones, tablets, and other devices. CyanogenMod has long been one of the most popular, not only for bringing new […]
Jide talks plans for 2016 (Remix OS for any PC, custom ROM for the Pixel C, and more)
It’s been about a year since Jide unveiled a desktop-friendly version of Android called Remix OS, and in that time the company has run two successful Kickstarter campaigns, launched a tablet and a inexpensive mini desktop, and worked with a number of device makers to load Remix OS on their devices. Now Jide is taking a […]