Category Archives: Android

SimpliGio+ for Galaxy GT-5660S

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I’ve finally decided on a firmware for my Samsung Galaxy Gio GT-5660S. It is SimpliGio+ which sadly was the very first firmware I tried so I now have to revert back to my first firmware loading attempt.

I didn’t like GioPro because I found the ADW desktop would frequently crash.

I didn’t like Particle because WiFi didn’t work. I mean really, whats the point of buying a phone with WiFi just to disable it in software?

And I didn’t like the so called “Official Firmware” from XDA-Developers because it isn’t actually an official firmware because Samsung Kies cannot update it and the desktop frequently crashes causing application services (like sipdroid) to exit. Really annoying if you actually use VoIP like me.

SimpliGio+ is very easy to load. The best features of SimpliGio+ are the replaced boot screen animation & sound, Titanium Backup Pro included, SuperUser included, and normal components of Android (that aren’t always used) are installed optionally to save memory (you need to get this file and use Root Explorer to copy them across).

  • Get ODIN 4.42
  • Get this file
  • Extract the rar file
  • Turn on your phone by holding the volume down, home and power buttons. You should get the “Downloading…” screen. If not, you did something wrong
  • Connect your phone to your PC with the USB cable
  • Load ODIN 4.42
  • Click the OPS button and browse to GIO_v1.0.ops
  • Click the BOOT button and from the files you extracted from the rar file, select the one that begins with APBOOT
  • Click the PHONE button and select the file that begins with MODEM
  • Click the PDA button and select the file that begins with CODE
  • Click the CSC button and select the file that begins with CSC
  • Click the Start button
  • After 5 min you should have SimpliGio+ loaded onto your phone. If it doesn’t boot correctly, turn off your phone, then turn it back on by holding the home and power buttons – and perform a factory reset

Telstra PrePaid iPhone 3GS

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I noticed this ad today, strangely as a Google Ad on my Samsung Galaxy Gio.

telstra-prepaid-iphone-3gs

Telstra are offering the iPhone 3GS for $429. Seems strange you’d even consider this offer when Apple sell them directly for just $20 more and theirs isn’t locked to the Telstra network.

Or, why you’d consider an iPhone 3GS over the $134.10 Samsung Galaxy Gio which is easily unlocked from the Optus network – is beyond me.

Root & Unlock the Samsung Galaxy Gio GT-5660V

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I’ve previously blogged about how to root & unlock the Samsung Galaxy Gio GT-5660S. My brother in law really loves my Gio and wanted the same phone so today he bought one from Optus. Unfortunately they supplied him with a slightly different model to my own which cannot be unlocked and rooted in the same manner. But never fear, that doesn’t mean it can’t be unlocked and rooted.

You will need:

So first we’ll start with rooting/flashing. Unlike the 5660S you cannot use “root gb updated.zip” and you need to reflash the firmware with ODIN.

  • Turn on your phone by holding the home, volume down and power buttons. Make sure the power button is the last one you press. Your phone will boot up and say “Downloading…”. If it boots up normally, you did something wrong
  • Connect your phone to the PC via the USB cable. Wait until all drivers are loaded correctly (Samsung Kies will install them upon connection)
  • Load ODIN 4.42
  • Click the OPS button and select GIO_v1.0.ops
  • Tick the “One Package” checkbox
  • Click the “One Package” button and select GT-S5660M_MUGKG3_stock_rooted_ROM_v2.tar
  • Hit the Start button
  • After a few minutes your phone will reboot. The handset I used didn’t boot correctly after flashing probably because of the user data. To fix this I held down the home and power buttons and performed a factory reset, then rebooted the phone again, and it booted normally

So now the SuperUser app is installed and the phone is running firmware from Bell. So to unlock the phone its now the same process as the 5660S (so I just copied and pasted from the previous blog):

  • Install the Java Developer Kit
  • Install the Android SDK
  • Run the Android SDK Manager and install the “Android SDK Platform-tools”
  • Open the command prompt with administrator privileges
  • Run the command:
    cd "\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools"
  • Connect your Samsung Galaxy Gio to the PC with the USB cable
  • Run the ADB shell. This is a command prompt viewable on your PC which is executed on your phone. The command is:
    adb shell
  • Once the ADB shell has loaded you’ll need to step up into rooted mode. Run the command “su”. After executing this, on the Samsung Galaxy Gio the SuperUser app will pop up requesting permission to grant superuser privileges
  • Now we can start with the actual unlocking. Run the following commands:
    mount –o remount rw /
    mkdir /efs
    mount –o nosuid,ro,nodev –t vfat /dev/block/stl5 /efs
    cat /efs/mits/perso.txt
  • There will now be an 8 digit number that is not entirely made up of 0’s on your screen. This is your unique unlock code. Write it down.
  • Turn off your phone and replace the SIM with a card that is locked out of your phone – ie. a SIM card from a different provider
  • Enter in the unlock code you wrote down when requested
  • Your phone is now rooted and unlocked

$99 Android?

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I was looking at Vodafone’s offer for the Huawei X3 at $99 yesterday.

A friend of mine wants to get an Android smart phone on even more of a budget than me (I paid $150 for my Samsung).

This link has rooting details. Doesn’t seem to be any unofficial firmwares out but with root you should also be able to unlock.

There is even a guide on removing all the vodafone crap.

Regardless, my friend is on Vodafail anyway so he’ll probably get one. Even if it can’t be unlocked it won’t really matter. He always uses my phone cause he never has prepaid mobile credit. So I’ll probably have to set him up with sipdroid and access to my VoIP to call fixed lines only.

I was also looking at the Samsung Galaxy Fit for $160 and the Nexus S. Seems the Samsung Galaxy Fit doesn’t have GPS so its probably not worth buying. K-mart still have the Samsung Galaxy Gio for $150. The Nexus S can be had from Vodafone for $260 and root and unlock is understood even more than the Samsungs. Plus it has a better camera and things.

Unofficial firmwares for the Samsung Galaxy Gio

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After rooting & unlocking my Samsung Galaxy Gio the other day I decided to try some unofficial firmwares. The Optus firmware was shit to say the least because it was bloated with all kinds of Optus apps that I didn’t need or don’t use.

This link is where I’ve been finding out how to root, unlock and firmware flash my phone. And this link is where you can get all the firmwares I mention below.

I’ve tried a few so far…

  • SimpliGio
  • Particle
  • GioPro

Particle was probably the worst of them all. While it sounded really good on XDA forums, for some reason it lacked the Contact application. I mean really, a phone without an address book? Although it was the only firmware I tried which has the native SIP support enabled and I tested it as slightly better than sipdroid.

SimpliGio & GioPro were both really good though.

SimpliGio has the same interface as the Samsung firmware however the icons have been changed. Its also very modular as it doesn’t come with many apps but you can install them all if you require them. Probably suited to advanced users.

GioPro has ADW so the interface is different to the Samsung firmware. It isn’t as modular but its easier to install. It comes with more useful things out of the box like A2SDGUI and the Google Music app which supposedly isn’t compatible with the Samsung Galaxy Gio.

Both SimpliGio & GioPro are smaller than the Optus firmware my phone originally came with, therefore I have more internal memory available for apps. I started looking to unofficial firmwares because I kept getting notifications saying the internal memory was full… now with the same apps installed I have multiple times more space. I would try the Samsung official firmware however I considered that it probably has all the Samsung app rubbish that I don’t need or want.

Later I’ll have to blog about how to load some of these firmwares. I’ll probably do this as I flash the other 2 Samsung Galaxy Gio’s we have.

Conclusion: GioPro is probably the best route for unofficial firmware. Optus firmware is bloatware.

Whats so great about Optus Smart Safe?

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My fiance is directly with Optus and uses Optus Smart Safe. We had to send her handset back some time ago for a warranty repair. When we got it back we weren’t able to restore her Optus Smart Safe backups at all. After about 2 hours on the phone to Optus I gave up, and figured it’d probably be easier to forget the data.

Lately with my root, unlock & firmware adventures I’ve discovered Titanium Backup. The Pro version is $6.49 to buy but there is also a limited free version. While it requires root, its actually able to restore apps and their data. So this includes all the builtin apps like Contacts, Memo, Calendar, etc.

As far as I understand Optus Smart Safe targets documents, or files stored on your SD card and Contacts, Memo & the Calendar. So in other words the data for any 3rd party app will be forgotten.

Optus Smart Safe does however backup “to the cloud”. This has its pros and cons. Pros would be redundancy & Optus not counting Smart Safe data on their 3G network. Cons would be limited backup space due to its monthly cost and having your teleco who has wire tap obligations to also keep a copy of your handsets data.

Titanium’s intentions is to backup from the internal memory to the SD card. So essentially it prevents you from losing data if your handset fails. It also allows you to migrate to any other Android handset.

Seems a better idea to root your android and buy Titanium.

ClockworkMod for Samsung Galaxy Gio

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I performed this mod to do some firmware loading the other day so I thought I’d detail how to install ClockworkMod.

  • Download gt-s5660-cwm-recovery-20111007-1.tar.md5 or newer
  • Download ODIN 4.42
  • Turn off your phone
  • Turn your phone back on by holding down the volume down, home and power buttons to enter downloading mode
  • Load the firmware into ODIN as a single package and hit the Start button
  • 2 minutes later your phone will reboot
  • Load the Market and install ROM Manager
  • You now have ClockworkMod installed

Root & Unlock the Samsung Galaxy Gio

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Today I rooted my Optus PrePaid Samsung Galaxy Gio and also removed the Optus carrier locking. Quite a simple process – it was easier than I imagined.

First off you’ll require a few things:

So we’ll start with rooting. You’ll need “root gb updated.zip”. If this link is broken, I have the file, so just post a comment and I’ll update the link.

  • Copy “root gb updated.zip” to your SD card
  • Turn off your phone
  • Press and hold the home button and the power button
  • When recovery mode loads, select” “Add update from SD card” then select “root gb updated.zip” as the update
  • Reboot your phone and you now have the SuperUser app installed

Now we’ll remove carrier locking.

  • Install the Java Developer Kit
  • Install the Android SDK
  • Run the Android SDK Manager and install the “Android SDK Platform-tools”
  • Open the command prompt with administrator privileges
  • Run the command:
    cd “\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools”
  • Connect your Samsung Galaxy Gio to the PC with the USB cable
  • Run the ADB shell. This is a command prompt viewable on your PC which is executed on your phone. The command is:
    adb shell
  • Once the ADB shell has loaded you’ll need to step up into rooted mode. Run the command “su”. After executing this, on the Samsung Galaxy Gio the SuperUser app will pop up requesting permission to grant superuser privileges
  • Now we can start with the actual unlocking. Run the following commands:
    mount –o remount rw /
    mkdir /efs
    mount –o nosuid,ro,nodev –t vfat /dev/block/stl5 /efs
    cat /efs/mits/perso.txt
  • There will now be an 8 digit number that is not entirely made up of 0’s on your screen. This is your unique unlock code. Write it down.
  • Turn off your phone and replace the SIM with a card that is locked out of your phone – ie. a SIM card from a different provider
  • Enter in the unlock code you wrote down when requested
  • Your phone is now rooted and unlocked

I’ll later blog about custom firmware because the Optus firmware is bloatware.