Tag Archives: Android

SimpliGio+ for Galaxy GT-5660S

Posted on by
4

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

Cheap TVs for Christmas (again)

Posted on by
Reply

I stole this video today from NineMSN and posted it to YouTube. Jerry Harvey was on A Current Affair last night stating that like last year once again high definition TVs will be sold at or near cost this Christmas.

Originally my partner was going to get me a Noontech A9 and a high definition set top box for my old cathode ray tube TV.

But as of last night we’ve ditched this plan and are instead looking at getting an LCD TV and will add something like the Noontech A9 later. This media player seems quite interesting as it runs Android and has the capability to play virtually any computer video format over its Ethernet port. Given that Android is an operating system, this seems far better than any other embedded set top box solution, as in the future you know you’ll be able to get software updates that can potentially enable support for further codecs.

The real issue is space for me – I don’t think I could fit anything larger than a 32”. So Dick Smith are selling a Sanyo 32” for $298 and JB Hi-Fi are selling a Soniq 32” for $299.

Comparing the two, the Soniq looks quite interesting as it has USB recording, time-shift capability, 7 day EPG, and a built-in DVD player. The Sanyo doesn’t have these features, but it does come with one extra HDMI port. Also the Soniq has a worse contrast ratio of 1200:1 compared to 3000:1 on the Sanyo.

Given that Soniq are a Chinese brand that exclusively sell to JB Hi-Fi, I have my doubts. However Soniq apparently use Samsung or LG LCD panels and assemble their own casings and electronics to go with it.

Also as a Christmas project I’ll have to install a MATV amplifier to replace the mask head amplifier on our TV antenna. This way I’ll be able to improve the signal strength on the several TV antenna outlets we’ve added over the years (from the original 1 outlet at installation 15 years ago).

Telstra PrePaid iPhone 3GS

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
28

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

Carrier locking

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been thinking about this a bit the past week. I really don’t know who carriers think they’re kidding by providing devices with carrier locking.

Android devices can easily be unlocked free of charge with software available from Google and Internet forums.

iPhone devices can easily be unlocked free of charge with software available from Internet forums.

Huawei wireless broadband devices can be unlocked for a few dollars from numerous online suppliers of unlock codes like DC-Unlocker.

It makes you wonder why a carrier would supply hardware below cost thinking they’ll recoup their income by offering 3G mobile services.

Take Vodafone’s Huawei E585 Pocket WiFi device thats on sale at Australia Post for $39.95. Considering an unlock with DC-Unlocker is about $15 and only takes a few minutes, it makes so much more sense for me to buy a Vodafone device, unlock it, then sell it to a customer for the same price as a carrier unlocked device ($150). This way I have better margins at Vodafone’s expense and I only ever had the intentions of using the device on the Optus network. Thanks Vodafone!

The only areas Australian telecos are winning are with wireless broadband. Telstra’s NextG network won’t support any device that Telstra hasn’t sold, and Telstra will only sell devices they have exclusive sales rights to. Meaning there is no chance for unlocking and there is limited opportunity to use carrier unlocked devices from a 3rd party. Vodafone also exclusively buy a few models of wireless broadband dongles from Huawei and Huawei don’t publish any carrier unlocked firmware for these devices making an unlock impossible.

If carriers are serious about their device locking, they need to look more at exclusive sales rights for the hardware they sell.

$99 Android?

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Whats so great about Optus Smart Safe?

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
18

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.

New Android Market

Posted on by
Reply

It would appear that in the past few days Google have released a new Android market app.

The new app has a cleaner interface and integration with Google+ so that you can now +1 an app.

I had some troubles though when I first used the new market. Immediately needed to update 4 apps which then locked up my handset. After rebooting though things worked correctly.