Android Guru Guy

Today's Google Doodle (1/1/2014) In addition to my yesterday's post, "Todays Google Doodle (12/31/2013) It looks like the 3 retired, and it sure is tired too! Take a look at the google doodle today on Google.com . 2013 Was a very VERY long roller coaster. We had our funny moments, our good moments, our emotional & sad moments with so many celebrity deaths, being mostly that of young people, and Nelson Mandela. Sadly 2012's words have come into 2013, and will most likely still be alive in 2014.. such as Swag, Twerk, hashtag, and much more. Everyone out there try to have a happy, and a safe new year! Android Guru Guy; Dayton Thomas.

5 Phones You Should Probably Let Rest in Peace 1. T-Mobile HTC G1 I've seen a few people install Jellybean on their HTC G1, and from what I've seen, it was not a good time, nor experience. If this was my daily phone, I'd probably stick to Cyanogenmod 7 on it. 2. Samsung Transform I used to be an owner of one of these devices, It was never Samsung's brightest idea, The phone was so slow, but it didn't stop people from putting Cyanogenmod on it. I believe this phone made it to Cyanogenmod 10, but not much further into 10. Again, if this phone was my daily driver, It'd have Cyanogenmod 7 on it. It wasn't my proudest moments, but it was an okay phone. 3. Motorola i1 From my understandings this phone was shipped with an Old version of Android, lets just hope nobody actually decided to put Cyanogenmod 10 on this phone, It would be crazy slow, but overall it looks really cool, phones don't really have much character anymore. ...

ZTE Merit/Avail/Z990/Z990G Developer Finally Emerges That developer is me, I just had to write a title that will grab attention, or make it sound cool, Haha. Anyways, For the longest time I've had this phone, and my Sony Ericsson Xperia x10 just sitting around, my Avail of course has a cracked digitizer, so touch doesn't work at all, but I ordered a replacement screen for it. I have seen many requests for people to port Jellybean to this phone, so that is exactly what I am doing. I am going to debloat it as much as I can, and kang the heck out of the rom. The phone has a Snapdragon S1, which we all know Cyanogenmod does not support 1st Gen chips anymore, but that doesn't mean development has to stop. This phone currently runs Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread, and I hear Kitkat is also making its way to many gingerbread devices, because Good Guy Google wants to update everyone up to at least 4.4. With all of this being said, I can't wait for development to begin! I h...

Today's Google Doodle (12/31/2013) With it being the last day of December, which is also the last day of the year, and New Years eve, Google has decided to make a Doodle of Dancing numbers for the Google.com header image. On special occasions like this Google Always adds a new Doodle according to the event. So what can we gather from this doodle? Well we can gather 2013 is on the Dance floor, and the number 4 looks excited to jump on too. So this means that 3 will be on the side watching after midnight. I want to see the transfer so I'm wondering if it will show the 3 and 4 trading spots, or what will even happen to the 3? Because a 5 should be behind the 4 if you think about it. If you wanna get real technical, I would like to know why it's disco themed? and that 2 and zero has been there for quite some time dancing their butts off. The 1 came in four years ago. Ha, That's my distorted thinking I guess. I'm excited to see the 4 move in! I hope everyone h...

64bit Android Phone Samsung Galaxy S5 Samsung's flagship the Galaxy S family will be bringing a new born in around February of 2014, what is this thing really going to bring to the table? The Apple iPhone 5S has brought the world the first in mobile phone 64bit processing, Samsung has decided its time to follow suit and bring you the first 64bit Processing Android phone. The S5 is predicted to have 3-D Back facing camera (hence the 2 cameras on the back). Although the phone in the above picture is nothing but a concept photo, it still shows some features that Samsung may be really trying to stuff into this little device. The back of the device seems to be some sort of Touch field, maybe you can control the phone from the back like seen earlier on the OPPO N1 Cyanogenmod Device. The S5 is just a couple months down the road, but Samsung has been able to move mountains with the Galaxy S4, The Galaxy Flagship has a huge familia, even with some Galaxy phones being Pre-Paid dev...

LG HomeChat will Change your Life LG - Life's Good is trying to convert your home, into a smart home. They have announced their "HomeChat" system. You will be able to chat with your LG Appliances, so they can run when you're either gone, or not run.  Tell your fridge you're going on vacation. or tell your LG Vacuum when to start cleaning. Or how about you tell your Washer to air clean.. I'm sure everyone on planet earth has wanted to talk to their appliances at one point or another. I know I have so badly, especially when I am home alone. If LG Pulls this off, I bet Samsung will follow in their footsteps no doubt, but I sort of think.. if you own LG Appliances, and a different android phone, shouldn't they just make LG HomeChat an app in the play store? I think Samsung has done that for their television/Phone remotes. I see its another way to innovate all around, innovating your home to make things work on command, its great thinking, I...

My Galaxy S3 (AT&T) i747 Currently, I am running Cyanogenmod (CM) 11. You can get the latest Cyanogenmod Rom from Cyanogenmod.org I have been updating this ROM every day (with the newest nightlies), yet I have not run into any problems with any of the builds so far. It is safe to say, You could just about use this build as a daily driver. The Camera works, the wifi works, all of the settings work correctly, and I have not run into any Force Closings, or any crashing issues. This rom features Launcher 3, as Jellybean had Launcher 2, and then when you install Google Play Store (Gapps) it will also install the Google Experience Launcher (GEL) Which is basically the same thing, but all you have to do is say "ok google" and google now is listening. You can get the GEL APK file from someone, or if you can find it online, and make sure to update to the latest Google Search, to get this Kitkat, Google experience on your jellybean device. (Yes, it works, I have tried it,...

Amazon will credit $5 to people using their app store. (Dec. 24th to 28th) I guess Amazon has noticed, their app store hasn't been doing as well as Google Play (Well duh, Google play is stock pretty much), but Amazon wants to try one more thing to push users to the Amazon Appstore. Starting today, ending the 28th, if you go to their app store, sign in, and download some free apps, they will credit $5 to your account, which is good for other apps in the Appstore. It doesn't matter which app you download, any app will give you this deal, you could even just log in, and get Angry birds, or even temple run or Candy Crush. You won't be able to find the package for the app store on the play store, so you should visit this address on your Android device:  http://www.amazon.com/getappstore Enjoy your free $5! and merry Christmas! Remember this, in case you get a Android tablet for Christmas. The Android Guru Guy; Dayton Thomas

Cheap but Awesome Android Tablets You want to get the nephew or niece something for Christmas, You don't want to spend too much, but you also don't want to spend too less, and be a cheapskate. If you want to get them something to be interested with, I recommend you look at the Android tablets on eBay or Amazon, the ones like "iRulu" 7 or just type in "MTK Tablet" and see what comes up. The Prices are fairly low, and the specs are also good. I've seen for quite some time the iRulu 7" Tablet on eBay, its not the best, but it isn't the worst definitely, it's actually pretty good. It has a 1Ghz (or more) Processor, and 512MB of DDR3 Ram, with 4GB of space, also features a pretty nice, or decent display. The devices also use the Android operating System so they will be getting a great device anyways. The price is around $50-70, depends on if you want a keyboard or not with it, Which I would, but its a tablet, you don't need one. Thi...

What is Cyanogenmod? Cyanogenmod is a variant of Vanilla Android (aka Plain ol' Great Android) Sometimes you can't get a purely made version of Android for your device, so you go with the next best; Cyanogenmod. Cyanogenmod also adds in a few of their own tools, but not much to worry about, its still some of the purest Android experiences. Cyanogenmod also includes its very own kernel with their ROMS. The Current CM being worked on is Cyanogenmod 11 (4.4.2 Kitkat). The stable build for most devices right now is Cyanogenmod 10.2 (which is 4.3 Jellybean) I'll say it once, I believe that Cyanogenmod 10.1.3 is actually one of the very best created right now, with the best stability. (4.2.2 Jellybean) However you can install any Cyanogenmod you want for your device right now, and use the Cyanogenmod Updater to either download the newest nightly builds, or download the newest stable builds. Cyanogenmod helps you get the best performance from your device, with its very...

What is Rom Manager? Rom Manager is used to install Clockworkmod for your Phone/Tablet Android Device. Rom Manager also allows you to install a ROM from Clockworkmod Recovery, with just a click of the button! Rom Manager is a User Friendly way to Flash new Roms, and get your ClockworkMod Recovery up and running for your device. First you just go to the play store and download Rom Manager, There is also a premium edition for a small fee, and you start from there and install and or flash recovery to your device from there, It will download the libraries needed, and reboot, then from there you can download Cyanogenmod onto your device, or whatever ROM you want, and choose to install it from Rom Manager, and it will simply reboot, and install in Clockworkmod Recovery right before your eyes. For Novice users: Just make sure you always get a ROM that was made for your phone, or ask a friendly XDA Developer to help you port one over that you might like. Don't ask too much th...

A Warm "Welcome Back" to Rom Manager. First off if you don't know what Rom Manager is, Head on over to "What is Rom Manager?" Rom manager was pulled from Google Play Store December, 19th. Google Cited a part of their terms, and the violations that Koush (the Rom manager developer) had crossed. Koush had gotten back to google very shortly after to resolve the issue. Apparently something had gone miraculously wrong with the way the free version and paid version were, there really isn't a huge difference in between premium, and free thats why we all love Rom Manager to begin with. The misunderstanding had Rom Manager missed for 3 days approximately. It really gets me how they waited for so long to pull the app package from the store, while there are clearly apps out there scamming people out of their money with clearly no reason. Here is a snip of Koush's E-Mails back and forth with Google. What you can gather from this, Someone either real...

First Ever Cyanogenmod Phone! Oppo N1 I know what you're thinking if you're an Android Guru like myself. "My phone runs Cyanogenmod! So how is this the first one!?" Let me put it this way... Cyanogenmod actually will come on this phone as the Stock rom. Which phone is it I'm talking about you ask? Oppo N1! Oppo is a brand of cellular phones, and the N1 is the device. The Oppo N1 will be the first phone to ever come with Cyanogenmod out of the box. As there are 2 editions of the Oppo N1, Cyanogenmod Edition, and Color OS edition, If you happen to get a Color OS edition of the N1, you can head to Oppo's site and download Cyanogenmod for this phone. This Cyanogenmod does not disable the features of any sort on this device. Why the word of features? This phone has 37 Patents all by its lonesome self. O-Click is a little remote that you can click to take a picture without even touching your phone! O-Touch is the back panel of the phone, ...

What is Android? Android is a Free Open Source Operating system, mostly seen on mobile devices these days such as smart phones, tablets, and is the base Operating system behind the Kindle fire, & Nook Color. It is safe to say Android is built upon Linux. When you hear of "Linux" you think of Ubuntu immediately if you're a novice, or "noob" with the Linux operating system. Well though Ubuntu is built upon Linux, and is commonly used on any machine using it, but it isn't what linux is. Linux is basically a terminal/operating system like you would say DOS is. Linux is basically a Unix clone, which is what Mac OS X is built upon. Linux is free, and if you ever payed for it, demand a refund, but don't get yourself in danger over it! (lol) So from this, we know Linux is just basically the background software, which runs all the commands it needs to, to give you a functioning GUI (Graphical User Interface) for easier ways to use ...