Seth Lemons one of the developers of the popular “Wifi Tether for Root Users” app for the Android platform was kind enough to accept an interview with us.
WebNetta: As a contributor to the “WiFi Tether for Root Users” app, what is the reaction the group had to the app being pulled by Google?
Seth: We were surprised, because we had hoped Google would work to keep the Market free from the control of cell carriers. This was one way that Google could have differentiated itself from Apple, but chose not to.
WebNetta: Did Google give you any warning before the app was taken down?
Seth: The first contact they gave us was a notice that it had already been removed from the Market in all countries. We were later given a notice that we had been restored in non-U.S. markets because T-Mobile and other carriers do not have a policy against tethering in other countries. Those are the only communications we’ve had with the managers of the Market.
WebNetta: What plans does the group have for future apps?
Seth: We have recently added Bluetooth tethering to our application, to allow for better battery use. In addition, we’ve included more information about data usage and other user interface improvements. This new release can be downloaded from our Google Code website. We each also have some individual projects, such as the Target game now available on the Market and a program in progress based on the jFlubber podcast helper.
WebNetta: Have you gotten any reaction from Google over the Tether Petition app in the Marketplace?
Seth: No direct contact has been made from Google to us after they reinstated us in non-U.S. markets. I believe this was due to community responses to our banning, but I don’t know if the petition was up on the Market at the time. We certainly thank them and others for the publicity and support.
WebNetta: What kind of response from the users have you gotten regarding the Tether Petition app?
Seth: We have read some of the comments on the petition’s Market page and appreciated the support. I don’t know of any direct communication from users because of it, but it definitely raised awareness of our work and the banning. User support after the banning has been quite uplifting and encouraged us to continue providing and improving the program.
WebNetta: How do you feel about your wifi app being pulled and yet the bluetooth tether “tether Blu – Free Edition” app remains?
Seth: According to that application’s description, it only allows users to tether a wifi internet connection and not the cell connection. While the new Bluetooth-enabled version of our program allows for this particular use, we aren’t willing to restrict our users in that way and, thus, we also allow them to tether their cell connection over Bluetooth. I appreciate that the author of tether Blu wants to provide this functionality to Market users, but wish that Google would leave Terms of Service enforcement to carriers and allow developers to provide as much functionality as possible to users.
Thanks again Seth for the interview. You can download and install the coveted Tether app from right here.
Engadget’s Joshua Topolsky reported back on September 23rd of last year that T-Mobile’s CTO Cole Broadman said the following during an interview with Ryan Block:
When asked about what T-Mobile’s reaction would be to users creating tethering or unlocking apps for the phone, he was surprisingly even-keeled, noting that while the company didn’t encourage the practice, they wouldn’t lock down the OS or update the software to break those applications. Our impression was that as long as their use was relegated to a small percentage of owners, T-Mobile likely wouldn’t take action, though he did voice concerns over tethering apps and their effect on the network, with a clearly guarded eye to letting users have free reign.
So T-Mobile won’t lock down or break the OS to stop Tethering apps but strong-arming Google in to removing apps isn’t the same thing. Nice logic there T-Mobile.
Tethering apps and the network? First, T-Mobile now sells a USB 3G adapter you can use on laptops, so if they were so concerned about data usage they wouldn’t be selling the USB 3G adapters. Second, when I had Total Internet with my Dash I was able to login to WiFi at any Starbucks with my laptop, it was wonderful. I was also able to thether my Dash to my laptop via USB and surf around using Edge.
When I got my G1 they made me switch to the G1 Data Plan and only the G1 can connect to the WiFi (I found this out after being on T-Mobile support for an hour), no laptops allowed unless I pay extra for the Hotspot plan. To me data is data it shouldn’t make a differience if my G1 or my Laptop is sending data over my 3g plan I pay for.
It is like an ISP saying that you can only use desktops on your broadband connection, no laptops allowed. To me T-Mobile is just another data pipe to the Internet, I pay for service and I should be able to use it how I see fit ,on whatever device I see fit to use it on. This is one of the reasons I have and use the Tether App on my own G1.
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wifi |
Haykuro, a 17 year old Android Hacker who got his home work done early, managed to release Rodgers Android build a day before Rodgers themselves. This build has (as Haykuro puts it) :
Exchange support, Every language enabled, Other fun features..
*Requires SPL 1.33.2005
You don’t need to do anything other than rename to update.zip and flash. (a wipe is most likely needed)
Things missing from this build are Root and Paid Market apps, however you can snag it from Here or Here.
Update:
Rodgers R2 build Get it Here
Root working, ion-dalvik, Rogers apps ripped, HTC Sync removed, and paid apps working.
Screenshots! Thanks androidandme 
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In a move to apease big T, Google has pulled all the tether apps from the Android Marketplace citing that T-Mobile doesn’t allow tethering.
Seth Lemons, a contributor to the tether app “Wifi Tether for Root Users” has this to say:
This raises some interesting questions about this “open” platform. Android phones are supposed to be released for other carriers in the future, right? Does this mean that apps in the Market have to adhere to the ToS for only T-Mobile, even when other carriers sign on? Will all apps have to adhere to the ToS for every carrier that supports Android phones? Why is all of this enforcement Google’s job, in the first place? If T-Mobile wants to force people to pay for broadband plans in addition to their phone data, it’s their job to either make that attractive to users or strongarm them into it by, say, instituting data caps. Playing cop for cell carriers doesn’t really seem like the ideal way to establish credibility as a promoter of free software and a strong development community.
Aside from the issue of “authorized carriers,” there are some otherwise valid uses of tethering software which users are now being denied. One of the apps banned was for tethering Internet over Bluetooth. With wifi tethering, the Internet has to come in from the cell carrier, but Bluetooth tethering allows a user to connect their phone to a wireless router and then share it with a device that has Bluetooth but no wireless card. This use, by definition, can’t violate the T-Mobile ToS, since it doesn’t require their data plan at all. And that’s not even to mention phones which have been set up to use other carriers who allow for tethering.
To add to the irony, one of the folks who helped develop the initial tethering scripts works for Google, I’m told. Another Google employee has forked Wifi Tether, added Bluetooth support to it, says he and his office-mates use it on their commute, and has even given us a patch we can merge in when we get the time. I know they’re not any more responsible for this policy than I am, but it just makes me giggle to know that there’s an underground presence inside the machine. Hopefully they (and you) can help us push for a really open Android instead of the same greedy corporate power plays we see from other mobile platforms.
We hope Google gets the message that Android Market isn’t T-Mobile Market.
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This is the official T-Mobile Cupcake build for the unrooted G1’s.
Download “signed-dream_gfh-ota-147201.6d1386de.zip” from here.
rename “signed-dream_gfh-ota-147201.6d1386de.zip” to “update.zip” and copy to the root of your SD card.
Bootup in to recovery mode by holding Power+Home.
Install update.zip by pressing Alt+L then Alt+S.
Enjoy!
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Today we were suprised by a 1.5 Cupcake release from JesusFreke.
Here are the instructions….
Get the new HTC radio update here You *MUST* update the radio before loading JF1.5
Rename “ota-radio-2_22_19_26I.zip” to “update.zip” and put it in the root of your sd card.
Power into boot loader mode, by holding the Power and Home buttons.
Install the Radio update.zip by pressing Alt+L then Alt+S
After this is done, delete the update.zip from the SD card root.
Get the JF1.5 update here
Rename “JFv1.50_ADP1.5.zip” to update.zip
*** It is highly recommened that you wipe your phone before installing cupcake ***
To wipe your phone go into bootloader mode (Home+Power)
Press Alt+W to Wipe
Then Alt+S to install Cupcake!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
New features / Changes in this release besides the sweet Cupcake stuff.
(Excerpted from http://jf.andblogs.net/2009/05/01/when-is-your-15-coming-out/ )
- New Superuser app, courtesy of zinx
- New kernel and to enable netfilter support for tethering
- You can see/download both paid and protected apps in the market
- Luke’s multitouch kernel patch and browser patch have been ported to the .27 kernel and 1.5 browser.
- Support for the “apps to sdcard” hack. See here for a tutorial on setting this up.
Future JF Releases can be auto-installed by using the JFUpdater avalaible in the market app.
I have installed this on my own phone that was running JF1.41, I am having no problems.
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Eric Chu sent out an email to all the Android developers letting us know apps are for sale:
I'm writing to let you know about a couple of updates to Android Market.
I'm pleased to announce that Android Market is now accepting priced
applications from US and UK developers. Developers from these countries
can go to the publisher website at http://market.android.com/publish to
upload their application(s) along with end user pricing for the apps.
Initially, priced applications will be available to end users in the US
starting mid next week. We will add end user support for additional
countries in the coming months.
We will also enable developers in Germany, Austria, Netherlands, France,
and Spain to offer priced applications later this quarter. By the end of
Q1 2009, we will announce support for developers in additional countries.
You can find more information about priced applications in Android Market
at http://market.android.com/support/
Google Checkout will serve as the payment and billing mechanism for
Android Market. Developers who do not already have a Google Checkout
merchant account can easily sign up for one via the publisher website.
Furthermore, I would like to let you know that Android Market for free
applications will become available to users in Australia starting February
15th Pacific Time and in Singapore in the coming weeks. You can now make
your applications available in these countries via the publisher website
at http://market.android.com/publish.
Finally, if you would like to receive development and marketing
information, please go to your profile page at
http://market.android.com/publish/editProfile and select the "Contact me
occasionally about development and Market opportunities" checkbox.
We look forward to seeing your applications on Android Market.
Eric Chu,
Android Market
Google, Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
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Late last night JesusFreke posed his JFv1.41 release of T-Mobile’s RC33. Aside from what Slashphone details below, the RC33 update includes new radio firmware, you can get that here.
We don’t know what changes it makes, but hopefully it will mean better battery life (fingers crossed).
The full post on JFv1.41 is here, get JFv1.41 here. For those of you that don’t have rooted phones get the RC33 update here copy to the root of your SD card, rename it to “update.zip” reboot the G1 then hold down the “Home” and “Power” buttons together when at the screen (you will know it) press “Alt+S”.
Fixes:
- Comcast fails to download more than 1 email
- Symptom(s): No error message but it stays on “Load More Messages” without ever pulling another email.
- “Messages” Stability Issue
- Symptom(s): When trying to send a message or exit the “Messaging” application you receive a pop up message that reads “Sorry! Activity Messaging (in application Messaging) is not responding. Force Close Wait”
- WiFi forcing a logout of IM
- Symptom(s): While using the IM clients on the G1 if you turn on or off WiFi the sessions are terminated and you will need to sign back in.
- No reminders for calendar items.
- Symptom(s): Missing appointments due to the lack of a reminder.
- G1 hanging at the G1 Screen
- Symptom(s): A small number of G1 devices hanging at the G1 screen during the initial power up
New Features:
- Support “Check For Upgrades” (New feature to check for system upgrades)
- Voice Search (New Google feature for searching)
- Ability to save pictures recieved as MMS
- Ability to report offensive comments in the Market as SPAM
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I’ve found a way to register the G1 in the initial registration screen that comes up the first time you boot the phone (or after you wipe the phone).
It will allow you to register if you don’t have a sim card at all, or if you have a sim card but no data plan.
First, You must have either RC29 or earlier, or modded RC30. It won’t work with official RC30, sorry. If you don’t know for sure what version you have, but you know you haven’t installed a modified RC30 build, then the easiest way to check is to reboot the phone, and once it starts up and is showing the “click the android to begin” screen, or the “no sim card” screen, then type the following on the phone keyboard
<enter>reboot<enter>
If it reboots, then you have RC29 or ealier. Otherwise you have RC30.
Second, you must have adb installed on your computer, and have the USB drivers installed, or at least ready to install when it asks for the driver when you connect the G1. See this page for details on how to get adb working.
Third, you must have a wifi network that you can connect to.
There are too many possibilities to write specific step-by-step instructions for every case. So I will give an overview of the process instead.
When you start up the phone without a sim card, it goes into a locked screen that says “no sim card found”, and you can’t even get into the registration app. So the first step is to get around that screen. You have to connect to your phone with adb shell and get root access, and then type the following command:
sqlite3 /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db “INSERT INTO system (name, value) VALUES (’device_provisioned’, 1);”
And then reboot the phone. When it starts up again it will go into the registration screen instead of the locked “no sim card” screen.
This assumes that you have the sqlite3 binary on your phone. This binary is provided in RC30 v1.2. Alternatively, you could manually copy the binary to your phone with adb push, or put it on the sdcard and copy it to your phone.
The second step is to enable and configure wifi, so that the registration process can connect to the google servers. In an adb shell session, type the following command:
am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n com.android.settings/.Settings
This doesn’t have to have root access to work. It works fine with the “shell” user that adb on non-modded phones runs as.
That command will bring up the settings page on your phone. From there, you can enable wifi and connect to your wifi network, and then proceed with registration as per normal 
A few tips and tricks:
- If you have an official RC29 or lower phone, type the following command on the phone keyboard to enable adb:
<enter>setprop persist.service.adb.enable 1<enter>
- If you need to get root access on an official RC29 or lower phone, while it’s at the registration screen, or the “no sim card” screen, enable adb (see first tip), and then type the following command on the phone keyboard:
<enter>telnetd<enter>
Now, copy a busybox binary to /data/local/busybox with adb push, and then connect to your phone with adb shell, and give the busybox binary execute permissions (i.e. chmod 755 /data/local/busybox)
busybox has a telnet applet, so you can do:
busybox telnet 127.0.0.1
to get a telnet session with root access.
- If you don’t want to register the phone at all, you can set the app.setupwizard.disable property to 0 to prevent registration. Once you have an adb shell session open, type the following:
setprop app.setupwizard.disable 1
and then reboot. once it loads back up, it should bypass the registration screen all-together.
But beware, the phone seems a bit glitchy if you don’t have it registered. For example, the home button doesn’t seem to work. And you can’t access the market or any of the google apps of course.
(Note: the following was the previous way to skip registration. I’ll keep it here for informational purposes, but its easier to use the app.setupwizard.disable method instead of this.)
- If you don’t want to register the phone at all, you can edit /data/system/packages.xml and disable the registration screen. Add the following to the end of the <package> section for com.android.setupwizard, and then reboot:
<disabled-components>
<item name=”com.android.setupwizard.SetupWizardActivity” />
</disabled-components>
so the full <package> would look something like below after the modification:
<package name=”com.android.setupwizard” codePath=”/system/app/SetupWizard.apk” system=”true” ts=”1217592000000″ userId=”10010″>
<sigs count=”1″>
<cert index=”0″ />
</sigs>
<disabled-components>
<item name=”com.android.setupwizard.SetupWizardActivity” />
</disabled-components>
</package>
-JesusFreke
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*** NOTICE ***
IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT ROOT MEANS, OR YOU JUST WANT TO INSTALL “KEWL APPZ” THEN THIS TUTORIAL IS NOT FOR YOU.
DON’T COME CRYING TO ME (OR ANYONE ELSE) IF YOU BRICK YOUR PHONE!!
I CANNOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE IN ANY WAY FOR ANY TYPE OF DAMAGE TO YOU OR YOUR PROPERTY IF YOU FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS, SINCE I AM JUST SUMMARIZING INFORMATION THAT IS FREELY AVAILABLE FROM OTHER SOURCES!
THERE ARE MANY WAYS THIS PROCESS COULD GO WRONG, SO YOU SHOULD NOT EVEN ATTEMPT IT IF YOU ARE NOT A SAVVY LINUX USER!!
THAT MEANS YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE DOING, AND WHY, BEFORE YOU DO EACH STEP!!
- Get a G1 with RC30. (If you are in the UK then I guess this would be RC8). If you are lucky enough to have an earlier software version then you can skip to step #11.
- Mount your SD card in Windows and reformat it as FAT32. The HTC bootloader won’t be able to see the RC29 (or RC7) image otherwise. Make sure you back up all your files first!
- Download the appropriate image (RC29 for USA or RC7 for UK) from http://koushikdutta.blurryfox.com/G1/DREAIMG-RC29.zip or http://koushikdutta.blurryfox.com/G1/DREAIMG-RC7.zip . This is a DOWNGRADE to the Android version that contains a root shell bug (this exploit just seems too easy). I got these files from the forum thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=442480.
- Extract the DREAIMG.nbh file from the downloaded zip archive and copy it to your SD card (again, for me, this had to be formatted as FAT32, not just regular FAT which is the default). Don’t put it in a folder, just stick it directly on there.
- Disconnect the SD card the right way (eject, unmount, or otherwise tell your OS you are unplugging it) to make sure the data gets written. If you used an SD card reader, put the SD card back in your phone.
- Make sure your phone has a full battery, then turn it off. Turn it back on by holding down the CAMERA and POWER buttons. This should get you into the HTC bootloader (the funky red, green, and blue screen).
- If everything was done correctly, the bootloader will detect the image. You’ll be taken to a different screen that asks you to press the POWER button to install the image. Do this, but beware, you will lose all your saved data on your phone (with the exception of things that are synced with Google’s servers, like contacts, calendar, Gmail, etc.).
- Wait for the update to complete. The progress bar will fill up, then all the steps will say OK beside them, and finally, it will ask you to press the “action key” (I think this means click the trackball). DO NOT do anything until you see this message. The progress bar needs to DISAPPEAR, not just fill up.
- You now have the stock RC29 installed. Take out the battery, put it back in, and turn on your phone. It should ask you to activate your Google account again – do this.
- If everything worked so far, your phone will look like you just got it with the default home screen. Wait for it to sync your contacts if you like. Also, you might want to go to Settings -> About Phone and verify that it says RC29 (or RC7) at the bottom.
- Go to Settings -> Applications and check the box for “Unknown Sources” to allow install of non-Market applications. Some sites say to use adb on your computer for the following steps, but doing it this way will make it so you don’t have to download adb or the Android SDK.
- Open the Browser on your phone and point it at http://koushikdutta.blurryfox.com/G1/Telnet.apk . Install this application after it downloads (the Android Telnet Client, more information at http://www.koushikdutta.com/2008/11/android-telnet-client.html).
- Back out to the home screen. Type <Enter>telnetd<Enter>. This should spawn telnetd as root (since someone left a root shell running with /dev/console as input… tsk tsk.) You may need to do this after a fresh restart of your phone, but it worked fine for me. This will open up a contact search – it doesn’t matter. After you press <Enter> the second time, back out of the contacts screen.
- Open up the Telnet Client. The default settings (localhost, port 23) are what you want. Connect and you should see a black screen with a text entry box at the bottom.
- Type id<Enter>. The phone should say something like uid=0(root) gid=0(root). If it does – congratulations, you got a root shell!
- Now we need to remount /system as writeable, and create a root shell program. Type in the following commands exactly as they are here, and press <Enter> after each one:
mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
dd if=/system/bin/sh of=/system/bin/su
chmod 4755 /system/bin/su
- 17. Now you can get a root shell any time you want. This method is NOT SECURE and it will be fixed in the following steps. Download “Terminal Emulator” from the Android Market. Open it up and you should see a $ prompt. Type su<Enter> and the prompt should change to a # sign, meaning that you are now root. Back out of the terminal emulator – if that worked then you are set up for the next steps.
- 18. Download http://jf.nyquil.org/AndroidMod.zip (more information at the forum thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=443041 ). In this zip archive, there is a file called recovery_testkeys.img . Mount your SD card on the computer again, and extract that file to the SD card. Make sure you remove the USB cable after it’s done copying, or you won’t be able to get to the SD card from your phone. Don’t forget to disconnect safely.
- 19. Open up the Terminal Emulator that you downloaded from the market. I used Terminal Emulator as much as possible because doing all this stuff over Telnet is kind of a pain. Type the following commands exactly as they appear here, and press <Enter> after each one. Wait for the # prompt to reappear after each command before continuing. You should not see any error messages – if you did, something went wrong and you should stop. If you restarted your phone since you created /system/bin/su, you will need to run “mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system” (as root) to give you write access to /system again.Anyway, here are the commands:
su
cd /system
cat /sdcard/recovery_testkeys.img > recovery.img
flash_image recovery recovery.img
- [from JesusFreke - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=443041 ] At this point, it’s probably a good idea to reboot the phone into recovery mode (turn it off, and hold HOME and POWER), and make sure it loads OK. Once it boots into recovery mode, press alt+L, and the next to top line of text should say something like “using test keys.” If it doesn’t, then you’re still using the original recovery image and you won’t be able to install the modded update. If the recovery image is corrupt somehow, it will throw you back into SPL mode (the multi-color bootloader screen). If that happens, just boot the phone normally, and reflash recovery image.
- Press HOME and BACK together to reboot the phone normally (or just take out the battery). If everything worked so far, you can now install JesusFreke’s modified RC30 (or RC8) update that will let you keep root and close up those security holes like the mandatory root shell. Get that update from http://jf.nyquil.org/v1.31/JFv1.31_RC30.zip (USA) or http://jf.nyquil.org/v1.31/JFv1.31_RC8.zip (UK). You can also install the Android Dev Phone 1 image, but it is probably a little different and I haven’t tried it. Read more about these updates at http://forum.xda-evelopers.com/showthread.php?t=466174.
- Take the zip file that you downloaded, and name it update.zip and put it in the root directory of the SD card. Turn off your phone and boot it into recovery mode again (hold down HOME and POWER). Press Alt+L and Alt+S to install the update. You should probably have a fully charged battery before you do this step. Again, read more about these updates and how to install them at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=466174.
- Wait for the update to finish, then reboot!
Whew! Maybe I should have just gotten an iPhone – I hear they are a lot easier to crack!
Congratulations! If everything worked, you now have a rooted RC30 phone. All your applications and settings will be gone, but for me, a list of things I installed showed up in the Market under My Downloads after a minute, so I just went through and reinstalled everything I wanted.
Also, the modded RC30 has a cool Superuser Whitelist application, which alerts you whenever a program tries to gain root access on your phone. You can now do things like take screenshots (with Koushik Dutta’s “Screenshot” application), install Debian per Jay “Saurik” Freeman’s instructions, and maybe even write your own C/C++ programs for Android!
I hope I didn’t forget anything. Thanks to JesusFreke, Koushik Dutta, Saurik, and any others for all your hard work! I know this information is all available elsewhere but I thought it would be helpful to write everything up in one place with all the necessary details.
-James Nylen
Update: JesusFreke released v1.31 fixing a few minor things.
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Categories:
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RC30,
T-Mobile G1 |
anod from xda-developers has managed to get his HTC Kaiser to run Android.
Hi, I loaded android on my Kaiser
I Used in zImage above from dcordes and
data files from there:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show…&postcount=140
(All the files (haret,default…) I placed in the /sdcard/android, i copied
data.img and system.img with the names data.img.gz and system.img.gz
and all 4 files also copied into the root of sdcard
Because when i loaded dcordes zImage for the first time it asked for /sdcard/system.img.gz file
)
Touch screen is not working, no radio and no buttons….
now black screen without any response
but still…
Ps on the second load: press wheel work like enter, whell up or down change current desktop, w,e on the hardware keyboard for cursor moving,
opened camera application – asking for sd card, but it’s kind of stable.
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Categories:
Hacks | Tagged:
Android,
HTC Kaiser |