Tag Archives: android

[How To] Upgrade to New Baseband on LG Optimus One P500

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The newly released official CM7 builds for LG Optimus One use the new baseband which LG upgraded to when releasing the 2.3 GingerBread update for the Optimus One P500.

How to know which baseband you are on?

  • If you are on Froyo and have never upgraded to LG stock GingerBread you are on old baseband.
  • If you are on stock GingerBread from LG or have used it in the past  then you are on the new baseband.

So if you are on the old baseband and want to flash CyanogenMod 7, then follow this excellent guide on XDA Developers to upgrade to the new baseband.

Note – Please follow the steps as described. Otherwise there is a chance of your phone getting bricked.

Themes / Skins for Swype

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Android is known for its ability to be customized. You can change every part of your phone –  the launcher, dialer, messaging app and even the status bar. This is true with the keyboard as well. If you do not like the default keyboard that cones with your phone, you can install any of the alternate ones that are available. Two of  the popular alternative keyboards for Android are SwiftKey X and Swype.

Of these SwiftKey X is the one preferred by many, because it can be themed/skinned. While Swype does not have any official themes/skins available, some developers/themers have modified the Swype APK to modify its resources and created themed Swype keyboards.

For installing any of these themes, you just need to uninstall the Swype installer & Swype from your phone and install the respective installer for the Swype theme you like. If you want to change the theme, just uninstall Swype again and install the new APK for the skin you like. XDA member djdarkknight has modded the latest Swype APK to create some awesome themes, you will definitely get a theme as per your liking. Hit the link below to find out more…

DA Swypes – DJDarkKnight

Imitate iPhone on your Android with Espier Launcher

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One of the best things about using an Android smartphone is you can change your phone’s appearance and behavior to mimic any of the other platforms like Windows Phone 7 or iPhone very easily.

Espier Launcher tries to do just that. If you have ever used an iPhone you would know how the launcher functions in it. The main difference is that there is no app drawer in iPhone like Android has, instead all the installed applications are spread across the home screens. The other difference is that there are no widgets.

Espirer Launcher tries to imitate the iOS launcher on your phone. Just like the launcher on iPhone, there is no app drawer here. Instead all your applications are arranged across multiple home screens and you also have a Spotlight type of search on one homescreen.

 

Espier Launcher – Android Market

[How To] Download YouTube videos on Android

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Love that YouTube video you are playing on your Android phone and want to download it for viewing later ?  Try TubeMate.

TubeMate for Android doubles up as both a YouTube application and also a YouTube video downloader.

Open TubeMate from your app drawer, search for any YouTube video and open it. You will see a ‘Save to’ option under the video. Click on ‘Save to’ and then ‘Download’. You can then select the resolution in which you want to download the video. The higher the resolution, the better the quality and bigger the size of the download. However 640*360 resolution will suffice for most of the Android smartphones.

 

Download TubeMate from Android Market

[How To] Install CyanogenMod 7.2 / Android Gingerbread 2.3.7 on LG Optimus One P500

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Last updated on 12-Oct-2011
The LG Optimus One P500 has got the scheduled Gingerbread 2.3 update. But as per the feedback of the users, the release has some bugs and the performance is not that good.

Over the past few months I have tried out almost all the custom ROM’s available for LG Optimus One P500 but have found CyanogenMod 7.2 running on Gingerbread 2.3.7 to be the best one for performance, gaming and battery backup. While it has some minor bugs as of now, I have been using it for the past four months and have not faced any issues. :)

Pre-requisites before proceeding are you must have already rooted your phone and installed custom recovery on it. Also it is required that you are using the new baseband on your phone.

  1. Download the latest CM 7.2 nightly available for LG Optimus One from here.
  2. Shut down your phone and boot into Recovery by pressing the Volume Down, Home and Power buttons together. You can move through the options using the volume up/down keys. Use the Search button to select the option.
  3. In the recovery menu, select Backup and Restore, then select the ‘Backup’ option.  What this will do is backup your current ROM on your SD card, if something goes wrong while flashing the new ROM you can simply boot into recovery and restore your previous ROM using the Restore option.
  4. Connect the phone to your computer and inside Recovery main menu click the option ‘Mounts and Storage Menu’ and then ‘Mount USB Storage’. This will unmount the SD card so that you can see it in your computer. Backup everything from your SD Card. Safely remove the SD card from computer and then click on unmount from recovery to mount the SD card back in phone.
  5. Though it is not a necessity for this ROM, I would suggest partitioning your SD card to create swap and ext partitions. The ext partition will come in use if you want to install apps onto your SD card later. This is different from what you see in Froyo versions of Move to SD option. Partitioning will format your SD card, so make sure you backup your SD card as mentioned in Step 4.
  6. Go back to the recovery menu again and select ‘Advanced’ and then ‘Partition SD Card’. Then select ‘Partition SD’. Create a swap partition of size 0M and ext partition of size 512M.
  7. Toggle USB from recovery again in the same way as Step 4. Inside the SDcard create a folder named ‘AAA’ and copy the ROM you downloaded in Step 1 into the folder ‘AAA’ on your SDCard. Once done, eject the SD card and toggle USB again to mount the SD Card in the phone again.
  8. Go to the main recovery menu and follow the below steps one after another to wipe data, cache and system.
  • ‘Wipe Data/Factory Reset’ –> Yes
  • ‘Mounts and Storage’ –> Format /system –> Yes.
  • ‘Advanced’ –> Wipe Dalvik cache –> Yes

The final step is to go to select Install Zip from SD Card –> choose zip from sdcard and then select the zip file you copied in Step 7.

Sit back and relax while the zip is flashed. Once recovery shows that flashing is complete, reboot phone from recovery. The first boot will take quite some time.

Enjoy official CyanogenMod 7.2 / Android Gingerbread 2.3.7 on your LG Optimus One P500. :)

Update:

The ROM does pre-install Android Market or any Google Applications. Download GAPPS zip from ROM Manager.

ROM Manager –> Download ROM –> Google Apps –> 20110828 Universal

Install from ROM Manager. Select only ‘Wipe Dalvik Cache’ when shown the options in ROM Manager.

The phone will ask you for the Google account you want to phone to be linked to. You can then see Android Market in your app drawer. Search and install the Google Applications you want. :)

[Confirmed] LG Optimus One P500 to get Android 2.3 Gingerbread update in July (Video inside)

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The official LG Italy Facebook has finally given the timeline for the Android 2.3 Gingerbread update for the LG Optimus One P500 phone.

The LG Optimus One P500 is getting the 2.3 Gingerbread update in July. Open-mouthed smile

Ready to upgrade to Gingerbread? The new version of Android for mobile will be available from July for the holders of Optimus One. Some of the latest outing with upgraded graphics and features.

And LG Italy has posted a teaser video of 2.3 Gingerbread running on LG Optimus One P500 as well.

Via – LG Italy on Facebook

[How To] Install Custom Recovery on LG Optimus One P500

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So now that you are done with rooting on your LG Optimus One P500, the next step before installing a custom ROM is to install a custom recovery on your phone.

Custom Recovery is the most important step in the process of installing a custom ROM and it is imperative that you follow the instructions carefully. Once custom recovery is successfully installed, you can flash new ROM’s, backup your current ROM and do much more. In short, once your done with custom recovery it is a 99.9999% assurance that you will never brick your phone. :)

Disclaimer– No one will be held responsible for any damage to your device. Proceed at your own risk.

Update 02-Sep-2011

The earlier method was obsolete.

ClockworkMod recovery is the best recovery available for Optimus One now and can be easily installed through ROM Manager. Follow the below steps to install ClockworkMod recovery:

  1. Install ‘ROM Manager‘ from Market.
  2. Open ‘ROM Manager’ and click on ‘Flash ClockworkMod Recovery’.
  3. It will ask you to confirm the phone. Make sure it says ‘LG Optimus One’.
  4. Confirm the ‘Superuser’ prompt to give root access to ROM Manager.
  5. ROM Manager will install the CWM recovery and show you the success message.
Select ‘Reboot into Recovery’ to go into CWM recovery.
In custom recovery, you can use the menu key to select ‘Reboot’ for rebooting your Android phone back into the OS.

That is it. You have got custom recovery on your phone now and are ready to install custom ROM’s. I will show how to do that in the next post.

[How To] Root LG Optimus One P500 using GingerBreak

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The LG Optimus One P500 is one of the best entry level Android phones available in the market. The LG Optimus One P500 comes with Froyo 2.2.2 on it and if you want to install custom ROM’s on your phone, the first step is to root it. Rooting an Android phone means getting SuperUser access on your phone which enables you to do a lot of things on your phone which are not possible otherwise.

The steps mentioned below work on any version of Froyo (2.2 / 2.2.1 / 2.2.2)

Caution – Rooting voids your device’s warranty and may also brick it permanently. No one will be held responsible for any damage to your device. Proceed at your own risk.

  1. Enable USB debugging on your phone by going to Settings –> Applications –> Development. Check the ‘USB Debugging’ option.
  2. Make sure you have a SD card inserted and mounted in your phone (Don’t know if it’s necessary but before proceeding further I formatted my SD card after taking a backup of the data in it. Why take a risk? )
  3. Download the GingerBreak APK from XDA Developers and get it onto your phone.
  4. Install it by browsing to the GingerBreak APK in any file manager.
  5. Open GingerBreak from your app drawer and press the root button.
  6. Wait for a few minutes. If there are no problems, the device will reboot itself. (The reboot will take quite some time.)
  7. You will see a SuperUser app in your app drawer after the reboot. Open it and see if it is working.
  8. You now have a rooted Optimus One P500 phone. Open-mouthed smile

Note – GingerBreak is developed by Chainfire @ XDA Developers. Please try to donate to support his work.

Instructions courtesy Chainfire @ XDA Developers.

LG Optimus One P500–My First Android Phone

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Finally changed my ancient Sony Ericsson K508i and switched to my first smartphone, the LG Optimus One P500 running the awesome Android OS. Smile

I was decided on buying a Android smartphone this time and was searching for good Android phones in 10-13 K range. So after a bit of search on the internet I narrowed down my choices to two phones – Samsung Galaxy 3 and the LG Optimus One.

Both have quite similar specs (see chart below) but three features worked in LG Optimus One’s favour:

  • The Screen Resolution : 320 x 480 pixels on Optimus One vs 240 x 400 pixels on Galaxy 3. This makes a lot of difference, the text on Optimus One looks far crisper and clear.
  • 512 MB RAM on Optimus One vs 256 MB RAM on Galaxy 3
  • Latest Android Froyo 2.2 on Optimus One vs Android 2.1 Éclair on Galaxy 3.

Brought the phone for Rs 12500/-. It came bundled with a 2GB SD Card as well.

So a total value for money, Android phone in my opinion. Open-mouthed smile

Picture Courtesy – GSMArena.com

Google Android 3.0 Honeycomb Preview

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The Android Developers team has just posted a teaser video of the next version of Android, Honeycomb 3.0.

Touted as the version built entirely for the tablet, the next version will include:

Honeycomb is the next version of the Android platform, designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets. We’ve spent a lot of time refining the user experience in Honeycomb, and we’ve developed a brand new, truly virtual and holographic user interface. Many of Android’s existing features will really shine on Honeycomb: refined multi-tasking, elegant notifications, access to over 100,000 apps on Android Market, home screen customization with a new 3D experience and redesigned widgets that are richer and more interactive. We’ve also made some powerful upgrades to the web browser, including tabbed browsing, form auto-fill, syncing with your Google Chrome bookmarks, and incognito mode for private browsing.

Honeycomb also features the latest Google Mobile innovations including Google Maps 5 with 3D interactions and offline reliability, access to over 3 million Google eBooks, and Google Talk, which now allows you to video and voice chat with any other Google Talk enabled device (PC, tablet, etc).

Sounds good to me :) and it will bring much demanded things like home screen customizations, web browsing enhancements and video chat in Google Talk.

But will Honeycomb come in a version tailored for mobile devices or will Gingerbread be the last version that mobile devices will be able to use? :(

Via Google Mobile Blog