Last week saw my departure from safe waters into the world of hardware modding, in an attempt to get round the problems in Samsung's latest firmware for its i8910 HD flagship, ending with me installing firmware 3.17 (which has itself since been updated!). In this followup article, I talk about what came next, some of the issues I faced, how I tried to overcome them and what I've had to learn to live without. And perhaps even set the stage for a third article 8-)
Read on in the full article.
This is the 'problem' with having such a truly open phone, Steve. It becomes genuinely addictive.
There were days (when the ability to flash custom firmware was first discovered by Djsaad, God bless his soul) when I would literally sit around for hours on end, splicing files from N97s, 5800s N95 8GBs into my own custom ROMs. I used to flash my i8910 over 20 times a day, constantly experimenting - and I LOVED it.
Needless to say, some things caused problems. For example, trying to import the 5530's autorotating keyboard into the i8910 caused an endless reboot loop, but that was easily fixed with the i8910's bootloader access, which is a HUGE blessing from Samsung, making bricking the device almost impossible.
Tinkering pays off. Some of you may have seen that HyperX has included Nokia PC Suite support in his latest firmware - I was the one that sent it to him. I am 'G'.
There are a host of other tweaks that I have in my arsenal which I don't feel are ready for primetime yet, though. Time will tell.
By the way, Steve, that 'i8910' running Windows Phone 7 isn't actually an i8910. It's got different hardware including the screen.
Agreed about addictive. Need someone to do the same for the Satio😊
HX's ROMs are highly modified, so you do tend to get a number of issues with them compared with the standard Samsung ROMs. The verb to describe such firmware seems to be 'overcooked' in i8910 circles! Don't forget that there are a number of custom firmwares out there, many of which have far fewer modifications, and hence bugs, and may suit the less experimental users better
Don't forget that you don't need to install anything dodgy to get a well known SatNav product from working - just pretend to be a Nokia 5800, which is possible these days.
@slitchfield: Install Java Runtime 2.02 from Nokia to solve your problems with the icons.
If you don't want to, you could maybe start those apps with AppQLaunch.
The issue with audio/video sync on any storage is fixed very simple by formatting all storages with fat 32 8mb size of cluster. In fact this is right for any mobile device and accelerate overall speed of the device, especially if you installed programs on said storage (built-in or memory card). The only minus of this solution, that you lose part of storage to the formatting, which depends on amount of small files on mentioned storage. You can perform it being in "usb storage mode" from PC.
To confirm waht Gerii said, nokia java 2.0.2 makes my exact same firmware run perfect.
Java is fixed in latest 3.29. 😊
Thanks all. Will try some of that out!
I did try Java again on 3.29 yesterday, but Java worked the same. Will try the runtime thing.
Hi all.
We are a game developer, that does stuff for allmost all mobile platforms and form factors out there, including Nokia Symbian devices.
However, we also want to support the other non-Nokia Symbian devices, like SE Satio/Vivaz and Samsung i8910 (they are quite powerful after all, in fact better than the iPhone 3GS, at least from a developer stand point). But our biggest concern is how to sell it for those devices.
Do any of you have any idea how to best sell for those devices? (I know of SE's PlayNow, but SE's support is sparse on PlayNow - it almost appears as if PlayNow has low priority for SE).
Anyway, can you recommend other sales channels for games for those aforementioned devices? Any hint will be greatly appreciated.
As you mentioned, PlayNow is SE's store for applications and games. I suspect that there are still very few applications available in the SE store, so I am guessing you will have an advantage if you publish here. Best to be one of 100 apps rather than one of 100,000!
For Samsung, you may want to try the following site for help & assistance:
This is the equivalent of PlayNow for Samsung, and is available as a link in newer i8910 firmwares (in Applications / SamsungApps), and should be built into the forthcoming Bada phones.