Tweak, Modify and Soup up your Smart Phone

 

It was sometime around the summer of 2009 that I became dissatisfied with the ancient mobile operating system on my phone and decided to seek out the rumored leaked updates that were floating around the Internet.  Thus began my near obsession with tweaking and souping up my smart phones.  I started with the HTC Touch Pro, upgraded to the Touch Pro2 and now on my HTC Evo 4G running Google Android.

Carriers like Sprint, Verizon, AT&T and T-mobile don’t have a whole lot of incentive (or very likely the resources) to keep updating older smart phones to the latest and greatest versions of Windows Mobile or Android.  The one exception being Apple and the iPhone but even they don’t push updates to the original iPhone anymore and the iPhone 3G didn’t get all the upgrades available in iOS 4.  The carriers want you to buy new phones every year or two and, of course, resign those two-year agreements that keep you tied to them for around $1,000 a year on the average smart phone.  There are also limits on how much an older phone can run – for example, the iPhone 3G I own runs dog slow with the newest Apple operating system on it because it’s made for the iPhone 4 with its slick 1GHz processor and extra memory.

However, don’t let any of that stop you from loading up your six month old smart phone with the latest, greatest and processor busting software!  The two websites I go to fairly often (and by “fairly often, you should read “twice a day”) are ppcgeeks.com and xda-developers.com.  They specialize in Windows Mobile and Android smart phones such as the Motorola Droid, Samsung Captivate and most of the HTC models like the EVO, Incredible and Touch Pro2.

Both sites have user forums where you can post questions, search through previous posts (highly recommend that you search for your solution to make sure it wasn’t already addressed) and, most fun, download updated or unique software.  Last summer I was tired of running the dated, and by then ancient, Windows Mobile 6.1 on my touch screen smart phone.  I wanted the newer, more touch-friendly Windows Mobile 6.5.  After finding ppcgeeks.com, I had Windows Mobile running on my Touch Pro within a couple hours.

For my Android cell phone I have downloaded programs to underclock and undervolt the 1GHz processor in my EVO to conserve power and extend battery life, interface tweaks, free wifi tethering, different lockscreens – you name it, someone has probably already looked for it and someone else probably already posted a solution.  I couldn’t imagine going back to the stock operating system on my phone.  You don’t have to make wholesale changes – for example the Android operating system is very complete as-is and so is Apple’s iOS 4 – you can tweak just that one program you don’t like and really personalize your smart phone to how you like to use it.  If nothing else, you’ll learn something about how your phone works or breathe new life (and save some money) into your slightly older than new smart phone.

 

Posted by: George Christodoulou

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