Database Info

[Q] Kids Rom

I have seen some threads for kids apps. I am interested in finding/building a kids ROM.
My child has a prepaid SIM card and RAZR to be used for certain situations. I would want to be able to let my child carry the phone all the time but restrict what numbers could be called.
So my idea, which can't be an original one, is leverage Android power to install a rooted ROM but run in user mode when I give it to my child. User mode could restrict calling to the phone book only or restrict wi-fi/data access; basically anything that you wanted to restrict or remove. Maybe there could be a ROM builder.
I have many scenarios in mind but maybe they could all be solved by software apps instead of getting into a custom ROM? I'm tech savvy, but haven't ever done a ROM. If the answer is to develop a custom ROM, what device should I choose that would get the most community support? I figure it would be a low end phone, since the point is to make a children's rom.

May I ask how old is your child?
[Sig] dId you know? If you Insert a Coin on your Desire, then it levels up to HD, Z or S :[/Sig]

i was thinking of my son when you mentioned this, it is a great i dea, and i also thought if the original att kid's phone that was out a few years back. it was revamped and it sucked. but good luck on either building one or have some one make one ( put a bounty on it?)

Phones and ROMs
My child is 8 years old. I figure in a few years that it would be fine, but it seems like there would be more of a market for this.
I would put up a bounty for it but I'd prefer to make this a community effort too.
So I will change tack here and ask what the best ROM might be for me to start with and what phones might be recommended? I'm figuring that CM would be easiest to start with, generically?
Thoughts?

I think that is a very good idea.
A good part of that could be accoimplished with a kids theme on an existing ROM.

im sorry but the RAZR is a dumb-phone! it doesnt support 3rd party modding. im afraid you are mistaking the word 'ROM' and actually don't know what it means! You will have no luck finding such ROM for the RAZR... A bootloader of any sort does not exist!
You need a smartphone if you want such a job done, but it requires a investment into a smartphone which are generally more expensive and not intended for 'kids'

I understand...
@olyloh6696: Thanks for looking in on the thread!
You misunderstood what I was explaining. She _currently_ has a RAZR. I want to figure out what the best GSM _android_ phone would be to do the project I'm describing would be. I would of course have to get the new phone; I do understand that the RAZR does not support android (dumbphone).
Any thoughts on phone model or something out there like this already?

rykerwilliams said:
@olyloh6696: Thanks for looking in on the thread!
You misunderstood what I was explaining. She _currently_ has a RAZR. I want to figure out what the best GSM _android_ phone would be to do the project I'm describing would be. I would of course have to get the new phone; I do understand that the RAZR does not support android (dumbphone).
Any thoughts on phone model or something out there like this already?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi
well i guess the best option for a relatively cheap phone (that has android) is the zte blade (in my sig) it is a british phone, but gsm, so i think it should work in the us. if you read reviews for it, it has specs of the desire, nexus one, etc in a cheap budget range. read some revies on it! it also cost £100. Not sure what your budget is though. before you set out to buy the phone, you may need to look up a rom that supports the requirements you want, or you could request one/build your own.
good luck

Unrelated, but the RAZR does support modding lol. Back in the day, pre-Android, I used to hack the hell out of my Razr. There's even a hidden feature called Club Lights that uses the phone's microphone to detect music and make the lights on the phone go with the beat. Youtube it.

That's a great idea... it would be great on a tablet too.
I'm always worried that my son is going to click around in the market and download tons of apps without know it.

Remove Dialer.app, replace with custom Dialer.app
Is the source for the Dialer.app known, i.e. part of the main trunk of the Android sources? I was just thinking that it might not be too hard to just modify that original source to limit it only to the "contacts" tab, that way you can only call the contacts tab.
Another feature I thought of is using some kind of Dynamic DNS client to be able to dial in to the phone.
I was thinking that there could be a "phone home" app that would call home and report the currently used minutes and GPS coordinates, or similar.
Just trying to get the features set worked out and find out if there is existing apps that do this stuff.

2018, quick google search for Kids Custom ROM.... dead thread no progress. There is definitely a market for this, since it's easy to shove a phone into an OtterBox like case and let them have at it with safe guards. My kid has had an Ipad since age 2 without issue. Now she asks for my phone on occasion (years later). It would be easier to just take a custom ROM shove it on a cheap device and give it to her.
Sure, I am a minority, definitely but I can't consider myself the only person who would want to do this.

This is what I'm looking for my child. I'm a software engeneer but I've never works on Android. I think it's not a great works for an Android developer.
I'll follow this post for news.

digging this one up again. anyway to take something like at Nexux 5x and put a totally stripped down version of android on it to achieve something like the lightphone?

nvrpunk said:
2018, quick google search for Kids Custom ROM.... dead thread no progress. There is definitely a market for this, since it's easy to shove a phone into an OtterBox like case and let them have at it with safe guards. My kid has had an Ipad since age 2 without issue. Now she asks for my phone on occasion (years later). It would be easier to just take a custom ROM shove it on a cheap device and give it to her.
Sure, I am a minority, definitely but I can't consider myself the only person who would want to do this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Per capita, there are very few people that actually root or flash custom ROMs, the number of kids that could/would use such a ROM is even less than that, this means it is not worth a developers time and hard work to build a ROM for this purpose, especially considering the plethora of different devices out there in the world. There would not be enough kids using "this" or "that" device with "this" or "that" custom ROM. To be as convenient for kids as what you are asking about, there would have to be a "kids ROM" for a large number of devices. This is not a reasonable expectation by any standard.
Add to that, the fact that rooting devices and flashing ROMs can quickly go bad if the user is not familiar with certain aspects of using a device that is rooted or flashed with a custom ROM, this makes for some rather difficult issues to solve due to user error, ignorance and inexperience of the user.
If you want a "safe" or "basic" ROM for a device, you'll have to learn how to build it yourself because I can promise you that no developer is willing to put that much time and effort into building ROMs that will only be used by a small number of users.
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[Q] Newbie asking for device choice advise

Hi guys,
I am newbie to Android smartphones and tablets modding/hacking/ROMdeveloping and I am looking for the correct starting in this experience to optimize my learning curve.
What device should I pick? I am looking for the best compromise between these different factors:
-Large community support availability
-Hacking easiness (meaning a device most open as possible)
-Detailed guides availability
...
Every single advice is appreciated.
Regards

Okay, let's reformulate the problem differently.
Which devices has best community support on xda developers?
A thread in our forum stated that Samsung fascinate has good community support. Could that device be an appropriate starting point?
I appreciate your help xda developers!

It depends on what carrier you're gonna go with. The sprint evo probably has the largest community, looks like the evo 3d will be pretty big too. Not really sure about at&t and T-Mobile. Verizon hasn't had much lately that's been big, the original incredible has a pretty sizeable community, looks like the thunderbolt isn't bad either. Currently the phone to beat is the Samsung galaxy s2, it can only be used on at&t currently but should be coming to all carriers on the next couple months.

No money, i would recommend the sgs and if you have money to spend the sgs2.
Both are awesome devices with a huge and active community behind them.

I appreciate your help K_nivesout and Dark3n.
I gonna process this choices and come back to comment on them and choose one.
Probably this experience would help some people in the future

[Q] What would you do?

Hi everyone! I just wanted to throw this question out there to all of you on XDA. On August 1st, I will be eligible to be reimbursed up to $80 a month for my cell phone bill through work. I am currently on a TMobile Family Plan using a Samsung Vibrant. To make things easy, I am going to go onto my own plan. I can pick any carrier, any plan, and any phone. If you guys were in this situation, what phone would you pick? I am not up to date on phones that are going to be released soon, so if some are coming out in the next month, I'd wait and consider those as well. Just wanted some input from people I'd trust! (aka XDA users!)

SGS II for me is the best phone out there at the moment and the forseeable future.
If you are into modding the SGS II devs are the best, Pulsar, Hacre, Noonski to mention a couple.
Of course only my humble opinion.

2452sgtb said:
SGS II for me is the best phone out there at the moment and the forseeable future.
If you are into modding the SGS II devs are the best, Pulsar, Hacre, Noonski to mention a couple.
Of course only my humble opinion.
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Click to collapse
actually she(hope i am right , referred the picture) did make clear that she is not into phones, so there is no way that she is into modding (my opinion). and very few working people spend time modding/flashing roms.
and yea i would suggest u go for sgs2, iphone ( if u r somehow still into modding these are still the best choices )

Thanks to both of you for responding! Yes, I am a she (that is me in my picture) and actually, I am into modding my phones... I just wish I knew more about it, and really understood what went into creating ROMs. I am always amazed at how smart everyone here is! I usually am up to date about all the new phones coming out and such, but haven't been around here much the past few months to know what's great and up-and-coming! So thanks for helping me out!!

[Q] Motorola Admiral

Just wanting to see when/if xda-developers plans on creating a sub-forum for the Motorola Admiral. I know the phone isn't immensely popular (it should be though; this is a sweet device!), but I know several people who would love some custom ROMs for it as well as a place besides the Motorola support forums to get bug fixes and whatnot.
If the mediocre Droid Pro gets its own sub-forum, why no love for us Admiral folks?

Please use the Q&A Forum for questions Thanks
Moving to Q&A

I'll second this. I'm glad that it's been rooted, but I'd love to see a custom ROM or two.

The Admiral is a nice device, but it is going to suffer in the marketplace as it is targeting a much smaller and (presumably) less mod-happy crowd. If you are buying this, you are most likely looking for a Blackberry-ish device or you want Direct Connect. Those two demographic groups aren't necessarily going to have as much desire as most.
Present company EXCLUDED. I rooted mine withing two hours of activation and am considering an attempt at building CWMR and replacing the built-in recovery.
Maybe move this to Android General?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1424
Best regards,
-boggsie

boggsie said:
The Admiral is a nice device, but it is going to suffer in the marketplace as it is targeting a much smaller and (presumably) less mod-happy crowd. If you are buying this, you are most likely looking for a Blackberry-ish device or you want Direct Connect. Those two demographic groups aren't necessarily going to have as much desire as most.
Present company EXCLUDED. I rooted mine withing two hours of activation and am considering an attempt at building CWMR and replacing the built-in recovery.
Maybe move this to Android General?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1424
Best regards,
-boggsie
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the Admiral rooted and I got "trigger" happy when deleting some of the stock apps from my phone and now I cannot add, edit, or view my contacts. Could someone help me get all the necessary stock apps in order to have it fully functional again?

[Q] Best phone for someone coming from the Nokia N9?

Hey everyone-
I recently purchased a Nokia N9 off of Ebay on a, in retrospect, misguided whim. I love the UI of the phone and how seamlessly the device allows me to switch from one app to another. However, despite my love for the phone, I still find myself missing Android and its ecosystem (I owned a Samsung Vibrant for a few years prior to this phone). Even though the N9 does the few core things I normally do on a daily basis really well, it's still missing of the basic apps I used to rely on for daily use; i.e. Tumblr, Instagram, Ebay, and Amason. So I decided to sell the N9 on Ebay but now I'm pondering which phone I should buy next. I probably want to stick with Android, but I'm not sure which device to go with. I'm leaning towards either the HTC One X or the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, however, I'm certainly open to other suggestions. I'm certain I don't wanna go with Galaxy S III because I hate the Touchwiz skin. If anyone out there has any suggestions for me I'm more than willing to hear them. Thanks.
-Sincerely, bobofosho123
P.S. I know for a fact that I'm not looking for anything with a contract, and I know I'll buy it without one since I'm on a grandfathered T-mobile plan.

Nexus all the way bud. Always up to date and great community support!
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Please see the sticky at the top of this section for phone decision questions. Thread closed.