For anyone considering making the switch, I thought I would give some details on my experience having recently done this myself.
I had an iPhone 3G for about a year before I finally decided to jailbreak it and play with extra features. This led to all out phone modding with my 3GS, and finally the decision to move to Android for even more customization and utility. Here, i'll compare the experience I had with either device for inquiring minds contemplating a similar conundrum.
Jailbreaking and rooting; these words mean essentially the same thing: you gain full access tot he device's file system. There is, however, a distinct difference in the end result. With the iPhone, you typically jailbreak by running a utility that uses a software (or in some cases hardware) exploit to essentially exploit your way in.
Almost all of these will then install Cydia, a type of App Store that is not policed by Apple, and offers apps that only work on jailbroken devices because of their need to access parts of the file system that are typically restricted. From Cydia, you can download and install free and paid apps, and even gain access to black-market sources like Install0us where you can download pirated versions of paid apps.
Cydia contains what I consider to be the staple, or common, jailbroken apps. A few are:
MobileSubstrate: an underlying framework that provides an interface for the phones hardware that is common across many apps.
SBSettings: an easily accessible menu for controlling various functions, and displaying status information (wifi toggle, internal IP address, etc).
Winterboard: a theming app that essentially creates a layer on top of the existing UI to substitute a custom element for a standard one.
There are many others, many of which have been superseded by Apple's own improvements to their OS, such as Backgrounder for multitasking. The entire experience of theming and loading unapproved apps had a very under-the-table feel to it, and it was often difficult to find exactly what I needed, if even possible.
The upside of the iPhone with this is the nearly invincible nature of its systems. Barring hardware failure, or trying intentionally to do it, I can't see how it is even possible to brick an iPhone 3G or later. No matter what you do to it, you can restore it from iTunes and start over.
Android was a very different story. The initial path into rooting and flashing was scarce and difficult to follow at first. I heard a bunch of terms that I had no meaning for, and found it difficult to make sense of it all. Fortunately with the help of a few kind souls here on XDA, I learned what I need to know.
The rooting and modding experience did not have the slightly criminal feeling to it like my experience with the iPhone. I knew neither Apple nor Google was going to bother at all if I wanted to mess with my device; there was nothing to hide. The rooting process was very simple once I understood it, and using ADB from the Android SDK (I'll give details later) made the whole process feel comfortable with good directions. Adding non-market apps was a breeze with the Side-load Wonder Machine.
Finally I decided to try a custom ROM the day that I saw the leaked Froyo beta. Everything else had gone very well, so I felt confident as soon as I learned how to test 3-key download mode and found it successful. I had initially intended to try Cognition, but a recommendation for Assonance made me change my mind. Again, with good instructions, I flashed Assonance 3.1 with great success and have been enjoying the many benefits of custom ROMs since.
Thanks for reading if you've stuck with me thus far.
TL;DR (the experience broken down)
Rooting
iPhone: A full package process that is railroaded for better or worse. Even in the jailbreak community, you have very little options with iPhone. Some folks like--or need--it that way.
Android: At once it feels a little riskier at first, but if you play it safe, you'll find this just unlocks a door to more options.
Unapproved Apps
iPhone: Cydia, Rock, Install0us. What you see is what you get, and just pray the developer of your favorite apps doesn't quit. It can be hard to pay for things without paypal.
Android: It literally could not be easier. You don't even need to root first: http://www.androidcentral.com/sideload-android-apps-all-you-want-sideload-wonder-machine
Theming
iPhone: Tedious or slow; pick your poison. You can either manually replace each UI element yourself, making backups of the originals just in case, or you can use Winterboard, and deal with the performance hit. The plus side is that once you get the basics it is pretty standard across the board.
Android: Theming in general is much easier with LauncherPro, Desktop Visualizer, OpenHome, or ADW; but if you want to do the really detailed things like skin the dialer buttons, you are looking at something quite a bit more arcane than simple PNGs in iPhone. Some of this can be overcome by flashing various themes, but it still isn't individual control.
Functionality
iPhone: For functions not built into iOS, you have a few choices which aren't really choices as much as must-haves. Beyond that, you can just hope someone will happen to make what you need, and it will be maintained through iOS updates.
Android: The sky is the limit, but you need to be able to fly the plane. I can't make apps; no idea how, but the majority of my wishlist for the iPhone was built into Android 2.2 out of the box..
Reliability
iPhone: As I said before, a hardware failure is pretty much the only major dead end, but any piece, even the battery pretty much means a new phone.
Android: Software reliability will take more work than it will on the iPhone. You don't have iTunes making a full restore backup every few days, so you'll need to take the initiative yourself to make copies of pictures and music, and backup apps.
I know this ended up being a little scatterbrained, but hopefully it will help someone out in making the right choice for them. Remember, the iPhone is like James Bond: he is the best there is at doing exactly what he was meant to do. Then Android is like MacGyver: a little rough around the edges, but given the right tools he can do anything. One isn't better, they are just different. Choose what is right for you, stay in school, and don't do drugs.
Haha you got me with the last sentence.
agreed
I agree with what you said. I had an iPhone but couldn't stand to keep it for the full two years so I got rid of it early and got a Captivate. I jailbroke the iPhone and had the same experience you describe. I can't say that any of the jailbreak apps/tweaks were really an improvement over stock iOS, although they do slow the phone down pretty badly and cause it to crash frequently. I haven't rooted my captivate yet (still a few more weeks of getting used to the unrooted captivate) but even unrooted android is vastly more customizable than the iPhone. I just got ADW launcher and none of the regular/jailbroken iPhone apps could do anything like it.
Note one difference between the two: you can install only apps and "tweaks" into a jailbroken iPhone (like 'custom icons'), while you can install custom ROMs/OSs into the android. The iOS source code is not released publicly so devs can't modify the entire OS like they can with android. It is hard, in my opinion, to justify jailbreaking an iPhone because it adds nothing important, but does slow the phone down and make it crash.
Hi All,
I have been a long time XDA user, and follow and utilize a number of threads for my android devices!
(
For the first time ever i have not been able to find what I'm looking for and so I send out a plea for help (or lay out a challenge if people prefer them) !!
I have a lenovo yoga 13 and can run a live version of android 4.2 however i do not want to complete a hard drive install due to the lack of support for the wifi and BT.
I was wandering if anyone would be able to create a yoga 13 ROM including the driver for the realtek RTL8723a wifi/bt chip.
This has been working on Ubuntu elsewhere.
My knowledge does not extend passed installing ROMs so the process to learn this is beyond my grasp. I am happy to donate to developers should this help!!
I would love to do this myself but would not even know where to begin.
I have managed to install the relevant version of android and touchscreen etc works brilliantly, i just need the ability to connect to the internet.
I guess there are two options and some advise would be great:
1 - could i use a usb wifi adaptor that would be supported by Android rather than the built in realtex card.
2 - where should i begin to look or research if i wanted to learn how to modify the install in order to include the correct kernal or support for this version (I am assuming using the working ubuntu drivers in some way). Any recommended reference materials to get me started. I appreciate this option may require quite some time to fully understand android development.
Thanks
ussasx said:
I would love to do this myself but would not even know where to begin.
I have managed to install the relevant version of android and touchscreen etc works brilliantly, i just need the ability to connect to the internet.
I guess there are two options and some advise would be great:
1 - could i use a usb wifi adaptor that would be supported by Android rather than the built in realtex card.
2 - where should i begin to look or research if i wanted to learn how to modify the install in order to include the correct kernal or support for this version (I am assuming using the working ubuntu drivers in some way). Any recommended reference materials to get me started. I appreciate this option may require quite some time to fully understand android development.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am still really struggling with this and some help would be massively appreciated :/
For those interested
ussasx said:
I am still really struggling with this and some help would be massively appreciated :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For anyone that is interested in android on the Lenovo yoga 13 check out console os
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mmv/console-os-dual-boot-android-remastered-for-the-pc
I am a backer and it looks like it will be funded.
I have a Galaxy Tab 2, 10.1 SGH-i497, rooted, stock, its the AT&T 4G LTE version. I want to request that someone with more knowledge than me in development to develop an app for root users to allow the home screen to be separated, and run two simultaneous instances of the home screen, in portrait mode. NOT the false "split screen" floating apps Samsung is so proud of, and everyone is talking about, but actual separate home screens each running in a virtual environment. That can run ANY app on the device and function just like your normal home screen. I think by extension these separate virtual home screens would be needing separate databases and configurations files and whatnot. Think virtual machine for android.
Is this even possible? Or would I need to install a baked or 3rd party ROM to get such functionality? Seems like this sort of addition would need it's own firmware, but I could be wrong. The XDA crowd has amazed me in the past with works of brilliance. This is not just a lone request, the entire market for galaxy tablets, note tab and all variants, as well as other android tablets, are clamoring for this. I will gladly test, i have fully functional test environment including real time logcat.
Happy coding, thanks in advance for all responses.
Does the capability to direct video input through the usb jack on the phone exist- perhaps as an unused feature?
I have a tmobile s6, I am hoping to use it as part of a project, and I would much rather not have to mod the hardware of the phone. The attractiveness of a sleek and complete device with its own battery, charger and a high-res screen is hard to pass up.
There are a lot of solutions out there to use a smartphone as a monitor- most are crazy hacks and/or rely on some flavor of remote desktop, and that's not going to be good enough for my project- I need snappy video with very little if any delay, and I am hoping to find a way to take a functioning android s6 (hopefully only with software) get it to work as a monitor.
I am hoping that either an app or modding an android distro might result in some viable solution. Does anyone know about this? Thank you in advance for any help.
I have a Tab S8 Ultra. I really like using DEX to emulate a computing environment. I have a small business and able to do just about everyting in need with it. However, it's not a 'true' laptop. Nevertheless, I want to cut ties with the laptop. There's one program I really need to do so. I have HGTV Home & Landscape Platimum Suite ver 3. It is, of course, windows based and my tablet is Android. Does anyone know of any available Drivers that will allow me to run it or is it even possible?
I just read an XDA contribution piece by Kyle Wiggers in January 2018 about "WINE - Compatability Layer for Windows. I'm really not sure if im on the right track here. However, this is the closest info I've found concering what I'd like to do. I'm wondering if there is any more development on this.