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.
Sent from my LGL84VL using Tapatalk

[Q] Why does asus want to break our root?

Been thinking about this for a while. It's understandable with phones. companies don't want you to tether and not pay them that extra $40 fee per month. But why does a company like asus want to break our root? What possible advantage could bring to them for not allowing us root? I just don't get it.

The only reason I can think of, people modifying their tablet then sending it in for ASUS to replace when they brick it.
It's people like these that don't take the time to ask questions and Google for answers. It's a user's responsibility to know exactly what they are getting in to when they decide to modify their device.
Beamed from my TF101 using Tapatalk HD

The question is why did Asus decide to unlock the Transformer Prime (after all the web initiatives) very soon, and is not doing it for the Transformer (TF101)?

The main reason for wanting consumers to not root their tablets is for things like watching movies from the Android market which will not work on a rooted tablet. I still don't agree with it, as long as we the consumer understand and still want our devices rooted, then companies like Asus should allow this and stop making it hard. The average person not on XDA doesn't even know what rooting is, so why make it difficult for people who like to tinker with hardware that we paid good money for.
I think HTC has it right, if you want to unlock your bootloader they let you do it on their website. Let Asus know that we want this too. Personally I won't buy a phone or tablet without being able to root it. I don't buy phones on contract and want to do what I please with them. I have been using HTC phones for many years because they have always been XDA friendly
As long as we have the ability to have nvflashable ROMs then we don't have to worry about bricking our devices so Asus shouldn't have to worry about things like that either. Cheers.

ckuke4 said:
The main reason for wanting consumers to not root their tablets is for things like watching movies from the Android market which will not work on a rooted tablet.
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Click to collapse
I completely forgot about this.
In which case, we can now thank the Media MAFIAA for it.

raduque said:
I completely forgot about this.
In which case, we can now thank the Media MAFIAA for it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Guess I should mention that there is a way around this but I haven't tried it as I watch market movies on my HTPC. Cheers.

Another issue has also been raised by the Win8 boot locking crapola. Namely maliciousness.
If only one entity can screw with the firmware, it is harder for e.g. a virus to screw with it, hopefully becomes almost as hard as loading home brew firmware. Imagine Moron20X installing Hot Naked Chix off PirateMarket, and it flashes hacked firmware with a keylogger onto their tablet - then have your "Support" people sweet talk Moron20X into a factory reset, and steal all his logins. Wouldn't work for a lot of people but hell, just look at how many people must fall for Nigerian e-mail scams and Western Union Screw Overs per capita if Wikipedia has such a thick article on 419 scams.
My word...I don't want to think about how many times my mother has brought me something and asked if it was 'legit', with an American address and a Canadian cheque. \o/.
Truth is though, unless these things are really owned by someone else (like say your company), users should have the choice. IMHO it's good for business to lock this stuff, as long as you can like input your SN and get an unlock for a nominal fee.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk

ckuke4 said:
The main reason for wanting consumers to not root their tablets is for things like watching movies from the Android market which will not work on a rooted tablet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is a false statement, atleast in my recourse it's bogus. I've watched "The Christmas Story" on my ROOTED TF101 and I've let my daughter watch a couple Disney Movies.
I will say that it breaks HDMI mirroring when i try to watch something via the market on my TV, but i can watch the movie on my tablet.

Spidey01 said:
Another issue has also been raised by the Win8 boot locking crapola. Namely maliciousness.
If only one entity can screw with the firmware, it is harder for e.g. a virus to screw with it, hopefully becomes almost as hard as loading home brew firmware. Imagine Moron20X installing Hot Naked Chix off PirateMarket, and it flashes hacked firmware with a keylogger onto their tablet - then have your "Support" people sweet talk Moron20X into a factory reset, and steal all his logins. Wouldn't work for a lot of people but hell, just look at how many people must fall for Nigerian e-mail scams and Western Union Screw Overs per capita if Wikipedia has such a thick article on 419 scams.
My word...I don't want to think about how many times my mother has brought me something and asked if it was 'legit', with an American address and a Canadian cheque. \o/.
Truth is though, unless these things are really owned by someone else (like say your company), users should have the choice. IMHO it's good for business to lock this stuff, as long as you can like input your SN and get an unlock for a nominal fee.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is pretty much it, as far as I can tell. As the original post said, carriers have obvious interests (whether or not I agree with them) in maintaining control of your phone. But we want our tablets, which aren't bound to a contract with a service provider in order to function, to be more like our Windows PCs - largely under our complete control.
Which is understandable. And I feel the same way. But then, you know full well how secure Windows is[n't]. Android has a great track record so far with preventing malware and viruses from getting out into the wild in a big way, and the manufacturers probably feel that locked bootloaders and root restriction is the reason. I'm not certain I agree - Android has some good safeguards that go way beyond root - but whatever.
Ultimately, it's about user behavior. My Windows computer doesn't get viruses, because I know how to prevent that. But your average user doesn't, and when you connect a compromised computer (or tablet, or whatever) to the Internet, it endangers everyone, responsible and irresponsible alike.
Ultimately I don't agree with the top-down control imposed by Asus and the rest of the manufacturers, but from that perspective I guess it makes sense.

It's MAFIAA mostly. Asus even admitted it - saying it's because of DRM. If they can push ACTA in my country with such force our Prime Minister ignores massive demonstrations (something very uncommon in Poland) in -20 Celsius why wouldn't they push for closing up devices so they can "protect" their movies. It's because of Netflix and such - which doesn't even work outside US.

Thinking if starting my own phone unlocking business, help software?

Hi all,
I am looking into setting up my own online business in unlocking phones via the code method.
Does anyone know the best software I could buy for this which provides support for the most amount of phones? Also has regular updates or nee phones added which are compatible by code unlock?
Thanks
Sent from my XT890 using xda app-developers app

Well your way to late there are like hundred of african shops that do the same on top of running a small corner store. This has been in business for 6 to 8 years.

Still can be done
Sent from my XT890 using xda app-developers app

how to start an iphone unlock business
hey man, im in the same situation! I've been buying and selling iphones and i always come across crazy situations where i need to unlock the phone and id like to add this service to my business, but can't find any solid information on how its done and its preventing me from selling the phones. back in the day i knew how to manually enter the unblock codes for regular cell phones, but i can't figure out the iphone! I don't know if you download some type of software or if you jailbreak it and unlock it somehow from there and then reload the iOS back onto the phone or if you have to have a special machine to hook up to. i also need to know how to get rid of the apple id problem in iOS 7 where if someone didn't deactivate the find my iphone feature before doing a factory restore then you would have to enter an apple id before using the phone. its called activation lock and a guy wiped the phone out somehow with his computer, i believe, and successfully got it to where you can enter a new apple user ID and use the phone. PLEASE, ANYONE WHO KNOWS HOW TO DO THIS STUFF PLEASE LET ME KNOW! Everywhere people ask for help on this ive only seen replies where they get spam links that go to bogus sites that unblock for you. i dont know what im missing to do this but i know its out there because i know a guy who can do it, but im sure he'll think of me as competition because im in his local area. I am a former PC technician, but have moved toward Apple products and it astounds me at how differently they are and are a bit more difficult to figure out that i anticipated. Any help would be appreciated please!

Unlocking
Anyone who unlocks for a decent price 60$ and less for bulk. I would love to work with them. Looking to unlock iPhone sprint and T-Mobile phone. Please contract. Pmaya004 AT yahoo

[Completed] Preventing a Android phone hacking when hardware can be accessed.

Hi,
I have an ongoing problem. Just getting computer access to write this on a machine that is not hacked is dificult.
I have a very smart and talented member of my household who appears to be tied up with some bad people and I am constantly subject to hardware hacking of all my devices or worse.
The person is the recipent of significent outside help in this process and even devices that had biometric security have been hacked.
It appears that even encrypted devices have been compromised via various root kits. Though it is hard to be sure with the phones as I am not an expert in the Android OS. I can say that on numerous devices ranging from Galaxy Duos 2.2 Android to the latest Tab S 10.5 16GB 4G.
I have managed to stop the computers being compromised by using numerous single boot disks though it is cumbersome having to remember everything.
Right now you are probably tinking "Why does he put up with his crap?". Simple, it is my wife and even though idiot drug dealers have got to her I will not abandon her. I have seen worse in my life and in the end I will get her out of this.
Basically her associates assist her in keep me in the stone age so that I can't use my considerable skills to resolve these matters.
I need a phone setup that can't be hacked even if she has hardware access. I have tried using very dumb handsets but after a chat to Samsung it seems even they have been compromised.
So if anyone has any cunning ideas that can defeat organised crime using non off the shelf hacking software while having hardware access then I am all ears.
I am obviously not saying a lot here for legal reasons. Believe it or not she is the real victim here so please no advice not related to the technical issue.
Kind Regards

Hi,
XDA is not here to get involved in domestic disputes. I'm sorry, but we can't help you on this one.
Thanks, thread closed.

Petition to Samsung.

Hi.
What kind of power we can have if we will make petition to Samsung software/developement team to do some updates of Android to our phone?
How many users are here that have this awesome mobile?
I always think is good idea to try than moan...

I e-mailed Yotaphone and asked if they would consider making a qwerty slider....
I think it would be beneficial if we all did the same.

It is not my intention, to find new device.
I am fed up going for new.
Old is good enough many times.
Our mobile is enough for emails, www etc. but the only downside is software.

It's not going to happen. Both the carrier (T-Mobile) and Samsung would need to agree that it's worth spending a lot of money to give this phone an upgrade. Given that both companies want you to buy a new phone every 5 minutes, neither of them want people to be satisfied with their old phone. And speaking of old, this phone is almost 3 years old and has a small user base. There are hundreds of more popular phones released between then and now which haven't seen updates, so no one's going to pay much attention to ours. The only way to get updates is to make them ourselves.

If we don't try - we will never know for sure.
How many registered users are in Relay section, can anybody check?

Check in

I am in business!

Here!
Sent from my SGH-T699 using XDA Free mobile app

I'm still using mine, but it's really a secondary phone at this point. Given that the flex cable is this phone's Achilles heel, I don't slide the keyboard out very often, either.

lol. How about a few of you...
a) learn to code and help move the 5.x support forward,
b) donate a phone to a dev, since the two primary developers no longer OWN a relay (and both have mentioned that they would be willing to work on it if somebody donated a phone).
Sign up at freenode/#apexqtmo

doitright said:
lol. How about a few of you...
a) learn to code and help move the 5.x support forward,
b) donate a phone to a dev, since the two primary developers no longer OWN a relay (and both have mentioned that they would be willing to work on it if somebody donated a phone).
Sign up at freenode/#apexqtmo
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would love to learn how to code but no one really has time to teach and i know there are plenty of guides but I'm afraid I'll kill my phone. I've already managed to kill my usb port, not from coding attempts, but nonetheless inoperable. As for donating, the relay is my only working t mobile phone so I don't want to give it up. I would, however would pitch in on one. From what I've seen they go for about 100 or so. I would like to be part of the solution in any way I can.

Another Relay user here...
Since this is one of the last good QWERTY phones around, figured it was time to stop just lurking this forum and sign up lol. I'd also be willing to test any new 5.x ROMs built, since I'll have an alternate phone in a couple of days that I can fall back to if I break this one.

I have a phone and I can code, however I need somebody who give me clue or some direction to follow. I've never coded for hardware, only business apps.

This one is not gonna be cheap, but if it runs android it will be amazing:
http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/02/blackberry-venice-slider-leak/

Wow! Extremely cool, man! Thanks for the info