Modifying your Android device's system, making DIY custom ROMs for your Windows Phone has just become ridiculously simple and easy.
A developer known as "Heathcliff74" - and it's reasonable to believe that this is not his birth name - has released version 1.0 of Windows Internals which adds an easy-as-child's-play UI to the hairy business of unlocking and rooting a Windows Phone or even a tablet.
The same developer who also released a root tool for Windows Phone 7, which was essentially a different operating system to Windows Phone 8.x. WP Internals and is vastly more ambitious.
A developer known as "Heathcliff74" - and it's reasonable to believe that this is not his birth name - has released version 1.0 of Windows Internals which adds an easy-as-child's-play UI to the hairy business of unlocking and rooting a Windows Phone or even a tablet.
The same developer who also released a root tool for Windows Phone 7, which was essentially a different operating system to Windows Phone 8.x. WP Internals and is vastly more ambitious.
Modders use the ROMs to allow users to tweak and fix the hardware performance and customize the UI, extend memory as well as bundling their own selection of apps. Indeed some things such as full backups, and the ability to firewall Google's data slurping, basically everything extra ordinary, are only possible with a rooted device.
Android has a thriving modding community, with some flavours of ROMs becoming commercialized and its being customizable is definitely a hit in the market as well. Reportedly, Microsoft was close to investing in one "open Android" variant-- the CynaogenMod, earlier this year, although it's believed that it never came to a deal. However then the Qualcomm, Telefónica and Foxconn then piled in.
While Android modding thrived, Windows Phone devices were fairly firmly locked down, even considered as the most secure mobile OS today. However, with Microsoft's tacit approval, it seems, devices that runs on Windows 10 Mobile preview phones were jailbroken and opened up for curious tweakers and being experimented. The bait was the presence of an Android runtime, the fruit of Microsoft's Project Astoria, which boasted that Android binaries would run on Windows 10 devices and this time is without modification.
Currently, Microsoft has removed the Astoria runtime and gone very quiet for awhile. A very practical use for the new tool could be restoring a fully functional Windows Phone 8.1 ROM image to a device that has been upgraded to Windows 10 Mobile. Obviously, unlocking and flashing an unauthorised ROM will void your warranty automatically and, if you're not very careful,it might also brick your phone, so be cautious enough to make things run smoothly.
Android has a thriving modding community, with some flavours of ROMs becoming commercialized and its being customizable is definitely a hit in the market as well. Reportedly, Microsoft was close to investing in one "open Android" variant-- the CynaogenMod, earlier this year, although it's believed that it never came to a deal. However then the Qualcomm, Telefónica and Foxconn then piled in.
While Android modding thrived, Windows Phone devices were fairly firmly locked down, even considered as the most secure mobile OS today. However, with Microsoft's tacit approval, it seems, devices that runs on Windows 10 Mobile preview phones were jailbroken and opened up for curious tweakers and being experimented. The bait was the presence of an Android runtime, the fruit of Microsoft's Project Astoria, which boasted that Android binaries would run on Windows 10 devices and this time is without modification.
Currently, Microsoft has removed the Astoria runtime and gone very quiet for awhile. A very practical use for the new tool could be restoring a fully functional Windows Phone 8.1 ROM image to a device that has been upgraded to Windows 10 Mobile. Obviously, unlocking and flashing an unauthorised ROM will void your warranty automatically and, if you're not very careful,it might also brick your phone, so be cautious enough to make things run smoothly.