Android Blogging Network

And the big news is multitouch. It works in the browser and some demo apps, (It is a little laggy because the browser reflows the page at each stage of zooming.) Read on for the release announcement and images.

(Update: Now with changelogs and build environments.)

From the original announcement:

This version contains… *drumroll* multi-touch support! Thanks to lukehutch, zinx and ryebrye, this build allows android applications to receive multi-touch events. The built-in browser now supports multi-touch zooming! It also includes an “Auto-Rotate” setting that you can enable, to allow it to change screen orientation, based on the orientation of the phone. You can turn on auto-rotate in the browser settings (it’s off by default).

See lukehutch’s blog post for more information about the new multi-touch support, as well as a few other demo multi-touch apps he created that you can try out after installing JFv1.4. He also mentions a few issues that are present in browser, that you might run into while playing with zoom.

Other changes of note for JFv1.41 include:

• a console in recovery mode. You can press alt+x to exit out of the recovery program and go directly to a console.
• the ADP1 build is now based on the ADP1.1 firmware. See this thread for information about the changes in ADP1.1
• the ADP1 build now includes .odex files for all of the system apks and jars. This means that you will have more space available in /data for all of your apps and caches, although less space available in /system
• busybox’s vi should now save files correctly, instead of saving them as blank files

One thing that I would like to point out about the ADP1.1 build is that it allows you to skip the initial google registration. This will make registering over wifi painless. You just click the “skip registration” button in the registration app, enable wifi in settings, then open the registration app again by trying to access one of the google apps (gmail, market, etc.), and then you can register over wifi.

In the console in recovery mode, there are a number of “special keys” that you should be aware of:

ctrl            search

caps lock        menu (on the keyboard)

arrow keys        call + w,a,s,d

change virtual console    call + 1,2,3...0

scroll console        home + w,s

page up            menu (above the trackball) + w

page down        menu (above the trackball) + s

home            menu (above the trackball) + a

end            menu (above the trackball) + d

escape            back

reboot            menu (above the trackball) + search + backspace

Also, you can type “reboot” to reboot, and type “recovery” to go back into the recovery program.

JFv1.41 can be installed in the usual way. Save the zip file to your sdcard named update.zip, boot into recovery mode (home + power), and then press alt+s. If you are switch between versions, e.g. from RC30 to ADP1, you must also do a wipe in recovery mode (alt+w). This will clear all your data/settings/apps, and you will have to re-register once it boots back up. If you are staying on the same build, i.e. from JFv1.31 RC30 to JFv1.41 RC30, then you shouldn’t have to do a wipe.

NOTE: If you are on the stock ADP1 image, you will need to upgrade to JFv1.31, then boot normally at least once, before upgrading to JFv1.41, to keep from having to perform a wipe. If you try to go from stock ADP1 -> JFv1.41 directly, you will have to do a wipe.

NOTE: If you end up with 2 Superuser whitelist apps in the app menu, you can uninstall one of them in Settings->Applications->Manage Applications. There will only be 1 that is uninstallable, so don’t worry about uninstalling the wrong one.

Note: To install these updates, you need to have a recovery image that uses test keys. If any of the following are true, you most likely have a recovery image that uses test keys

• you have installed my modified recovery image in the past
• you have an ADP1
• you currently have one of my modified firmwares installed

If this is your first time installing one of my firmwares, you may be interested in the other changes that have been made in previous versions, which are included in this version. Some of the notable features include:

• Many more commands are available to use on the terminal. busybox is included, to provide standard commands like cp, grep, less, more, vi, sed, cp.. etc.
• A secure way to get root access, through Koush’s superuser application. To get root, open up terminal emulator and type su. A new window will open asking if you want to allow root access. Click “Yes” or “Always”, and it will go back to the terminal emulator, and you’ll have root access
• A number of useful kernel modules that you can use. For example, ext2, cifs, and a host of others
• A full phone backup utility. Boot into recovery mode with home+power, and then press alt+b to perform a backup. It stores the backup as .img files in a subfolder of the nandroid folder of your sdcard. To restore the backup, you have to have the engineering spl or hardspl installed, and then flash the images with the fastboot utility
• ota updates are disabled. This is to prevent t-mobile from automatically updating your phone with a new update that removes your root access.
• some applications that are missing on RC8 (the uk version) have been added. For example, the voice dialer and the amazon mp3 store.
• when you connect to the phone using adb, you have root access

I’ve attached a full changelog for each version to this post

Changelogs:

Build Environments: