Rooting Your Tablet
You may have a tablet that is capable of running a more advanced version of Android, but is locked into an older version. It’s also possible you may have a tablet locked out of the Android Market, and you wish you weren’t forced to buy apps from a more expensive app store. Alternatively, you may want a pure Android experience instead of the modified version of Android packaged with your tablet. It could just be that you do not like some of the core features of your device and want to try something more advanced. Or, perhaps you just want to test different versions of Android as a developer. If any of these cases describe you, you can hack your own tablet and install a different version of Android.
CAUTION: Rooting your device—modifying the core, or root, files on the device so you can run a different OS on it—can cause your tablet to break and not ever boot up again. This is called bricking a tablet, since it will be as useful as a brick if that happens. With that in mind, there’s a large community of hackers who take their tablet OS into their own hands and install a different version of Android onto their tablet.
The Barnes & Noble Nook Color has been a traditionally rooted device, since it is a low-cost device and does not allow apps to be installed out of the box. The Kindle Fire is scheduled to ship just as this book goes to press, but I feel confident that a rooting community will also develop around the Fire to enable it to install apps outside of the Amazon Market. Other tablets can also be rooted, although there’s less incentive to try this technique on a more expensive device.
The methods for rooting depend on the device and may change as software is updated. For instructions and discussions on rooting Android tablets, visit the following sites:
- Nook Devs (
http://nookdevs.com/): This site is dedicated to hacking the Nook. - Android Central (
http://www.androidcentral.com/root): This site is a root-specific section of Android Central. (Android Central’s chief editor is Phil Nickinson, the technical reviewer for this book.) - XDA Developers (
http://forum.xdA–developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=259 XDA Developers):This siteis a group for Windows and Android enthusiasts.