[black]

So I read the article http://www.androidcentral.com/what-rooting and still have a few Desire specific questions and some really dumb/newbie questions:

1. Would rooting my Desire mean I could have an application like the visual voicemail app that the HTC Evo uses? (This is my main question. I really want this app)
2. Is rooting similar to hybrid OS's that BlackBerry's use, or is it actually releasing user permissions behind the scenes?
3. In other words, would my 2.2 OS run the same and just allow me things that I asked permission for?
4. Is it like going from XP to Windows 7, or running an application from Mac on a Windows platform?

Thanks for the help. I apologize in advance for the headache and dead horse beating!

[NoSpin]

Rooting isn't changing the phone software, it's giving you "superuser" access. Without superuser access the phone protects you from going in and screwing it up royally. As a superuser those protections are gone and you are given total access, allowing the flashing of custom roms, overclocking your cpu etc... If you don't know what you're doing, it also gives you the ability to turn it into a very expensive paperweight. So be careful.

As for visual voicemail (if your carrier supports it), if it is just a .apk you should be able to get it on your device without rooting, but I need some Desire users input on this.

[chrisl#AC]

1. Would rooting my Desire mean I could have an application like the visual voicemail app that the HTC Evo uses? (This is my main question. I really want this app)

My carrier doesn't support visual voicemail so I use HulloMail on my Desire. As well as having an app, it saves voicemails in your Gmail account so you can keep them forever. Not available in Canada unfortunately.