Is it similar to jail breaking? Also if android isn't locked tight like apple, what would be the need to root a device?
I would explain it, but this says it all; and compares rooting to jailbreaking!
Android rooting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From my understanding, jail breaking allows you to get "free apps" which those of us in the Android world like to call side loading. Rooting isn't necessary to do that.
We all root for different reasons. Some of us do it so we can change the battery frequency to get longer life out of it. Some do it so they can remove bloatware from carriers. Others do it for the previous reasons plus we like to customize out phones with ROMs and such.
Typically I would agree, however this article is 100% dead on..... I would read the first two paragraphs as it answers exactly what you asked. But to sum it up, jailbreaking is software level manipulation, where as root with android is hardware and software level manipulation. For example, with Jailbreak you can change your icons, install free apps.. with Root you can manipulate the hardware, i.e. overclock, undervolt, etc. Root is a system wide "admin permissions" if you will.
We all root for different reasons. Some of us do it so we can change the battery frequency to get longer life out of it.
What does this mean? Did you mean that you undervolt or underclock to get better battery life? What is battery frequency?
One thing I want to point out is, unlike jailbreaking, once you root, you no longer can receive the updates. You'd have to reflash the stock..what is it called, OS? and then update that way. Otherwise root and jailbreak is similar, it allows additional access to your device but still leaves everything as it was before you rooted it.
Kind of .... You can still get OTA Updates it just unroots your device.
That's what I meant. I couldn't grasp the right words for some reason.....lolWhat does this mean? Did you mean that you undervolt or underclock to get better battery life? What is battery frequency?