Is Removing Touchwiz Possible?

[Dave Felix]

Hey Everyone,

I'm new to Android so I'm learning day by day. I have the Samsung Note 2 with AT&T and wanted to know if there is a way to disable the Touchwiz launcher or whatever its called. I'm using nova launcher and it definitely changes things but I'd like to change the notification bar and a lot of the widgets into it especially that huge green battery.

So as my title states.. is it possible? I used to own an iPhone.. jailbreaking seems much easier than rooting. I have read a few things but haven't tried as I own a Mac.

Any suggestions please?

 

[Dave Felix]

For example, I'd like something as simple as this.

http://makeagif.com/media/3-22-2013/zcyt9_.gif

 

[Tronstar]

From the setting menu. that is some sort of ROM but everything else just looks like vanilla android. Without rooting your device, I don't think there is anyway to remove/disable touch wiz.

 

[Greg C]

From the setting menu. that is some sort of ROM but everything else just looks like vanilla android. Without rooting your device, I don't think there is anyway to remove/disable touch wiz.

Exactly right.

 

[Dave Felix]

Have any of you rooted before? Is it really that difficult especially with a Mac? Kind of tired of the basic Touchwiz features.. I wanted that theme on my second post.

 

[Tronstar]

I have rooted, but not with a mac. I did not find it that difficult. I am fairly computer literate, but not well versed in android. With the proper care and research, it is easy for most people with at least a basic computer knowledge to accomplish.

 

[Dave Felix]

thanks i will try and do this on the weekend.. do some ROMs make your phone camera unusable or flash? I hear of some of the downfalls with installing some roms.

 

[AndroidXavier]

Find a ROM that is compatible to your device and read some reviews first about that ROM before installing it to in device.

 

[HNNNNNGHHH]

TouchWiz is basically Samsung's skinned version of Android, with some other features such as S-Beam (same thing as Android Beam IMO). You really can't uninstall TouchWiz as it is an integral part of the system UI, or to be accurate, it IS the system UI. The only way to attain a stock UI is by flashing an AOSP-based ROM to your handset (remember to make a nandroid backup of your current ROM first!), but you need to have root and a custom recovery such as ClockWorkMod (CWM) or Team Win Recovery Project (TWRP), the .zip containing the ROM, and another .zip containing the google apps for your version of Android (Determined by the version within the ROM). You also need to wipe the cache, wipe data/factory reset the device, as dirty flashes can cause bootloops and soft-bricks in some cases. All this is done with your preferred custom recovery. If you somehow want to return your device, you need to flash the stock TouchWiz ROM with custom recovery and the stock recovery (ODIN) via the odin desktop client.