ROM Flashing Update, MMS MOD

[shansmi]

Hi All,

After seeing the trials and tribulations of many here at AC with the GS II, I decided to write up my experience. After getting this device I waited for a bit to root it and flash a custom ROM. At first I used the methods easily found but was worried bout the counter and implications of it being non-zero down the road. After getting comfortable with all the ROMs and flashing this device, I stopped looking at it after it was 5+. I ordered a jig and used the one click ROM to get back to stock. Once I cleared the counter, I flashed and rooted the device using this method:

Credit to the author!!

[Guide] How to Flash Custom Binaries Without Ever Incrementing the Flash Counter!! - xda-developers

No yellow triangle and no custom ROM counter increment!!!

Now on to the ROMs. I have flashed CM7, unnamed, h8s2, Perception and Cognition. I must say they all are great but unnamed meets my needs the best. That was actually the one I flashed first and kept coming back to.

Now for me the few things I needed were a good calendar widget and a bookmarks widget. For the calendar, many wondered why the month view was not included. I have a good idea why now. I found the APK in a ROM and pushed it into unnamed. I suspect why it was not included is because it is not scrollable. This is not a limitation of the widget but of Samsung's TouchWiz. At the bottom of this widget is room enough for one "today" type calendar entry. You cannot scroll to future events so if you have an "all day" type event like a birthday, that is all you will see. As for bookmarks, the ones in the market may not work for the same reason - no scrolling. The "Android Pro Widgets" application deals with this by having a touch area to invoke a scroll bar. After invoked, you can scroll. Some pics are included at the end.

Now on to MMS. MMS seems to have a bug that makes a pic appear as a slideshow in MMS. In the unnamed thread on XDA, it was recommended to push the MMS.APK from CM7. I was unable to do this but I did cheat and get it working. I pulled the MMS.APK from the latest CM7 on XDA and added it to the ZIP file of the "14Toggle Mod with transparency" MOD ZIP file and flashed it. It worked but the Messaging app did get deleted from the tray. I had to go into the app drawer, hit menu then edit and add it back in. I then tested MMS with a video and pic - walla!!! Pics now show up as pics and videos as videos!!


Speed tests vary with TOD (RNC load) and what servers you are using as well as what application you are using for the test. I have had the best luck with SpeedTest and the Atlanta GA servers. The pic below shows the low side of what I typically see. I have seen (and posted a pic of it in other threads) DL speeds hitting over 14Mbps...


More Credits go to the authors of all these!!!!!

unnamed:
[ROM] UnNamed v1.0.4 - (10/21/2011) - xda-developers

CM7:
[NIGHTLY][ROM][2.3.7][GWK74] CyanogenMod 7 for AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II - xda-developers

14 panel MOD:
[MOD] 14 toggle quick panel 10/16/2011 - xda-developers

The Jig:
Samsung Galaxy S Download Mode JIG - MobileTechVideos.COM

You can see everything in the pics... my ~50 installed apps, all my homescreens, the app drawer screens, the root dir where the ROM and MODs I flashed are located, a decent speed test and pics of my MMS testing.

Note I also used Titanium Backup to Freeze 3 applications: AccuWeather, AP Mobile and Featured Apps.

Enjoy!!

 

[sepherous]

ah saw your post on my thread, looks awesome but i'm new to android (came over from webOS) and not exactly sure of the full implications of "flashing" using roms and all that stuff as opposed to the homebrew stuff we did on webOS which was mainly easy on and easy off with no bad down the road issues. I'm super jelly that you got the mms bug fixed -.- anyway looks great tho! and thanks for the response.

 

[shansmi]

ah saw your post on my thread, looks awesome but i'm new to android (came over from webOS) and not exactly sure of the full implications of "flashing" using roms and all that stuff as opposed to the homebrew stuff we did on webOS which was mainly easy on and easy off with no bad down the road issues. I'm super jelly that you got the mms bug fixed -.- anyway looks great tho! and thanks for the response.

The implactions are simple. The warranty is void. That said if you get the one click installer you can go back to stock in a matter of minutes. At that point the only worry is the custom ROM counter. Again the implactions are the same - a void warranty (if they check it). The Jig will correct that easily if on the stock bootloader. If you flash to any custom ROM out there the bootloader is not changed that I have seen hwoever if you flash to the one click leak, it is changed. Flash back via the KH7 one click installer and the bootloader gets rolled back as well.

If you have tweaked other platforms, you will be ok. Just be sure to read all the install instructions by each author of any ROM and you will be fine. XDA is an excellent resource to get ROMs and they are very good at documenting their ROMs.

Your welcome!

 

[netarc]

After getting comfortable with all the ROMs and flashing this device, I stopped looking at it after it was 5+. I ordered a jig and used the one click ROM to get back to stock. Once I cleared the counter, I flashed and rooted the device using this method:

Credit to the author!!

[Guide] How to Flash Custom Binaries Without Ever Incrementing the Flash Counter!! - xda-developers

No yellow triangle and no custom ROM counter increment!!!

I thought the way the hardware "jig" worked was that it immediately reset the flash counter back to 0 upon insertion & boot? Is that not the case, do you have to actually reflash the phone w/a custom ROM with the jig inserted?

Now on to the ROMs. I have flashed CM7, unnamed, h8s2, Perception and Cognition. I must say they all are great but unnamed meets my needs the best. That was actually the one I flashed first and kept coming back to.

Did you find that most (or all?) of the Samsung TouchWiz enhancements continued to work w/the custom ROMs? e.g., the task manager widget, two finger accelerometer-based zoom & page pan, other widgets, etc?

Now on to MMS. MMS seems to have a bug that makes a pic appear as a slideshow in MMS. In the unnamed thread on XDA, it was recommended to push the MMS.APK from CM7. I was unable to do this but I did cheat and get it working. I pulled the MMS.APK from the latest CM7 on XDA and added it to the ZIP file of the "14Toggle Mod with transparency" MOD ZIP file and flashed it. It worked but the Messaging app did get deleted from the tray. I had to go into the app drawer, hit menu then edit and add it back in. I then tested MMS with a video and pic - walla!!! Pics now show up as pics and videos as videos!!

What about contacts ... the same bug seems to affect contacts, if someone MMS' a contact to you, it can only be saved as a VCF, as opposed to being imported directly into your address book. OTOH, if a GS2 user texts a contact to an iPhone user, the iPhone can import directly into addy book.

 

[netarc]

oh, finally - when you flashed ROMs, did you lose any/all of your phone settings, apps, and/or application data?