unrestricting the android market and phone (at&t)

[konradp]

I am trying to figure out some specificities about the android operating system and the new upcoming phones offered from AT&T. In the past months and yet still to come AT&T is bringing 5 new android phones to the market. I am in the market of upgrading my phone because it is slowly starting to die and it is very old. I was looking at switching carriers and going with Sprint so I could get the ?droid x? or the ?htc evo? but because this is NOT possible I have to stay with my current carrier AT&T. So because this is the case I am trying to figure out a solution to getting the Full Android experience that the droid x and the htc evo offer but on another phone, on the AT&T. I am going to probably get the new Samsung Captivate which offers the android 2.1 operating system. However this is not the full android experience on this phone because this phone including all the other new android phones coming out for AT&T are ?LOCKED DOWN? meaning I cannot download any apps that are not on the android market place or apps that are in beta or alpha stage also I cannot download onto the phone any apps that are 3rd party apps.

I am looking for any way to fix the ?Samsung Captivate? phone when I get it so that I can unlock all the features that any other normal android phone usually has available on it (normal android phone meaning like the normal features offered on Sprint?s ?droid x? and so on). I want to be able to unlock the android market on the phone so that I am able to download( apps that are not on the android market like: , apps that are 3rd party apps and apps that are in Beta or Alpha stage).
Is there any way to currently do this?

I have looked into something called ?rooting the phone?, will this do the trick?


If anyone knows anything about this or can help me figure this out please comment,
Thank you
-Kore

 

[88 FLUX]

IIRC, you should still be able to sideload non-market apps using the SDK.

 

[konradp]

im sorry but i am a little new to this, IIRC?

and i am not sure how you are saying i should be able to load the apps anyways.

 

[jdbower]

You can "jailbreak" an Android phone from the menus, no need to root it to load out-of-market apps if that's your pleasure

Most of the "locked down" aspect is rooting and loading new operating systems.

 

[konradp]

but at&t has locked it down so u cant download ALL the apps available to android, only the ones put on the marketplace and also which are not in alpha or beta stage.

your saying its as easy as just 1,2,3 and within the menus i can jailbreak it? and get access to all the other apps. seems a lilttle simple to me. I dont think at&t would make it that easy on us hackers.


BTW: my last phone hacking experience was hacking my old iphone 2g.

 

[jdbower]

Can't speak to AT&T specifically, but on Verizon it's just a menu option to allow non-Google-"approved" apps. (I use quotes because Google doesn't so much approve the apps as they remove ones that are shown to be malware). I haven't heard that AT&T is able to remove alternate marketplaces, but they also may be more interested in keeping the iPhone unique.

 

[konradp]

lets say i get the phone and the u cannot un-restrict it from the menus, do u think I could root the phone and put a new os on it like android 2.2 and this would do the trick of allowing access to the rest of the apps?

 

[FuManChuu]

Yes, phones like the Captivate are locked down, and don't have the 3rd party app selection that users are mentioning. You can either 1. sideload apps via the Android SDK, or 2. wait for some of the brainiacs at XDA to unlock it

 

[jdbower]

^^^ That stinks, and people think Verizon is bad! Thanks for the correction.

 

[konradp]

is sideloading apps though the sdk difficult, or is it pretty straight forward

 

[FuManChuu]

It will require a tad bit of reading, especially if you are uncomfortable with basic command line usage, but Google is your friend, and I'm sure there are some rookfriendly guides out there.

Also, those interested in a non-SDK solution should check here: http://forum.androidcentral.com/and...ftware-tester-ac-sideload-wonder-machine.html