Got your shiny new Samsung Galaxy Nexus yet? Nope, didn't think so. But when you do, you'll be pleased to hear that MoDaCo's Paul O'Brien has already got a root solution ready and waiting for you. Paul's "Superboot" program installs a specialized boot image to the Galaxy Nexus, which automatically roots it at startup, meaning you don't have to worry about mucking around with your paritions to gain full control over your phone.
So if you're a Google engineer, a carrier tester or a visitor from around fourteen days in the future, then be sure to hit up the source link for further instructions.
Source: MoDaCo
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I just want this phone already!
Hell yeah... Can't wait!!!
L.O.L.
If I dont know this answer I probably shouldn't be worrying about it anyways, but why do you need to root a NEXUS phone?
Custom roms.
If your current phone is also rooted, you'd also be able to transfer over all the data from the apps using Titanium Backup without having to start from scratch. Also Wifi tether.
Wish I could say that I have used this already, :(
14 days from the future huh. Are you betting on the 17th as well?
I think clarification should be made as to whether it is unlocking the bootloader(which is probably what it is doing, since it loads a new boot image), or applying superuser to the system. Rooting means different things to different folks.
Unlocking the bootloader allows an individual to flash a custom recovery and subsequently custom Roms. These custom Roms may or may not have super user installed. But then again the custom recovery can do this for you too.
Unlocking the bootloader on a nexus requires no hackery, it's simply fastboot oem unlock. This is most likely adding root and super user files.
Edit:
From source,
" Superboot is a boot.img that when booted, will root your device the first time you boot (installing su and the superuser APK)."
That's what I was getting at, concerning the bootloader unlock statement. It boots a special image and installs superuser, and apparently not touching the recovery. Which means after rebooting the phone, it is the same os, except that it now has superuser privileges.
I had not read the source article when first replying.
Wait, this phone isn't even out yet, right?
"Got your shiny new Samsung Galaxy Nexus yet? Nope, didn't think so."
MoDaCo devs actually *are* from 14 days in the future.
Cannot wait, I'll be dumping my Thunderbolt for this device.
Still no word on a Sprint release date?
Nope. The pentaband phone does nto have Wimax/4G. It does have LTE and the 4G "flavors" offered by Verizon, ATT and TMobile.
Nope... Verizon will have for a little while before it goes to Sprint.
lol considering its a nexus, i'm not surprised it got rooted that fast
I've never owned a nexus but I thought the whole point was that it already had superuser permissions open and an unlocked bootloader.
Nope... the whole point is that it has vanilla android as Google delivers it, Nexus phones are also privileged to faster updates.
Well I knew that much but seems silly to release a dev phone without all this already done since it has to be done for development on Roms and the like.
The phone is privileged to an "open" boot loader, meaning that no real masterminding needs tho be done to unlock it. Being a "dev" phone does not institute that root be available out of box. App development, for example, does not generally require root access, but of course there are exceptions.
Anyone can buy this phone. My mom has the nexus s. If it had root access out of the box and she was looking for a file manager and stumbled on root explorer, then accidentally deleted or moved system files/apps. Whos fault would that be? Phones cannot have root access to the common end user. Its safer that way for all of us.
Waiting on the GSM version to hit in the States to stick on a $30/monthly4G plan on T-Mo from my Evo4G.
Just going out on a limb here, but I would imagine a Google engineer would already have been capable of gaining full control over their phone before this program. ;)
But yeah, great to see its already this easy, essentially one-click. Backing up, unlocking the bootloader, and flashing a pre-rooted ROM image scares alot of new users away.
Do you know how stupid this "news" is?
Do you also happen to know who Paul O'Brien is?
He is the guy who made visionary - the app that has 50% bricked OTA (1.22) G2 phones.
He never admitted the brick rate, never released the visionary source.
People were stuck with their bricked devices for months, until HTC leaked a gingerbread RUU that could reflash said bricks and bring them back to life.
Phil, please be careful what you allow to be posted on your site.