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Business News/ News / Business Of Life/  Upgrade your mobile phone without hurting the wallet
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Upgrade your mobile phone without hurting the wallet

Get under the hood of your mobile phone to improve its performance, customize it and squeeze more juice from your investment

(From left) Siddhesh Mhatre rooted his Samsung Galaxy SII (GT-I9100), Photo: Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint; and Aradh Anil has been rooting phones since 2009, Photo: Vivek Nair/MintPremium
(From left) Siddhesh Mhatre rooted his Samsung Galaxy SII (GT-I9100), Photo: Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint; and Aradh Anil has been rooting phones since 2009, Photo: Vivek Nair/Mint

OTHERS :

A Bangalore-based friend, who runs a bunch of home-stays, just rooted his phone. Not everyone roots their phone. In fact, chances are nine out of 10 people will not want to know why he rooted his phone. Come to think of it, they may not even know what rooting is.

To the question about why he rooted his phone, the response was simple: “Kidaa. I did it because it could be done." But once the phone was rooted, it could perform more tricks than the original manufacturer intended. He could customize it. He could block ads in apps (admit it, you want that ability). Turn his phone into a Wi-Fi hot spot for other devices. Extend its battery life. Or do completely nerdy things like flash a custom kernel (the kernel is the connection between the hardware and software of the phone; changing it or flashing can enhance the phone’s performance) for extra features and impress the neighbourhood. Rooting is, in effect, a way to hack into your phone and soup it up. With a little effort you too can do it, without a degree in computer sciences and without being able to recognize a line of code in C++ even if it came and shook hands with you.

The term “rooting" is used mostly for Android-based phones. For iPhones, the popular term is “jailbreak". For Windows phones, the term is plain and simple “unlock". They all mean the same thing. It is a little like gaining administrative rights to your computer: You get under the hood of your device—in this case the mobile phone—and do “stuff". The next thing you know, your phone behaves like it is on a fistful of steroids and other performance-enhancing substances. Only, this is 100% legal.

Don’t forget to back up your phone data before rooting
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Don’t forget to back up your phone data before rooting

Rooting lets people install apps that may otherwise be incompatible with their factory-fitted systems; it lets them enhance audio performance by adding equalizers; automatically switch on the music player when headphones are plugged in; create custom responses to gestures (for example, tilt the phone sideways and then shake it to launch the camera); automatically switch on the GPS when Google Maps is launched for navigation. There are innumerable ways in which you can gain access to your phone’s true capabilities and enhance them.

Siddhesh Mhatre, a Mumbai-based assistant manager with telecom service provider Vodafone India Services Pvt. Ltd, says he heard that Samsung had stopped development for his two-and-a-half-year-old Samsung Galaxy SII (GT-I9100). This meant he would have to upgrade the device, even though its hardware was capable of much more. Since the phone was anyway outside the warranty period, Mhatre decided to root it. “I had no clue on how to or what to do, so I started with some Web searches and YouTube videos about rooting specific to my phone model," he says.

That’s the first lesson in case you want to root your device: Look for techniques and steps that are specific to your phone model. “All it needed was some patience, careful planning and following the instructions so nothing went wrong," says Mhatre. “The rooting procedure wasn’t very difficult or time-consuming. All I needed was a reliable power supply for the computer and a fully-charged phone battery, software on the computer to recognize the phone on a USB port and the customization package to be installed on the phone." But, of course, he was cautious. He backed up his phone data and figured out ways to un-root the phone, just in case things went wrong. “To my surprise, it was rather easy and the phone was rooted."

There is always the chance of things going wrong. When this happens, your phone can be “bricked"—the term used to indicate that you goofed and rendered the phone useless. A bricked phone usually has to be junked, but not always. Mhatre admits he bricked his phone a couple of times. But because he had familiarized himself with the un-root process, he didn’t need to junk it.

The end result has been satisfying for Mhatre. He says he can now control how his phone performs. He can change the browser. He can remove unwanted graphics and unnecessarily complicated menus. He can put some brakes on or release processor speed to change his experience. “In short, I get to use my device in the way I want it rather than being forced to use it in the way the manufacturer wants me to," says Mhatre.

The point isn’t how to go about rooting, jailbreaking or unlocking your phone. The point is that you can do it and it is simple. Aradh Anil, the young CEO of Thiruvananthapuram-based Simrge Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd, writes mobile applications for a living. For him, rooting phones is child’s play.

As a matter of fact, he rooted his first phone as a teenager. “It was in 2009, I was then 16 and the phone was a HTC G1. The latest phone I own is a (Samsung Galaxy) Note 3, which is rooted as well," says Pillai, 21. Today he helps others root phones via a series of easy-to-follow videos on YouTube (see his GadgetCheck channel or Facebook page at for help on your phone model).

Anil says that rooting is a piece of cake. “Every phone has a separate procedure of rooting. Some phones can be rooted with one line of code while some take 10 or 20 steps." However, he too sounds a word of caution: Rooting always carries a small but inherent risk of an uncertain outcome, so if you are going to do it, don’t forget to back up your phone and ensure you can roll back all the changes in case things begin to go wrong.

Arun Katiyar is a content and communication consultant with a focus on technology companies.

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Published: 25 Feb 2014, 07:01 PM IST
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