Well that was distressing.
Rooting was easy. The details are lost in the hazy mists of romming, but I recall rooting took, like, five minutes. But then I flashed a rom. Cyanogen 7, to be exact. And that was fine too. It's a nice rom. Android 2.3 is an improvement on 2.2. And there's a lot of nice bits and pieces in Cyanogen 7 too. It'll be a shame to see them go, should I make my way back to a stock rom. Which might not be as easy as I thought it would be. Ladies and Gentlemen, do a nandroid backup before you flash a rom. Yes. Do. If you root, like I did, using the unrevoked method, the nandroid backup option is right there, in little tiny green letters, on the recovery screen, right next to the flash a rom option.
I forgot to do a nandroid backup. Because I did a Titanium Backup and a Mybackup backup, I forgot. But the nandroid backup backups... everything. Those others back up your data and apps. Nandroid backs up everything. You can go back to what you had before if you have a nandroid backup. I haven't. I'm going to have to learn to live with Cyanogen. (There's
stock roms out there if you ever do want to go back but can't. I may use one.)
See, two issues, core issues I find: one, SMS, and two, keyboards.
Seriously, talk bubbles in SMS conversations? What do people developing Android do all day? Almost every popular SMS app uses talk bubbles. I've never liked them. I have long liked the HTC stock app. Cyanogen doesn't use the stock app. It doesn't use talk bubbles either. But it does have a few tiresome, and unalterable, settings, like contact pictures, and shades of blue. I want the stock app back. And the stock keyboard. Which is to say, the stock phone keypad keyboard, the one with nine large keys that works like a feature phone keypad. Who uses qwerty? Only Blackberrys use qwerty. typing on a touch screen is hard enough with big fat keys, and it's damn near impossible with itty bitty qwerty keys YOU CAN'T FEEL!! Cyanogen has a stock qwerty.
It's not so bad. I just didn't want to spend nearly 36 hours learning way more about Android than I ever wanted AND still not succeeding in replacing the messaging ap (MMS.apk) and the keyboard (HTC_IME.apk). I've settled on GoSMS as my SMS app, which approximates the list format of the stock app; and installed a HTC_IME_mod that, basically, is an earlier, slightly more clunkily laid out cell phone keypad keyboard.
The rom modding world is not yet out of the geek phase. You can screw around with your computers and your laptops all you like, because usually you can know what you're getting before you get it, and you can mix and match. Phone romming is still geektown: you have to know what you're getting before you get it.
Late last night peering hopelessly at a cell phone that now wasn't what I wanted, I was a little bit hoping to brick the thing and have a reason to buy a new Desire S instead. But it didn't happen. I still have a phone.
Ai.
Now for some actual school classwork preparation.