Android smartphone users looking for more control over their devices have been rooting their phones and using software like SetCPU to manually adjust the processor speed for years. But now that dual, and even quad-core phones are becoming the norm, there’s another way to speed up your phone or adjust performance to improve battery life: decide how many processor cores should run at a given… Read more »

The HTC One X is one of the hottest smartphones around. It has a large 4.7 inch, 1280 x 720 pixel display, a fast processor, and a high capacity battery. It also uses the latest version of HTC’s Sense software, which blends in with Google Android 4.0′s default look and feel much better than earlier versions of Sense. Unfortunately while HTC offers official tools that… Read more »

Rooting an Android phone or jailbreaking an iOS device allows you to access system files and settings, run apps that wouldn’t otherwise work, and make big changes to the way your device works. That’s exactly why some people want to root their devices — but it’s also why rooting can actually make your device more vulnerable to security threats. If your phone isn’t rooted, then a… Read more »

There’s no shortage of places to download apps for Google Android devices. But a new app store called FirePlace Market takes a different approach than most by focusing on apps for people that have rooted their phones or tablets. There are only a handful of apps available from Fireplace Market right now, but they include popular apps that require root access such as Titanium Backup… Read more »

As promised, Koushik Dutta has released the first touchscreen-friendly version of his popular ClockworkMod Recovery utility. A public beta is available for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus or Samsung Nexus S smartphones. Update: Touch Recovery is now available for a number of additional phones. The custom recovery app allows you to backup or restore your device, wipe data, or flash (install) custom software. Eventually it will… Read more »

Android developer Koushik Dutta has proposed the creation of a CyanogenMod App Store. It would sort of be like Cydia for Android: a place where users can download apps for rooted Android devices or apps that simply aren’t allowed in the Google Android Market for one reason or another. Google’s official app store isn’t nearly as restrictive as Apple’s, but apps are regularly pulled from… Read more »

While jailbreaking iOS is the only way to install apps that aren’t available from the official App Store, Google Android is a bit more open. Most phones and tablets running Android let you install apps from “unknown sources” simply by checking a box. But if you want to access settings and files that are normally hidden from users, you’ll need to root your device. Unfortunately,… Read more »

The folks at Swype released a new version of their popular keyboard app for Android last week. It added support for gesture-based shortcuts to copy, cut, or paste text, select all text, create a message in Twitter, or even launch Google Maps using the keyboard. But there’s a catch: the latest version of Swype only officially supports the Google Nexus S 4G smartphone. The good… Read more »

One of the most annoying things about using a computer to read data on your Android phone or tablet’s SD card is that in order to mount the card on your computer you have to unmount it from your mobile device. In other words, you can’t copy music, movies, or photos to your phone using a USB cable without temporarily losing the ability to access… Read more »

Netflix finally released an Android app yesterday allowing subscribers to stream thousands of movies and TV shows to their mobile devices. The bad news is that for now only 5 phones are officially supported. The good news? If you have a rooted Android device it’s not that hard to trick the Netflix app into working on your phone. Bear in mind, there’s a reason Netflix… Read more »