if you aren’t up on the developer and rom gossip, then you may have missed all of the drama between the sholes team which eventually led to the take down of the SMUpdater and all sholes roms.  and why do we really care?  well the sholes rom gave even novice users the chance to root their phone and install a custom rom without much of the risk and confusion.  in fact, it made the entire process automatic and even allowed you to get back to stock with a simple one button press.

well after the breakup, a new team was established and nicely titled as droidmod.org.  there first release is out (droidmod 1.0) and allows the same user experience as previous sholes versions sans smoked glass.  with a few simple clicks you can get to a completely rooted droid which includes…wait for it…live wallpapers on 2.0.1.  other goodies include a multi-touch browser and gallery, 2.1 music player, genie news and weather widget, 2.1 clock, voice-to-text, and the opportunity to overclock.

*warning* – if you are willing to take the risk of voiding your warranty and possibly causing permanent damage to your phone you can download droidmod 1.0 here.  (alt download)

update 2/22:  we put together all of the questions from the comments on this post and ran a separate question and answer session here.

check out droidmod 1.0 in action…

update 2/21:  live wallpapers work perfectly with touch using the 2.1 launcher.

video with live wallpapers fully functioning…

yesterday, developer pete released what he was calling the leaked android 2.1 ota update for the motorola droid. he was apparently able to install it, but unable to reproduce that action for anyone else. many questioned whether or not it was true and now we’ve got word from motorola that this is indeed not the version will be receiving “soon.”

motorola forums manager matt on the leak:

…why not wait and see what actually comes out before selling? None of these posted videos is the real deal.

I have posted on a couple of threads that the video from Pete is not the real deal — that’s a fact. He’s just stirring the pot. I am reasonably certain that no one has the Motorola update for the Droid outside of the company. (Of course, Boy Genius seems to know everything so I guess you can never be sure…)

pete’s video of 2.1 in action…

really, this just raises questions as to what version and what features we will actually be receiving.  many have speculated that motorola and verizon pushed back their release date after receiving quite the backlash when users realized the droid’s 2.1 would not include the 3d launcher and 5 homescreens.

stay tuned…

this is one of those questions we get quite a bit actually. “hey droid life! how the heck do we sync facebook with our contact list?!? only some of them will show up!” and obviously this is a good question as the facebook sync is pretty much the most wishy-washy thing on the planet. (did facebook forget about android? i’d say so.)

fortunately for us this process is pretty simple.  and here we go…

1. open up facebook and go into your “friends.”
2. find the friend that you want sync’d.
3. tap on their picture and choose the “contacts” icon.
4. tap your options button and select “edit contact.”
5. tap options button again and select “join.”
6. if the correct contact is not suggested, tap “show all contacts.”
7. choose the contact you want and select “done.”
8. bam, that’s it!

as always, let me know if you run into any issues with that.

google just released their “shopper” app to give you another way to shop for DVDs, video games, CDs and books using their cover art.  shopper also gives you the ability to scan barcodes, use voice search, or just do a manual search if the cover art option isn’t working.

my first impression is sort of the same impression i got from google goggles which wasn’t necessarily a good one.  maybe if you are a big time shopper and have found some success using barcode scanners in the past then this may be your go to app. let me know what you think!

video action…

download…

just after we broke the news of the droid eris receiving the 2.1 update earlier in the week, we’ve got new news which may have our droids running 2.1 very soon.  developer pete, who is one of the masterminds behind the bugless beast rom has leaked what he is claiming as the android 2.1 update that was supposed to have been released to all of us last week.  he has also added in video of his droid working flawlessly, but as you’ll notice, without the 3d app drawer and without 5 screens.

the file which is not installable and is really only useful to developers at this time is available, but please don’t ask me for instructions on how to get it working. 

file:  system.rar

if you extract the contents of the file you’ll notice a few things:

• Gallery3D
• Genie Widget
• Google Goggles

update 2/19 12:18pm:  build info (thanks @silverton)…

build properties
# autogenerated by buildinfo.sh
ro.build.version.release=2.1-update1
ro.build.date=Fri Jan 29 12:50:49 PST 2010
ro.build.date.utc=1264798249
ro.build.user=android-build
ro.build.host=apa2.mtv.corp.google.com
ro.product.model=Droid
ro.product.brand=verizon
ro.product.manufacturer=Motorola
ro.product.locale.language=en
ro.product.locale.region=US

(via alldroid and android overdrive)

big thanks to coffee and the other half dozen readers who sent this over!

a few weeks ago we covered the release of the verizon fios app for the motorola droid and today they came out with some video of it including all of its nifty features.  with this app you’ll be able change channels by using your droid as a remote, sync pictures to your tv as a slideshow, set up favorite channels for quick surfing, and even mute your tv if you receive a call.  purely awesome.  well if you have fios that is…

news broke yesterday that htc would be releasing android 2.1 to a bunch of their phones with one being the droid eris.  this was good news to eris users as they had never really heard a firm confirmation on what os update they would eventually be receiving.  so “yay!” to that!

and then we received this comment this morning…

john,  February 17, 2010 9:15 AM 
My IT guy recieved an update on his Eris today that seems to be 2.1 It did not go well either. It wiped all content including apps on his phone. Why are they send the eris updates before us? I google it and have not seen any other chatter about this.

update 10:15am:  another comment through the cnet link up top refers to the same update with the same results as our secret commenter including no sense ui?  huh?

by ririboy February 17, 2010 7:21 AM PST
Actually I got the update this morning. It took quite a lot of of time. It includes Android 2.1 but not the Sense UI update. The new UI is much more responsive, however be careful, it will simply erase all your data on the phone. With no warning… You’ll have to run the setup wizard again, which is really a shame.

update 3:09pm:  we’ve got photo confirmation of the droid eris update to 2.1.  what. the. hell. (via androidforums.com)

update 4:04pm:  one of our sources has confirmed a call from a motorola droid user who received an ota update to 2.1, but came across issues while attempting to install it.  after 2 attempts at the update, they were still on 2.0.1.

update 6:34pm:  our original source returns…

John,  February 17, 2010 6:34 PM 
I posted the first comment about the eris with 2.1 and my IT guy. Well one thing he said was it did add the car home feature with turn by turn directions with the update. I have not seen it myself but that is what he emailed me this afternoon. Sorry for the poor grammar in my first post. I was typing from my phone.

it’s now sounding more and more like eris users truly are receiving some sort of an update to 2.1.  some are reporting that sense ui is missing while others apparently still have it.  and now after our source has confirmed an update request from a droid user, we have to wonder what verizon has done this time.  this is shaping up to be a huge disaster for htc, motorola and verizon.