Nexus One Rooted, Cyanogen ROM Adds Multi-touch; myTouch 3G & G1 Running Android 2.1

All of these exploits are courtesy of hobbyist hackers who seemingly care more about their smartphones than the carriers that sell them. A few days ago, Cyanogen released his ROM for the newly rooted Nexus One, adding multi-touch to Browser. Although no other application works with multi-touch yet, Cyanogen vows to implement the highly coveted feature to the rest of Android. Also, HTC Magic (myTouch 3G) and Dream (G1) owners might be happy to know that their phones can currently run hacked versions of Android 2.1 thanks to Manup456, whose Eclair ROM installs on the aforementioned models and functions nearly flawlessly.



In case you do not know what “rooting” means, the terms refers to gaining access to the main directory of your smartphone’s ROM memory. When you want to install a ROM onto your phone, you need to root it and “flash” (write over) the ROM memory, but be forewarned because doing so voids your warranty and could result in bricking your device, rendering it completely useless.

Although T-Mobile and Sprint are going to update their HTC phones to 2.1 by the middle of this year, in Canada, Rogers has publicly stated that the Dream (T-Mobile G1) is getting only a Sense UI enhanced version of Android 1.5 because there is supposedly not enough ROM memory on the handheld to allow for even a full 1.6 upgrade. I am skeptical that Rogers cannot trim its applications by a few megabytes when T-Mobile’s exact same phone is moving all the way up to 2.1. Maybe Rogers needs to hire some T-Mobile programmers! In any event, Rogers Dream owners are out of luck.

I am curious as to why Google did not include multi-touch with the Nexus One when the screen is clearly capable of doing it. We can only speculate.

Sources: Cyanogen Nexus One ROM, Manup456 Eclair 2.1 ROM