How to Hack Motorola XOOM Android Tablet to function as a big smartphone

The Project:

The Motorola XOOM is one hell of a tablet. Currently holding the distinction of being the best of the best in the Android-tablet category, the Motorola XOOM offers you a mobile computing experience like no other. A problem belying tablet PCs are their utility. One may wonder why it is necessary to carry a tablet around, when similar functions are available on a mobile phone. Tablet PCs have a major benefit. They offer large screens and better resolution. They are also great for typing-in messages or anything, for that matter.

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Now wouldn't it be good if you could have your phone and the XOOM tablet rolled into one? A hack, with the member name sangreal06 from the xda-developers forum has made it possible to make your mobile phone a XOOM tablet. Using the Google Voice application, the hack has integrated the features of the mobile phone into the tablet. But this invention of sorts is not complete though. The hack will still have to figure out a way to make the microphone and speaker work. This should not be a problem.

Now with your mobile phone cum XOOM tablet, you can now send messages and make calls! All you need is a rooted model version of 3G XOOM.

Difficulty Level:

There's not much difficulty level associated with this method. Any novice user can do it, provided he/she reads and implements the instructions carefully.

Time required:

You don't need to worry too much about it. All it takes is an hour.

Resources required:

Rooted 3G Motorola XOOM tablet

Installations of Android Debug Bridge (adb) and fastboot on your system

Instructions:

So let's get started!

1. Install USB drivers for the XOOM. You can get such USB drivers by searching on the internet.

2. Download the software development kit (SDK) for Android. This SDK will have the adb, and also various other tools. Three main programs that come in the SDK are:

A client application that can be controlled from the command line interface (CLI). You need to use the adb command for this. Make sure you register the adb command in your system variable directory.

Since the SDK is based on a client-server model, a server application will also download with the SDK. The server will work in the background to form a communication link with the client application.

A background program – daemon, that runs on every emulator

Note: The adb tool can be found in tools folder of the downloaded SDK folder.

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3. Now that adb is downloaded, the time's come for downloading fastboot. So what's fastboot? Well, fastboot is a protocol that updates the filesystem on a flashdrive in Android. To use fastboot, the device has to have a bootloader that can kickstart fastboot. Get to the HTC Developer website to download the .exe fastboot file.

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4. Next download the XOOM root ZIP file. This is built with the tegra: stingray kernel.

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5. The ZIP file has to be unzipped. You get to see three files in the ZIP file, which you go to extract. They are namely, rootboot.img, su, and Superuser.apk.

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6. Now you got to restart the whole system. Poweroff your XOOM, but make sure it is connected by way of the USB before doing this. As you lower the volume, also power down the XOOM. Release when you see this message - Starting Fastboot protocol support in the upper left hand corner of the screen.

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7. Run the command line interface, and go to the ''tools'' folder in the Android SDK folder. Once here, type-in fastboot oem unlock in the command line interface

8. This will unlock the device. A message displays warning you about voiding the warranty if you proceeded. You need to hold and press the volume button until you get a Yes. After this, press the volume up to unlock and reboot.

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9. Once the XOOM is up, Go to Settings > Development, and enable USB Debugging

10. From the CLI, type adb reboot bootloader to reboot the device

11. Type fastboot flash boot rootboot.img to flash the boot image

12. Type fastboot reboot to reboot your device

13. After reboot, in the CLI type

adb remount

adb push su /system/bin/

adb shell

ln –s /system/bin/su /system/xbin/su

chmod 4755 /system/bin/su

exit

adb push Superuser.apk /system/app/

14. In the CLI, type adb shell to check if the reboot worked. If it worked, you'll get a # prompt.

So here you go! Mission accomplished!

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Things to watch out for:

Avoid taking any update from Verizon or Motorola in the device

The device's microSD card is non-functional. You need to wait till a firmware release has been made. So your device might not have a backup.