[jmad328is]

Hi all I'm new to the wp7 homebrew front. I was really involved with the webos homebrew community but came over to wp7 when that died. Anyway i kept hearing about the official jailbreak and today i saw it was live and went ahead and did it. So my question is Now what?

On webos there was a nice place where you could go and get access to all of the homebrew content but i know of nothing like that for wp7. Am i missing something or is there nothing like that yet.

Thanks all

[cj-m]

Not really! I know what you are referring to (I am a HP Touchpad owner/user), homebrew, as we know it from webOS is not at the same level here.

I think that with the upcoming WP device manager and with this chevron labs jailbreak, we might be seeing the start of something but not quite to the same level as webOS. From what i understand from reading these forums, MS has given its blessing to jailbreak/home brew but it seems to still be in its infancy. I stand to correction though on this.

[Dave Blake]

XDA has a lot of apps around but you have to dig deep in there forums to find the good stuff. Our Blog writers have done a great job of trying to keep up with the good stuff. I am adding a link to this thread where you can find our WPC Home brew reviews. basically just put /tags/homebrew after the www.wpcentral.com

http://www.wpcentral.com/tags/homebrew

[silentbob343]

Keep an eye out for nokia drive ;)

[lumic]

If you can get Interop unlocked, Advanced Configuration Tools is really neat. Apart from the custom accent colours, you can force multitasking - this means all your NoDo apps will resume instantly.

[jimski]

Battery Meter and Screenshot via XDA and Folders via Windows Phone Hacker. Check the WPC site as suggested or the Chevron site for links.

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express

[x I'm tc]

Desperately need a "WPware." Preware was so much awesome I don't know if I can live without it. I guess I'll have to try :).

[jmad328is]

Yeah I was kind of hoping for a wpware like solution haha. I think ill check out the interop unlock in the meantime, i would really love to have some different theme colors available.

[pseudoware]

Got my Focus caught up tonight :)

[jim_h]

I'm a Windows (but not WP7) developer trying to get my head around this ChevronWP7 thing. Apparently for $9 I get something that's being called a "developer" unlock that doesn't even let me access the Registry on the device. All it seems to do is let me sideload apps created by other people who have real, complete device access. For this I am going to pay $9?

To get at my Registry it seems I need something called an "interop" unlock, which is not sanctioned by Microsoft and is (maybe) available on some back-channel site somewhere, and which is nowhere clearly explained.

Do I have this right? And if I do, why is this all so incredibibly lame and overcomplicated?

[Coffee]

because it's homebrew. The whole point is that if you care to do it, you'll do the research to accomplish it.

[lekhwani]

.

Do I have this right? And if I do, why is this all so incredibibly lame and overcomplicated?

+1

Sent from my SGH-i917 using Board Express

[jim_h]

because it's homebrew. The whole point is that if you care to do it, you'll do the research to accomplish it.

Oh, so it's supposed to make developers feel cool. Got it. Guess I was thinking the idea was to encourage more apps for WP7.

[FriendOrDafoe]

There are interop unlock tutorials on the xda forums. It takes only a few min and you should be up and running. (Unless you use samsung they seem to have issues with interop unlock)

Enjoy the freedom of your unlocked phone!

[FriendOrDafoe]

Oh, so it's supposed to make developers feel cool. Got it. Guess I was thinking the idea was to encourage more apps for WP7.

LOL well if your not a Dev then I doubt you'll be making any apps then. :-)

J/K but it is really simple once you find what your looking for.



PS: be careful useing registry editors. Its not hard to brick your phone.

[Coffee]

Oh, so it's supposed to make developers feel cool. Got it. Guess I was thinking the idea was to encourage more apps for WP7.

encouraging more apps? you mean like free development environments and free student dev registrations? or do you mean free video series, free tutorials, free Windows Phone conferences held around the world? Or maybe free devices given out to thousands of developers?

not sure what else you want. I guess push-button access to the registry. not really the whole intent of Windows phone anymore.

[thed]

Oh, so it's supposed to make developers feel cool. Got it. Guess I was thinking the idea was to encourage more apps for WP7.

I think it will help to encourage devs who may have been interested but not necessarily enough to pay the $100 a year. That's a significant amount of money for an independent dev who is not sure about the platform. But with Chevron they can just pay the $9 so they can deploy on a dev phone and then if they want to release something they can pay the full amount. I think this can help encourage more apps in the long run.

[jim_h]

I've been writing Windows apps for 15 years so I know about the Registry, thanks.

If I understand this correctly, what ChevronWP7 is calling a "developer unlock" is really just a "sideload unlock". It looks like they cut a nice deal with Microsoft to sell sideloading tickets for $9, effectively creating a sort of off-brand grey market for apps that won't make it to the MS Marketplace.

To really develop anything significant for the phone, yes you need Regedit, full file system access,etc., so you still have to go to XDA (I don't know who or what that is, yet) for an "interop unlock" which apparently is an unsanctioned "developer unlock." Or pay the man $100 a year. MS has a long history of making developers pay to play; it's one reason for their declining market share, because it pushed a lot of guys towards open-source tools.

Of course Microsoft is free to charge whatever they want, and lock up their product however they want. I have a little problem with someone selling what's called a "developer unlock" that is actually no such thing, but hey that's just me.

[thed]

To really develop anything significant for the phone, yes you need Regedit, full file system access,etc.

Are you saying that nothing in the Marketplace is significant?

so you still have to go to XDA (I don't know who or what that is, yet) for an "interop unlock" which apparently is an unsanctioned "developer unlock." Or pay the man $100 a year. MS has a long history of making developers pay to play; it's one reason for their declining market share, because it pushed a lot of guys towards open-source tools..

No, the $100 subscription doesn't give you registry or file system access either. MS never intended devs to access the registry or file system directly. The $9 unlock is identical to the $100 per year subscription. It just doesn't allow you to publish to the Marketplace.

[jim_h]

Are you saying that nothing in the Marketplace is significant?

No, the $100 subscription doesn't give you registry or file system access either. MS never intended devs to access the registry or file system directly. The $9 unlock is identical to the $100 per year subscription. It just doesn't allow you to publish to the Marketplace.

Ok then I am even more confused than I thought. I see, for example, an Advanced Configuration app is available, that modifies the Registry. It requires a "developer unlocked" phone to run. So how can it run? How was it developed, if the developer couldn't touch the Registry on the actual phone?

I could pay $100 a year to MS and still would not get an "interop" unlock?

[thed]

Ok then I am even more confused than I thought. I see, for example, an Advanced Configuration app is available, that modifies the Registry. It requires a "developer unlocked" phone to run. So how can it run? How was it developed, if the developer couldn't touch the Registry on the actual phone?

I could pay $100 a year to MS and still would not get an "interop" unlock?

You're right, the Advanced Configuration tool does modify the registry. But it requires more than a dev unlock. It requires the phone to be interop-unlocked to install properly. To interop-unlock your phone, you have to modify a value in the registry.

So basically, to interop-unlock your phone you have to have access to the registry. But to get access to the registry, your phone has to be interop-unlocked. It's kind of a conundrum. There are ways to do it but there is a bit of hackery involved.

The Advanced Configuration tool is not and never will be in the Marketplace, because MS does not officially support apps that modify the registry directly. That's why the $100 developer unlock does not interop-unlock your phone, because MS will not publish any apps that need it anyway.

This thread has a good explanation of things:
[GUIDE] INTEROP-UNLOCK for MANGO - No revert to NoDo - No 0x81030120 (Samsung/LG) - xda-developers

[jim_h]

thed, thanks for all that info. I knew that Advanced Configuration wasn't in the marketplace, because it needs a developer unlock. And what I've now learned is that a "developer unlock" isn't what I'd call a developer unlock. :-)

I guess I started out on the wrong track - I saw the blog post on wpcentral announcing the ChevronWP7 "developer unlock" and thought that the door was now open to things like the Registry and the file system. The funny thing is, all I actually wanted to do was tweak my accent colors. And I see you still have to jump through crazy hoops to do that.

This is sort of OT but if you're writing an app the officially-sanctioned MS way, and you can't access the Registry or the file system, where do you put your persistent data?

[thed]

thed, thanks for all that info. I knew that Advanced Configuration wasn't in the marketplace, because it needs a developer unlock. And what I've now learned is that a "developer unlock" isn't what I'd call a developer unlock. :-)

I guess I started out on the wrong track - I saw the blog post on wpcentral announcing the ChevronWP7 "developer unlock" and thought that the door was now open to things like the Registry and the file system. The funny thing is, all I actually wanted to do was tweak my accent colors. And I see you still have to jump through crazy hoops to do that.

This is sort of OT but if you're writing an app the officially-sanctioned MS way, and you can't access the Registry or the file system, where do you put your persistent data?

Each app gets its own isolated data store where you can save any files that you need. You just can't touch any other part of the file system. You can also use a local SQL database if you need it.

I feel ya on changing the colors though, it's really a pain to do something simple like that now. If you don't mind losing your data, you can always roll back to Nodo, make your color changes and then update to Mango and they will still be there. Not that that's any easier, but the interop-lock wasn't an issue before Mango.

[jim_h]

the interop-lock wasn't an issue before Mango.

Didn't know that either. So, MS is locking WP7 tighter rather than opening it up.

[jim_h]

This thread has a good explanation of things:
[GUIDE] INTEROP-UNLOCK for MANGO - No revert to NoDo - No 0x81030120 (Samsung/LG) - xda-developers

I looked at that thread, and now I understand what an interop unlock does - it lets you run native, compiled code. And I also see there's no way to get an interop unlock on an HTC phone so I'm totally out of luck - I'm stuck with these preschoolers' accent colors until I buy a new phone.

Someday I'll want a new phone, but I wonder if it will be WP7. Metro is nice but it's totally frozen and static, eventually you want to change things around and it's frustrating that you can't.

All they really need to do is add a gray theme; then you could have lots of variety via live tiles.