Gadgetory

hey guys throw the Android guy root what is it why do we need it and do we still need it that's what we're gonna talk about today on the Android guy weekly so a couple topics what is root what is super user and something interesting that will save for the end all right what is root little root no we're not talking about plans root is the ability to run programs with low level permissions basically you're running all the way down you can do anything you want install system files modify system files delete system files that's route now root doesn't operate like you think it will unless you have a user who can and who can basically take advantage of the root level permissions and that user is called super user so behind me I've got a desktop computer it's running Windows 7 and it comes rooted out of the box or rather it's not protected from being able to run root level stuff Mac same thing now both Mac and Windows and Linux 2 a little bit different extent they all have the ability to control what the user by user I mean the logged in person not necessarily the person at the keyboard but the person who's logged in has the ability to do now that in Windows is called UAC user account control or user access control so I'm logged in as a administrator so I have super user rights my machine is already rooted if I wanted to I could download and install a virus I could download and install a word processor and to the computer there's really no difference it's executable code one lets me write you know the next great novel the other lets people steal my bank account stuff you're not getting much though just FYI the same permissions and it's not cool same on Macs and Windows not no the only people in the game that are at risk smartphones and tablets on the other hand they don't give you root yes and it's not just for this reason they let you run only as a user not as an administrator or a super user because of that you're not able to do a lot of stuff in the past you haven't been able to say turn on the flash on your camera and turn your phone into a flashlight when you need it or turn on the flash on your camera and be able to scan that barcode in the dark or in low-light because well you're not using the stock built-in camera that has direct access to those levels of things hey you do now on Android because Google opened up an API AHA api's that's a hint at what we're gonna talk about later okay what else I just got a tablet and for some reason it would not keep time I don't know why so I downloaded an app that lets me synchronize the time with a time server on the Internet great except it requires route why is that well it actually will operate in two different functions one is if you don't have route it will tell you here's the current time now go change your clock manually okay and the other is hey you've got route let me go ahead and take care of that automatically in fact how often do you want me to check once a day once an hour whatever it'll do it automatically because it has root access now same thing goes if I downloaded a virus for example it could do all kinds of malicious stuff by having access to root so root and super user go hand-in-hand administrator privileges and whatnot may not be a good thing on a cell phone because let's face it most people out there aren't system administrators I happen to be one for my day job and so maybe I have a little bit different perspective than everybody else and need to be able to do other stuff because I know what I can do so that may be where I'm different than a lot of people in the audience perhaps but I think you guys out there you're you're a bit more tech savvy than the average phone user for example or the average tablet user you want to do stuff and you know what you can do and it's just this pesky root thing that's getting in your way that's where our little interesting tidbit comes in and it's really the topic of our video Steve Kondik cyanogen you may know him as the guy behind CyanogenMod recently posted just kind of a thought what do you guys think about taking out root whoa Steve what are you talking about you've lived on root but his thought was instead of having root instead of requiring CyanogenMod to have root to be able to run and do its regular daily activities instead we've got complete access to the source code of this operating system and all the stuff in the kernel why not write API s-- api's our application programming interfaces essentially they're hooks you can say hey camera please turn on your light and if your camera has a light it'll say okay and it'll do it and it will return back through the API okay I did it my light is on and then you can say okay camera turn off your light and camera will through this API turn off the light and respond back okay light is off same thing with the clock same thing with you know whatever you want to think about exposing these api's lets you talk through you know the system utilities which need to have route like access already and get them to do stuff and that stuff is already predetermined there's security put in place through the API itself but you don't have to have root to be able to do it you don't have to elevate to super user to be able to do this stuff really really cool so Steve's concept was instead of requiring that we have root and opening the door up for malicious opportu be able to take advantage of that fact let's go ahead and scale back so we don't have to have root to be able to run the core functionality of CyanogenMod roms instead let's write those api's so apps can talk to the system utilities rather than directly to the hardware or however else they're getting it done lots of way to do it no he did put in a little caveat he said now no I'm not trying to say we're taking away Route forever and we shouldn't do that people will still be able to route and run routed stuff like normal what he's saying is what do you think about pulling out that requirement so you can do all of that cool stuff without it and really he's in the unique situation unlike Windows if windows were to turn off route altogether oh my goodness we would be in a terrible terrible situation because we can do most of the stuff and the only people that could fix that would be Microsoft same thing goes with Apple they turn that off on Mac only Apple could expose those api's and make it work Android the source is out there it's open we can literally write those api's and do it ourselves and as long as we're not opening up security holes there it's probably a very very good thing but that leads us into a little bit of a quandary and we'll just sum up on this in order to install CyanogenMod I have to root my phone install a custom boot loader or a custom recovery and try to flash the ROM I'm rooted to be able to do that now we're talking about Unruh ting potentially or are we talking about oh maybe having some manufacturer out there pick up CyanogenMod as the stock rom wouldn't that be cool so that's our topic what do you think do you think that route is too much that we don't need it and we should replace it with api's what problems is that going to bring up or what problems is that going to solve comment down below and let us know do you think that well CyanogenMod might show up on a big brand name major OEMs Tanuja may be CyanogenMod 10 I don't know but wouldn't that be cool go ahead and let us know your opinion on that down in the comments below as well if you liked the video of course give it a big thumbs up subscribe if you haven't done so already so you don't miss out on next week's episode of the Android guy weekly and head on over to pocketnow.com so you can check out views hacks tips tricks well all kinds of stuff and not just on Android we cover almost everything head on over there the website again pocketnow.com for pocket now I'm Joe the Android guy and this has been another episode of the Android guy weekly