Gadgetory

are you upset your Galaxy s4 isn't running the official Google Play edition software if so you're in luck I'm Joe Levi for pocket now and this is how to take your Verizon edition galaxy s4 turn it into a Google Play edition when Samsung announced there would be a Google Play edition of the galaxy s4 after the Google i/o conference in May many existing owners of galaxy s4's were upset and rightly so they purchased what they thought they'd been waiting for one of the best smartphones ever created now it still is don't get me wrong but when it was revealed that there would be a pure Android version available soon many were disappointed and I'd be frustrated too I've long been an advocate of stock Android fortunately members of the development community have come to the rescue yet again here's all it takes to get your Verizon Galaxy s4 into a Google Play edition as with most rooting procedures there are some prerequisites first and foremost you need to assume the risk routing and flashing when done wrong can cause damage to your device so before you proceed make sure you understand and assume that risk next you're going to need a few files you'll need the official samsung USB drivers you'll need odin version 3.0 7 or above you'll need a couple kernels the VRU AMD 2 pre-release kernel and the stock kernel which we'll get to in just a minute and you'll also need the moto chopper root exploit tool once you've got all those downloaded and extracted the next thing you're going to do is unlock your root block the stock rom on this phone is root blocked but there is a pre-release version of the kernel that has a hole in it that we can exploit to gain root to do that boot into odin and flash the pre-release kernel in the PDA section once that's been done we can route the phone connect your phone to your computer and run the run dot bat file from where you extracted moto chopper you'll see a message on your phone asking if you want to accept a new computer connection you'll want to select always and then ok moto chopper will run and do what it needs to and once that's been done install the latest version of supersu from the Play Store open it and update the binaries that part's really important if you forget to do so you will lose root on the next step next we're going to restore the stock kernel remember this one is a pre-release that let us root now we want to go back to where we were before to do that boot back into odin mode on your phone flash the stock kernel again in the PDA section and then boot back up into Android and make sure that everything is still working properly now you've laid the foundation and you can flash a custom recovery image and then flash a custom ROM the easiest way I think to do that is to head over to the Play Store download rom manager the free one will do for what we're doing here open the app and then install the latest version of clockworkmod recovery after that's complete now all we need to do is install the Google Play edition ROM to do that you'll want to download that ROM to your phone we'll have a link for that and all of the other files that you need to do this over at pocketnow.com again open rom manager and backup your current rom that step is going to take you about ten minutes but if you ever want to go back to the rom that you had before it's a necessary step once that backup is complete and you're back in android again and go back to rom manager this time you'll want to install rom from sdcard navigate to the directory where you put that rom select it and then follow the prompts the rom will be flashed and the necessary caches will be cleared after which your phone is going to reboot that reboots gonna take quite a bit of time be patient but as soon as it boots up you'll be experiencing android the way google intended it that's gonna do it for now if you liked what you saw please give the video a big thumbs up and hit the subscribe button so you can stay up to date with what PocketNow is up to make sure you follow us on all of your favorite social networking sites if you want to follow us we're at pocket now I'm at Joe Levi thanks for watching we'll see you soon