4 must have homebrew apps for your Nokia Windows Phones

Posted on 18. Nov, 2011 by Bharadwaj in Featured, Windows Phone

After the launch of Nokia’s Lumia Windows Phones, the whole ecosystem got supercharged with Nokia power ! Lots want to try out Windows Phone for the first time, and that includes me. However like many, I found some glaring omissions in the feature set of the Windows Phone 7 OS, but.. but, I found some interesting workarounds in the home brew scene.

I want to make you, the power user, comfortable in the new Windows Phone ecosystem. We, the geeks, always want control of our stuff and the customization power. What Microsoft Windows Phone offers is very minimal in that sense, however the community of intelligent developers and hackers are blossoming in that scene and have achieved a lot just in one year since the OS launch.

I had ranted on Day 1 of Nokia’s decision to partner with Microsoft on a platform that didn’t take off at all, well, at that time, situation was like that. But now, after the successful release of Mango, i am feeling that Nokia were right about their choice. Let’s see what was missing in the first release of Windows Phone 7 – ( I will add a symbol * where the feature is now implemented in NoDo or Mango )

• No system-wide file manager
• No video calling * ( Internet based video calling now available, do note that even iOS and Android(except Samsung 3G phones) don’t have UMTS native video calling )
• Limited third-party apps availability* ( We have more than 40k apps in the marketplace now )
• No Bluetooth file transfers
• No USB mass storage mode
• No multitasking*
• No copy/paste*
• Too dependent on Zune software for computer file management and syncing
• No music player equalizers ( Can be implemented by OEMs )
• No Flash or Silverlight support in the web browser ( HTML5 is fully supported in Mango )
• No sign of free Bing maps Navigation so far* ( Here is where Nokia Maps come in, also Bing navigation has been available )
• No DivX/XviD video support
• No internet tethering support*
• New ringtones available only through the Marketplace* ( Custom ringtones available now )
• Swapping memory card requires hard reset; cards not readable by computer

Looks like most features have been implemented in Mango release but we still have some main features which were available for Nokia/Symbian users right from the 6600 days. They are -

• System wide file manager
• Bluetooth file transfer
• USB mass storage
• Screen capture
• Folders

As previous Symbian users, we are always accustomed to these above lacking features in Windows Phone, so when we migrate to Windows Phone as loyal Nokia fans, we desperately need these features right ? We always want to go the extra mile when they are presented with a hack or an opportunity, no ? That’s where home brew comes in.

Let me tell you how these home brew apps work. These home brew apps are mostly feature additions or apps that will not be likely approved in the marketplace. So, how do you get to install these home brew apps ? You need to developer unlock your device for that to happen. And thankfully, there is an official solution to do the same, and it’s called ” Chevron WP7 labs ” unlocker. It costs 9 $. Once you use it, you can unlock your device to run non-native home brew apps by side loading it onto your device. The unlock tool provides you the option to side load the apps onto your phone.

There is also another type of unlock, called the Interop – Unlock which is needed for Mango devices. Currently that works only on Samsung and Lg devices, so we can skip that. Basically, it gains system level privileges for the app. It’s needed for some home brew apps.

Ok then, here are the best homebrew alternatives to all the above missing features sans the bluetooth file transfer protocol. The must have 4 home brew apps that enable folders, screen capture, USB Mass storage and a system wide file manager -

Folders 

This home brew app enables you to club multiple apps onto a single folder, which is till now, not possible in Windows Phone. Kinda no brainer really. You just need a dev unlocked device to implement this.

Anyway, here’s the video demo by Windows Phone hacker :

But there’s a small problem in this implementation, you can’t modify the folders or create/delete them from the OS, you need to modify them from an external PC app  called ” Folders Config ”

The features and Instructions ( Credit : Windows Phone hacker )

Features

• Create unlimited folders to pin to your start screen
• Completely custom groupings (not restricted by categories of any sort)
• Add Marketplace, homebrew, built-in applications, and websites to a folder
• Automatic Marketplace look up
• Automatic homebrew XAP parsing
• Shortcuts to WiFi, Bluetooth, Flight mode, and cellular settings
• Fully customizable with the ability to manually edit application entries
• Folders. Something other Windows Phones don’t have. Gotta love homebrew, no?

Instructions

• Download the file below
• Run FoldersConfig.exe
• Create a new folder
• Add applications into that folder
• Repeat until setup the way you want
• Connect your phone and sync it with Zune, put it on the start screen, and press Deploy
• An application will appear on your phone with a list of your folders. Tap on them one by one to pin them to your start screen
• Profit.

This is how you execute the app and create folders :

Unsurprisingly, after some great feedback, the team has implemented more new features in Version 2 :

• System applications: The tool now allows select “system” (built-in) applications to be added directly to folders. The list includes main built in applications (Zune, Marketplace, People hub, Games), as well as some other useful links (WiFi settings, Flight mode, etc). If there’s a desired application that we missed, let us know in the comments and we’ll add it.
• Homebrew XAPs: Simple little import function now opens homebrew XAPs and extracts the info/icon, making it much easier to add homebrew programs into the folders.
• Websites: Enter a URI and an entry for the site will be added to the folder. Make sure to type the full domain name, e.g. http://windowsphonehacker.com/, not just windowsphonehacker.com
• Support for extended/non-default tasks: Add a /TaskName to the end of the GUID to launch non-default tasks (For the techies). Examples include 5B04B775-356B-4AA0-AAF8-6491FFEA5660/_default?StartURL=example.com for navigating to IE pages, etc.

Seems like you can even add system tasks like WiFi settings, Flight mode and whole other range of buried settings. Total WIN ! DO try this out if you have unlocked your Nokia Lumia !

Screen capture

This, again, a very important for us bloggers, but it is also very important for users to just show off anything they have, or give important visual feedback to devs. It is not implemented natively in Windows Phone, but don’t worry, there is a superb homebrew app for this and you just need a dev unlocked device ! It’s called ” Screen capturer ” and it’s already in version 3, and it runs on the phone of course ( previously, for screenshots, you needed to tether the phone to the PC to take a screenshot )

You can schedule the time to run the capture task ( a pre defined time in which you can browse through various apps to take the screen shots using the camera button on your phone )

Version 3 features :

• Full English version
• Redesigned UI with Metro interface
• No interop-unlock requirement
• Use camera button to take screen caps (!)
• Prevent Capture Task auto run: Capture Task uses BackgroundAgent to run and wait for Camera button event, BackgroundAgent may auto run in some case, enable this option to stop auto capture.
• The Capture Task duration: How long will the Capture Task run before it stop to accept Camera button event.

More about the tool. Download it at the XDA forum.

USB Mass storage

This is actually a very old find by MobileTechworld, and it involves a very simple registry tweak that enables the USB mass storage function of your Windows Phone’s mass storage and your memory card. Here’s how you do it -

Assuming you have Zune already installed for syncing,

Open Windows Registry Editor by typing regedit in your start menu
- Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEM
- Then go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetEnumUSB  (and not the other ControlSet01 or 02 if you have them) and then search for ZuneDriver
- Change ShowInShell from 0 to 1 <- this enable Windows Explorer to show the device when pluged in
- Change PortableDeviceNameSpaceExcludeFromShell from 1 to 0
- Change EnableLegacySupport from 0 to 1 <- this enables Windows Explorer to detect the device
- You can also change EnableDefaultAutoPlaySupport but it didn’t seem to do anything.

That’s it, you can now access all your files through the mass storage option, and just drag and drop stuff.

More about the tweak here

System wide file manager

Finally, this is the biggie and the most complicated of all. Mainly because it requires Interop-Unlock in all Mango devices. Currently the unlock is possible only in HTC phones ( Bummer, i know ! ). But now that Nokia is in the mix, I am sure a lot of people will try to add support for it. I hope they really do, cos this app is awesome. It’s called ” touch Xplorer ” made by Touch Xperience. Let’s cut to the chase and see the video demo first -

More on this app here

There is an alternative for Samsung phones though, it’s called ” WP7 root tools ” .( Thanks @nilayshah80 )

It too requires Interop – Unlock and works well, looks like this -

Video by 1800pocketpc

I know that the last app was not completely fulfilling, but I am just showing you that there are possibilities in Windows Phone that will make you feel completely home when coming from a feature rich OS like Symbian or Meego.

Even if all the above apps work, there are still a lot of features missing in Windows Phone, like for example FM transmitter, Bluetooth file transfer.. etc. I want Nokia to add these features gradually, so that Nokia users won’t feel out of place

Hope you liked my article. There are more articles like these coming up, helping all you first time Windows Phone users to get a feel of the budding home brew scene.

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Bharadwaj

Hi :-) Thanks for reading my post ! About me : I am extremely passionate about Nokia and truly believe in their slogan "Connecting people". I look forward to sharing up to date Nokia news and opinions with you.

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Tags: Apps, Featured, HomeBrew, Nokia, WindowsPhone