Those of you who know me personally know that I own an HTC Shift, bought early last year. The HTC Shift launched with really great expectations from the mobile warrior community – two operating systems on one device, an innovative form factor (at that time), and the HTC branding. Unfortunately, it suffered from a few major “defects”:
- the Windows Mobile (WinMo) side was crippled by HTC, which called it SnapVue. You couldn’t install any extra software on it because the memory was limited and HTC did not want the ordinary user messing about with SnapVue.
- the device ran Vista with 1Gb of RAM, which as well all know, makes for a really painful and highly stressful user experience.
- although the device supported data connections, the “voice” capability was crippled on the WinMo/SnapVue side by HTC.
- the WinMo/SnapVue side could not have access to the SD card slot to increase memory available to WinMo/SnapVue, or to WiFi or Bluetooth for wireless communications.
So, without much progress from the hacking community known as the XDA Developers, many who bought the Shift in the early days sold it off, disgusted at paying a huge premium (it cost RM 5,499 when launched!) for the device which amounted to an overall sad user experience, mainly due to the crippled WinMo/SnapVue and slow Vista performance.
About a week ago, the XDA Developers website made a huge breakthrough, for the Shift community anyway. They have enabled voice calling and receiving on the Shift, and coupled with the “unlocking” or “enabling” of the built-in GPS function of some months ago, have gotten current Shift owners excited about using the device again. This, coupled with the fact that it is possible to install Windows 7 Beta on the device, actually made the device rather usable again. I have since done all the steps to “liberate” the device, install a custom ROM or firmware for the WinMo/SnapVue side, and plan on installing Windows 7 soon. ”Liberation” is a term used by the Shift community to un-cripple the SnapVue side, and run a full version of Windows Mobile again. I have tested the built-in GPS with the latest version of Google Maps installed on the WinMo side, and it works! It even uses A-GPS – I know, because I got a satellite lock indoors, possible only with A-GPS, and it was nowhere in the specifications of the Shift that it supported A-GPS (heck, the official specifications didn’t even mention GPS support!). One of my next goals after installing Windows 7 is to install Garmin Mobile PC on the Windows 7 side and try to get satellite signals from the WinMo side.
Here are the rough steps to getting voice calling (through the flasing of a custom radio ROM), and GPS (through the installation of a custom ROM) working on the Shift:
- liberate your Shift. Click here for instructions.
- flash a software package on to the Shift that will enable it to flash any custom non-HTC approved official ROMs. ROM = operating system (basically) for the WinMo side. Click here for instructions. Without these, you can only install officially released ROMs from HTC, which does jack sch1tt.
- install/flash a custom radio ROM first, then the main pre-liberated “full function” WinMo ROM. Click here for instructions. The thread also contains features/functions which are included in the ROM, since it was “cooked” up by enthusiasts. You either live with the pre-installed software, or you cook your own ROM, which is easier said than done!
I highly recommend reading the entire thread of all three posts I linked to above before asking unnecessary or even stupid questions which will get you flamed in their forums – all the answers to the most commonly asked questions and solutions to the most commonly encountered problems are there.
As of now, only the SD card access, BT and WiFi are not working on the WinMo side (and probably never will, I think, due to the way the hardware is designed to be only visible to the full Windows XP/Vista/7 side). But we live in hope!
If you still encounter any difficulties, drop a comment here and I’ll try to help. If you’re confused as to what needs to be done, pay me and I’ll do it for you, hahaha…
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I know there are a number of GPS fans on this blog, seeing how many comments I get on the GPS related posts. I came across this funny story, a true story in fact, about what happens when you take to following the navigation instructions on your GPS to its extremes. It’s about a poor English chap who drove his expensive BMW right to the precipice of a steep cliff, stopping only when his car hit the fence that basically told people that there was a sharp drop in height where the fence was.
Funny stuff this. Look at the picture below. The painful part, apart from looking like a total idiot in the eyes of the world, was that he was slapped with driving with undue care by the police for this misadventure. That must have hurt.
