Ed. note: OK, here’s the deal. This accidentally got published before we meant for it to. We’ve pulled it from the front page but are leaving it published with this addendum. Cause that’s how journalism works. If and when we get this method worked out, we’ll get a new post up soonest. Our apologies. The person responsible for the screw-up (erm, me) has been flogged. – Phil
There seems to be some question around the ‘tubes — is the Froyo I see everyone using for T-Mobile or for AT&T? We can answer that one (and we love questions that we can answer! ). Yes. It works on both carriers. Click past the jump to read some more, and get the lowdown.
(First, a reminder: This version of Froyo we’re using is not official, nor is it final. It was pushed out to a handful of phones — journalists, it appears — and the rest of us piggybacked it. We expect an official release in the coming weeks.)
Phil uses an AT&T Nexus One. I use a T-Mobile Nexus One. Being the Android nerds that we both are, you know we were all over Froyo as soon as we got wind of it. After some marathon flashing sessions, countless adult beverages, and zero bricked phones (huzzah!) we’re confident enough to say that Froyo is Froyo. Will a version with a radio optimized for AT&T surface? Probably. But it’s entirely possible to install Froyo on your locked bootloader, completely stock AT&T Nexus One. And it works just fine. We’ve gathered all the instructions together below to get Froyo on your Nexus One regardless of carrier
Stock AT&T Nexus one to Froyo
This is going to erase everything on your phone, that’s the nature of the beast. Hit the market for a good backup app, make sure your phonebook and addresses are syncing with Google, and carry onward:
- Download the stock T-Mobile Nexus One image. We have to do this as the update is set up and signed to only flash over ERE27 (the latest T-Mobile build). Double check the MD5! (MD5: 90700607c04279716b505aa203e9c684). Anytime you’re flashing something with a radio image you want to be sure the download is not corrupt. Here is a nice easy way to check MD5 sums in Windows. Please, don’t skip this step 🙂
- Download the Froyo update directly from Google here. (Update: Google took down its file. You can try this one.) Check that MD5!
- Change the name of the T-Mobile stock image to update.zip, and copy the file to your SD card.
- Reboot your phone into recovery — Hold the power button and choose to power off your phone. When it shuts down, hold the volume down rocker and press the power button. When you see infamous warning triangle, hold volume up and hit the power button again. Select apply update.zip. This will flash the T-Mobile version of stock eclair to your phone.
- Copy the Froyo update from step two to your SD card, and remove the T-Mobile file. Remember, we renamed it to update.zip.
- Repeat step 4.
Remember, you are changing the radio file, so your reception may be different. If it’s too terrible, you can roll back to the stock AT&T firmware and wait it out. Some people say it’s fine, others say it’s not. All I can say for sure is that this won’t brick your phone.
Stock T-Mobile Nexus One to Froyo
The easy way is to wait, you’ll get it very soon. Of course none of us want to do that 🙂 . Grab the file from Google, check the MD5, and move it to your SD card. Boot into stock recovery as listed above, and flash it up. You’ll love it 😉
Rooted Nexus One to Froyo
Piece of cake. Download Paul at Modaco’s pre-rooted version Here and flash as usual. This works for any version of the Nexus One, as long as you’re rooted and using a custom recovery image.
Remember, everyone here at Android Central just wants you to have your Froyo and eat it too. If all this sounds like something you’re not comfortable doing, there’s no shame in waiting for it to hit your phone au naturel. It won’t be too much longer, I promise.
All other phones
Froyo currently is only available on the Nexus One. That means you can’t put it on your Droid. Or your Hero. Or your Moment. Or your Incredible. Or any other phone that’s not the Nexus One. If there’s any confusion here, re-read the first sentence of this section. And never fear: We’ll get more versions soon enough. 🙂