Why I went back to stock Ice Cream Sandwich on my Samsung Galaxy Nexus
As you know, I recently rooted my Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The reason was simple at first: I just wanted a way to tether my other devices to my AT&T data plan. But then I started getting into flashing custom ROMs, and I got obsessed with it. I tried numerous ROMs from places like xda-developers, and they were all pretty awesome, but then I wrote this post about Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. My obsession quickly went away, and I returned my phone to its original, stock Ice Cream Sandwich glory.
As of right now, my Galaxy Nexus has a locked bootloader, isn’t rooted, and is running Android 4.0.4. I only did this for one reason: Wednesday is the day on which Google will hold its I/O developer conference and will introduce Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Since I own a Galaxy Nexus, I’m going to be one of the first people to play around with it when it is released. That likely won’t be Wednesday; in fact, nobody knows exactly when it’ll be. I’m the kind of person who likes to be as prepared as possible, though, so I decided that now is as good a time as any to be ready to receive my update to 4.1.
That’s not to say that I won’t root my device again, but I honestly didn’t find enough root-only apps to justify keeping my phone rooted. I know there are other things I can do with an unlocked bootloader, a custom recovery installed, and root-access to my phone, but I was only flashing ROMs for the fun of it and the only root-only app I used was WiFi Tether. There really wasn’t any reason to keep it rooted and the bootloader unlocked, especially with Jelly Bean right around the corner.
For now, I’m just going to enjoy Ice Cream Sandwich the way Google intended it to be enjoyed. But, at the same time, I’ll also be waiting impatiently for the search giant’s next sweet treat.
Needless to say, I’m incredibly excited for Google I/O next week. We really don’t know what to expect from Jelly Bean, but hopefully all of our questions about it will be answered on Wednesday. What are you hoping to see from Android 4.1?
