Glass Explorer, hacker and caffeine-lover – Liam McLoughlin has tweeted some very exciting details for people who are eagerly awaiting the retail release of Google Glass. Apparently, Android DeBug(ADB) mode, is very easy to achieve. Anyone who’s played with rooting and modding any Android device – which Glass has been confirmed to be – knows gaining access to system files is a very important step to gaining root access and ADB helps immensely in this process.
Initially, Liam found that he could access ADB but had not actually achieved ‘Root acces’ on his device.
heh, fun. There’s a “debug mode” option on Glass that appears to enable ADB access. I got a shell on my Glass 😀 (no root yet!)
— Liam McLoughlin (@Hexxeh) April 26, 2013
After this sending out that tweet, 3 minutes later he sent out another tweet announcing that the bootloader can be unlocked just like any Nexus device – another step on the road to achieving root access.
looks like root is easy too: reboot-bootloader gives you fastboot oem unlock. There is fun to be had here…
— Liam McLoughlin (@Hexxeh) April 26, 2013
Further to this, Cydia founder Jay Freeman added this tweet :
#ifihadglass I would jailbreak it and modify the software (obviously). As Google actually sold me one; I did my part. cache.saurik.com/tinyimg/glassb…
— Jay Freeman (saurik) (@saurik) April 26, 2013
Which shows a screenshot, saying ‘Jailbroken ;P’ using iOS parlance for opening up the device. From the tweets sent by both individuals neither has confirmed specifically that ‘Root’ has been achieved, however Freemans use of the word ‘Jailbroken’ would indicate that he has system level access to the device.
With ABD access and a boot loader that can be unlocked, if Mr Freeman hasn’t already, the next step would be inserting an image with root access. With the Glass Software Development Kit(SDK) already available to developers, it should only be a matter of time before root access is achieved if not by someone already with Glass, but by someone with access to the SDK.
As is the aim of the Google X team behind Glass, the limits of Google glass is really only limited by you (and the developers) imagination.
What apps or mods would you like to see on Google Glass? Let us know in the comments below
