Lots of gear

The Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch is a first of its kind – a smartwatch running Android – underneath all of Samsung’s proprietary software – and it’s had a lot of attention from the market already.

Before the device is even rooted (which is sure to happen sooner rather than later) the team over at Ars Technica have managed to sideload apps onto one, and successfully get them to launch.

The main drawback at the moment is that because there is no “web access” built into the Galaxy Gear, even if you install Chrome, Dolphin or one of the other dozens of browsers available via the Play Store you won’t be able to use your device to access the web … yet.

Using a smart watch as anything other than an accessory is an interesting concept which for now doesn’t have a lot of practical use, but it was always going to happen given the Android platforms reputation for openness.

The process boils down to enabling USB debugging on your Galaxy Gear, then using ADB to install APKs on the smartwatch.

Ars Technica has have managed to get a number of apps running (including the extremely popular Candy Crush Saga) and drop video files onto the device, which works as you would expect:

Does this development pique your interest in the Galaxy Gear, or does it make the device look like more a hacker device than consumer?

Source: Ars Technica.
Via: SamMobile.
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BurnZ

If it had wi-fi, I would buy one. Seems like it’s now a fun little hacking device.

My first order of business would be to put a Gameboy Emulator on it so I can reminisce of how I didn’t have a Gameboy Watch as a kid and was never cool.

JeniSkunk

How would you manage to control a Gameboy emu on a screen that small?

BurnZ

It would be just for novelty use to have the GB Emulator on there. But if I had to use it, I would try and pair a PlayStation 3 DualShock 3 via Bluetooth and then use ‘Sixaxis Controller’ to do any further modding to the controls if the Emulator doesn’t support a DS3.