Steve's Ramblings

Samsung Captivate

So, I lied in my last post. My newest toy is a Samsung Captivate smart phone. It is powered by Android.

I do like it, but all it does take some getting used to the touch screen.

My biggest annoyance is the bloatware, shovelware, crapware, whatever you want to call it. AT&T installs a ton of stuff. Time to get rid of it!

First you need to gain super-user privileges. Here is how to do that:

  1. Download and install the Android SDK (download and install guide)
  2. Install the Samsung Drivers (download location)
  3. Set your phone to connect in Mass Storage mode (Settings->Applications->USB Settings->Mass storage)
  4. Connect the phone via USB. Mount the drive (select Mount from the USB drop down notification).
  5. Download the Root Update Zip and rename it update.zip
  6. Copy the update.zip to your internal SD card on the phone
  7. Disconnect your phone's USB
  8. Turn on USB Debugging Mode (Settings->Applications->Development->USB Debugging)
  9. Connect the phone via USB again
  10. Use a command prompt to cd to the SDK's tools directory. Mine is c:androidtools.
  11. Run the recovery mode reboot command: adb reboot recovery
  12. The phone will reboot into recovery mode. Select Reinstall Packages on the phone's menu using the Volume Up/Down buttons and select using the Power button. The phone will install the update and reboot.
  13. You should now see a Superuser Permission application in the Applications panels.

Now it is time to remove some crap!

  1. Make sure your phone is connected via USB and the USB Debugging mode is still turned on.
  2. From a command prompt, cd to the SDK's tools directory.
  3. Run the SDK shell: adb shell
  4. Become root: su
  5. To remove apps, we will just rename them. For example this removes the AT&T Nav app: mv /system/app/ATTNav-Samsung-Vega-1488.apk /system/app/ATTNav-Samsung-Vega-1488.tmp
  6. Here is a list of applications and their actual application file names:
    • AT&T Nav -- /system/app/ATTNav-Samsung-Vega-1488.apk
    • AT&T Radio -- /system/app/ATT_Radio_2.1.07.apk
    • MobiTV -- /system/app/MobiTV_800x480_320_20100610_1.0.0.15-118829.apk
    • MobileBanking -- mv /system/app/MobileBanking.apk
    • AT&T Maps -- /system/app/attmaps20-1094.apk
    • Where -- /system/app/WHERE_Samsung_GT-I900_Vegas_EN_1.9.3_GM_06112010.apk
    • AT&T Hotspots -- /system/app/WISPr_v41.apk /system/app/WISPr_v41.tmp
    • AT&T FamilyMap -- mv /system/app/androidlauncher2.1-61x612010_06_11t15_49.apk
    • AT&T Music mv /system/app/ATT-P11_PROD.apk
    • Instant Messaging -- /system/app/IM-Signed.apk
    • AllShare -- /system/app/Dlna.apk
  7. Disconnect your USB, turn off USB Debugging and see how your apps are missing!

Here are the list of sources I used to get this going: