Your dilemma : You just bought the Nexus One, and just discovered the recently announced HTC Desire. A small heart attack follows. Almost identical internally to your Nexus One, the Desire has the gorgeous HTC Sense user interface running on top of Android 2.1, and you can’t help but think you jumped the gun with your new smartphone purchase. Worry not my friends, developer Modaco has begun the port to get Sense onto your rooted Nexus One!
According to Modaco’s site, here is what we know about the porting process so far:
- If you rebuild the boot image replacing the kernel it runs. I’m running my own custom kernel with himem and bits.
- The system.img doesn’t fit on the N1 (!), it’s nearly 200MB. I booted by moving some stuff off the system partition.
- The trackball works.
- The 4 bottom keys work.
- The proximity sensor works.
- The LED works.
- The light sensor works.
- The compass and G sensor work.
- The camera works fine and is great with face recognition and touch focus.
- The FM radio loads, but makes no sound / finds no stations it seems. Maybe we need Desire radio ROM?
- Flash 10.1 is included and works well.
- It’s FAST!
Some of the above mentioned is complete developer talk, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the rest. One thing that strikes me as odd is the inclusion of Flash 10.1. Could it really be out in the wild already? Let’s hope so. I can’t wait to take it for granted! Remember, this development may take a while until a stable build comes from this. In any case, the progress of the port seems to be going along swimmingly, and we’ll keep you posted as this unfolds.
For now, you rooted Nexus One users can try out the new Hi-Res HTC keyboard taken from the Desire, at your own risk, of course.