After considering it for a long time, I finally gave in and went to the store to get an HTC Hero. As it turned out, the price difference between the HTC Magic and HTC Hero is pretty significant. Considering that both have almost the same hardware specs (apart from the camera), I decided to buy myself an HTC Magic instead.
What is not mentioned anywhere is the fact that the Indian version of HTC Magic is one of the few models which is completely locked, not to the carrier, but software installation wise. The phone contains the carrier unlock code right on the box. I have been using my old Vodafone number since the purchase.
Now my whole purpose of buying a smart phone was using the Google services, customising the phone no end and installing and experimenting with lots of software. The phone was a major disappointment. It did not have the Google app suite, it did not have Android market, it had no option of installing any software. How Airtel can advertise GPS as one of the phone’s features without any map application is beyond me. Needless to say I was pretty upset and desperate.
I looked around the web for ways to rectify this. I went through many blog and forum posts about rooting the phone and decided to try it. Then came the second surprise, this version of the Magic contained what is called a perfected SPL, which means rooting was not going to be that simple.
Then I found the Unlokr‘s guide to Root the HTC Magic in one click , this worked perfectly. After that I tried 4 different ROMs from the xda developers, which are basically customised versions of the OS, they were all quite good but I finally settled for the MyHero ROM, this contained the HTC sense UI, which I liked. Welcome Android 
After getting a brand new and completely unlocked OS, I downloaded the Android Market Enabler, this allowed me to access the other versions of the market. After about a month, I am still checking out a good number of apps everyday. Stay tuned for app reviews.
sounds like the effort was much more than getting the iphone jailbroken: which is also equivalent to having a customizable freebsd based OS
And the cydia jailbroken app store has large number of free apps. and required utilities not to mention the dpkg installer available on the iphone since you would have ssh access like a PC.
Anyway, if you wanted a customizable phone you should have asked me before you shoved in 20+k. Checking out the dalvik vm source could have been better learning curve for Android and I could have helped you with the dalvik vm source
Harald Welte and others had mentioned it sometime back that Palm Pre and Maemo are more open than Android. Maybe after 2 years when you think about buying another phone, try checking them out as they are really more open Google’s Android and you should like them even more w.r.t customization ability.
It was also very risky, voiding the warranty within a couple of hours of purchase. I had a lot of fun doing it. Now it will not take more than 10 mins to get another phone ready.
I considered my options for a long time before buying this phone. I considered palm and Maemo and also open moko. The major factor that went in favor of Android is its integration with Google services and my complete amazedness with Google itself.
Does anybody know which type of video recordsdata are supported? I keep in mind the Intuition solely may dl 3gp utilizing opera mini. I downloaded the twist ap, maybe that’s the problem? How can I watch movies from websites apart from youtube? Which file types? Normally I’m given the option of 3gp or mpeg4. Can’t get both to work. Thank you for your time! Damn I wish I was eligible for the upgrade to EVO!