Broken phone story

n88tr

So I tried to alter some of my android phone games and messed up the root files of my samsung galaxy s3 phone. I took it to a guy I met after talking to another guy who runs a small local computer, fix it shop. This second guy I dealt with, he fixed my phone as far as i can tell, and for free, which is nice, but it's still acting weird. I guess it would be better to just take it to the official phone store and have them look at it. Anyone else have experience making .apk files work? I have several programs that are supposed to help me install the .apks, but I'm thinking my modified files are out of date when i try to install them on the app. I mean, these game apps update themselves almost everyday. I'm thinking my mods won't work because the devs are always updating the games...?

Everything like this, hacking your phone, the "real and truthful" information is sparse and lacking real people connections in this field, it's whole new learning experience. But thankfully before I passed on my phone to this guy, Richard, I backed up all my apps and pictures on to my microSD card. Not that he screwed up the phone, but just in case. I asked him what the heck did he do to my phone [he had it for 3 days] and he said he reset my cache files on all of my downloaded apps. I was worried that would delete my game data but it turns out it doesn't. But when I looked through my phone this morning, i see all my old .apk files are there. I don't understand what he did or how things got fixed. Totally out of my element here. You know, like you think you're a pretty nerdy guy but then you run up against someone that really outclasses you and it just makes you wonder. I'm a 1 on his nerd scale I think. Anyways, word to the wise, don't give your phone to a stranger to fix it and then worry about wtf they did to "fix" it. Thoughts?

And I have a suspicion that he has copied some of my pics to his device. Just how he acted, really squirrely like when I asked him why it took 3 days to fix my phone. Is that illegal? Or not because it was just a one-on-one interaction with contracts or anything being signed?

thatanimator

are you talking about pirated games or what?
the wall of text was fun enough to read through, but I don't understand what we're talking about really

if you want to install your own .apk files, like say you want to try a build of a game you're working on, I usually just put the file in a folder and install it natively on the device, no need for third party plugins or rooting..

Justin Meisse

I did computer repair in the past, we had all of our customers sign a release to protect us. As far as customer data, we had to work so fast there was no time to even care about whatever they had on their computers. Typically for software problems the answer was to backup their data, wipe and re-install windows.

Perhaps he was a bit annoyed that you asked him why it took so long to fix your phone for free. Every place I worked at would charge a minimum of one hour labor for all work.

I can't help you with your smart phone, I carry a flip phone :P

EarthQuake

Justin Meisse wrote: »

Perhaps he was a bit annoyed that you asked him why it took so long to fix your phone for free. Every place I worked at would charge a minimum of one hour labor for all work.

Exactly what I thought when I read it. First he fixes your phone for free, then you whine about how long it took? lolwut

Justin Meisse

my nerd level: I've dismantled a Linksys E2500 router and I'm trying to figure out where to solder a USB header because the Broadcom chip it uses supports USB even if Cisco didn't add one to this model of router. Unfortunately I'm not nerdy enough to figure it out on my own.