What does rooting of android means?

Question

I am new android development and learning on emulator. What rooting of device means ?? it something like jail break for Iphone. How can i root emulator and why i need root a device ?

Answer 1

Rooting basically is giving the standard user root privileges, so that the normal user can do things that only the super user could normally do. On android devices this means being able to change several things, such as being able to modify the frequency of the processor, being able to install new firmware/ different versions of android that the manufacturer doesn't offer, or execute applications like the ones in here : http://androidforums.com/droid-x-all-things-root/131944-favorite-root-applications.html

It is fairly easy to do and very straightforward process in most of the android devices. You don't need to root the emulator, it is already rooted but you should better not be developing apps that require root access if you want to put them in the market -most of the people do not have a rooted device-.

Answer 2

Yes it is. Because you perhaps want to use Android 2.3 on a phone where the manufacturer only supports 2.2 so far.

Answer 3

You do not need to root your device to do SDK development with it. You will never need this to build Android applications.

You root a device by exploiting a security hole in order to get a full access to the system. It then allows you to escape security to change system files that should not be modified. It is a bit like jailbreaking. Rooting can allow you to install modified versions of your OS.

You are always root in the emulator, you do not need to "root it".