Many years ago, Android modding was the hottest thing among enthusiasts who wanted to squeeze more out of their phones. These days, however, you hardly hear about rooting or custom ROMs, and when you do, it always comes with a lot of trade-offs. How did we get here?
We Outgrew The Need For Modding
A big reason why a lot of people are not really interested in modding their Android phones anymore is that, for many people, there’s simply no need to do so. Chances are, most of the features that you used to root your phone for 6-7 years ago are now baked into Android. We’re on version 15 of the operating system right now, and every year, we get more features. Google did take note of the stuff that was possible using root, and while it won’t bring absolutely everything, it certainly did note some of the more useful stuff rooted devices allowed.
Theming? While we lack a comprehensive theming engine, Android’s Material You UI allows for customizing the UI’s colors and icons, as well as customizing your home screen and lock screen. Screen recording used to be a root-only feature several years ago, but it’s been something completely doable on Android phones for years. You can control network access as well as notifications and app permissions on a granular per-app basis, and you can revoke them at any moment with just a few taps. And that’s just on Pixel Android—if you start getting into third-party versions of Android, there are a lot more features that you can check out.
If you want to do some light unofficial changes, there are hidden permissions you can leverage that will open up extra doors, still without rooting. Apps like SystemUI Tuner allow you to do things such as hiding system status bar icons, changing around quick settings options, customizing animation speeds, enabling hidden features, and a lot more stuff. Another app called Repainter will allow you to stretch Material You’s theming flexibility to the fullest by letting you choose theme colors completely at will. There is still some stuff that is still root-only, but for 99% of people, we’d argue that rooting is not necessary.
What about custom ROMs? In a way, we also outgrew those. Many people opted for custom ROMs to get Android updates past the phone’s lifespan, but that was during an age when the most you could get out of an Android phone was three years of major updates. Most phones came with two. Nowadays, though, things are very different. If you get a newer device from Samsung or Google, you will get a whopping seven years of major Android updates. If you buy a phone with Android 15, you can expect it to get updated to Android 22. OnePlus won’t commit all the way to seven, but it still offers a respectable four years.
There are still reasons why some might still root or put a ROM on their phones, but that brings us up to our next point.
The Trade-Offs Aren’t Worth It
Another argument against modding your phone today is that, simply, it’s not worth it to do so for a lot of people. Firstly, once you root your phone, you need to evade detection by Google if you want all your apps to continue working normally. Apps like Google Wallet, as well as a lot of banking apps, will refuse to work on a modified Android phone, and your phone will constantly attempt to detect if it’s modified by using the Google Play Integrity API. If this API detects a modification on your phone that’s not properly hidden away, it will deem your phone “insecure” and let apps know that they should not work on your phone.
There are ways to evade this check and make your phone look “secure” after modification, but it is ultimately a game of cat and mouse that many people aren’t willing to play. And that’s without getting into manufacturer-specific detection methods. Samsung, for one, puts Samsung Knox on its phones, which will blow an e-fuse following modification that will void your warranty.
It’s Too Troublesome
Even when we take into account the whole detection thing, and we manage to bypass it, we then run into another problem—modding is simply too troublesome in a few ways. For one, it’s way too easy for you to break something you didn’t intend to break. While activating a hidden feature or installing a new root feature, you may inadvertently cause other issues with your phone, bugs in your apps or operating system, or simply negatively affect your phone’s performance and stability.
Custom ROMs usually bring more of these issues. One or more core features, like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, could be broken in the custom ROM, and even if everything does work, you could still suffer from stability issues or other bugs.
These aren’t new issues, but they’re definitely a contributor to the general status quo of things. When people use their phones, they just want them to work fine and do what they’re supposed to do.
