Thoughts on Removing Excel's Phone apps

[Fonefixer]

Nope, not yet.

The last time I tried ADB I messed up my pc somehow. Ill look further into it I think.

I have sent an email to SO asking them to look into the possibility of issuing an update.zip that removes / disables the phone apps as its obvious they are not needed on the excel.

So far I have had the standard "we are passing this request higher up the chain" email. Im also waiting for them to give me the original firmware in some form so I (or a colleague more conversant with android) can have a look at it.

[Charlie]

... i was hoping even the symbol at the top showing the data connection with a little cross would disappear also. not a big problem but annoying i guess.

Not sure if this will go, we might have to do this another way - by making a new image (just a small black square)
as the image that we currently see is from here:

/system/app/SystemUI.apk/res/drawable-mdpi/stat_sys_signal_null.png

I am not 100% sure on the correct way to do this, yet - maybe it is just a case of dropping the new image in it's place, rather than unpacking the .apk and repacking it etc.

[jadee]

I am trying to install Good for Enterprise on my Scroll Excel as we use it for work to gain access to Lotus Notes from devices such as iPads and tablets.
The installation fails with the message:
Alert
Your phone network is off
Tun on your phone network the click OK
Does anyone have experience of Good and know if the Phone apps were turned off that this application would install?

[Charlie]

Ok, I finally found time, to look into this further. It is different to os 2.1 - I used root explorer to rename phone.apk to phone.apk.orig - I got into a force close loop, as I knew I would, but unlike the 1st Gen Scroll I could not turn the Excel off via the power button. I just did this instead via an adb command instead. - adb reboot

Once rebooted, I renamed the telephony.provider.apk - the signal bar is still showing (got a fix for that) just need to asses battery life.

[Mitre]

Ok, I finally found time, to look into this further. It is different to os 2.1 - I used root explorer to rename phone.apk to phone.apk.orig - I got into a force close loop, as I knew I would, but unlike the 1st Gen Scroll I could not turn the Excel off via the power button. I just did this instead via an adb command instead. - adb reboot

Once rebooted, I renamed the telephony.provider.apk - the signal bar is still showing (got a fix for that) just need to asses battery life.

just a tip about bootloop and changing system files. on another forum one of the gurus said the first thing he does when going in as root to change files is to adb pull the build.prop so if he gets in a bootloop he can push it back and then adb reeboot just something to remember(maybe keep a copy of build.prop in the platform-tools folder
if there is a decent battery saving this is next on my list,
your doing some good work here charlie

[Charlie]

Pushing back an orginal build.prop because you have a bootloop will only help if, the bootloop was caused by changing the wrong thing with a build.prop. It won't help if you mess up another system file.

[Astro]

The last time I tried ADB I messed up my pc somehow.

Have you tried Android Commander, the software that @blueeagle69 mentioned in http://scrolltabletforum.co.uk/site/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=2000? I've not explored it fully yet, but it looks interesting.

Excel