The Galaxy S IV isn’t even out yet, but it’s rooted

For those lucky enough to own a Galaxy S IV, which would be practically no-one as the phone is only up for preorder, you’ll be happy to know that Samsung’s mammoth phone can now be rooted. XDA-developers.com has released a rooted ROM and instructions for hacking the S IV and, as per usual, any modifications done to your phone are down at your own risk. Do not destroy that which you cannot control. This root will only work on the Exynos 5 Octa 8-core version of the S IV, the GT-I9500.

Visit the page, with download links and instructions here. 

Androidauthority.com points out that most markets will receive the GT-I9505, and this will require a separate root. The S IV is based on an octo-core CPU, and after reading through the forum, it seems that no-one has yet flashed the S IV with the custom ROM. Perhaps one of you will be the first? We found this video though, a shaky-cam video of an unknown user injecting the modded ROM back into the S IV.

For those who don’t know what all the rooting fuss is about, we’ve got three reasons for you. First, rooted Android phones can ditch the ugly software skin that most phone makers decide to layer over their devices. A good example of this is TouchWiz UI, the skin the Galaxy S models seem to be lumped with. Once rooted, you can pick and choose the ROM of your liking, but in this case there is already a custom ROM for the S IV.

The most important reason to root is to remove bloatware. Those horrible apps built into the phone, the ones that are impossible to remove, those can be deleted forever. Using an app built for rooted phones, you can pick and choose what stays, and what goes. Outside of this, rooted Android phones can be over clocked, the battery life can be extended and basically any function you ever wanted from a smartphone can be added. When the S IV arrives, the choice now is to root, or not to root.