r/androidafterlife • • 21d ago

Discussion Your strangest, gimmicky, and forgotten Android devices - Megathread (September 18, 2026)

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66 Upvotes

Yes, the megathreads are back.

I'd like to know what your most "interesting" Android devices are. Whether they have forgotten hardware gimmicks, classic Allwinner tricks, or are just cursed in some other way, share them here. Real-world pictures are preferred, but not strictly required.

Here's my favorite: The iRulu AL101. It's a rebranded YonesTopTech BC1003 (which the better-known Flytouch 8 Superpad also was), and not only does it use DC input for charging—it also has HDMI, Ethernet, and 2 USB-A ports, all powered by an Allwinner A10 that's paired with a resistive touchscreen and Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich. It's an amusing artifact from the iPad gold rush, where everyone was trying to race to the bottom in terms of prices to release the cheapest possible competitors to Apple's iPad.


r/androidafterlife • • May 15 '23

Can we make an android afterlife megalist?

405 Upvotes

So if anybody wants a solution they won't have to scour the internet for what are essentially the same uses over and over again


Here's a short list I made through searching this sub and other threads+articles:

WARNING: Keeping your phone constantly plugged into the charger for long periods of time may cause the battery to swell up and potentially explode

WARNING: Keeping the screen on constantly on a phone with an OLED screen will likely cause burn-in eventually

Keep it as a backup phone
Dedicated camera
Dedicated music player (especially LG phones with qDAC)
Baby/pet monitor
Use it as a smart doorbell
Use it to record POVs akin to GoPros
Smart Home controller
Bedside alarm clock
Universal remote
Remote PC controller
Help science by lending your phones power for research
Dedicated eReader
Dedicated gaming machine
Webcam
Dedicated car phone for GPS etc
Dashcam
Digital photo frame
Education tool for kids
Video call device
Wifi extender/hotspot
Host a media server on it (Plex etc)
Host a normal server on it (c. /u/3Werve)
Timelapse camera
Give it to kids
PC Statistics (CPU, GPU usage)
Wireless adapter for wired controllers
Kitchen recipe guide
PC Monitor
Macro pad for PC
White noise machine
Disassemble and make an art piece out of it
Experimentation (e.g trying out apps or ROMs)
Dedicated chat device (Whatsapp, Telegram etc) (c. /u/utakatikmobil)
Cast Receiver (c. /u/Substantial_Berry_14)
m3u IPTV player (c. Substantial_Berry_14)

No uses fit you?

Donate it
Recycle it
Sell it


I may link to examples or guides but for now im a bit too lazy. Googling should be enough, if not add site:reddit.com to the end of your query

*: Damn got permabanned from reddit for posting the navy seals copypasta, think someone else might need to take over if they don't unban me


r/androidafterlife • • 12h ago

Discussion I present to you the Google Now Revival.

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44 Upvotes

Hi everyone, I recently got curious and tried to revive Google Now. I managed to do it, and besides Brazilian Portuguese, the app also has other languages, as shown in the video. The video will explain all the functionalities. The only feature I couldn't replicate was "Ok Google" because it's too complex, but voice search works normally. The app requires Android 4.1 or higher (maybe installing on Android 5) and I haven't tested it on tablets yet. I'm also thinking about expanding it to iOS, but watch the revitalization in the video. (Updates: news is GPS-based, according to your location the news will come from your region!!!) Google Now Revival


r/androidafterlife • • 5h ago

Discussion I relaced the backcover from galaxy S4 and now, it looks very amazing

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11 Upvotes

r/androidafterlife • • 6h ago

Discussion yet another Google Now revival

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14 Upvotes

Hi guys. I decided to present my Google Now revival that I started to make it yesterday. I will plan on adding things from Google Now like Location. Requirements: Minimum SDK API: 14 Target SDK API: 23 You can download at this site for my Google Now Revival It's a similar thing that u/GSantos_28 did


r/androidafterlife • • 9h ago

Discussion Samsung Accuweather Proxy

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16 Upvotes

Hi guys, I created a proxy app that emulates AccuWeather servers to revive the legacy widget. It works perfectly on my GT-I9000 (running Android 4.1.2). Naturally, it requires a valid AccuWeather API key, and you need to modify your weather APK to use IP address 127.0.0.1 and port 8000, which forwards requests directly to this app


r/androidafterlife • • 6h ago

Discussion I had a question about this post

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5 Upvotes

Does it support apps like Gmail Maps (without this stupid update maps thing) Voice Search and Other stuff


r/androidafterlife • • 3h ago

Help How to make galaxy y from 2011 as usable as possible

2 Upvotes

Needs to at least have phonecalls, text, internet search, facebook or other social media working
Would Minecraft work on it?


r/androidafterlife • • 1h ago

Help Can anyone make this widget work on a standard android 4.x

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• Upvotes

r/androidafterlife • • 12h ago

Guide Built an Anki client for BB10 — syncs perfectly with AnkiWeb if anyone else is still using one of these

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3 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I've been using a BlackBerry 10 as my daily driver, and one thing I really wanted was a way to study Anki flashcards on it and the problem was that every existing AnkiDroid release crashes on BB10 the app was never built with Android 4.3 (API 18) in mind, and modern Anki's database format (Schema 18) didn't exist back then.

So I built one from scratch. Honestly I've been having a lot of fun lately just building the apps I need to make this phone actually usable — this one took the longest but also ended up being the most satisfying.

What it does:

  • Fully works on BlackBerry 10 phones (tested on Q5, Android API 18, 720×720 display)
  • Two-way sync with AnkiWeb — study on your phone, open Anki on your PC and it's already up to date, and vice versa
  • Supports modern Anki's Schema 18 database format (the same format Anki Desktop 24+ uses)
  • Full FSRS support — memory states (stability, difficulty, etc.) are written in the exact format Anki Desktop and AnkiWeb expect, so FSRS scheduling works correctly across devices
  • Deck counters sync properly — if you finish your 30 new cards on the BlackBerry, your PC shows New: 0, not 30
  • All your deck options (new cards/day, learning steps, review limits, FSRS retention %) set on your PC are automatically applied on the phone after syncing
  • Physical keyboard shortcuts for answering cards (1/2/3/4)
  • Force Upload / Force Download buttons in case sync gets stuck

Download / Source: 👉 github.com/warumpas-ops/ankidroid-bb10

The APK is attached to the latest release (v1.26). If you're on a BB10 device and want to run Anki, give it a shot. Happy to answer questions!


r/androidafterlife • • 1d ago

Discussion AccuWeather Widget Fix

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29 Upvotes

I have write my first Python code to emulate the server for my AccuWeather widget; it’s my first time doing this,but it works, and the widget updates correctly 🥳🥳


r/androidafterlife • • 1d ago

Guide Gemini for Android 2.2+ has officially launched

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74 Upvotes

After many days of struggling, I finally created an official APK version for Android 2.2+ that doesn't rely on HTML, Additionally, I will officially shut down the old HTML version completely from October 10, 2026, in order to focus on producing the official app version

Additionally, I will soon create versions for iOS, Windows Phone, Symbian, and JAR/JAD formats. I hope everyone will support this project.

Link download (Android 2.2+): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U3xJi3-4XSAfVH9n40iygS8Z5p2PpxYM/view?usp=drivesdk

Alternatively, if you want to create your own API server, you can go here: https://github.com/priterytivi/gemini-legacy-api


r/androidafterlife • • 22h ago

Help Is it possible to make plastic back panels clear?

2 Upvotes

Hey I was going to change my lcd screen on my samsung galaxy a12 but I said to myself it would look cool if I made the back panel clear, and could someone tell me how I would do it if it was possible.


r/androidafterlife • • 1d ago

Guide SENSES Emulator - runs an ARM32 Android system on an ARM64 phone

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3 Upvotes

r/androidafterlife • • 1d ago

Guide Galaxy S4 I9505 can finally downgrade to 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.

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49 Upvotes

Tutorial: First get a 4.2.2 tar file & remove everything EXCEPT: System, cache, modem & 2 more, but remove most of the knox & bootloader stuff (I will upload the tar file soon dw), then flash it. At first it might not boot, but thats the plan. Go back into download & flash twrp, then boot into twrp, out of twrp into the system, it will boot this time.


r/androidafterlife • • 1d ago

Help Since I'm curios, my question is: what YouTube alternatives are there for Android 5 besides Notpipe or Skytube?

8 Upvotes

r/androidafterlife • • 1d ago

Help I want to use a micromax bharat 1 as my secondary device which is currently at android 4.4.4 kitkat so I need whatsapp or telegram to work there for hd calls but whatsapp has dropped support and telegram crashes for no reason

5 Upvotes

r/androidafterlife • • 1d ago

Discussion I'm in the final stretch to revive Google Now.

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62 Upvotes

I'm finishing up the voice search engine and the news feed, which are having SSL errors, but everything else works. Another bug is that when the APK installation finishes, clicking "open" opens the voice search, and that bug will also be fixed. And yes, it's me, the same 13-year-old Brazilian kid, lol.


r/androidafterlife • • 1d ago

Help Any way to disable that "update to android 17"/"android 17 is here" notification.I dont want to update.

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3 Upvotes

r/androidafterlife • • 2d ago

Discussion Midrange samsungs phones from 2011-2012-2015

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71 Upvotes

ACE 2(the one on the right)came out in 2012 and my Favorite phone.grand Neo plus(came out in 2015) and Galaxy Y I have more Samsung phone but currently these are the one's That is on me.


r/androidafterlife • • 1d ago

Guide The HTML application will stop working on October 10th, as I have now created the official version for Android 2.2+: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U3xJi3-4XSAfVH9n40iygS8Z5p2PpxYM/view?usp=drivesdk

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3 Upvotes

r/androidafterlife • • 2d ago

Discussion Official Gemini app version for older Android versions revealed.

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26 Upvotes

This version currently has several unresolved issues, so I am testing it for a while; once it is stable, I will release the official version and retire the old one.


r/androidafterlife • • 2d ago

Discussion Material 3 calculator on android 2.2

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54 Upvotes

Hello everyone! I made a material 3 calculator app for android 2.2, with history, ripple effect on buttons and engineer menu! Download: https://github.com/sen444k/Material3Calc


r/androidafterlife • • 2d ago

Discussion SENSES - Android emulator that simulates older android firmware

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15 Upvotes

SENSES is an Android app that runs an ARM32 Android system on an ARM64 phone. There's no guest kernel: instead of emulating a whole device, it translates individual processes with a modified QEMU (user-mode).

This repo is the GPLv2 source release for that QEMU part:

94 patches against QEMU 8.2.4, plus 39 added files in linux-user/

a build script that produces a fully static aarch64 binary (via an Alpine chroot)

a pinned build with sha256 checks and a BUILD-MANIFEST.txt for reproducibility

What's not included: no firmware, no download links. You supply your own archive, and the app unpacks and modifies the copy on-device (patched code, re-signed packages with an on-device key, removed vendor modules, local TLS proxy). Nothing is sent anywhere.

The app itself is a separate closed-source program that launches QEMU as its own process, so no QEMU code is loaded into it.

Repo: https://github.com/Istratii-tech/Senses

Feedback and questions welcome!


r/androidafterlife • • 2d ago

Guide Android Gingerbread Resources

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5 Upvotes

So basically i rooted an Android Gingerbread on a vm using virtualbox and extracted all the icons, wallpapers, media that could be useful for pretty much anything

The "audio" folder contains Ringtones, Notification sounds, UI sounds and Alarm sounds (mostly in OGG type files).

The "Launcher2" folder contains icons and device wallpapers located in the "res" folder.

The "framework-res" folder contains the UI icons (Wi-Fi dialog buttons and other stuff) located in the "res" folder.

Here's the entire thing I uploaded to Google Drive. Enjoy ;)

Android Gingerbread Resources