Nokia X Gets Hacked Into Running Google’s Android Apps

There is no mystery that Nokia has finally revealed its Nokia handsets that run on the power of Android at MWC 2014. Its specs are modest, that is something that we must all admit from the start; here we are only talking about a 1Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core CPU paired with 512MB of RAM, while its 4-inch display has a maximum resolution of 800 x 480 pixel, not to mention the included 3MP main camera and dual-SIM support, but we have no problem with these specs. They are decent enough to be taken in consideration, so yes, our problem comes from somewhere else: this Nokia Android device isn’t at all what you might have in mind when you are thinking of a typical Android device as long as it comes with a customized Android-based UI. But what do feel about the fact that Nokia X has been hacked in order to run Google’s Android apps?

Nokia X Runs Google’s Android apps

We have told you from the start that this Nokia X device isn’t supposed to offer you access to Google’s Play services present such as Gmail and the Play Store, Music and so on, offering you something else instead: Nokia HERE maps and various Microsoft-centric apps.

But things didn’t go as initially planned. In a few days after its presentation, hackers have already managed to gain root access to the Nokia X and made it run Google’s Android apps and services. The xda-developers member Kasha Malaga is the first one to have managed to convert his Nokia X, mentioning that Nokia hasn’t locked down the device too heavily.

So, we can finally say that popular apps such as Google Now, Google Maps, Hangouts or Gmail appear to run on his Nokia X developer handset.

Nokia’s Reaction

As Nokia’s head of devices, Stephen Elop has declared, this Nokia X handset comes as an alternative to all these usual Google apps, Microsoft trying to find their equivalents, just as Nokia has built its own Android app store to avoid using Google’s Play version. In such conditions, you could imagine that the company was disappointed to find out about this hack, but this didn’t happen at all. In fact, Nokia seems to approve it: “This is awesome! Very excited to see progress is being made – we actually really like @xdadevelopers”.

So, although Nokia X has no specs to impress its future buyers, it is able to offer us a decent smartphone experience, with a well-organized interface and maybe even with Google’s Android apps that we had in mind in the first place.