In the world of Android smartphones the open nature of rooting the device and flashing custom firmware is almost as important as the customization capabilities that are available to all users normally. Before a device can be rooted though it has to have a custom recovery installed. There are more than a couple different custom recoveries available, but one of the most popular remains TWRP from Team Win. Usually, software such as custom recoveries might be expected to show up weeks after an official device announcement, but that isn’t the case with the recently announced HTC 10 smartphone, HTC’s 2016 flagship device that was unveiled just at the beginning of last week.
With the TWRP recovery already available on the HTC 10 prior to it launching in retail stores, customers who decide to pick the device up will already have something to flash to the device if they want to tweak with it down the road. This also opens the device up to some early build work with custom ROMs once more developers are able to get their hands on the phone, although it could still be a little while before custom firmware makes it out to the public. The custom recovery will be needed before that can begin though which makes this a nice first step.
There are a few different methods for installing TWRP on the HTC 10 once consumers have the phone in hand, and the first method requires users to have TWRP already installed on the device. Since that won’t be an option, users will have two other methods to go for, one which requires root and which does not. The root method is called the “dd install method.” Users will need to place the downloaded .img file into the root of their /sd card folder on the device and type in a series of commands through adb shell or a terminal emulator application. The non-root method is the “fastboot method,” and users will need to flash the recovery through fastboot, which will requires the Android SDK and the platform tools installed on the computer the device will be connected to.