After a few false starts and a handful of hoaxes, the T-Mobile myTouch 3G has been rooted. For those a bit behind the times on their lingo, “rooting” an Android phone is similar to the concept of “jailbreaking” an iPhone, in that it gives you full access and control of your system files. This allows you to retheme the device, run applications that otherwise wouldn’t (there aren’t many of these on Android, but tethering applications are one example), and swap out just about any core OS file you want.
The magic all happened at the hands of hackers dream_kill and Haykuro, the latter of which is the same clever gent who tweaked and twurked the HTC Hero ROM onto G1s back in May. Interestingly, Haykuro doesn’t even own a myTouch – it seems that things were just passed back and forth between Haykuro and a “test dummy” (his words) until it worked.
The process is by no means for the faint of heart or technically inept. The whole thing is about 20 steps deep, each part filled with at least one thing likely to confuse. Before you even start, you’ll need to make a “gold card”, which is a memory card modified to unlock your device at startup. Though there are a handful of tutorials out there, even this step can be daunting.
If you’re still willing to take on the task, you can check out Haykuro’s tutorial here.