HTC Hero Gets an Official Update, and What That Means for Hero ROMs…

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HTC has announced the they are coming out with an official update for the HTC Hero “within a few weeks” to fix some complaints of a “slight lag” to the device. I personally have a Hero here to use and can attest to the slight lag (although the phone is still pretty awesome, I would never have an issue with it being smoother than it already is).

Below is a video from MoDaCo showing off the new update briefly.

For all HTC Hero owners out there, help is on the way. And to clarify for those that have rooted their Hero or are thinking about it, this update will have to be downloaded from HTC’s site so it will not be OTA and therefore you will have no trouble updating to it even if you have a rooted Hero when you do. (Their updates erase everything much in the same way we unroot other Android devices with an official .nbh file, these updates will most likely do the same). The only thing is you will lose root access (of course), but I’m sure shortly after the update is released someone will release a new rooted ROM for it.

For all you Sprint users waiting to get your hands on the Hero (in October), this means your Hero will probably already have the update installed and be that much sexier when you go get it.

For all the people who have a G1, MyTouch 3G, or a Magic with a Hero ROM, this is good news for you, too 🙂 When the devs get their hands on this new update, you can bet they will use it as the basis for their new ROMs and that can only mean a boost in speed for the Hero ROM you are currently happy with/complaining about…

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  • Max

    Is there a possibility they can get the bluetooth working on the hero rom and get maps do locate you using the 3g network without gps enabled?

  • manuel

    Can’t wait to get my hands on this update. The performance on my g1 is okay right now, but there is always room for improvements.
    Keep up your work.

  • I stopped using the Hero Roms because I kept having SMS issues due to them messing with my APN settings.
    I just use a Hero theme now with the latest CM.

    • Hello Ricky,

      The SMS issue has nothing to do with your APN (you don’t even need an APN to send or receive texts, only to surf the internet or send and receive MMS).
      Its usually a ROM issue, did you try different ROMs and same problem?

  • ZiBop

    Sound good! Sadly, my rooted MyTouch 3G suffers from the lag issue, but it seems that it’s more the software than the hardware it’s running on. Tried various ports of the ROM, but they all eventually lagged as time moved on and widgets were used on more than three screens. Hopefully this new update will bring up the speed and the bluetooth mystery with custom ROMs will be solved. 😀

  • carlos

    will the new hero update fix the browser i can only surf the internet on certian sites it give me an error issue

    • Hello Carlos,

      No that is not a common issue, my Hero surfs fine. I would check with either your service provider or HTC support.

  • kevin

    is there anyway we can update this with out wiping the phone? or wen the new thing come out we have to wipe and load the new rom?

    • Hello Kevin,

      You will most likely have to wipe…

  • Marcello de Sales

    Just installed the QTek Hero ROM (Magic, MyTouch, 32B) rom. The problem is that after closing an app, the OS shows the update screen again (20-30s)… When someone calls me, it shows a black screen for about 20s (I missed a call because of that). In short, it is pretty much slower than the rooted capcake image I had before… Hopefully this new update will fix these slow ops…

    • Hello Marcello,

      That sounds like it wasnt installed properly actually. Lag is one thing, 20 seconds of blackscreen is another.
      Did you partition the memory card first (3 partitions) and then load the Swap enabled Qtek ROM?

      Although to what you said, this new update should help all the Hero ROMs out there, at least a bit 🙂

  • jae

    That’s great news.;)
    I have a g1 running a drizzy hero Rom
    Runs perfect ,but there’s always room for more
    Perfectio.

  • krusty

    hi i installed flash player on my mac but the video doesn’t seem to show on my safari browser. any ideas?

  • SillySam

    What’s the deal with the hero rom craze. The heros I’ve seen youtube dont look any faster speed wise than the mytouch, actually the mytouch seems more responive than the hero.

    • Hello SillySam,

      It’s not the speed why they goto Hero (Hero is always slower since the ROM was meant to run on a phone with 100 more MBs of RAM). Its the new user interface, multitouch, better widgets, contact integration, and exchange support that gets people to Hero.
      Give it a try, it’s easy enough on our site and you can always go back…

  • OriginalG

    I’ve been trying most of the Hero ROMs currently out with my myTouch 3G. It was rooted according to your latest method on this website. However, there are a few issues (“Unable to start wi-fi”, no home orientation on rotate, accelerometer not working). Are these issues normal for all Hero ROMs, or did I possibly miss something when I rooted?

    • Hello OriginalG,

      Here is the answer to each issue:
      1. Unable to Start Wifi – This is not normal, wipe and try a different ROM. The majority of them have Wifi working fine (try the JACHeroski V1.5 in our downloads section, I know that one works).
      2. There is no Home Rotate on the Hero phone (the real one or any ROMs) HTC made this decision and we don’t know why. So you won’t have that regardless.
      3. As with #2, HTC made the decision to not have a lot of their apps on here rotate (like when setting calendar tasks for instance). Again don’t know why. Things that should rotate though are; Browser, Text, Email, and Images (if those don’t rotate you need to goto Settings and make sure Orientation is ON and if it still doesn’t work after that. Wipe and load a different ROM).

  • t3monkey boy

    I have completed the root my hero in one click but not loaded a rom, will this invalidate my warranty? can it be put back to factory settings? thanks

    • Hello T3Monkey Boy,

      You need to load a ROM to compete the rooting process.
      Yes, it does, but you can just revert back before sending the phone in for warranty (look on forums.XDA-Developers.com for how to Unroot the Hero).

  • Acsteffy87

    What im waiting for is the official port of the Hero rom from HTC to the HTC Magic, then the developers will definitly be able to make something great from that for us MT3G/Magic users

    • Hello Acsteffy87,

      I can tell you right now that it won’t make a big difference. The port that you are referring to is only for non branded Magics, which are Magics that have the 288mbs of RAM (unlike the 192mbs that the MyTouch has) and that is easy for HTC to do (they don’t have to alter the ROM at all to get it to move over, except for button mapping and minor tweaks). So the ROMs you will see coming out soon from XDA and here will definitely be the same if not better than what will come out because of the Magic port (since its the same amount of work needed by developers to tweak it to run on 192mbs of RAM, make sense?)
      But of course up to you. I say no harm in loading a Hero ROM or two once they start using this new updated ROM to create theirs.

  • OriginalG

    TheUnlockr,

    Thanks for your reply. I have tried to wipe and try several Hero ROMs, all having the same issues I mentioned earlier. Should the memory card also be formatted when flashing a new ROM? My radio and SPL are up-to-date, so I don’t think those are the issue. I would definitely stick with Hero if wi-fi and accelerometer worked properly. (For example, Teeter doesn’t work at all.)

    • Hello OriginalG,

      Wow, you must be very unlucky lol I have never heard of someone having an issue with Wifi and accell on EVERY Hero ROM. You have have to just wait for a new ROM.

      No you do not have to format every time, but you DEFINITELY need to format with the 3 partitions the first time or it will be slower than molasses.

  • OriginalG

    TheUnlockr,

    My memory card is formatted with 3 partitions, and the speed of the ROM is pretty decent. Slight lag is expected and acceptable. I’m flashing JACHeroski V1.5 from your website right now, but my hopes aren’t very high. The last one I tried was JACHeroski V1.6b, I believe, and same issues… Normally, I use CM 4.0.4 and it’s almost flawless.

    Update: JACHeroski V1.5 has working wi-fi! And so does the accelerometer. I was getting my ROMs from androidspin.com, but I wasn’t a member there. Possibly the reason?

    Thanks, Unlockr!

    • Hello OriginalG,

      Your very welcome, glad its working for you!
      I’ll try to keep the downloads section here updated when I can so just get your ROMs from here instead and avoid the problem lol

  • Acsteffy87

    Im currently using JACxHEROSkiv1.7r2 and all the issues that people complain about:
    lag, fuzzy screen, dropped calls, reboot during calls.

    none of these have happened to me yet and i have been actively using this rom for about 2 days now and making calls and texting aswell.

    I dont even have SetCPU or swapper or move cache apps on my device. I believe this rom is based on the update from HTC so that is why there are no issues with lag.

    the link to this rom is:
    http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=550331

  • Christopher

    ROM is out, at least for nordic countries 🙂

  • mrjlwilliams

    @ Acstefy87

    With JACxHEROSkiv1.7r2, Does all of your features work? Wifi,bluetooth,internet, mms? also, does the screen auto rotate? Thanks.

  • Gerard

    Hello. I just Installed te Jachero rom on my g1. it’s lagging a lot. i installed the swapper but its not accepting the setting for some reason. I also format the sdcard fat32. and it’s still not working. Can someone please help me?

    • Hello Gerard,

      You need to have the 3 partitions as with any Hero ROM partition the card fat32+ext2+swap then put our recommend hero rom in our download section on the sd card Wipe Data then Apply Update.

  • GT

    Hello,

    can someone recommend me a Hero ROM that works well with SMS’s? I flashed my G1 with JACxHeroSki ROM v1.5 and currently I’m facing the problem that I have some “missing” SMS’s. I sent SMS’s to myself and I didn’t receive some of them.

    Thanks for your help.

  • Brian

    I have spent three hours, two different versions of flashrec, two different IMF files, and wiped my phone twice and it is still not rooted. I really want to run the wifi hotspot software. Any suggestions?