Disclaimer: This article was not written by me (and I certainly didn't do any of the clever technical stuff to find out how to do it, or to modify the boot image) but is based on my translation of a German website. It is far from a direct translation. Aside from any minor linguistic adjustments, I've changed the Windows-centric details to Linux ones, simply because I have no interest in the irony of hacking an Android device using Windows. Note that in nearly all cases, the use of the personal pronoun "I" in the text that follows refers to the original author of the German article.
The Tolino Epos (as with all the other Tolino eReaders, as far as I know) is supplied running Android 4.4.2 (the CPU spec prevents it being able to run anything higher), and is able to be put into Fastboot mode. This mode allows a modified image to be run at boot time in order to enable ADB and USB-debugging. From here, the Android operating system can then be accessed via ADB, and settings can be changed, additional apps can be installed, and, for example, an app launcher can be run on the device.
The following instructions describe how to modify your Tolino to achieve this. I've tried to avoid complicated descriptions, and the whole process is kept sufficiently simple that anyone should be able to follow it, even without much familiarity with Android, embedded systems in general, or debugging Android devices in particular.
The instructions were tested with, and assume that you have, the following hardware:
You'll also need a few programs installed and files downloaded in order to make the change:
Before diving into the detailed instructions, a few words regarding the result we're aiming for:
With the following change it becomes possible to start the Epos into the Launcher, which then provides access to device settings and any newly-installed apps, as well as the apps already pre-installed on the Epos (for example, the Tolino e-book reader app)
When you launch the Tolino app, you're effectively returning to the standard Tolino software (after all, it is the standard Tolino software), and the device operates exactly as it used to. The reader, the smart light, the Tolino shop, wireless networking and so on all operate as normal. There is no difference in the Tolino software itself from previously.
The following instructions also explain how to install additional apps and how to run them on the device. It's even possible to install a Store app. I haven't tested whether Google's PlayStore app works, but I would expect it to have problems. If you want to install additional apps, I recommend the Shop app from APKPure. You can also get a File Manager from there in order to install apps using .apk files.
The modification described here does not "root" the Epos. In my opinion this is not necessary in order to get additional apps installed and running on the device. If you really do want to root your device, you can try doing it with, for example, the KingRoot app.
[ Translator's notes:
So, with that said, let's get going :)
90027151,ca793109172a410286918934416d1096 fastboot
where 90027151 is the serial number of the device (as shown on the "Information and help" screen from the standard Tolino menu). I have no idea what the rest means, but it seems to be hardware-based and has nothing to do with the installed firmware.
sending 'boot' (4316 KB)... OKAY [ 0.148s] writing 'boot'... OKAY [ 0.399s] finished. total time: 0.547s
List of devices attached * daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 * * daemon started successfully * 90027151,ca793109172a410286918934416d1096 device
You can now run a shell on the device in order to run commands on the Epos itself. adb shell
shell@ntx_6sl:/ $
[100%] /data/local/tmp/Nova Launcher_5.5.4.apk
pkg: /data/local/tmp/Nova Launcher_5.5.4.apk
Success
[100%] /data/local/tmp/APKPure_v3.16.5_apkpure.com.apk
pkg: /data/local/tmp/APKPure_v3.16.5_apkpure.com.apk
Success
Oh, and by the way, if Tolino releases an update to the software for the Epos (it's at 13.2.1 at the time of writing this article), feel free to go ahead and install it in the usual way. It won't undo any of the hard work you've done here - it only updates the reader app.
Further update some months later: Tolino have now released firmware 14.0.1 and I've just installed it with no ill effects on the Android system. The reader update got downloaded and installed, the device rebooted, and returned to the Nova Launcher screen. From there I could get into the new version of the reader app in the normal way (as well as everything else I had installed).
More months later: Tolino have now released firmware 14.1.0 and the same process worked splendidly once again. It is, after all, only upgrading the reader app - the underlying Android system stays the same.
If you're interested in what else you can do with ADB, https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/adb and https://gist.github.com/Pulimet/5013acf2cd5b28e55036c82c91bd56d8 are good starting points.
Viel Spaß (have fun)…
[ Note: this is not part of the original German article; these are my own (translator's) opinions and comments. ]
I think the main question almost anyone would ask about this is: what can you do with standard Android, and being able to install additional apps, on an eBook reader?
Obviously, there are two pretty severe limitations when trying to run standard apps on an eReader:
Additional limitations, which may be important depending on what you might think of doing with it:
However, the device does have WiFi, and for example WiFi Analyzer works quite well.
You can use a browser (after all, the Tolino range include a browser as part of the standard software), but bear in mind many features of modern websites will be affected by the slow CPU and the monochrome display.
You can certainly play text adventure games, although anything with built-in graphics (such as some of the Level9 games, for example) will be slower than a purely-text version. This generally depends on the version of the game itself which you download, however, rather than the interpreter you use to play it.
I've just purchased a phone/tablet stylus to try using graphical input apps such as Squid and Google's Handwriting Input (both of which clearly work, but are difficult to use with a fingertip - for me, anyway). Update: I don't think I've bought a rubbish stylus (because it does work on the Epos, and it works well on a Samsung Galaxy phone), but it's really not usable on the Epos - handwriting input is out of the question, and even keyboard pen-typing (or whatever you call it) is less good than using a fingertip.
One aspect which such apps illustrate quite impressively is the "buffering" of screen touches, where whatever you're drawing appears on screen quite some time (a second or so) after you've drawn it, but what you drew does get accurately represented (in other words the touch screen is far more responsive than the display).
If, for some reason, in some way, you manage to get your Tolino in a state where it's unusable, either because something went wrong with the above instructions, or possibly later on (in my case it was after setting a PIN security code to start the device, and then finding out it didn't work, and I was unable to get past the "enter your PIN" screen), you can always reset the reader to factory settings. You will lose everything you've installed on it, but at least it'll work again.
Note that this may well re-install an earlier version of the software on your device - I'm not quite sure where the recovery image is stored; it might be a version that's installed at the factory, so you would go back to that version every time you follow this procedure, or it might be something installed as part of each update. In my case the device had been running 13.2.1 and the system restore took it back to 11.2.3 (whereas the earliest release version for the Epos is 11.0.0).
I tested downgrading the device to 11.1.0 (which is the earliest I know of which can be downloaded) and then performing the system restore again, and this time it re-installed 11.1.0, so it's clearly not something installed at the factory.
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