Android 4.3 system dump leaked from a Nexus 4 bought on Craigslist, available to flash now
Ah, yes — there’s nothing quite like waking up to the system dump of a new version of Android that has yet to be officially announced or released. Late last night, a man by the name of Jeff Williams on Google+ revealed that he bought a Nexus 4 from Craigslist, and was a bit confused to find that it was running Android 4.3. People were initially skeptical, of course, as build.prop files are easily altered to show fake version numbers, but the community noticed that there were legit updates to the device’s radio and Linux kernel.
Google+ user Jason Newman and a whole community of tinkerers banded together to help Williams obtain the system dump from the phone. The group was up for hours through the late night and early morning, getting Williams up to speed on how to do a system dump and deliver other files the community could use. Then, it all came to fruition. The dump allowed XDA user GMillz to create a flashable .zip file for anyone with a rooted Nexus 4 to apply in ClockworkMod Recovery, and that’s where we stand right now.
We’re still waiting on the bootloader and radios from the latest build of Android, though with the straight forward instructions provided by XDA user efrant it shouldn’t be long before those items are available. If you want to take a chance and flash this thing before the radios are available you can grab the download here.
Remember that your device is your own responsibility, and while the ROM may work with the older radio you might still run into some issues. Give it a try, if you dare. We’ll be updating this post once more information about the rest of the dump becomes available.
[via Google+, thanks to everyone who sent this in!]