TBT: 10 Years Ago, Your Custom ROM Friday Was ‘Shiny ROM’ for the Galaxy Nexus

Holy craaaap, guys, we’re getting old. 10 years ago, we were still doing a Custom ROM Friday post every single Friday. 10 years ago, on March 8, we posted up the Shiny ROM for the Galaxy Nexus. Written in my post, I noted that Pete Alfonso had left the ROM development scene, and with that move, folks were looking for replacements to run on their Android phones. Shiny ROM was gaining a lot of popularity via RootzWiki, so we highlighted it all those years ago.

Curious what was inside Shiny ROM? Highlights included a stock deodexed (I miss this word) build of Android 4.2.2, was easily rootable, Google apps (Gmail, Google Play, etc.), Android 4.2 wallpapers and sounds, and “everything works.” You know when the ROM developer lists that everything works, you’re gonna have a good time.

Following our posting of the ROM, the developer of Shiny, Baldwinguy77, commented the following.

Hey everyone! Baldwinguy77 here, I just had to make sure I stopped by to give a HUGE thanks to Droid Life and all of the Shiny users who stopped by to recommend Shiny for Custom ROM Friday. I’ve been following this site since I first got the OG droid a few years ago, and I’m extremely honored to be featured on here, what I (and many others) consider to be the pinnacle of Android news. Thanks again, and keep up the amazing, exceptional work here on Droid Life.

Shout-out to Baldwinguy77! We hope you’re doing well all of these years later. I really need to do some sort of follow up with a lot of the OG ROM developers. I think that could be pretty fun, right? And before you ask, yes, I have reached out to Federico of LauncherPro countless times and he has yet to respond to my requests for an interview. Safe to say the rewrite isn’t coming, folks.