Now that we have rooted Nokia X, the obvious next step would be to get Play Store, Google Now and other Google services running on the device, which have otherwise been removed from the device. No one needs to explain why someone might want to have Play Store and Google Now on their Android device.
The credit for porting this Google bonanza to Nokia X goes to Kashamalaga, the same xda member who had shared his rooting method for the Nokia X earlier. Kashamalaga also took the time to share snaps of his phone running the Play Store.
Get Play Store, Google Now launcher and other Google Apps on Nokia X
- The first and foremost step to get towards the goal here is to root your Nokia X.
- Once rooted, install any file explorer with superuser access i.e. root permissions. As your device doesn't have Play Store, google for the apk file of any such file explorer. A few good ones are: Root Explorer, Solid Explorer, Astro File Manager etc. Once you find the apk, transfer it to your phone and install it.
- When you are done with installing such a file manager, open it and go to /system/app. To reach the /system partition, you will have to go to your root folder first i.e. /.
- In /system/app, copy all the apk files present in NokiaX_Gapps_KashaMalaga_28.02.2014.zip file. (You need to extract this zip file to get the aforementioned apk files.)
- Long press one-by-one on all the apk files you just pasted in the /system/app folder and select Manage permissions option (this option might be named something else depending on the file manager you are using).
- Set the permissions as rw-r--r--. That is, give Read permissions in all three rows but write permission only in the first row.
- Reboot your phone once you have set the permissions as told.
- Download NokiaX_SomeGoogleApps.zip file and extract it anywhere in your phone.
- The extracted folder will contain basic Google Apps, like Google Now Launcher and Play Store. You can now install them like you generally install any normal apk.
Before you can use Play Store, you will need to sign in to (or create) a Google account, like other Android phones. Once you have set up your Google Account, you can use Play Store as normal.
If you face any kind of problems following this tutorial or if any step seems ambiguous, dropping a comment would be the wisest thing to do.
