Database Info

no mutitouch without JF and Luke

multi-touch WTH!
ok.. so i just read this:
VentureBeat claims that Apple specifically asked Google not to use Multi-Touch in their Android platform and Google agreed. The report comes from an unidentified member of the Android team:
Apple, which of course makes the signature multi-touch mobile device, the iPhone, apparently asked Google not to implement it, and Google agreed, an Android team member tells us.
WTH!

I dont see how Apple even got away with patenting multi touch on a touch screen in the first place. Apple has gone overboard with patenting and it seems everything they see now, they patent. I'm surprised they havent tried to patent the wheel since its standard for older iPods.
I'm sure with captive or whatever screens the iphone and g1 use, its gonna have multi touch anyways. Captive screens are built for multi touch and Google/HTC coded it in to not use it but it was only a matter of time before people unlocked it.
I thought Apple actually patented the gestures and not the multi touch part tho. Since G1 doesnt do gestures than I would think Google is in the safe.
I've owned a few iPods and own a Classic iPod now but damn, Apple really blows.

Yep. It's what many people have been saying for a long time.
Never forget that the Google CEO Eric Schmidt is on the Apple board of directors. He'll never compete with Apple unless he absolutely must.
Even the Android move was done simply to meet the major hole in their strategy for mobile devices but he obviously chose to leave Apple their differentiating factors.
Also notice that apps are being released with an iPhone priority first, then Android?
It pisses me off particularly because I don't think Apple has a leg to stand on with their "patent". Multi-touch, specifically the gestures that they claim, have been around for longer than Apple or Fingerworks. Look up Jeff Han from his TED demonstration in 2005. Pinching, zooming, flicking motions, etc.

I think Google just wants to let Palm fight it out with Apple and when it is determined that the pinch and other gestures are not patentable by Apple, Google will be out there with Synaptics and other companies releasing some gesture standards.
Google is just playing nice for now.

A comment i read stated that although multi-touch isn't included it is supported so if some third party developer wants to use it they can. Result- end user gets the features they want and google keeps its hands clean.
As for the apple apps first - i imagine that's just because there's more revenue potential from iphones. At the moment anyway
incidently I have jf RC8 1.4, is there something I need to do to enable multi-touch in the browser?

Google has separate teams for iphone apps and android so its not a matter of apple getting apps first, its a matter of where they are in their development cycle.
Android got latitude first right? Its not yet available for the iphone.

dwang said:
Android got latitude first right? Its not yet available for the iphone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
..... it is a google product, nothing to do with apple. I would certinaly hope so

moussam said:
Google is just playing nice for now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
exactly. if google was really afraid of apple, i think the iphone would start losing some of its beloved google apps. which would just be hilarious.
later on, multi-touch may just become the standard. apple can't hold onto it forever, and even if they do.. well that's why i love android.

Remember Google is in it to win it. Yes they have a os, but there are EVERYWHERE. And will take their time. I agree put the code in and let other create for it. Keeping their hands clean.
Smart boogers they are

Apple asked Google not to use multi-touch in Android, and Google complied
MG Siegler | February 9th, 2009
One of the bigger complaints about T-Mobile’s G1, the first phone based on Google’s Android platform, is that its touch screen doesn’t use multi-touch, the technology which allows for a screen to accept multiple points of contact as simultaneous input. Now we may know why.
Apple, which of course makes the signature multi-touch mobile device, the iPhone, apparently asked Google not to implement it, and Google agreed, an Android team member tells us.
Further, the Android team member went on to say that they were relieved that Google didn’t go against Apple’s wishes, given the legal storm that appears to be brewing between Apple and Palm, which is using multi-touch technology in its new Pre phone. Even if Apple ultimately decides not to pursue legal action against Palm (it’s not yet clear how likely that is, but Apple does have an impressive array of patents), the situation has likely soured the relationship between the two companies. Google, it seems, wants no part in ruining its relationship with Apple.
And that makes sense. While the connection between Apple and Palm would seem like it should be strong, given how many former Apple employees now work at Palm, Google and Apple are actually more aligned. Not only does Google specially tailor a ton of its products for the iPhone (both with apps like Maps and Google Search, and specially formatted webpages), but its chief executive, Eric Schmidt, is on Apple’s board of directors. And don’t underestimate the fact that both share a chief rival: Microsoft.
Recent demonstrations (video below) have proven that the G1’s screen and Android are capable of handling multi-touch, so some people seemed confused that Google and HTC (which makes the G1) wouldn’t implement it. Now we know. The larger question going forward is, will multi-touch become important enough that Google has to include it in Android? After all, there are going to be a ton of Android-based phones come out this year, many that just have large screens like the iPhone (and get rid of the G1’s crappy keyboard). You can bet there will be pressure on Google to include multi-touch support in Android — especially after the Pre comes out.
On an related side note, the Android team member also confirmed that Intel has a massive effort underway related to Android. We reported at the end of last month that Intel was prepping to help with a large rollout of Android-based netbooks, possibly as soon as this year. It’s still not entirely clear what specifically Intel is doing on its end, but despite what some may think, it is heavily involved, our source contends.
Intel has been backing the Moblin project (mobile Linux), and it has now shifted its focus onto Netbooks for this year, jkOnTheRun’s Kevin Tofel noted recently. It seems that in some way it wants to be involved with Android too (though, Tofel noted in our comments on the other post that Android likely runs better on ARM architecture rather than Intel’s).
Our source confirmed that many different Android netbooks, as well as other Android-based projects are in the works. And that China is a hotbed for Android-based activity right now.
from:
http://venturebeat.com/2009/02/09/a...se-multi-touch-in-android-and-google-complied

Its only a matter of time before Apple claims to have invented air and will be charging us for every breath

oh, I am sorry... I didn't notice there already was a thread...
some nice mod merged it.

just keep in mind that its the 'gesture' that is patented, not the ability to have a multitouch input.

urgent - quickly separate multitouch from jf's version
as seen in other posts, apple got the patent for multitouch now. they announced to fight against everyone, who copies their feature. although this is meant in the direction of palm and maybe microsoft, this could concern us (and jesusfreke), too.
my suggestion is to separate multitouch from jf's version to avoid that jf is being sued by apple. maybe someone else with another account on xda, who doesn't care about being sued by apple could release the multitouch app for a short time and then ban it to the rapidshare hell...
For the mods: I don't believe that apple has the right to claim the patent for multitouch as others were quicker (microsoft). So I think this isn't a suggestion for illegal things but a tactic to avoid a legal action with unknown result. If you think, this post is not appropriate, let's discuss this first before closing the thread. Otherwise you would have to close the jf thread, too (I hope you won't do this).

They didn't patent all of multitouch. See http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/28/apple-vs-palm-the-in-depth-analysis/

i dont think apple would come after a single independant developer..... bad PR.... but would go after palm or M$ without any hesitation........ i dont really understand how they can patent something like that anyway.... its like patenting using a steering wheel......

It'll most likely be thrown out.
They're just using it to buy time for steve jobs to recover from cancer

I remember - not long ago - that palm was suing forum members that used the name "palm" for their forum. they didn't mind the bad PR. So I wouldn't be too sure, that they won't try to prevent someone having multitouch on a competiting device. They "asked" google to keep away from multitouch an they followed. If erverybody (the jf thread has 119,850 views, even if 19,850 are from me ) can have multitouch on the G1, they won't be happy with that.
And that's no secret of a little community. In nearly every article about the G1, jf'S version is mentionned, so apple knows about that.
So just to be sure that we don't have to raise funds for JF's legal action...
If it's possible, make it happen. Some people here already asked for a version without multitouch because some apps don't work anymore and future apps won't be supported by multitouch.

Just publish within EU
Such **** (SW patents) still doesn't fly in EU, so just publish it (t)here (rapidshare is in EU, AFAIK)

that was one of the sites...
http://www.palmpowerups.com/PalmPowerups.php?s=

[PROJECT] Biophilia App of Björk to Android

Hi.
I have seen these apps from Björk but they don't seem to be for android. They are only for iPhone.
BUT I've read that the app could be ported from iOS to another operating systems because it was made to allow this. And Björk encouraged hackers to do that! That was said from Björk herself in an interview!
She told Drowned in Sound that the apps had been specifically designed so that they could be easily ported to other platforms -- like Symbian, BlackBerry and Android. "We really made sure when we wrote all the programs that they will transfer to other systems."
"I'm not supposed to say this, probably, but I'm trusting that the pirates out there won't tie their hands behind their back."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive...shttp://www.compositiontoday.com/blog/115.asp
I personally think that the art, sounds, videos, etc, could be extracted, but what ist with the software itself? How could it be ported if the source code is not available....
What do you think?
Can someone clarify if it would be possible?
Thanks!
Some videos of these apps. You can interact with the music and make your own versions playing or changing things in a very innovative concept.
http://youtu.be/FsxsGrnCGIk
http://youtu.be/kb3kLXVs9J0
http://youtu.be/0Rx-P2UsD5g

Still waiting!
Did anything ever come of this?

Hey anybody! Do sth about it! She preety much asked to do this, so lets do sth. I guess many people would want this app for android, and here? No reply? Please!

Nobody is interested...
I think this app is cracks for iphone, but it wasn't ported to android... It would be much more interesting.

Yeah, It would be interesting for milions of people who have android phones, and not Iphones. Android is bigger market than iphone so i just don't have a clue why nobody wants to port biophilia app on android.

[email protected] said:
Yeah, It would be interesting for milions of people who have android phones, and not Iphones. Android is bigger market than iphone so i just don't have a clue why nobody wants to port biophilia app on android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There no hackers who like this app, i would say.

humano said:
BUT I've read that the app could be ported from iOS to another operating systems because it was made to allow this. And Björk encouraged hackers to do that! That was said from Björk herself in an interview!
I personally think that the art, sounds, videos, etc, could be extracted, but what ist with the software itself? How could it be ported if the source code is not available....
What do you think?
Can someone clarify if it would be possible?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think it's generally not feasible.
Björk is a very interesting artist. I think her understanding of technology, and specifically software development, "hacking" and "pirating", is limited however.
Yes, the app may have been made potentially portable, but without source code that is more or less useless.
Porting an app between platforms is a much bigger task than "pirating". It's not a simple matter of pulling files from hidden directories, or even doing some limited reverse engineering and patching of an app to bypass license checks. It's MUCH more than the mere pirating of music and movie files.
I'm presuming the app was written to IOS with Objective C, and not some portable language where the source code is embedded in the ios apps.
Anything is possible, though. With enough time one could reproduce what the app does. That's probably easier than trying to reverse engineer it.
But I'd guess this is a substantial effort, likely requiring at least many months of work by a single person. But with all the paid work, and interesting free projects available to a person with the skills to port an ios app to Android without source code, why would anyone spend at least several months doing this ?
They could face the prospect of lawsuits from the rights holders, and might be unable to sell their work on official app markets. For what ? A wink from Björk, without even a physical pat on the back ? And perhaps a certain amount of gratitude from some users...
I hope she and others have learned something. If she/they want this to happen, they should at least release open source code freely, and make sure it's not difficult to port. Yeah, the video and audio recordings can remain "proprietary" but the app source code and design documents need to be released.
Or is much of the artistic expression integrated into the source code ? I haven't looked much but I guess these are not simple apps to play video and audio. These are apps that allow some form of interaction; perhaps the music changes with that.
If that's the case, the rights holders likely will want to hold onto their "intellectual/artistic property" and keep any source and design documents to themselves.
IMO, No amount of "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" from Björk will make a porting job easy.
And AFAIK there are no ios emulators for Android that might render this a simpler "pirating" effort.

mikereidis said:
I think it's generally not feasible.
Björk is a very interesting artist. I think her understanding of technology, and specifically software development, "hacking" and "pirating", is limited however.
Yes, the app may have been made potentially portable, but without source code that is more or less useless.
Porting an app between platforms is a much bigger task than "pirating". It's not a simple matter of pulling files from hidden directories, or even doing some limited reverse engineering and patching of an app to bypass license checks. It's MUCH more than the mere pirating of music and movie files.
I'm presuming the app was written to IOS with Objective C, and not some portable language where the source code is embedded in the ios apps.
Anything is possible, though. With enough time one could reproduce what the app does. That's probably easier than trying to reverse engineer it.
But I'd guess this is a substantial effort, likely requiring at least many months of work by a single person. But with all the paid work, and interesting free projects available to a person with the skills to port an ios app to Android without source code, why would anyone spend at least several months doing this ?
They could face the prospect of lawsuits from the rights holders, and might be unable to sell their work on official app markets. For what ? A wink from Björk, without even a physical pat on the back ? And perhaps a certain amount of gratitude from some users...
I hope she and others have learned something. If she/they want this to happen, they should at least release open source code freely, and make sure it's not difficult to port. Yeah, the video and audio recordings can remain "proprietary" but the app source code and design documents need to be released.
Or is much of the artistic expression integrated into the source code ? I haven't looked much but I guess these are not simple apps to play video and audio. These are apps that allow some form of interaction; perhaps the music changes with that.
If that's the case, the rights holders likely will want to hold onto their "intellectual/artistic property" and keep any source and design documents to themselves.
IMO, No amount of "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" from Björk will make a porting job easy.
And AFAIK there are no ios emulators for Android that might render this a simpler "pirating" effort.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks Mike for the reply. I didn't see this.
Are you sure, that the source code is not included? Is not possible that there's a intermediate state of the the code, that could be built for Android? I always thought, that is something like that.
You are totally right. With the artwork we cannot build the app for android...
And I don't even have an iphone to see how the apps should look like in android.

humano said:
Are you sure, that the source code is not included? Is not possible that there's a intermediate state of the the code, that could be built for Android? I always thought, that is something like that.
You are totally right. With the artwork we cannot build the app for android...
And I don't even have an iphone to see how the apps should look like in android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm pretty sure. Anyone who claims otherwise is challenged to "show me where the source is".
For Android there is an emulator for PCs that many apps can run on, and an app of this type could run.
I know almost nothing of ios development, but likely there is an ios emulator that can run on a Mac at least ? AFAIR, ios development requires a Mac.
Feel free to send Bjork, or the companies that represent her, email asking about this.
I've been a fan of some of her music, and even acting and I even find her cute... And that's why I responded here. I had an initial thought that this could be an interesting project, but I have no time for such an unpaid hobby project.
BTW, Just looked at the iTunes page and some others. Seems to be a $12.99 app. And says "The full Biophilia App Album is now a paid app for new users, old users maintain same in-app-purchase ability." Something tells me the legal fine print says you're screwed if you hack it, especially if you tried to make a few bucks or do it publicly with your real name.
Artists (with money), hollywood and recording industry types tend to have iPhones. They don't know tech per se, don't want to know tech, and they have the cash to spend. They want something that "just works" and that's what the iPhone does, for a price. And ios is where devs make REAL money. Comparatively speaking, Android sucks for making money.
I saw some comment that they didn't make an Android app "for legal reasons". Sounds like a different way to say "business reasons". I imagine her recording company sells her music on iTunes, but doesn't sell it on Google Play in that big ongoing power play between media companies and tech companies ?

mikereidis said:
I think it's generally not feasible.
Björk is a very interesting artist. I think her understanding of technology, and specifically software development, "hacking" and "pirating", is limited however.
Yes, the app may have been made potentially portable, but without source code that is more or less useless.
Porting an app between platforms is a much bigger task than "pirating". It's not a simple matter of pulling files from hidden directories, or even doing some limited reverse engineering and patching of an app to bypass license checks. It's MUCH more than the mere pirating of music and movie files.
I'm presuming the app was written to IOS with Objective C, and not some portable language where the source code is embedded in the ios apps.
Anything is possible, though. With enough time one could reproduce what the app does. That's probably easier than trying to reverse engineer it.
But I'd guess this is a substantial effort, likely requiring at least many months of work by a single person.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Quoting my words from a year ago out of sheer vanity, LOL.
New news about her kick-starter project for Android and Windows ports of the IPad Biophilia being put "on hold". Among other sources: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/appsblog/2013/feb/08/bjork-cancels-biophilia-kickstarter
Summary of my opinion: I love her as an artist, but she doesn't understand technology. Ooooh, and I wish she would forget about Windows and just do Android.
IMO the IPad was targetted first because that's what all the at least reasonably well off artsy people used at that time, and could afford. Now she wants the app in the hand of those who can't afford IPads.
So why can't/haven't they just open sourced the code ? Original IOS devs still hold the rights ?
Bjork says:
"porting the app "proved unbelievably complicated""... LOL.
And the estimate seems to be 8 devs (staff?) for 5 months, for both Windows and Android. So maybe 20 developer months for each.
And that's a small project in the world I've come from, with 10-100 dev teams working for years. And she thinks that's "unbelievably complicated".
Now I don't know exactly the scope of the app is; I've never used it on Ipad, and I don't know if it uses some magic IOS stuff that's hard to port.
For all I know it could require the minimum of my quoted estimate of "...at least many months of work by a single person". Or it could be 10-20 man-years. I don't know.
My point continues to be that she doesn't have a grasp of technology. And that's fine, she's a wonderful artist IMO, and there's no shame in not having or not wanting tech knowledge.

mikereidis said:
Quoting my words from a year ago out of sheer vanity, LOL.
New news about her kick-starter project for Android and Windows ports of the IPad Biophilia being put "on hold". Among other sources: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/appsblog/2013/feb/08/bjork-cancels-biophilia-kickstarter
Summary of my opinion: I love her as an artist, but she doesn't understand technology. Ooooh, and I wish she would forget about Windows and just do Android.
IMO the IPad was targetted first because that's what all the at least reasonably well off artsy people used at that time, and could afford. Now she wants the app in the hand of those who can't afford IPads.
So why can't/haven't they just open sourced the code ? Original IOS devs still hold the rights ?
Bjork says:
"porting the app "proved unbelievably complicated""... LOL.
And the estimate seems to be 8 devs (staff?) for 5 months, for both Windows and Android. So maybe 20 developer months for each.
And that's a small project in the world I've come from, with 10-100 dev teams working for years. And she thinks that's "unbelievably complicated".
Now I don't know exactly the scope of the app is; I've never used it on Ipad, and I don't know if it uses some magic IOS stuff that's hard to port.
For all I know it could require the minimum of my quoted estimate of "...at least many months of work by a single person". Or it could be 10-20 man-years. I don't know.
My point continues to be that she doesn't have a grasp of technology. And that's fine, she's a wonderful artist IMO, and there's no shame in not having or not wanting tech knowledge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I love her but that's why I think too , she too thought that porting an app will need 5 guys working on it and two months oh bjork
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

Chad_Petree said:
Yes I love her but that's why I think too , she too thought that porting an app will need 5 guys working on it and two months oh bjork
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Originally, she hoped that "hackers" would do it, somehow, without source code, and she was giving a "wink, wink" to that.
She seemed to think that porting an app to a different platform would be almost as easy as pirating music, movies or apps.
I'm too busy to get involved, but I would be happy if someone(s) would ask her to get the source code released, and the "community" may be able to look and see and offer opinions or ideas.
Perhaps a few fans have the tech abilities and free time to make something of this at little or no cost, as opposed to professional devs making a normal professional dev income.
There's a forum here: http://4um.bjork.com/viewforum.php?f=16&sid=c28e2e0870bdc695ce7da8da94849918
Anybody know if she communicates openly with her fans online ? Is there an easy way to ask her for source code and offer ideas ?
IMO, she needs to forget about a Windows port, at least for now. It should have been Android from the beginning, but that said, Android is still relatively sub-par when it comes to real-time music generation. IOS stomps Android in this area, though the latest JB changes are promising.

mikereidis said:
Originally, she hoped that "hackers" would do it, somehow, without source code, and she was giving a "wink, wink" to that.
She seemed to think that porting an app to a different platform would be almost as easy as pirating music, movies or apps.
I'm too busy to get involved, but I would be happy if someone(s) would ask her to get the source code released, and the "community" may be able to look and see and offer opinions or ideas.
Perhaps a few fans have the tech abilities and free time to make something of this at little or no cost, as opposed to professional devs making a normal professional dev income.
There's a forum here: http://4um.bjork.com/viewforum.php?f=16&sid=c28e2e0870bdc695ce7da8da94849918
Anybody know if she communicates openly with her fans online ? Is there an easy way to ask her for source code and offer ideas ?
IMO, she needs to forget about a Windows port, at least for now. It should have been Android from the beginning, but that said, Android is still relatively sub-par when it comes to real-time music generation. IOS stomps Android in this area, though the latest JB changes are promising.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will ask it in her forum. Perhaps she reads this proposal. It could work.

humano said:
I will ask it in her forum. Perhaps she reads this proposal. It could work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I signed up on that forum and didn't get any confirmation email.
I was reading the main thread about this, and I think some of the posters understand a bit about s/w development. But some others are very misinformed about how development works.

mikereidis said:
I signed up on that forum and didn't get any confirmation email.
I was reading the main thread about this, and I think some of the posters understand a bit about s/w development. But some others are very misinformed about how development works.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am registered in that forum too and it's what you say. They don't have any idea.... :laugh:
But there's good news, at least somebody told in the forum, that she told in an interview, that she will find a cheap way to port biophilia to android.
She would never release the code as open source... It would be crazy... We would have a BIOPHILIA+
It's what you told before. She doesn't really understand the power of doing it... :victory:

humano said:
She would never release the code as open source... It would be crazy...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, no open source basically, generally means it's "commercial property".
So this is a commercial venture she has.
That's fine, that's OK. It belongs to her (and/or whomever) and she can do what she wants with it. No different than other software devs / vendors, musicians, song, book or movie writers etc.
But she can't expect some "benevolent hackers" to come along and "port" an app like this for her for free; with or without source code.
And she has something going on with bringing music education to the poor or something like that. And that's why she wants an Android port it appears. The poor can't afford iDevices.
And that's fine too. But it seems like it's a jumble of commercial stuff and some form of self promoting philanthropy.
Anyway, I think she should forget about this years old project and make something completely new for Android. Why re-do what's already been done ? But I guess money comes in there too. It should be faster and cheaper to re-use the high level design and media components.

mikereidis said:
Well, no open source basically, generally means it's "commercial property".
So this is a commercial venture she has.
That's fine, that's OK. It belongs to her (and/or whomever) and she can do what she wants with it. No different than other software devs / vendors, musicians, song, book or movie writers etc.
But she can't expect some "benevolent hackers" to come along and "port" an app like this for her for free; with or without source code.
And she has something going on with bringing music education to the poor or something like that. And that's why she wants an Android port it appears. The poor can't afford iDevices.
And that's fine too. But it seems like it's a jumble of commercial stuff and some form of self promoting philanthropy.
Anyway, I think she should forget about this years old project and make something completely new for Android. Why re-do what's already been done ? But I guess money comes in there too. It should be faster and cheaper to re-use the high level design and media components.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I fully agree. These apps are already a little obsolete for android.
And I have good news. She found a team of developers who is going to do the work for low price. We will have biophilia for android after the summer. Let's see how it is...

humano said:
I fully agree. These apps are already a little obsolete for android.
And I have good news. She found a team of developers who is going to do the work for low price. We will have biophilia for android after the summer. Let's see how it is...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hope it's not some "boiler room" s/w dev hack operation that promises more than it can deliver. I'm restraining myself from mentioning/identifying certain world areas where this is more common.
She's apparently coming to my town this summer; I've never seen her live; would be interesting.

mikereidis said:
I hope it's not some "boiler room" s/w dev hack operation that promises more than it can deliver. I'm restraining myself from mentioning/identifying certain world areas where this is more common.
She's apparently coming to my town this summer; I've never seen her live; would be interesting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
She said that in one interview. That's what the people in the 4um.bjork.com say. I think it's real.
I saw her live last sommer and was amazing.

Well Biophilia app is already for Android devices!
Check the playstore https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bjork.biophilia

Do Not Move, Read First [MINI REVIEW] Xperia x8

Note:
Deftone said:
Dear Papa Smurf151,
I am writing just to offer a polite reminder about the message I sent to you a day ago.
If you do not have it it is requesting permission to duplicate a thread into the General discussion > General forum.
It is a review on a phone. I think it would be more appreciated by the general public that the people already with an x8.
Please reply as I am at an inconvenience without permission.
Thank-you once again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah go ahead sorry I've been extremely busy with work
XDA Moderator
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BEFORE A MOD CLOSES OR MOVES THIS THREAD - The thread was originally posted here but moved to the x8 forums. I have obtained permission to duplicate it back here as shown by the above message quote.
This thread has been created to review the Xperia x8 device. As I say in all my reviews, although there may be other threads reviewing the device, I think it is valid that I give tips based on my experience. This is a Mini guide which means that I will only highlight key information about the phone.
Suggestions are like gold to me and I just want to make my service better. All reasonable comments are welcome. Please PM me if you have any urgent problems. I am sorry if my service is uninvited.​-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Xperia x8 burst into stores around September 2010 worldwide. After using the phone for nearly a year, I can confirm that it is a great phone for both advanced android users and basic ones. I hope to elaborate on the ultimate phone formula used in the device. I will cover a few specific areas.
The device is renowned for its 3G capabilities was developed by the late Sony Ericsson shipped with the Android 1.6 architecture and officially upgradable to the newer 2.1 version. XDA has enabled many ways of surpassing this firmware limit and expanding your experience.
Physical Hardware
You can probably guess that the phone will not have the latest hardware if it was created two years ago and this is why I thought I would highlight the now weakest point first.
The phone has a 76 mm powerfully capacitive touch screen LCD. It has a small yet firm resolution of 320 by 480 pixels. On the back of the device is a 3.2 megapixel camera with fixed focus and no flash and there is no front facing camera. Photos can be geotagged although this feature is not necessarily useful. Fortunately camera can be accessed using the touchscreen menu, or via the dedicated camera button on the side of the phone. The Xperia X8 uses a 600 MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor, as well as 3-axis accelerometers and built-in Global Positioning System. It also has a an ambient light sensor and a digital compass. The Xperia also sports a 1200mAh which was quite an improvement to its predecessor the x10 mini.
Although not initially available, Multi-touch support was also added to several aftermarket firmware versions (ROMS) cough* nAa* cough MiniCM9 cough* .
Like nearly every device, in its day, the x8 attracted many people simply because of its specs. The S3 of its day
Physical Appearance
The Xperia line of mobile phones has always amazed critics with its design being second to none. This fact is what led many to believe the next Nexus phone/s will be designed by the same art team. The phone has a curved back with quite a boxed like front. Combining the generic phone look with a rather futuristic design gives the cellular device an original overall look. On purchasing the phone you are provided with two different coloured backs (varies depending on carrier and country).
User Friendliness
As mentioned previously, the mobile comes shipped with android 1.6 upgradable to 2.1. I can only comment on the 2.1 software seeing as this is the only one I have used.
Sony Ericson paid large amounts of attention to detail and although many users are against developers overhauling android, I believe this was a necessary step as the stock firmware runs flawlessly on the device and SE adds many feature that will make tasks which many believe common easier. I did feel that this generation of phones marked the death of Pay as you Go as many features are internet reliant and internet is impossible on P&G. In addition to this, the raw support for the phone gives advanced users satisfaction too. Not only does XDA support customization but SE does too! More phone developers should take a leaf out of Sony Ericson's book and offer support like they do.
Cost Efficiency
Nowadays, the price of android products seems to depreciate considerably faster than other rivals. This is to be expected seeing as the mobile phone market itself is considerably saturated and with more android variants entering each day cost/unit depreciation will be far greater than the iPhone branding. The phone has become a mid range low cost phone. I would say for a price as low as £80 in the UK, nearly all users will be appeased. The phone teaches users who were not particularly advanced, many things about android. Something the spoon feeding of iOS will never do.
Conclusion
The Xperia x8 is a great low cost phone for beginners to android as well as advanced users. The hardware is acceptable however people will become thirsty for more in this current day and age. Stunning visuals means that you will not be embarrassed in front of your friends and firmware is never an issue. Pay as you go may have been abandoned for the time being but seems to be getting adopted by Google with their latest jelly bean. With the Sony Ericson department no closed, phones like this just won't be produced anymore. Sony are still finding their feet but I think they are going in the HTC direction producing too many phones at once. If phone manufacturers worked upon the fundamentals like SE did, we would have the new breed of ultimate phones.
RATING: I give this phone a 7 jelly beans out of 10. I would nominate this phone as LCTOTY. (Low cost thing of the year) Actually it is a tie between this and toilet paper.
Thankyou for reading my review.
NOTE: Sometimes I find myself on XDA in the early hours of the morning providing the best possible. I sometimes do not pay attention and will get angry quickly. I never mean any disrespect to anyone. If I do cross the line I am sorry in advance. Please PM me and bring my comment to my attention. I will issue an apology ASAP. Even though many advanced XDA users have disappointed me I will always offer XDA the best. I am always trying to be as nice as possible regardless of what people do to anger me so feel free to ask for help with anything.
Sources
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_Xperia_X8
Special Thanks to my good friend KidCarter93. Structural duplication rights are shared with him.
Special Thanks also to mf2112 for all his support.
Special Mention to IAmNice, lucastan96, SpyderX and RohinZaraki. Without them the x8 community would be a darker place.

[Sony] Xperia Open Devices Project

Sony Mobile is committed to supporting the open developer community, and one way to show this is by publishing parts of our code as well as selected tools developed by our internal developers.
For some of the Xperia™ devices, we provide Android™ Open Source Project (AOSP) device configurations on GitHub. This means that the software will be open for you as a developer to use and contribute to. This is a way for us to support the open Android community, and it is also a tool for us to facilitate and verify contributions to AOSP.
If you want to build AOSP for your unlocked Xperia device, you find all the resources you need in the sections below.
http://developer.sonymobile.com/knowledge-base/open-source/open-devices/
Unified 3.10 kernel sources
https://github.com/sonyxperiadev/kernel
Project git
https://github.com/sonyxperiadev/

Does the noise reduction of the camera is supported ?

snaky90 said:
Does the noise reduction of the camera is supported ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For now there is no camera
br
J

jerpelea said:
For now there is no camera
br
J
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, not having a camera is really bad =/
I mean, the Sony's Android™ Concept has a working camera right?
I guess we will have to wait until there is a workign camera!
There is any road map for camera release?
It would really help custom ROMs and etc!
Thanks

jerpelea said:
Sony Mobile is committed to supporting the open developer community,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It would be great to have some news regarding the project, as mentioned above.
Or, maybe a clear outline on what Sony is willing to deliver and what not.
As open device project has been active for a year now for this device at least.
And even though aosp source is fairly stable, there is no camera nor a workaround until a proper fix takes place.
It would be nice if Sony can show they are committed with the project,
As now it seems like they are not very committed and are relying mainly on volunteers to extend functionality: http://developer.sonymobile.com/2015/02/25/could-you-be-our-next-hero-open-source-developer/
Not having camera available is disheartening, since one of the attractions of choosing Sony is the camera. All the way back to Sony walkman phone and X10mini pro - Sony had a good camera.
And one of the reasons for choosing a z3-compact was the announcement of the Sony open developer project, but it had been almost a year without camera.
The worst thing is that Sony camera sensors are being used on devices not made by Sony showing better results, (Motorola , Samsung, even iPhone use them)

m0d said:
It would be great to have some news regarding the project, as mentioned above.
Or, maybe a clear outline on what Sony is willing to deliver and what not.
As open device project has been active for a year now for this device at least.
And even though aosp source is fairly stable, there is no camera nor a workaround until a proper fix takes place.
It would be nice if Sony can show they are committed with the project,
As now it seems like they are not very committed and are relying mainly on volunteers to extend functionality: http://developer.sonymobile.com/2015/02/25/could-you-be-our-next-hero-open-source-developer/
Not having camera available is disheartening, since one of the attractions of choosing Sony is the camera. All the way back to Sony walkman phone and X10mini pro - Sony had a good camera.
And one of the reasons for choosing a z3-compact was the announcement of the Sony open developer project, but it had been almost a year without camera.
The worst thing is that Sony camera sensors are being used on devices not made by Sony showing better results, (Motorola , Samsung, even iPhone use them)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The article you linked is an initiative to get people excited about development and help out. Sony's open source team (and many other volunteers who do not mind contributing, because that's the essence of open source) are working on fixes and workarounds, but on the outside, the usual "Soon™" sign is visible, as it always is with developers (check, for example, the AOSPA team).
As for the camera, many people find it lackluster even on stock ROMs. Camera performance, however, has nothing to do with what your expectations should be (not what they are, because that's clearly a wholly different thing) regarding the AOSP project Sony has going on -- the goal of the initiative is to provide a working AOSP base similar to that of Nexus devices (though in more than one way, the Sony team responsible for this has far exceeded that goal). This does not mean that things will just work (quite the contrary, really). When you bought the device, the Open Developer project should not have been a reason to be excited about the end result of the developers' efforts, but rather a sign of encouragement that you should contribute, and are indeed welcome to do so.
tl;dr: this project, like the rest of XDA, isn't about the goal, but about the journey. (except for maybe the new bootloaders but that's another thing)

someone755 said:
The article you linked is an initiative to get people excited about development and help out. Sony's open source team (and many other volunteers who do not mind contributing, because that's the essence of open source) are working on fixes and workarounds, but on the outside, the usual "Soon™" sign is visible, as it always is with developers (check, for example, the AOSPA team).
As for the camera, many people find it lackluster even on stock ROMs. Camera performance, however, has nothing to do with what your expectations should be (not what they are, because that's clearly a wholly different thing) regarding the AOSP project Sony has going on -- the goal of the initiative is to provide a working AOSP base similar to that of Nexus devices (though in more than one way, the Sony team responsible for this has far exceeded that goal). This does not mean that things will just work (quite the contrary, really). When you bought the device, the Open Developer project should not have been a reason to be excited about the end result of the developers' efforts, but rather a sign of encouragement that you should contribute, and are indeed welcome to do so.
tl;dr: this project, like the rest of XDA, isn't about the goal, but about the journey. (except for maybe the new bootloaders but that's another thing)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe, too, that the intiative by Sony is great and a good path to follow. I also understand that the volunteers do not mind, as you say.
I just wanted some clarification on Sony's commitment. If for example, Sony would provide a working camera base for developers to improve/enhance or do they expect the volunteers to use what is already provided to figure things out.
I believe that if the camera works, however basic implementation, more developers would be helping in creating something better and enhancing it.
Whereas now, developers are waiting for Sony to provide something which they might not be planning to provide, hence some clarification.
Regarding the camera, I am a little disappointed, that is all. As Sony used to have great cameras on their devices; however, recently other Manufacturers use Sony sensors with better results than Sony themselves (Stock included).

as a matter of fact, there are no custom roms right now with good enough camera, which means without the well known (contrary) fish eye bug, that can be used if you need a basic working camera. this is stopping most of the z3c users (like me) that like aosp feel to switch to custom. so imho either sony is not helping that much with camera code, or we don't have a single very good dev capable of providing a camera fix, don't know. either way, this is very very sad.
I've always used custom roms in my previous phones, with bugs here and there of course, but never had so big bugs preventing me using custom roms like in sony phones i had (sudden reboots affecting my old xperia T that took ages to be fixed, this camera bug now in z3c). this is "funny" considering sony is known to be dev friendly. so again i think we are just unlucky with development going on for this phone probably (like i was when i used the T)
so right now people who hate all the bloat coming in stock FW and need good enough camera must stay with stock, and find already debloated solutions (like mine for example).
on this argument, really hope sony concept rom will arrive to z3c too soon at least...
not blaming anyone of course, as I'm the first one who can't help with development unfortunately.. it is just sad that many other ****ty phones like many Samsung ones for example, much worse than sony's, have tons of good development going on.. but well we know most of the user base are just sheeps thinking the only existent phones to be bought are samsung or iphones, which means less user base for Sony and other more deserving manufacturers....

moly82 said:
as a matter of fact, there are no custom roms right now with good enough camera, which means without the well known (contrary) fish eye bug, that can be used if you need a basic working camera. this is stopping most of the z3c users (like me) that like aosp feel to switch to custom. so imho either sony is not helping that much with camera code, or we don't have a single very good dev capable of providing a camera fix, don't know. either way, this is very very sad.
I've always used custom roms in my previous phones, with bugs here and there of course, but never had so big bugs preventing me using custom roms like in sony phones i had (sudden reboots affecting my old xperia T that took ages to be fixed, this camera bug now in z3c). this is "funny" considering sony is known to be dev friendly. so again i think we are just unlucky with development going on for this phone probably (like i was when i used the T)
so right now people who hate all the bloat coming in stock FW and need good enough camera must stay with stock, and find already debloated solutions (like mine for example).
on this argument, really hope sony concept rom will arrive to z3c too soon at least...
not blaming anyone of course, as I'm the first one who can't help with development unfortunately.. it is just sad that many other ****ty phones like many Samsung ones for example, much worse than sony's, have tons of good development going on.. but well we know most of the user base are just sheeps thinking the only existent phones to be bought are samsung or iphones, which means less user base for Sony and other more deserving manufacturers....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not knowing anything about sony's product politics to me it seems quite a strategy that sony is pursueing. something like "we give almost everything to the freaks what they need in order to do some developement (on which we, sony, can benefit too). BUT almost means NOT everything ...". So there is no real alternative to using sony's "company rom"... if this is the case then all the developer friendly blabla is just fraud! they release aosp kernel and they do have all necessary software parts for camera sensor, of course ... so come on sony!

Now you have the opportunity to win Sony devices every 2 months
http://developer.sonymobile.com/knowledge-base/open-source/open-devices/hero-open-source-developers/
Happy cooking

https://plus.google.com/112116692753844849623/posts/GsD7K8kDpnm

Good news ! Thanks @davidteri91 !

Experimental Open Camera HAL for AOSP available !
http://developer.sonymobile.com/201...p-camera-available-for-experienced-developers

http://developer.sonymobile.com/201...-camera-available-for-experienced-developers/
enjoy
J

jerpelea said:
http://developer.sonymobile.com/201...-camera-available-for-experienced-developers/
enjoy
J
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Enjoy what? By Sony's own addmission, a half-assed framework that will render sub-par photos and cause crashes?
Look, no one is asking for code for special processing algorithms or hacks for DRM keys. Hobbyist developers need a functional AOSP code base so they can go from there. This isn't it.
Sony has given little more than lip-service to the AOSP program, and this is a typical example. IMO, come back with something useful, or don't come back at all. So far, the entire program has been a steaming load of crap.

jerpelea said:
Now you have the opportunity to win Sony devices every 2 months
http://developer.sonymobile.com/knowledge-base/open-source/open-devices/hero-open-source-developers/
Happy cooking
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, I don't, per terms and conditions, because I live in a place Sony chooses not to have a market in.
More half-assed Sony hype.

Sony has released an open-source camera to AOSP rom
http://developer.sonymobile.com/201...-camera-available-for-experienced-developers/

attn1 said:
Enjoy what? By Sony's own addmission, a half-assed framework that will render sub-par photos and cause crashes?
Look, no one is asking for code for special processing algorithms or hacks for DRM keys. Hobbyist developers need a functional AOSP code base so they can go from there. This isn't it.
Sony has given little more than lip-service to the AOSP program, and this is a typical example. IMO, come back with something useful, or don't come back at all. So far, the entire program has been a steaming load of crap.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
attn1 said:
No, I don't, per terms and conditions, because I live in a place Sony chooses not to have a market in.
More half-assed Sony hype.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You act like Sony owes you anything lol. Sony is having the best developer support, and yet you cry like a little girl. Did you ever consider that A company is not able to release software due to licenses?
Is there any other vendor providing ANY help with AOSP? No! Is there any other vendor giving free phones to developers for working on AOSP sources? No! Yet, other provides do not grant you the warranty you deserve for a broken HW button because your Software currupted it.. Yeah sure.
Stop crying. You're a freaking RD, one should expect you to KNOW how to act.

Actually, the camera have been released like it is because it's meant as a preview for developers, like you can read on the official blog post.
Download and see what you can find in there, the compare it with Sony stock ROMs. If you are an experienced developer, you will understand how much work was needed to get that.
Preview for developers actually means "showing you the actual progress to get help, instead of working alone and releasing when perfect and complete".
C'mon, don't flame. It's not necessary.
Peace!
-- kholk

kholk said:
Actually, the camera have been released like it is because it's meant as a preview for developers, like you can read on the official blog post.
Download and see what you can find in there, the compare it with Sony stock ROMs. If you are an experienced developer, you will understand how much work was needed to get that.
Preview for developers actually means "showing you the actual progress to get help, instead of working alone and releasing when perfect and complete".
C'mon, don't flame. It's not necessary.
Peace!
-- kholk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah. I really don't know how he doesn't understand what "developer preview means". Some of the Android dev previews were pretty crappy too - is he going to flame Google for that too?
This is the first time, in history, that any OEM has released a camera HAL specifically designed for AOSP-based projects (other than Nexus devices, of course). It's the first time in history an official representative of an OEM has solicited constructive feedback from the community on improving a closed-source component. Yeah, I know everyone would love for these blobs to be open source, but the reality is - Even after they stumbled with the 808/810, Qualcomm has the entire mobile industry by the balls by virtue of having the only viable chipsets out there for most devices, and if they want mm-camera to be closed source, mm-camera will be closed source and right now there's not much anyone can do about it. It's sad to say that Qualcomm is the most open-source friendly SoC manufacturer out there... Which isn't saying much. (If you want to know why David's video color corruption fix was not immediately integrated into the AOSP project - blame Qualcomm. The blobs he used to fix the issue are under a redistribution license that prevents Alin from distributing them. Technically David can't legally give out those blobs to anyone, they're for personal use, but Qualcomm rarely goes after individuals.)
To everyone complaining - rather than *****ing, try to come up with specific feedback that can improve the next release.
I'm going to be trying soon to see if RAW support is working - if it isn't, that IS planned. If you're able to capture DNG images with your device, then get cracking on profiling the optical system!
http://lensfun.sourceforge.net/calibration/ - Some information on distortion profiling of a lens. Also, if you use hugin and take multiple photos properly arranged for a panorama, hugin will also perform photometric (vignetting) profiling too. A proper vignetting/distortion profile for each sensor will be a major step forward - short-term it means you can correct photos to look good using lensfun and a RAW converter, long-term the profiles will hopefully be integratable into the camera HAL. (what would be REALLY awesome is if Alin can figure out a way to implement a lensfun profile loader)
Get a colorchecker - I have http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005IUBU2O arriving tomorrow for example. It will allow you to determine your camera's color calibration matrix (referred to simply as "color matrix" in ufraw). I'll try to provide some proper tutorials on this once I've done it on my Z3.

P20 Pro: a Developer's perspective: concerns about the device, kernel and software

hey folks,
PREFACE:
I'm posting this so that others thinking about purchasing the device may get a perspective that they won't find in a YouTube product review, on the huawei subreddit, etc... I'm also posting to bring awareness to device owners/this community... Before replying, please have a look through the thread; I'm starting to provide a lot of info, that may give better insights to the problems I see...
NOTE:
I'm not bashing you for buying this device, so don't take my criticisms personally... I will try to provide as much info as I can. feel free to ask questions, share your own insights/experiences, etc...
First, i'd like to point out that the hardware is great, EMUI is better than i expected and has some nice extras (compared with stock android). There are many aspects that I do like about the phone, however there are many problems too. I take issue with a few things that I will outline in this post && in the thread;
- huawei revoking the bootloader unlock service
- huawei is extremely developer unfriendly/hostile.
- huawei's poor management of customers, poor policies && support
- huawei's "technical support" staff lack any real knowledge of their products.
- huawei as a company seems to be shady, imho && lacks any transparency.
It is very unfortunate, because i do like the device (the hardware/build seems to be very good). the leica cameras + camera software are great. i do like the native dark theme, the CPU is fast, nice display, etc.. but given the above and also after poking around the kernel code, in depth;
- huawei's kernel sources are by far the absolute worst kernel source code that I've seen in my life.
- it appears huawei has intentionally obfuscated their changesets, by how they distribute them...
- the code doesn't follow C standards, nor any consistent coding style / best practices typically found in the linux kernel.
- the published source code may not even be what's running on the device (EDIT: It's not. I've now verified this, follow the link at the bottom).
- they are also using a technology that allows live patching the running kernel remotely (so even if the sources are the same, it can be patched at runtime anyway. cant be properly audited)...
- they are a full year behind on linux LTS.
I have contacted huawei directly via email, phone and live chat (EDIT: everyday now, since I posted this thread and I will be continuing to do so). They have given me the run around continually and their staff were not able to give me any satisfactory answers to my concerns, nor did i get the impression they even gave a crap ... They have only added to my suspicions (significantly) and along with the recent bad press that huawei has had in US, UK, Canada (where i am) and Australia; i don't trust huawei, their lack of transparency and lack of cooperation; is rather unsettling... Likewise, I find their hostility towards developers and users who would like to service their own devices (via OEM unlock) to be a brutal policy. (especially since their justifications are mostly FUD/untrue.).
- Audio latency is also horrible on the P20 Pro. it experiences anywhere from 50-500ms of latency with pro audio type apps. (noise app by roli in playstore shows just how bad it is, so does Beatonal app, many others too.) the device uses x6 the audio buffering compared the OG pixel. (the OG pixel has no problems with low latency at all, with far lower specs).
so to recap; it's pretty sad and unfortunate,
- i can't run my apps. (love my music creation apps)
- i have no control or ownership over my P20 Pro. apparently only huawei and the Chinese gov't do.
- i don't trust or have faith in the manufacturer.
- the kernel source code is disgusting and incomplete.
- I find some of the technology used troubling at best.
Here's some links in the thread, where some of the above is discussed in more detail;
some kernel source related issues outlined in more detail by me:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=78186512&postcount=37
(note: I'm discussing evira kernel, but nearly all of the issues apply to the distributed kernel sources that evira is based on)
if you are interested in helping me verify if the kernel sources actually reflect what's running on your device, follow this post;
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=78182210&postcount=32 (this would be very helpful, as it will be ammo that I bring to huawei).
The distributed kernel sources are absolutely NOT the kernel sources used to compile the kernel that's running on your device:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=78188018&postcount=42
(this is an update to the above help request; I've now verified that at least L29/LO4 running kernels differ from the provided sources)
livepatch/OASES/Karma technology used by huawei, zte and others:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=78574615&postcount=86

So wait, you've only had it for a few days and you're trying to make a warning against buying the phone?

Giraff3 said:
So wait, you've only had it for a few days and you're trying to make a warning against buying the phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not exactly. I'm outlining my experience and why i am returning the phone, so that others who may have similar requirements and/or concerns avoid making the same mistake, by purchasing this phone only to be unhappy with it.....
the length of time that I've owned the phone isn't a factor because it doesn't fix any of the issues that i point out... *why would you even think that after reading what i wrote???* ... if it was just a matter of getting used to the device, that would be another story.
to be clear; i don't have any issue with the UX, performance, build quality or any of that jazz, really. the cameras are great, phone is a beast. However, huawei's policies, their lack of transparency, the device being locked down, their source code being sketchy, other security concerns and yeah; the audio latency... big problems (for me, possibly others)...
holding on to or having used the phone for a longer period of time doesn't fix any of these issues... if i wasn't into software development, didn't care about unlocked bootloader, etc - i might very well be happy with the device... It's a great phone, if none of these details/issues effect or matter to you...

the fact you can't run a launcher like Nova does it for me, terrible mistake

ant78 said:
the fact you can't run a launcher like Nova does it for me, terrible mistake
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use Nova just fine.

ant78 said:
the fact you can't run a launcher like Nova does it for me, terrible mistake
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you mean? I've had the P20 Pro since end of August, installed Nova Launcher the moment I took it out of the box and been running fine since. Mind you the lack of bootloader unlock or having to pay for it doesn't fly well with me but haven't found myself needing to root this device like all my previous devices for customization. The P20 Pro has let me do everything I wanted.

StatikBlue said:
What do you mean? I've had the P20 Pro since end of August, installed Nova Launcher the moment I took it out of the box and been running fine since. Mind you the lack of bootloader unlock or having to pay for it doesn't fly well with me but haven't found myself needing to root this device like all my previous devices for customization. The P20 Pro has let me do everything I wanted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No idea what they are talking about 3rd part launchers work just fine. It's just less obvious how to change them vs. stock android... but I had Apex launcher installed 15 minutes after turning on the device, wasn't hard to figure out.
the lack of unlocked bootloader is problematic, beyond just having root ~ once huawei stops pushing updates, if you still own the phone; no way to service or update it.... and for me, I actually like to audit my devices and know what's going on inside of them (and that's why I spend days going through their kernel source code too) ~ pretty hard to audit anything on the device though, without unlocked bootloader + root.
I do agree though, there is lots of stuff baked into the rom, so customization OOTB is pretty good...and i do like that...
On the other hand though, I like having AdAway, AFWall and other root apps.... and at least one of the issues that I mentioned; the audio latency problem ~ I could probably fix if I was rooted... I'm actually pretty shocked that huawei software engineers think that high latency is somehow acceptable....
the latency makes playing instruments on my phone impossible ~ latency has to be low, the sound must play as I touch the notes ~ but instead, there is an extremely long delay / completely unusable. The latency is worse than most early / very old android devices...

So you're saying the phone is great then? Bootloader is easily unlocked and if you want to make unsubstantiated claims that Huawei is spying on us you might want to back up with some proof. There would probably more development on this phone if the US didn't stop Huawei from selling it there over unproven spying claims.

Giraff3 said:
So you're saying the phone is great then? Bootloader is easily unlocked and if you want to make unsubstantiated claims that Huawei is spying on us you might want to back up with some proof. There would probably more development on this phone if the US didn't stop Huawei from selling it there over unproven spying claims.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's just the US being the US man. Trump and his clown posse are more of a threat to the citizens then Huawei would ever be.

Giraff3 said:
So you're saying the phone is great then? Bootloader is easily unlocked and if you want to make unsubstantiated claims that Huawei is spying on us you might want to back up with some proof. There would probably more development on this phone if the US didn't stop Huawei from selling it there over unproven spying claims.
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I'm saying it's a mixed bag, not that it's a great phone... some aspects of the phone are great, some are absolutely terrible. ~ even if I ignore the security issues, poor quality of their source code ~ I'm still left with a locked device, slow updates, a company with crappy policies, crappy support, no accountability && a phone that can't even run my applications; the audio latency is worse than most ancient android devices. seriously... in 2018, several hundred ms of latency is unacceptable (samsung devices, google devices, etc - do not have this problem... and apple products NEVER had this problem, even 10years ago).
Bootloader is easily unlocked by paying shady third parties, who I don't know and who I don't want to give my personal nor unique identifiers to... give me a frickin' break and *stop acting like this is some ideal situation, it's not*.... Huawei has screwed end users by discontinuing the service, their justifications is BS... If they want to void a warranty of unlock bootloaders; that's fine, then do that - but don't lock users out of servicing their own devices that they've purchased with their own money and that THEY OWN.... again, it's BS... and guess what; Google doesn't even void your warranty over oem unlocking, it's a supported feature ~ if you brick your device (through your own stupidity), they may invalidate it ~ but unlocking the device, does not void your warranty (i know from direct experience).... I don't buy into Huawei's excuses at all...
The fact that huawei are live patching the kernel, means that they can essentially backdoor your device at any time. you have ZERO idea what the kernel is doing, no way to proper audit the code.... The fact that they've obfuscated their own changes and their source code for the device has all sorts of problems, says a lot ~ They've went well out of there way to provide their source code like this... There is absolutely no way that during development, they were using these sources.... they've intentionally done this.... why do that, if you have nothing to hide? ... it's highly suspicious and dubious, at best... That is proof enough to cast serious doubt on Huawei.
Huawei is using the same kernel live patching technology in both mobile and IOT ~ no wonder the US wants to purge all of huawei's hardware from their infrastructure and why the gov't doesn't want it's employees using Huawei's devices and also why they are putting pressure on Canada to do the same (for our 5G networks)...
huawei has plenty of controversies; intellectual property theft, espionage, etc. it's not like the US is the only country that that is distrusting of huawei's activities.... e.g: Canada excluded huawei from being involved with the gov't secure network infrastructure too (years ago, long before the USA). We've also denied several Huawei employee's permanent residency, over concerns of espionage, gov't subversion, etc...
You can't really blame the USA for the lack of development for this device... there would be way more development if Huawei didn't screw over users by taking away the unlocking service ~ the US blocking their gov't employees from using Huawei devices && the US carriers dropping their devices, has very little to do with the lack of development... I'm not a fan of the current US prez, nor politics ~ but you can't really blame them, when Huawei controls whether or not you can unlock your bootloader ~ it's Huawei's policy, not the US gov't's policy...
and it's huawei's own fault that they're getting bad press.

Google and your information
But you trust pixel?

kolembo said:
But you trust pixel?
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Google operates with far more transparency, than huawei... no contest.
A very large part of google's development happens out in the open, their devices are more secure, their code quality is to a much higher standard... like I said; Huawei's code is by far the worst kernel code that I've ever seen... Google actually takes security seriously, Huawei does not (or they should be shipping quality code, distributing their sources in a non-sketchy way, their kernel would be more reasonably up-to-date, they would operate with more transparency, etc.)...
Does Google collect a lot of data? yes. (most tech companies and gov't do).
Do I think they should be, no ~ as I believe that in general, people need better protections in their online / digital lives. Many rights that people have ''in the real world'', we don't have online ~ that's a problem.... But it's also improving to some extent...
At the end of the day; If I have to pick between google's approach and Huawei's approach ~ google is much better... Regardless, the majority of android devices shipping, will have GAPPs installed; which means the P20 Pro that I bought wouldn't be sharing any less info with google than any other device does ~ Pixels don't have a bunch of magical extra code designed to shovel more data to google, if that what you are thinking...

This guy for real? You want optimized kernels, and all that crap go to iOS but don't slander a device without a ounce of knowledge. Huawei have great customer service representatives Maybe you spoke to one that wasn't very intellectual (every company has them) try speaking to there representatives on Facebook/Twitter they are much better on there

TheDevGuy9497 said:
This guy for real? You want optimized kernels, and all that crap go to iOS but don't slander a device without a ounce of knowledge. Huawei have great customer service representatives Maybe you spoke to one that wasn't very intellectual (every company has them) try speaking to there representatives on Facebook/Twitter they are much better on there
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It's not slander, when it's true.
I've talked to several of their reps and support staff (on 3 separate occasions.). They may very will be better in a public facing forum, but the fact that on multiple non-public interactions; where they didn't have to be worried about PR => they were pure crap to deal with.... I would hardly call that "great customer support".... it sounds like you think "saving-face" = great customer support. (it isn't)... Also, great customer support involves being knowledgeable about the products and services.... Look at your own thread title; "The lack of knowledge is concerning" from September;
https://forum.xda-developers.com/hu...concerning-t3847975/post77741568#post77741568 ... you can't have it both ways.
I'm correct about the issues that I pointed out, in particular with the kernel code.... You may not like it, but that's your problem, not mine... And no, I don't need to go to iOS to have an optimized kernel or have a device that can provide low latency for audio for applications that need it... Other decent devices manage it just fine in android-land...
A good android/linux kernel that has good coding styles / following standards, where compiler warnings are actually taken seriously, fixed properly and where the code can be can be audited, etc ~ These are reasonable expectations one should have out of ANY android vendor. While no one is perfect and you can knit pick any of the vendor's code -> The P20 Pro's kernel, as I said; is literally the worst kernel source code that I've seen in my life... It's worse than any QC/msm kernel that I've ever seen, worse than any of samsung's kernel code, etc.. (you don't believe me??? download the CLT's kernel sources, breakout your cross compiler, enable some extra warnings and actually look through the god damn code yourself! (Does that sound good to "TheDevGuy"???).... then come back and talk to me.
I've spent several days (hours and hours) now going through it, looking at what Huawei is actually doing in the kernel with livepatch, OASES and how some of their specific features work, poking through driver code, etc, etc (i do this with all vendor code for devices that I own)....
Out of curiosity, How much time have you spent???
I'm guessing it's actually you that is " without a ounce of knowledge" and you're just triggered because you didn't like what I had to say.

There are some valid points, and i am aware of p20 pro flaws but do we really need a separate thread for every personal rant?

forever_lol said:
There are some valid points, and i am aware of p20 pro flaws but do we really need a separate thread for every personal rant?
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hey, i get what you're driving at, but when researching the device - i couldn't find a lot of the info that i was after and i don't think some of what I've touched on has been discussed here.... i know a few people are upset or don't like what I've said, but at the same time - i hope they can appreciate where i'm coming from, that I've actually went way out of me way and spent a lot of my free time, digging through the kernel sources...
there is also still a possibility that i may get stuck with this phone, if my carrier screws me around or has changed their policy - and if that does happen; i can pretty much promise that XDA community for this device are going to benefit;
- I've rebased their kernel on a proper git tree, with all mainline commit history, intact.
- I'm in the process of fixing all of the immediate GCC warnings and some other code issues.
- I'll get it compiling with the latest GCC (possibly clang too).
- I'm figuring out how all of huawei's features work
- i have experience porting/backporting kernel features.
- I'm experienced / know my way around the Linux kernel, having been hacking on it since long before XDA or android existed.
i don't really see much kernel development going on for this device, so who knows; even if i end up exchanging the phone, i still may end up cleaning up the sources and publishing them for other people to use (who may be comfortable using git / cherry-picking, etc - but may have difficulty getting huawei's somewhat broken source code to compile, ootb...

Who would have thought Huawei spies on its users? Geezas. Nobody.
It's not like they have done before.
Wait..
They have.
And bad software? Well, that's Huawei's middle name.

FluFlu said:
No idea what they are talking about 3rd part launchers work just fine. It's just less obvious how to change them vs. stock android... but I had Apex launcher installed 15 minutes after turning on the device, wasn't hard to figure out.
the lack of unlocked bootloader is problematic, beyond just having root ~ once huawei stops pushing updates, if you still own the phone; no way to service or update it.... and for me, I actually like to audit my devices and know what's going on inside of them (and that's why I spend days going through their kernel source code too) ~ pretty hard to audit anything on the device though, without unlocked bootloader + root.
I do agree though, there is lots of stuff baked into the rom, so customization OOTB is pretty good...and i do like that...
On the other hand though, I like having AdAway, AFWall and other root apps.... and at least one of the issues that I mentioned; the audio latency problem ~ I could probably fix if I was rooted... I'm actually pretty shocked that huawei software engineers think that high latency is somehow acceptable....
the latency makes playing instruments on my phone impossible ~ latency has to be low, the sound must play as I touch the notes ~ but instead, there is an extremely long delay / completely unusable. The latency is worse than most early / very old android devices...
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erm I think you will find that in Huawei's latest firmware updates they have disabled custom launchers, you can install them but when you pick them as your default launcher you will get an error message and it crashes, there's a thread on here about it.

neflictus said:
Who would have thought Huawei spies on its users? Geezas. Nobody.
It's not like they have done before.
Wait..
They have.
And bad software? Well, that's Huawei's middle name.
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Click to collapse
that's some high-level cynicism, right there.... coupled with apathy.
I've never personally dealt with Huawei directly, nor peaked at any of their code (until very recently... and I doubt that I am the only person in this situation), so it shouldn't be surprising that I've chosen to comment about it. (for others who may not be aware).
with you having such disdain and having previous experience with huawei - why did you even buy the phone?
just curious.

You talk so much... I didn't even bother reading all what you said. Given that your frustration isn't about the phone itself but Huawei as a company, why did you buy the phone in the first place?