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What does everyone think will happen with future revisions of Android in regards to the fork between the stock G1s with OTA updates and the hacked G1s with manual updates with the test keys?
Hopefully this doesn't turn into Sony's militant locking down of the PSP via every firmware upgrade. Even though I never owned a PSP, I thought it was absolutely insane that Sony would try so hard to keep people from using their purchased equipment in any way they wanted to.
I totally understand that Google had to release RC30 to shut down a GIGANTIC security exploit that could have (but not likely) been used compromise phones. I'm sure it's in their interest to keep a homogeneous G1 userbase but would they actively try to relock rooted phones?
I'm hoping they just leave the rooted G1s alone. Mostly because we bought the phones and they are OURS. We are obligated to stay with Tmobile until the contract is up because the price is subsidized but we are not obligated (in my opinion) to retain the software they were shipped with. Obviously if my phone has a software problem I won't be calling Tmobile. On the other hand, if there is a hardware defect I'm certainly reflashing RC30 and sending it back under warranty.
I would like to hear everyone's opinion. I think it was great that Tmobile UK was good enough to open a dialog about possibly allowing root access but I don't think they really understand what "root access" is or care as long as they sell phones under contract. I don't think Google really cares either since they have open sourced all of the OS that we are modifying which is in the spirit of Open Source Software anyway. I think as long as they get their marketshare, they will be happy.
I dont think so first off the psp hackers down load games so the dont have to pay for them they lose millions each year on the hackers...next i dont thnk that google would do this but t-moble might.But in my opinion i think they will as soon as they start hacking the pay apps. that will start later this year.
HOGWILD said:
I dont think so first off the psp hackers down load games so the dont have to pay for them they lose millions each year on the hackers
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Hogwild hit the nail right on the head. I don't think T-Mo/HTC will engage in a drawn out battle to "steal" back root simply because there is no real financial motivation to do so. I'm of the mind that it's best not to begin speculating unless one of the aforementioned company takes a step in that direction. There's no point whipping up another possible flame-war over something that might never happen.
Ya I agree they are our phones 1 thing you left out not everybody is under contract some ppl paid full price on a prepaid 90 service plan then they get their unlock code. Some people didn't qualify for the upgrade price of 179$ and some people are under contract eiither of all three it is owned by the user the day they signed or paid. Tmobile won't take back a used g1 for failure to honor the 2 year agreement they will bill the customer.
So the whole open source push... and market. There and hundreds of. Thousands of programmers who make programs for the love of advancing "things" look how popular sourceforge is. So you get people who will create a program and demand a nominal fee say 14.95 the dev only gets 70% of the price and the wireless carrier get 30% for nothing. I . Defently there being an underground "market place" that bypasses that standard one to allow people to download free apps. The most exciting thing that everyone is about the market being a paid app is stopping all the comments of the retarded people in the market place
My 2 cents
diabolical28 said:
The most exciting thing that everyone is about the market being a paid app is stopping all the comments of the retarded people in the market place
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There are a lot of idiots in the world with money to waste. Rest assured, the paid apps will have retarded comments as well.
qft
rabble:rabble
Wow I hate people that don't know what they talking bout. I wanna clear up a few thing. Being a psp dev I can tell you it wasn't bout the hacking and homebrew. the psp updates were to stop piracy. Btw most exploit on psp were by sony. If you own a psp atlease you would know a little about the scene. Secondly, the root bug is dangerous to us. Google own dev are helping us htc people are leaking tools and t-mobile always let us screw them over. So no it not gonna be no war going on it all for our safety untill the software is right. As you can see we're like test bunnys and when a bug you should be greatful that they release update. So while I love having root access it not that serious right now it just would be right to compare this to the iphone jailbreak scene. Once paid app are here I wouldn't be shock if update start coming to block test key and resigning to respect developer work. Read before posting and short answer no unless as needed
There's not going to be a homogenous Android ecosystem to begin with because each carrier will tailor it to their own needs, and possibly to each handset.
danguyf said:
There's not going to be a homogenous Android ecosystem to begin with because each carrier will tailor it to their own needs, and possibly to each handset.
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Correct. And you can bet that there will be handsets running builds of Android not maintained by Google which will not run Android Market. Whatever carrier releases it will want to funnel that 30% revenue to themselves. I'm concerned that that fracturing of the ecosystem will impede overall market acceptance. And i'm not even talking about the inevitable outcome of Android "strains" that slowly become sdk incompatible with each other.
Here's a posting I made on android-platform and Dianne Hackborn's response:
Right, I'm thinking along the device manufacturer side of things. As
an imperfect analogy, is the Android team okay with manufacturers
producing their own Android builds which may be slightly incompatible
with each other (a la Symbian's various flavors), or will all
manufacturers be encouraged/required to adhere to some technical
requirements checklists in order to brand their phone as Android-
powered? (more like say Windows Mobile).
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We won't, this is something we will be actively discouraging (or from a
positive perspective, doing whatever we can to encourage android devices
to be compatible).
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Of course with an open source project "actively discouraging" can only go so far...
jashsu said:
Whatever carrier releases it will want to funnel that 30% revenue to themselves.
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The carriers already get that 30%.
From the android dev blog
"Starting in early Q1, developers will also be able to distribute paid apps in addition to free apps. Developers will get 70% of the revenue from each purchase; the remaining amount goes to carriers and billing settlement fees—Google does not take a percentage. We believe this revenue model creates a fair and positive experience for users, developers, and carriers."
From what I've heard from Google folks, they aren't that interested in the root thing, that is more a carrier issue. However, the way people originally got root was a serious issue. Not directly because you could get root, but because it was an outright silly bug than could potentially raise havoc on your device if you happened to type the wrong thing on your keyboard.
JesusFreke said:
The carriers already get that 30%.
From the android dev blog
"Starting in early Q1, developers will also be able to distribute paid apps in addition to free apps. Developers will get 70% of the revenue from each purchase; the remaining amount goes to carriers and billing settlement fees—Google does not take a percentage. We believe this revenue model creates a fair and positive experience for users, developers, and carriers."
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I imagine the billing settlement fees could be rather sizeable. I don't run a credit card processing company, but i've seen $.20 - $.30 per transaction thrown around. That's in line with Paypal's fees.
We'll see if other manufacturer/carrier matchups continue to use Android Market. I wouldn't be surprised to see them create their own markets though, simply because if it's possible and there's the slightest financial incentive to do so, eventually someone will do it.
I was in the PSP scene for a long time, admin at one of the largest PSP sites, net admin on the largest PSP IRC server, and had several contacts within Sony's Playstation department. So I know how the scene went pretty well.
Sony did not want homebrew for multiple reasons. The obvious one is ISO playback. No matter what they did, warez was possible. Even back before we had perfected the actual emulation, we could simply patch calls to disc0:/ to ms0:/ and load the EBOOT. If we hadn't figured out how (the first one to truly do it was UMD Emulator, which would patch many of the PSP calls to make it MUCH smoother/more compatible), we could simply expand on this.
The second reason is that we were stepping on their toes, so to speak. They wanted to have many more downloadable minigames that could be booted off of the memstick, something we did years before them. I doubt they liked that we were doing what they planned, and doing it much better/faster.
Thirdly, they were responsible for all bricked devices. Although their unbricking process has always been easy, it costs them time/shipping. It's still a pain and costly for them to do it massively.
This is why they combated it on the PSP so much. On the standard Playstations, they've never had to worry about it this much. They didn't have memory cards that you could easily throw ISOs on, they didn't have any easily loaded software that would allow you to boot them, etc. You had to buy hardware devices (hdloader, the swap program (ffs can't remember the name), or modchips). Pirating the PSP was SO much easier.
Now, onto the G1... a Google employee has already (off the record, speaking for himself, not Google) that they should have just given us root access, especially if HTC was going to be so careless with their NBH images.
If every one was given root access, cracking paid applications would be much easier. Well, that is the belief. In reality, cracking them will be a sinch. With easily done byte code modification, and resigning the APK, I doubt there's an application that CAN'T be cracked. As long as you could install apps from browser/SD card, you can crack them. Even if they locked it down to market only, we could spoof DNS servers and run "unofficial" markets with cracked applications. This wouldn't require root access at all.
(excuse any typos, it's 10F outside atm and I'm trying to smoke.)
Gary13579 said:
I was in the PSP scene for a long time, admin at one of the largest PSP sites, net admin on the largest PSP IRC server, and had several contacts within Sony's Playstation department. So I know how the scene went pretty well.
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I know you, your from www.psp-hacks.com huh Dash Hacks Network is my only source lol hey didn't you recently do some homebrew app i remember seeing something bout you on qj. lol your coding for g1 now? maybe a nice irc for g1?
aron4588 said:
I know you, your from www.psp-hacks.com huh Dash Hacks Network is my only source lol hey didn't you recently do some homebrew app i remember seeing something bout you on qj. lol your coding for g1 now? maybe a nice irc for g1?
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The last time I used my PSP was a year ago, as a flash drive so I could reformat my computer. I haven't actually *used* it in years, so anything you saw on QJ wasn't about the real Gary .
But yes that's me, and I was an admin at Dash Hacks.
aron4588 said:
I know you, your from www.psp-hacks.com huh Dash Hacks Network is my only source lol hey didn't you recently do some homebrew app i remember seeing something bout you on qj. lol your coding for g1 now? maybe a nice irc for g1?
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Yes please a "full irc client would be nice." there is a "irc client" if you can call it that in the market called Firc it is a neat program then you come to figure out the dev is running the only channel it can join as ops and Perm bans any user not on a G1. Also at his discretion. Seems to much like a plug to me soon enough he will add an ADbot you watch and people with accidently click the hell out of the ad links .
diabolical28 said:
Yes please a "full irc client would be nice." there is a "irc client" if you can call it that in the market called Firc it is a neat program then you come to figure out the dev is running the only channel it can join as ops and Perm bans any user not on a G1. Also at his discretion. Seems to much like a plug to me soon enough he will add an ADbot you watch and people with accidently click the hell out of the ad links .
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Lol what? fIRC lets you connect to any server and any channel.
diabolical28 said:
Yes please a "full irc client would be nice." there is a "irc client" if you can call it that in the market called Firc it is a neat program then you come to figure out the dev is running the only channel it can join as ops and Perm bans any user not on a G1. Also at his discretion. Seems to much like a plug to me soon enough he will add an ADbot you watch and people with accidently click the hell out of the ad links .
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http://code.google.com/p/androidirc/
If permitted may we ask why is so many chefs leaving?
care to be a bit more specific?
I can think of one reason.
$$$.
Maybe site like you knw whichone (htc pe*di*.com)
site might require them to have exclusive agreement with them.
In return they get some cut from sites revenue.
supersanj said:
care to be a bit more specific?
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itj, miri, hellonasty ......
jimk68 said:
If permitted may we ask why is so many chefs leaving?
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It is the App Store effect. It is really hard to put hours and hours, weeks and weeks of work into a rom or an app, then watch 3000 people download and use it, only to have 30 people actually press your donation button.
It is especially hard when you read things like this and realize the possibilities outside this " donation only " generating forum.
jimk68 said:
itj, miri, hellonasty ......
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duttythroy, freyberry, both from HD2 section in last couple of days..
I may only be a visitor most of the time, but I'm looking elsewhere too.
Threads are full of ego. totally off the original topic mostly and just one-upmanship.
It's just not friendly any more.
The number of people visiting this site has made it what it is and gained it no end of publicity and there is no question that there are some great people coming here and sharing their knowledge.
However I feel it has moved from a "community" spirit of mutual help to one of it being the roughest pub in town.
I really hope they can get their house in order. Threading with ranked comments perhaps?
I'm sure there are admins on here who know that change gotta come.
Chefs have their own life out XDA, they come and go.
I don´t think Chefs are leaving
orb3000 said:
Chefs have their own life out XDA, they come and go.
I don´t think Chefs are leaving
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They are, they have said, all moving to another site but won't give a reason as if they're not allowed... not even allowed to post their ROMs here or support them here.
Wow!!
I was out from XDA and now knowing this bad news
I wonder why is this happening?
If anyone can tell the story...
Hope not all leave...
Yes i have also heard this. Many are saying that htcxxxxx.com is paying them to move on to their site and in a agreement that they should post their roms in their site only that is upload to their site only forever!!
jagan2 said:
Yes i have also heard this. Many are saying that htcxxxxx.com is paying them to move on to their site and in a agreement that they should post their roms in their site only that is upload to their site only forever!!
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True........?
It could be true.
It started with udK I think.
[ElCondor] said:
It could be true.
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Good chefs have definitely said they'll be leaving in the last couple of days, leaving for another site, with no real reason (that they are able to give). I'm sure we'll see a lot more go in the next week.
I'm concerned people like monx who seem to be able to get hold of unofficial WM ROMs before anyone else will hold them and keep them for just people on the other site. This is all very bad for XDA.
I think our lost, that site never ask for anything other then register and download, always ask to refer back here. So many top chefs
Cheers
They'll probably buy out all chefs here, and when they're done, they sell the roms on HTCpedia.
The chefs will get paid in that way, and HTCPedia will make a lot of profit.
I am making my own ROMs, if everyone leaves, I'll publish them here.
Money....money.......money.........money..........
And don't think for one second, it is not all about money !!!!!!!
Xda as a web site is valued at close to a million dollars, some estimates over a million. What is XDA intrinsically ? A bunch of servers in a leased office in Amsterdam, with a hand full of administrators.
The true value is in the knowledge base of it's members, App developers and rom chefs. Like any other business, the " employees " see the " boss " making all this money from their knowledge and hard work, and say " hey , we can do this for ourselves and make all the money instead of them. "
A couple of chefs get together at HTCpedia and start to develop their own site, based on their own knowledge and their own cooked roms. They get some advertisers and some members and traffic. It turns things from, one chef deciding to list his work on his own site for convenience and control ( like sakajati did over at the Kaiser forum, or MobileMatt did with his great themes ) to competing businesses.
The chefs try to bolster their traffic by providing links in their rom threads here, ( something that has always been acceptable ) egos clash , accusations about stealing business, the fine line between personal links and advertising. Basically children with their toys try to carve out their own area's of the playground.
Money.....money......money...... and as with Apple vs HTC, who i going to be the big loser in this battle ? Does it matter to you where you download your roms ? If you donate to a chef here or over there, does it change your rom flashing experience ? Or could you care less about this petty squabbling and just wish everyone would just grow up.
As far as paying people to list roms on a certain site, that is a slippery slope that everyone walks. Chefs cook , manipulate, improve and port these roms, but the roms themselves are the intellectual property of M$ and HTC without question. This is the reason for the donation system and not the " pay per ". You can ask for a donation for the time and effort you put into cooking these roms, but you cannot sell what you do not own. And nobody " owns " these roms except the companies that created the rom bases.
Who is going to gain and who is going to lose from this " butting of heads ? " Who knows, but does anyone really want a public battle over the posting ( and ad revenues ) of intellectual property they do not even own.
Kick and scream too loud, and you might just get the attention of people that have been looking the other way for a long time. Money.....money.....money......I'm just sayin...........
dead right, as soon as the roms, or the distribution of the roms becomes a commodity, htc and ms have to take notice.
samsamuel said:
dead right, as soon as the roms, or the distribution of the roms becomes a commodity, htc and ms have to take notice.
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+1.
I have been away from the site for a few months and this and another thread about the same topic have been the first things I have seen!!
This is all very bad news. For one thing, it looks like xda-developers is losing some of it's finest talent. Is this phenomenon limited to ROM chefs? What about developers who make applications (for example, Advanced Config)? I notice that the other site has that app up for download, has the developer of that app migrated exclusively to the other site?
As has already been mentioned, once people start making money off the cooked ROMs I am sure Microsoft will start to take note. Also, how many of the developers are using a licenesed copy of Visual Studio or whatever it is they use? And the SDKs required?
Will HTC start to take umberance to the fact that people are using the Manilla SDK and butchering their (already customised) ROMs?
Maybe much ado about nothing or maybe it will lead to problems for both xda-developers and the other site.
Syphon Filter said:
Maybe much ado about nothing or maybe it will lead to problems for both xda-developers and the other site.
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Yes, if they actually start charging for ROMs (one way or another) Microsoft and HTC will definitely crack down on this type of thing. I've read that they can make it almost impossible to install custom ROMs if they want to (not that it's that easy right now), not to mention taking various sites to court, Microsoft$ favorite past time..
Hi, does anyone know a link or where to download the Kies software? I've tried the US, UK and Australian Samsung Support pages download links and the link is dead and has been for the last 2 days. Samsung support was totally clueless and could not give me a direct link when I tried them. I'm thinking that maybe it's possible to just torrent it if I could find it, but I was hoping maybe someone here would know. My experience with Samsung so far is not getting off to a very good start.
even google can find it with ease... but i'm on a good mood... sooo here... a spoonful of samsung kies.... one of the lamest program i have ever use... hehehe....
http://www.samsung.com/my/support/usefulsoftware/KIES/JSP
Thanks, I had googled it, but it kept bringing up old versions of the program. Little did I know (I should have been able to figure it out) that when one downloads the old version it auto-updates to the newest version. That being said, I thought iTUnes was bloated and slow, yet compared to Kies it's great. It's also insane that a company the size of Samsung can't keep links up to date and working on a program that their literature tells you to download. It's this type of ineptitude compared to the generally easy Apple experience that has relegated Android tablets to being used only by uber geeks for the most part. Heck, all Amazon had to do with the Fire was make it somewhat user friendly and it outsold all other Android tablets combined in one quarter.
Alright, so after reading a couple articles on a bunch of sites. I can sort of understand a vicious cycle that's going on in the mobile development world.
First off, let me begin, Mobile OEMs (as we all know) don't release updates very often. And as a general rule, when they do... it's usually a couple months late. Just look at HTC devices, most of the (somewhat) older devices (depending on what you're definition of older is) aren't getting the updates to ICS for while http://goo.gl/FjcMJ . And in some cases they just decide not to update them at all. (see the Desire HD and possibly the Thunderbolt http://goo.gl/BwZld )
Initially when Android started, this was a little different. And allow me to clarify by going far far back, to the first Android device. The HTC Dream.
It initially came out with Android 1.0 (Astro) it eventually got updated all the way to the software version 1.5 (Cupcake). If you look back then, that's two software updates! Astro to Bender to Cupcake.
Now let's look at just about any other Android device (not made my Samsung, for the most part they're a bad example... (of course then again, they have the head of Cyanogenmod Steve Kondik on their team).
We're going to look at Motorola, because despite the fact that it's owned by Google, not all of their devices have received updates. And the device I've chosen from them is the defy. Now if you look over at the development section of the forums you'll see that we have a working (and apparently a very smooth) port of Jelly Bean for the Defy. http://goo.gl/mE1Qy
But if you decide to see what Motorola's deciding to do to update it from Gingerbread, well... their development section is devoid of everything for the Defy... http://goo.gl/g8XN0
Now why does that matter to us happy go lucky developers and modders? Well let's look over this little scenario I've played out in my head more than once.
CEO#1 "Oh they want Jelly Bean?"
CEO#2 "Yeah they do..."
CEO#1 "So what are we going to do about it?"
CEO#2 *checks XDA* "Nothing, the ones who really care about it have a working ROM up already."
CEO#1 "Okay, sounds good to me. So are you ready to go make some more phones with high specs and outdated software?"
CEO#2 "Well if we start now, we should be able to get six new devices running ICS 4.0.3 out by mid December!"
CEO#1 "Ohh, not even having the latest version of ICS is really going to get them. Brilliant!"
This is a vicious cycle that just keeps going around, and around, and around. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be a way to stop it. While we need Superuser and rooting privileges, we also need updates to the latest version of Android OS to keep us going.
OEMs on the other hand see us as free labor for development and as the only people who really want/need the updates. The problem is that with their history of sending out updates we really can't stop working. And even when they do send out updates, sometimes they aren't even fully stable! (see Evo 3D http://goo.gl/VzCNM )
So the question is, how are we going to stop this?
Buy devices from the companies that keep things up to date. The Nexus gets direct pushes from Google so you know you're good there. Sony has a dedicated line to developers through their forums and even offers devices for temporary dev use and has reasonably priced unsubsidised phones.
Put your dollars in the right places if you want to make change happen. Those who want full access still aren't a large enough part of the market to shape everything. That said, people pushing for control have made sure that iDevices can be jailbroken and HTC is staggering hard because of mis-steps in marketing that have been worsened by lackluster updates and their decision to shun the dev community that was bolstering them.
They can't look at xda or whatever Android forum because there is a larger population of users who have no idea what rooting is, let alone custom ROMs. Those people depend on updates and if they won't get an official update, they won't get one at all.
Sent from my MB508 using xda premium
If you ask 10 Android users what version of Android they are on, 8 of them will have no clue, 1 will know because the sales rep used it as a selling point, and one of them will be running Jellybean (thanks to XDA!).
Consumer demand is not high enough to demand the cost of testing new software on dated phones. Sad but true.
thebeastglasser said:
OEMs on the other hand see us as free labor for development and as the only people who really want/need the updates.
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If they really saw us as free labor, they would release a phone with cyanogenmod or something and just kang whatever works for their next update. (Actually, this would be a very good idea.)
However, in actuality, they just don't care about the devs. Too busy trying to differentiate their products with custom skins and cause more work for everyone.
It is true that most people don't know much more than that they are are android or "droid", just like many people don't know much more than they have an Iphone. The vocal majority of phone users (online) however have quite a bit more knowledge which means they get much more feedback from the minority.
One of the main reasons (other than price) that I got a Nexus 7 was due to the fact that Google pushes updates immediately to their nexus devices. I see this as an additional "perk".
You can't buy a device Android or other from an OEM or carrier and expect to get the latest greatest updates a or mods any too quickly. Forums and sites like xda bring in developers and users who ate eager to offer mods and help that you will never find coming from the mainstream as quickly or with the same quality. I get the device I want and look to here to make it better quicker.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
But what I see is that there are a bunch of phones that could easily be running better software (like the Defy) but OEMs clearly see that anybody who seems to care enough about updates are doing it themselves. The problem is, there are relatives of mine who refuse to root and yet they know enough about phones to know what version they're running and know the difference between the two versions. The one they currently have, and the one they could have.
I feel like this is kind of unfair to the sed-mentioned people and on top of that, it makes uneducated users buy more phones, while it keeps people like us are at work.
I'd bet that it was a pain in the a** porting ICS to the Desire HD no thanks to HTC, and yet this is just one less job for HTC and a hell of a lot more work for us... That's just me.
And also, that idea for a "pre-kanged" phone or one running a version of Cyanogenmod is pretty good. It'd be a great idea...
Again, speak with your dollars. I have no doubt that Nexus sales will continue to climb not only because of devs, but because people who just end up with them will like seeing timely updates and devices that continue to get better and better. If you want to help the rise of affordable, quality devices then steer others toward them when you can and buy them yourself when it's time for something new.
Also, people on xda do not see development as a "work", they see it as a hobby...
So even if all the phones were on the latest android, the dev community here at Xda would still be hard at "work" to come up with something better...something which the OEM's and Google couldn't think of implementing even with such large resources at their disposal...
And let's face it, apart from games, the general public in large doesn't have "need" for BETTER phones...
I've seen the likes of HTC One X and Galaxy S3 go in the hands of people for whom multitasking would mean chatting on whatsapp while waiting for the fb app to load...
So the question would arise, if the public doesn't "need" better phones, how do we sell it to them?
The answer becomes clear, stop giving them updates...make them feel that their device is outdated...that they "need" a NEW and BETTER phone...
The ones who understand the capability of their phone would have the ability, or more importantly, the will to make the updates happen...
For the rest, well there's fancy advertising...
Hope this clears up...
- Via xda premium
Yeah, I suppose it makes sense. Thanks guys!
How many people are there using Android? About 60% of the market, which means hundred milion users How many members do we have here on XDA? Less than hundred thousands! It means that regular users dont know and dont care what OS they use or even dont know what the update is. Froyo, GB, ICS, JB sound like alien languages for most of regular users. For those who know wat they are using, they are already XDA members, the rest just doesnt care or they just simply buy an iCrapple. Therefore, there is no way you can stop that. Customers are always taken granted by companies.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda app-developers app
Extreemly well put. We all knew it but didn't say anything. I am awaiting the next nexus for this very reason. Props to thebeastglasser
MissionImprobable said:
Again, speak with your dollars. I have no doubt that Nexus sales will continue to climb
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The bundling is too strong with this market. When there are literally only one or two phone brands, usually otherwise sub-par, that are stock, the voting with dollars won't make much of a difference. It's like voting in an election where a lot of people who might prefer a pure candidate are given tons of reasons to go with more mainstream ones.
So how can change actually be effected? First and most obviously, google might dictate to motorola to make stock phones. Hopefully, that will happen and stock android will start getting a positive reputation for straightforward and automatic upgrades.
The other option starts at grassroots levels: this bundling leaves a gap in the market, and eventually someone should step in to fill that gap. I can imagine small start ups in third-world countries (where price is a real issue) revitalizing older brands with the highest supported cyanogenmod, then selling them at still relatively low prices for a profit. If there is enough demand for this, this "repackaging" business would be emulated all over and the OEMs might start to take a hint.
For the record there are over four million members on XDA...
thebeastglasser said:
For the record there are over four million members on XDA...
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Not currently active users though. Remember XDA used to make you register to download files so that jacked up the member rate.
thebobp said:
The bundling is too strong with this market. When there are literally only one or two phone brands, usually otherwise sub-par, that are stock, the voting with dollars won't make much of a difference. It's like voting in an election where a lot of people who might prefer a pure candidate are given tons of reasons to go with more mainstream ones.
So how can change actually be effected? First and most obviously, google might dictate to motorola to make stock phones. Hopefully, that will happen and stock android will start getting a positive reputation for straightforward and automatic upgrades.
The other option starts at grassroots levels: this bundling leaves a gap in the market, and eventually someone should step in to fill that gap. I can imagine small start ups in third-world countries (where price is a real issue) revitalizing older brands with the highest supported cyanogenmod, then selling them at still relatively low prices for a profit. If there is enough demand for this, this "repackaging" business would be emulated all over and the OEMs might start to take a hint.
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The Chinese market is already doing that, and with brand new phones that come both rooted and sometimes unlocked. Yes, there are other markets in which this can be done, but it doesn't make sense to talk on the one hand about voting with dollars not making a difference and then saying third-world resellers will change the game.
Google is marketing a clean, recognizable line in their Nexus devices, advertising intelligently, and making sure that they continue to stay on the latest firmware. Supporting them and other companies who do so will dictate what model corporations follow. Again, HTC is eating crow because their abandonment of the dev community and their decision to spread themselves thin, ala Motorola, who are also being dug out of a hole now by Google. I'd say both companies have paid the price for ignoring what the marketplace demands.
Moto had everyone hooked with the original Droid so there is no doubt that share is won or lost by how you approach relevancy for the long run. Go back and look at how many people loved their OG Droids in every way but have now moved on to other brands because of locked bootloaders and lack of firmware updates on the models that followed. Money makes the corporate world go round and every little bit helps.
Grassroots movements have done everything from keeping the iPhone legal to jailbreak to getting a man his goodies when a WP store tried to pull a fast one in regards to him winning the WP challenge to getting VZ to clarify that they wouldn't be doing anything to their Unlimited users. We may not be the majority, but we are far more organized and informed than the masses and as such what we do gets noticed and picked up on by tech, blog, and news coverage. The only ones who don't make change happen are the naysayers who sit by and do nothing. Support the brands that support the customers and devs.
MissionImprobable said:
The Chinese market is already doing that, and with brand new phones that come both rooted and sometimes unlocked. Yes, there are other markets in which this can be done, but it doesn't make sense to talk on the one hand about voting with dollars not making a difference and then saying third-world resellers will change the game.
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Sure voting makes sense.. if you're in another country where the election's not as rigged.
MissionImprobable said:
Again, HTC is eating crow because their abandonment of the dev community and their decision to spread themselves thin, ala Motorola, who are also being dug out of a hole now by Google. I'd say both companies have paid the price for ignoring what the marketplace demands.
Moto had everyone hooked with the original Droid so there is no doubt that share is won or lost by how you approach relevancy for the long run. Go back and look at how many people loved their OG Droids in every way but have now moved on to other brands because of locked bootloaders and lack of firmware updates on the models that followed. Money makes the corporate world go round and every little bit helps.
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I'm not really convinced that Motorola's and HTC's losses were due to locked bootloaders, or even lack of firmware updates. Rather, I think it's due to brand inertia: at some point, Samsung came up with a phone (the Galaxy S2) that was so far ahead of anything else on the market at the time, that they just grabbed market share and brand loyalty from many of the consumers on the market. This has little to do with the Galaxy Nexus, and indeed their "next big thing" has been the horribly backward (from a stock perspective) S3 and the Note.
It's been my perception that there is a strong correlation between developer support and whatever device I want to get next.
When I got my very first phone, it was the Samsung Captivate.
It had (Still has) great dev support. I decided not to wait a month to get the Moto Atrix because, there was no predicting what kind of dev support it would have despite having great specs. I find that (generally speaking) Samsung phones have had strong dev support.
I sort of hate to point this out.. But, if you think the "average consumer" cares about upgrades.. I would be inclined to disagree. A lot of people do care about upgrades.. Myself, my girlfriend, a lot of people who frequent forums in general.
Still, your average consumer is probably more concerned with the screen size than the software it's packing. Even if ICS is "nicer" and "more elegant" there are a lot of people who really don't know or even care what OS their phone is running. As long as they can text and check facebook, they aren't going to be bothered with the small details of "Jellybean" or "ICS"
I have to be completely honest when I admit, if I were a manufacturer.. I don't honestly know how inclined I would be to release OS updates. Not because I want to be an evil corporation and force you to upgrade to get the newest OS.. But, because putting it plain and simply.. It takes time, energy, and money to release an update. If *ANYTHING* goes wrong with the update and even a single person doesn't follow the instructions.. It becomes really hard to prove they are the one at fault. So you spend your time and energy making an update, potentially having more cost incurred due to possibly damaged hardware, and then finally.. wondering how many people really cared in the first place. A lot of people don't care and even won't upgrade their phone because, they perceive it as "a pointless endeavor."
thebobp said:
Sure voting makes sense.. if you're in another country where the election's not as rigged.
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What does this have to do with supporting companies that support us? Voting with your dollars is a metaphor; it doesn't mean that there is an election for phones.
Hello,
I was just wondering, not sure if it's been answered before, but it seems strange that rom developers put their roms on websites with agonisingly slow download speeds, when a peer to peer solution (such as torrents) could allow the community to seed and provide super fast download speeds? Especially since most android-based file hosts (cough) have no download servers in a lot of regions.
Question of legality is irrelevant since uploading to an external website is just as legal/illegal depending on what you want to call it, as it's still sharing the file..
Can anyone provide an explanation as to why this practice is not widespread? It would be beneficial to be able to download big 700mb roms at 5MB/s instead of 300KB/s.. Of course if a rom is not well-seeded, an alternative non-torrent download could be provided along side it.
Thoughts?
Doesn't seem like a good idea. Overtime people would stop seeding the torrent. There are a lot of high speed sharing websites such as Google Drive, Dropbox, MediaFire etc.
janekmuric said:
Doesn't seem like a good idea. Overtime people would stop seeding the torrent. There are a lot of high speed sharing websites such as Google Drive, Dropbox, MediaFire etc.
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While that is true for very old ROMs, I think there are plenty of very popular roms that could seriously benefit a lot from hosting it as a torrent. I think some already do it but I guess people are concerned about lack of seeders.
It would be good if devs used those services, but sadly things like Google Drive detect a lot of downloads of a file and make it temporarily unavailable (due to piracy concerns, I guess). Devs end up using special "file hosts" for android roms and whatnot, and they are honestly terribly slow, and some even offer "turbo speeds" for a price, no good in my book.
brezzo said:
While that is true for very old ROMs, I think there are plenty of very popular roms that could seriously benefit a lot from hosting it as a torrent. I think some already do it but I guess people are concerned about lack of seeders.
It would be good if devs used those services, but sadly things like Google Drive detect a lot of downloads of a file and make it temporarily unavailable (due to piracy concerns, I guess). Devs end up using special "file hosts" for android roms and whatnot, and they are honestly terribly slow, and some even offer "turbo speeds" for a price, no good in my book.
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I don't know really. They mostly use Drive and AndroidDevHost for roms which is fine for me since the max download for me is 450KBps anyways.