Related
Just saw a series of tweets from @P3Droid saying they're looking for a soft-bricked D2G or Pro to test SBF files on. He said he's in the Phoenix area so do yourself and everyone else a favor if you've got a phone to send him and get that sucker fixed!
Edit: At 11:30 p.m. EST on 1/2/2011, @P3Droid tweeted that they will be publicly releasing the SBF files for both the D2G and Pro within the next 12 hours. I'll post a link to their posting once it's up. Note that they caution you to grab the stuff ASAP as it will likely be taken down by Moto via C&D (not that there won't be plenty of mirrors after that)
Edit2: It looks like links are up on Team Black Hat's forum. I assume since this is now for free there is no issue linking to their forum but if anyone better versed than I in the rules disagrees, please say so and I'll take the link down.
http://www.mydroidworld.com/forums/...id-2-global-sbf-file-2-4-29-full-rsdlite.html
Again, thanks to Team Black Hat for the great work they do and for the decision to rapidly release this SBF publicly. Hopefully the short window between it being kept exclusive to their app and the public release will not deter folks from supporting the cause.
bout time. This will really get the modding community going for the global finally. Hear that all they need to do now is test it and they'll be set.
Yes this is very good news.
See my post down further as to see why I say this isn't good news.
Hint: This smells like a scam.
i hope that this is true, then we could start seeing a lot more modds dfor the d2g
Of course, 2 days after i send my brick in to verizon. good news tho
If you check the twitter account it says that the phone must be mailed just like the band unlock guy... I smell a scam and I for one do not recommend sending any phones by mail to anyone you don't know. You're just asking to have your phone stolen.
I wouldn't trust anyone who says that you must mail the phone to them or that you must meet them in person. If they really want to be trust worthy they will just give you the link to the file straight up. If they needed testers then they can setup a private channel on irc or something.
This is not a scam.
All of the members of TBH have NS(Non Secured) flash dev phones because that is what we personally chose to spend our own money on.
We also have consumer hardware test phones for other models but not the D2G or Pro.
We cannot test the SBF files we got recently on our phones and cannot afford to purchase these models at full retail to test the files.
We are well established in the community and have provided virtually all of the leaked SBF files for all of the Droid devices in existence.
Our record of community service stands for itself and has no comparable parallel.
Everybody wants these files and we want to release them so users who have soft bricked can recover and everyone can breathe a little easier modding these phones.
I would ask anyone who questions our motives how much of their own money they have spent on providing the community with such valuable resources as these files?
Anybody?
I thought so...
cellzealot said:
This is not a scam.
All of the members of TBH have NS(Non Secured) flash dev phones because that is what we personally chose to spend our own money on.
We also have consumer hardware test phones for other models but not the D2G or Pro.
We cannot test the SBF files we got recently on our phones and cannot afford to purchase these models at full retail to test the files.
We are well established in the community and have provided virtually all of the leaked SBF files for all of the Droid devices in existence.
Our record of community service stands for itself and has no comparable parallel.
Everybody wants these files and we want to release them so users who have soft bricked can recover and everyone can breathe a little easier modding these phones.
I would ask anyone who questions our motives how much of their own money they have spent on providing the community with such valuable resources as these files?
Anybody?
I thought so...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Beautiful post and well said!
Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using XDA App
cellzealot said:
This is not a scam.
All of the members of TBH have NS(Non Secured) flash dev phones because that is what we personally chose to spend our own money on.
We also have consumer hardware test phones for other models but not the D2G or Pro.
We cannot test the SBF files we got recently on our phones and cannot afford to purchase these models at full retail to test the files.
We are well established in the community and have provided virtually all of the leaked SBF files for all of the Droid devices in existence.
Our record of community service stands for itself and has no comparable parallel.
Everybody wants these files and we want to release them so users who have soft bricked can recover and everyone can breathe a little easier modding these phones.
I would ask anyone who questions our motives how much of their own money they have spent on providing the community with such valuable resources as these files?
Anybody?
I thought so...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do apologize as I'm new to having a Motorola device and thus do not know all of the developers yet for this brand of hardware. I recently came over from an HTC phone which has the Unrevoked team behind it for rooting purposes and so forth.
I only claimed that this seemed like a scam as I'm cautious about these short of things and your request asking for phones to be mailed seems very much so a tail tell sign of a scam. Again I apologize if this is your preferred operating procedure.
If I had better information about your group/organization then I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it. If I had a soft bricked phone and had this information before hand I would have been more willing to help out. Though I personally still do not want to ship any phone via the mail. I would prefer an in person meeting where this test could then be conducted.
I too understand these phones are not cheap and it's not easy for developers to obtain consumer devices for testing purposes. Since these phones cost so much is why I'm cautious when it comes to someone asking for a phone to be mailed in.
I think the best way to test whether its an sbf or not is to make a new thread with links to it and a disclaimer, if it works, hey, that's awesome, if it doesnt, who cares, the phones its being tested on are already softbricked anyhow.
My question is, what if it is the sbf? Besides fixing softbricked phones, what more can be done with it?
Sent from my WICKED FAST Droid 2 Global with fission using XDA app
boomertwo said:
I do apologize as I'm new to having a Motorola device and thus do not know all of the developers yet for this brand of hardware. I recently came over from an HTC phone which has the Unrevoked team behind it for rooting purposes and so forth.
I only claimed that this seemed like a scam as I'm cautious about these short of things and your request asking for phones to be mailed seems very much so a tail tell sign of a scam. Again I apologize if this is your preferred operating procedure.
If I had better information about your group/organization then I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it. If I had a soft bricked phone and had this information before hand I would have been more willing to help out. Though I personally still do not want to ship any phone via the mail. I would prefer an in person meeting where this test could then be conducted.
I too understand these phones are not cheap and it's not easy for developers to obtain consumer devices for testing purposes. Since these phones cost so much is why I'm cautious when it comes to someone asking for a phone to be mailed in.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
rusty815 said:
I think the best way to test whether its an sbf or not is to make a new thread with links to it and a disclaimer, if it works, hey, that's awesome, if it doesnt, who cares, the phones its being tested on are already softbricked anyhow.
My question is, what if it is the sbf? Besides fixing softbricked phones, what more can be done with it?
Sent from my WICKED FAST Droid 2 Global with fission using XDA app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We will not release anything until we have had a chance to thoroughly test it for ourselves, not all things we get are worth releasing.
To be honest this thread started good but really went silly rather quickly. Neither Cell nor myself need to defend the work we have done for the community and to state that we are scamming is asinine. As Cell stated we have lots of devices in many different flavors, they are not consumer phones therefore we can not always test things that we would like to.
I'm sure you know what TBH does and what we have done, if not you can most likely find 1 or 2 posts about us online somewhere. This is not a question of us not knowing what the files are, we know what we have in hand therefore that is not the question being asked. The request is for a consumer device to test this on.
So if you know someone with a phone that is inoperable have them contact us, so we can help them out and in return help out the entire community.
P3Droid
TBH
Has anyone offered to send a phone to you yet? Where are you located?
No, I went and bought a new D2G from VZW tonight so I can manage this myself.
Once testing is complete we will decide when and how to release the SBF file.
You're welcome...
sorry if I came off as a bit "silly" i do know about tbh and their contributions to the droid community. i was just suggesting an alternative way of testing this, but i understand your concern about releasing it publicly, it may cause more harm than good.
while im here, might i ask if the 3g mobile hotspot patch can be made for the d2g, seeing as how you have a d2g now? ive been waiting a while hoping that someone can make the patch for the d2g.
cellzealot said:
No, I went and bought a new D2G from VZW tonight so I can manage this myself.
Once testing is complete we will decide when and how to release the SBF file.
You're welcome...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey guys, sorry for the harassment/doubters. Unfortunately, the couple of posters who got on here were too lazy to follow the links on your twitter account to the website where it can be clearly seen just how crazy active you guys are on the Android scene and how reasonable you are with these types of requests.
Thanks so much for all the work you do to make Android phones do what they're supposed to do (stupid carriers with their stupidity). You guys do great work and I, for one, appreciate it a lot! Looking forward to the release
cellzealot said:
No, I went and bought a new D2G from VZW tonight so I can manage this myself.
Once testing is complete we will decide when and how to release the SBF file.
You're welcome...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is very generous from your side!
I don't know about others, but I think we should establish a fund or something like that to cover such expenses for our development teams. I am totally willing to shell some money for having the peace of mind of having the SBF file for my D2G laying around ready shall the need arise.
Right now (without SBF) I am reluctant of touching anything on my phone due to lack of safe way out. I am not in the States and exchanging the phone will cost me considerable amount of money and efforts.
Not sure if I should start a new thread for this as cellzealot already bought the phone, but I if this gets somehow organized, I am in with $20 to offset the expense. $20 is much less than what I would have to pay to ship the phone anywhere for whatever reason.
cellzealot, does your team have a paypal or something we can use for the purpose?
I have a Droid2Global that boots but is stuck at the stupid Backup Manager screen and doesn't allow me to go anywhere else. If you want, I'm more than happy to try the SBF out on that D2G if you send me the SBF. PM me if you want me to try it.
@leobg: Thanks for the offer of support.
We really don't care for the practice of plastering donate buttons all over in every forum where we post...so we don't do it.
The best way to support TeamBlackHat and the continued availability of these files and our other development projects is to purchase our app in the market for the extremely reasonable sum of $2.00 US. It is just a downloader that provides our users with access to all of the various leaks and other files. There is a filter that only presents content for the specific connected device.
There is also a donate button at the top of the screen for further support if you are feeling generous, thanks. The files are made available via the app exclusively for some period and then posted publicly for everyone later on MyDroidWorld. http://www.mydroidworld.com/forums/forum.php
That is our way of providing a perk for our supporters and also assuring that all content is made available to the entire community.
This also prevents us from being accused of "selling leaks", despite the fact that those making such accusations have no clue whatsoever how these files are acquired or at what cost.
This is what we do and have been doing for most of the past year or so since the advent of Motorola Android phones with the original Droid.
There is no profit in this at all...trust me...it's just a way for us to absorb some of the cost of our passion for these devices and serve a unique and critical function to meet need for these kinds of files.
Nobody else has consistently proven to have access to these files except us and we have released every flash file for every Motorola Droid device in existence with the exception of two that RootzWiki released.
We don't do a lot of self promotion and prancing around on forums attracting attention to ourselves, that's not our way.
Thanks again for your interest and support!
Just sent you a donation for your work on the droid 2 global sbf. Your work is much appreciated!
THANK YOU!
-Strandedhuman
I have just purchased the TBH app from market. Plan to use the donate link there very soon. I really appreciate your efforts guys!
Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL
I have seen some threads for kids apps. I am interested in finding/building a kids ROM.
My child has a prepaid SIM card and RAZR to be used for certain situations. I would want to be able to let my child carry the phone all the time but restrict what numbers could be called.
So my idea, which can't be an original one, is leverage Android power to install a rooted ROM but run in user mode when I give it to my child. User mode could restrict calling to the phone book only or restrict wi-fi/data access; basically anything that you wanted to restrict or remove. Maybe there could be a ROM builder.
I have many scenarios in mind but maybe they could all be solved by software apps instead of getting into a custom ROM? I'm tech savvy, but haven't ever done a ROM. If the answer is to develop a custom ROM, what device should I choose that would get the most community support? I figure it would be a low end phone, since the point is to make a children's rom.
May I ask how old is your child?
[Sig] dId you know? If you Insert a Coin on your Desire, then it levels up to HD, Z or S :[/Sig]
i was thinking of my son when you mentioned this, it is a great i dea, and i also thought if the original att kid's phone that was out a few years back. it was revamped and it sucked. but good luck on either building one or have some one make one ( put a bounty on it?)
Phones and ROMs
My child is 8 years old. I figure in a few years that it would be fine, but it seems like there would be more of a market for this.
I would put up a bounty for it but I'd prefer to make this a community effort too.
So I will change tack here and ask what the best ROM might be for me to start with and what phones might be recommended? I'm figuring that CM would be easiest to start with, generically?
Thoughts?
I think that is a very good idea.
A good part of that could be accoimplished with a kids theme on an existing ROM.
im sorry but the RAZR is a dumb-phone! it doesnt support 3rd party modding. im afraid you are mistaking the word 'ROM' and actually don't know what it means! You will have no luck finding such ROM for the RAZR... A bootloader of any sort does not exist!
You need a smartphone if you want such a job done, but it requires a investment into a smartphone which are generally more expensive and not intended for 'kids'
I understand...
@olyloh6696: Thanks for looking in on the thread!
You misunderstood what I was explaining. She _currently_ has a RAZR. I want to figure out what the best GSM _android_ phone would be to do the project I'm describing would be. I would of course have to get the new phone; I do understand that the RAZR does not support android (dumbphone).
Any thoughts on phone model or something out there like this already?
rykerwilliams said:
@olyloh6696: Thanks for looking in on the thread!
You misunderstood what I was explaining. She _currently_ has a RAZR. I want to figure out what the best GSM _android_ phone would be to do the project I'm describing would be. I would of course have to get the new phone; I do understand that the RAZR does not support android (dumbphone).
Any thoughts on phone model or something out there like this already?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi
well i guess the best option for a relatively cheap phone (that has android) is the zte blade (in my sig) it is a british phone, but gsm, so i think it should work in the us. if you read reviews for it, it has specs of the desire, nexus one, etc in a cheap budget range. read some revies on it! it also cost £100. Not sure what your budget is though. before you set out to buy the phone, you may need to look up a rom that supports the requirements you want, or you could request one/build your own.
good luck
Unrelated, but the RAZR does support modding lol. Back in the day, pre-Android, I used to hack the hell out of my Razr. There's even a hidden feature called Club Lights that uses the phone's microphone to detect music and make the lights on the phone go with the beat. Youtube it.
That's a great idea... it would be great on a tablet too.
I'm always worried that my son is going to click around in the market and download tons of apps without know it.
Remove Dialer.app, replace with custom Dialer.app
Is the source for the Dialer.app known, i.e. part of the main trunk of the Android sources? I was just thinking that it might not be too hard to just modify that original source to limit it only to the "contacts" tab, that way you can only call the contacts tab.
Another feature I thought of is using some kind of Dynamic DNS client to be able to dial in to the phone.
I was thinking that there could be a "phone home" app that would call home and report the currently used minutes and GPS coordinates, or similar.
Just trying to get the features set worked out and find out if there is existing apps that do this stuff.
2018, quick google search for Kids Custom ROM.... dead thread no progress. There is definitely a market for this, since it's easy to shove a phone into an OtterBox like case and let them have at it with safe guards. My kid has had an Ipad since age 2 without issue. Now she asks for my phone on occasion (years later). It would be easier to just take a custom ROM shove it on a cheap device and give it to her.
Sure, I am a minority, definitely but I can't consider myself the only person who would want to do this.
This is what I'm looking for my child. I'm a software engeneer but I've never works on Android. I think it's not a great works for an Android developer.
I'll follow this post for news.
digging this one up again. anyway to take something like at Nexux 5x and put a totally stripped down version of android on it to achieve something like the lightphone?
nvrpunk said:
2018, quick google search for Kids Custom ROM.... dead thread no progress. There is definitely a market for this, since it's easy to shove a phone into an OtterBox like case and let them have at it with safe guards. My kid has had an Ipad since age 2 without issue. Now she asks for my phone on occasion (years later). It would be easier to just take a custom ROM shove it on a cheap device and give it to her.
Sure, I am a minority, definitely but I can't consider myself the only person who would want to do this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Per capita, there are very few people that actually root or flash custom ROMs, the number of kids that could/would use such a ROM is even less than that, this means it is not worth a developers time and hard work to build a ROM for this purpose, especially considering the plethora of different devices out there in the world. There would not be enough kids using "this" or "that" device with "this" or "that" custom ROM. To be as convenient for kids as what you are asking about, there would have to be a "kids ROM" for a large number of devices. This is not a reasonable expectation by any standard.
Add to that, the fact that rooting devices and flashing ROMs can quickly go bad if the user is not familiar with certain aspects of using a device that is rooted or flashed with a custom ROM, this makes for some rather difficult issues to solve due to user error, ignorance and inexperience of the user.
If you want a "safe" or "basic" ROM for a device, you'll have to learn how to build it yourself because I can promise you that no developer is willing to put that much time and effort into building ROMs that will only be used by a small number of users.
Sent from my LGL84VL using Tapatalk
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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 anyone reading this message.
My name is gregory. I am like most of you pretty pissed about the behavior of canonical (at least if you followed the ubuntu edge fund campaign http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge). What a lame way to make advertising. Of course, anyone with a bit of sense would smell the scam here, 32,000,000$ in a month? come on man!!! So here I am. I've been a flasholic for years and I think I came up with the idea of making my own cell phone about 3 years ago. fear, shyness and lack of funds made me drop the idea several time. But today we have the possibility to change the cell phone world together, thanx to canonical's lame way to advertise their OS. Basically here is my idea, Why not fund our own XDA phone? After all, many of us having problem or getting fed up with the slow updates of our phones are coming here to get things done. Most of us don't wait anymore for those big brands to update our devices. So why in the world are we waiting for them to build them. I've been around XDA for quite some times now and all I see here is a great mix of DEV. So correct me if i'm wrong. The dev on XDA are for most way faster and more reliable than the one at samsung, htc etc. the parts for the phones are all made in china for the most part, we all know some designers and the ubuntu edge crowfunding made it to 12,000,000 +. So here is my question to you people on XDA. Why don't we make our own phone the same way. Even 10,000,000 would be largely enough to make simply the best phone in the world. we could make a poll about each part and design in the phone, and i'm pretty sure the dev here would agree to make the device better. Not only because they will be pay for it, but because they love it. I am no business man, neither a develloper. I don't know code or anything in that matter. Now let me tell you my vision (and no i didn't take LSD for it)
imagines a phone with the latest specs like the edge. 128gb drive storage, 4gb ram, sapphire glass etc etc, it would be nice, but now imagine the same device with the XDA community back up, updates and corrections every 1 or 2 months, pushed straight to your phone without need of external program (kies, itunes or else... why is it call mobile phone if you need to have a computer to update it?), a minimum of 3 years updates, and of course, the ability to solve your problem here without having to talk with lame company commercials who would send your phone to korea just because they don't know anything about the product they sell. won't it be a dream? - more ideas are very welcome and that's why WE should do our own phone.
As I said, i'm not into the cell phone business, although I know some things about business in china, i'm no designer or dev, but i'm sure we could put up a pretty team from people here and make it happen. And when it's done, start a crowfunding. I know it would work because the name XDA alone stand for quality and improvement in our mobile world today. I have in mind that anyone willing to do that would succeed and I can't protect this kind of idea since i'm not the one who invent cell phone. but I also think the great thing with the xda community is that there is no lame boss or greedy stock sharers to decide what people should do or not. I'm hard working and if people think we should make it then i'm willing to work my ass, even travel (i'm from Paris, france not texas ) overseas to make this happen. here is the team i think we should put together to see this device built:
- people who knows the chinese technology market (where to buy and select company)
- DEV who knows about Android devellopment (maybe ubuntu or any other)
- designers ( let's try to make something more beautiful than the iphone )
- lawyers (I guess)
- commercials
any other ideas are welcome.
I opened this thread just to see your reactions on the subjects. it a little messy because i have so many things in my mind but feel free to argue, critisized, encourage, or just explain to us anything that comes in your mind. cheers
jimmymetis said:
Hello anyone reading this message.
My name is gregory. I am like most of you pretty pissed about the behavior of canonical (at least if you followed the ubuntu edge fund campaign http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge). What a lame way to make advertising. Of course, anyone with a bit of sense would smell the scam here, 32,000,000$ in a month? come on man!!! So here I am. I've been a flasholic for years and I think I came up with the idea of making my own cell phone about 3 years ago. fear, shyness and lack of funds made me drop the idea several time. But today we have the possibility to change the cell phone world together, thanx to canonical's lame way to advertise their OS. Basically here is my idea, Why not fund our own XDA phone? After all, many of us having problem or getting fed up with the slow updates of our phones are coming here to get things done. Most of us don't wait anymore for those big brands to update our devices. So why in the world are we waiting for them to build them. I've been around XDA for quite some times now and all I see here is a great mix of DEV. So correct me if i'm wrong. The dev on XDA are for most way faster and more reliable than the one at samsung, htc etc. the parts for the phones are all made in china for the most part, we all know some designers and the ubuntu edge crowfunding made it to 12,000,000 +. So here is my question to you people on XDA. Why don't we make our own phone the same way. Even 10,000,000 would be largely enough to make simply the best phone in the world. we could make a poll about each part and design in the phone, and i'm pretty sure the dev here would agree to make the device better. Not only because they will be pay for it, but because they love it. I am no business man, neither a develloper. I don't know code or anything in that matter. Now let me tell you my vision (and no i didn't take LSD for it)
imagines a phone with the latest specs like the edge. 128gb drive storage, 4gb ram, sapphire glass etc etc, it would be nice, but now imagine the same device with the XDA community back up, updates and corrections every 1 or 2 months, pushed straight to your phone without need of external program (kies, itunes or else... why is it call mobile phone if you need to have a computer to update it?), a minimum of 3 years updates, and of course, the ability to solve your problem here without having to talk with lame company commercials who would send your phone to korea just because they don't know anything about the product they sell. won't it be a dream? - more ideas are very welcome and that's why WE should do our own phone.
As I said, i'm not into the cell phone business, although I know some things about business in china, i'm no designer or dev, but i'm sure we could put up a pretty team from people here and make it happen. And when it's done, start a crowfunding. I know it would work because the name XDA alone stand for quality and improvement in our mobile world today. I have in mind that anyone willing to do that would succeed and I can't protect this kind of idea since i'm not the one who invent cell phone. but I also think the great thing with the xda community is that there is no lame boss or greedy stock sharers to decide what people should do or not. I'm hard working and if people think we should make it then i'm willing to work my ass, even travel (i'm from Paris, france not texas ) overseas to make this happen. here is the team i think we should put together to see this device built:
- people who knows the chinese technology market (where to buy and select company)
- DEV who knows about Android devellopment (maybe ubuntu or any other)
- designers ( let's try to make something more beautiful than the iphone )
- lawyers (I guess)
- commercials
any other ideas are welcome.
I opened this thread just to see your reactions on the subjects. it a little messy because i have so many things in my mind but feel free to argue, critisized, encourage, or just explain to us anything that comes in your mind. cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A search would have shown you this has already been talked about and "If" it ever did happen it would not be with any parts from China at all. The parts would have to be of the highest quality. But as I said this has already been talked about before.
zelendel said:
A search would have shown you this has already been talked about and "If" it ever did happen it would not be with any parts from China at all. The parts would have to be of the highest quality. But as I said this has already been talked about before.
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Click to collapse
i tried to find anything about this but didn't, could you tell me which thread talk about that?
zelendel said:
A search would have shown you this has already been talked about and "If" it ever did happen it would not be with any parts from China at all. The parts would have to be of the highest quality. But as I said this has already been talked about before.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if this has been discuss already then you can close the thread. still didn't find anything on the subject, maybe i'm not using the good key words to find it. anyway thanx
The community was full of talented developers and modders that would put their all into it. Even when a update was in testing developers was still able to get us a copy so that we didn't have to wait for the carrier dragging their feet. We had guarantee root and unroot methods. People would answer questions when asked. Threads would always got comments no matter the topic. I don't know what happened to this great community. Almost seem like people don't care to much anymore. I come here almost every day and it's no new activity. Could it be this device or did xda-developers really change?
It's this device. Unless we get a bootloader unlock, you'll see the same activity pretty much every single day. If you check out the Exynos version of this device, activity is splendid and dev support is pretty well. Many of us knew that this device would stay locked, and you as well should have known before purchasing this device.
xWolf is 99% right.
Our devices are locked down, not a lot you can do when the bootloader is encrypted. The old days of leaked keys and hacked bootloader's are pretty much over.
The other 1% is the communities attitude. We have people running full stock down talking people who want to root. We have people who don't read and flash things that were never meant for their device. Then there are the people who attack developers for not doing things how they want... that's just in the T-Mobile S7 edge forums.
I have multiple phones. Some my daily driver like the s7 are mostly stock running the U firmware, but my G3 is still being developed I have Nougat on my G3... my S4 is still developed, and my s6 is slow but there are a few dedicated folks doing stuff. I have been part of XDA for about a decade soft and hard bricked more than a few phones working with devs to test things and the last few years the community has been flooded with people who don't deserve the time and effort these devs put into their work.
Sorry rant over...
Sent from my SM-G935U using XDA Premium HD app
problem is things like samsung pay which are awesome. As we switch to a smartphone taking over PC's for standard users development like this will die. I miss the old days too. I just wish I could overclock my cpu/gpu on my S7 and still have samsung pay. Not having to carry my wallet is nice.
This isn't specific to the T-Mo forums, unfortunately. Though there does seem to be more virtual foot-traffic in the AT&T realm (I'm an AT&T user), it essentially amounts to the same level of traction.
I concur with what others have said, and honestly - I don't care about root at this point. Phones do most everything that I want (custom launcher, etc), but the one thing that drives me insane is the lack of ability to do a nandroid backup. I cannot stand that - after all this time on Android - Google has not made this a possibility without root. Light users don't and won't care, but then again they aren't on XDA in the first place. Those of us that are want to be able to backup things in a "snapshot" type of way, so we don't have to start from scratch. Helium, and similar apps only go so far (not nearly far enough, IMO) to band-aid this.
This phone isn't geared toward the "XDA user" in the first place. 99.9% of people who use this device have no idea what a nandroid is and how it benefits them. And honestly, on a stock device, I also fail to see the utility of snapshot backups. I get why they exist but how often does the casual user wipe their device to make it worthwhile? Also, space is still pretty limited on mobile devices. Google will never bring this functionality to Android, but I would not complain if they had a backup utility similar to Apple's iTunes, which restores everything from a computer. That actually makes sense, and I am surprised that Google has not made something similar.
That being said, there are plenty of excellent devices that offer you what you want. Everything is a trade-off.
Kingaries79 said:
The community was full of talented developers and modders that would put their all into it. Even when a update was in testing developers was still able to get us a copy so that we didn't have to wait for the carrier dragging their feet. We had guarantee root and unroot methods. People would answer questions when asked. Threads would always got comments no matter the topic. I don't know what happened to this great community. Almost seem like people don't care to much anymore. I come here almost every day and it's no new activity. Could it be this device or did xda-developers really change?
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Click to collapse
Come to the V20. You have to follow the hardware to play you cant go with what has the best hardware all the time.