In a time when the community is like a rampant swarm of flies around a steaming pile of horse manure and modifications and rooting are a part of everybody’s life, carriers are trying harder and harder to make sure their devices cannot be broken. This is very understandable when you look at the history of the Android phones.
Back in the day of the now infamous G1, modified boot loaders, recovery images and complete system images were released frequently to modify and increase the functionality of your phone. When some of these modifications became too large to fit in the partitions of the G1′s internal memory, a developer by the name of Haykuro released an updated SPL (Secondary Program Loader) that reorganized the internal partitions of the device and made it possible to fit more enhanced modifications on the device.
To the community, this was an awesome advancement, but to T-Mobile, it was an incredible inconvenience. The downside of the release was the issue of people bricking their devices so they became unusable. T-Mobile became inundated with support calls and requests for replacement devices and rooted phones became a sore point.
On the lighter side, a well designed phone that is rootable only increases the value of the device and provides more sales for the carrier as more and more people want to own that phone. Why? Because the life span of the phone just increased as the community will always find ways to make it better and faster. Look at the T-mobile G1! Still going strong.
So, how do we overcome the issues for the carriers? How do we appease the carriers so their support costs do not sky rocket with replacement phones costs due to user error and bricked devices? How do we make it possible for the carriers to give us rooting powers?
I’ve talked to many people in the community about this subject and one option that actually sounds somewhat feasible (to the community at least, I can’t speak for T-Mobile or any other carrier) is for the users who want to modify their devices to sign some form of waiver stating that they will no longer call the carrier or the device manufacturers for support. Maybe the IMEI number used to uniquely identify each device could be logged in their systems and the first thing they do before providing support is ask you for your IMEI number. The other issue is the means for the carriers to make a particular device open and rootable and only that single device.
One down side to this is that the carriers would incur a little extra cost to maintain this list (albeit pretty small) and a slight change to their support process.
So how do we make it possible and even beneficial for the carriers to offer this service? Maybe there could be a one time fee to have your device unlocked at the time you sign your waiver declining support. The fee could cover any administrative costs and any software fix they would need to apply to your device.
It’s proving difficult for the community to root the G2 with its read-only system partitions being restored on each boot of the device. I hope that something happens so the future of the device-modding community can continue. If all the carriers keep pushing and pushing to make their devices more secure and un-breakable (if possible), it will water down the future of Android and its whole Open Source approach.
Do you have any suggestions to make this an easier process? Leave us your thoughts below!
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Great post dude
Fastboot unlock like the nexus on all devices.
exactly, the average user isn’t going to accidentally stumble onto fastboot, unlock their device, and brick it. Tmobile is lying they only locked it down so hard in hopes people won’t tether.
Beat me to it, work for t-mobile customer care. They could care less about roms, hardware will always be improved so people will buy new phones. Tethering unlimited data is the issue but now you get throttled at ten gigs. They know it will be unlocked but can’t just open the doors right away to root! The other carriers are making android closed source with their carrier only apps and trying to block root, removing google apps for bing? Just stupid!
Yeah the Bing thing is absolutely retarded.
Then again, AT&T is blocking unknown sources, so that about rules them out.
Yeah but the not side loading apps on AT&T android phone is not that big of deal there are way around it, and as for the carriers locking down the phones is going to get them in trouble especially if they are making changes to the actual android code.
If the carriers are putting their own apps and software on the phone well there’s nothing anyone can do since well different software different license.
Something to also keep in mind is in the GPL it says they have to release the source code, and changes they make to it. it doesn’t say how soon they have to release it.
exactly, the average user isn’t going to accidentally stumble onto fastboot, unlock their device, and brick it. Tmobile is lying they only locked it down so hard in hopes people won’t tether.
That’s an interesting concept, but will only be a good concept if the carriers would agree, And by all signs the carriers are deaf to our community.
As a concept, it’s a thought in the right direction. We need more feedback from the carriers and I think T-Mobile have been the most receptive to the community so far. I agree with what they are doing from their business standpoint, but we need to find a happy medium for every one to work with. Whats the point in having an open source O.S. if you can’t do anything with it on the available hardware.
Maybe the style of service from overseas will finally catch on. I buy whatever phone I like and I just buy the sim and minutes, not the phone from the carrier. Works great and less issues for the phone mods.
I believe the problem will be resolved for the G2 once HTC releases the kernel. And that’s a requirement of the GPL. Don’t quote me on that though. Just my understanding.
Agreed. The community will find a way to get into the device ( We hope ), but the carriers and manufacturers are only going to keep pushing more and more and making it harder and harder to crack. We need to work with them to find a way to make this all easier and beneficial for everyone.
Beneficial for everyone would be:
1. no unlimited plans -> to tethering issue,
2. the flat rate for data or decreasing rate for data
3. open platform:
– Carrier can preinstall apps.
– You are free to remove them
– You can download them from the Market if you find them useful.
– You can install what you want.
– Carrier support do not have to support third party programs.
– If you ask for software support, you have to provide the info about version of programs and operating system (automatic support request script would collect and send this data to the support center?)
Carrier should realize that 90% of users do not change the initial setup of the devices. They do not uninstall preinstalled apps. They do not change default programs. On freeing the platform, they would loose only 10% of the crapware install base, but can earn more with people happiness and friendliness for keeping the platform it open.
Most of the people like to have ability to choose, but it does not mean they will use it.
HTC’s response is “We will release kernel source in 90-120 days. That satisfies the GPL requirement.”
Yes, they are in violation.
I don’t know about this. For example, the Vibrant came with a issue of the hardware keys being locked. This keeps you from getting to the bootloader. Now what happens if I waived my support? Am I stuck with a defective phone which is their responsibility? I believe once Google stops fragmenting the releases of Android then this may be less of a problem. The real reason to flash a rom is for function & performance. If the Vibrant hadn’t shipped so sub par,I would never have wanted to flash. UI mods are in the market galore. As far as prolonging he life of your phone, what interest would a carrier have in that?
> As far as prolonging he life of your phone, what interest would a carrier have in that?
Great point…
Carriers make very little money from selling the hardware. They make their money by getting people signed up for the 2 year contracts on nice big data plans. Prolonging the life of the phone and being more open helps to keep people tied to their network so the carriers are happy.
Yes, they are always trying to come out with better and better devices but this is not so they can sell more hardware, it’s to keep the user happy and get them to switch over to their network. So really a carrier has no reason to prolong or NOT prolong the life of the hardware as long as the people stay on their network.
That argument makes no sense at all! Carriers might not make much money (or any at all) from selling the hardware, but you can’t separate the sale of the hardware and the contract because of the discounting. It’s a small minority of users who buy their devices without a contract, the vast majority opt for a 2 year deal for a $300 “discount”. It’s the same with upgrades, for the hardware discount you’re forced into a new contract. Therefore there’s a huge incentive for the carriers to have older hardware become obsolete fairly quickly, and a corresponding disincentive to allow rooting or to release software updates themselves which extends the life of older hardware (I have an original MT3G running Cyanogen’s Froyo and which runs well enough for me not to upgrade to a new MyTouch if it can’t be rooted).
This article is missing the point completely and makes statements which are beneficial for the carriers, not even. You Americans still are mind locked in this unhealthy one-sided system, where carriers do what they want. And even if one of you tries to think deep about the problem, he ends on the first layer. And here you have.
1. If the argument is, that carriers lock their phones because they do not want people to brick their phones trying to unlock them…. then I do not know what author had for breakfast, but for sure it was not legal.
If they won’t locked it in the first place, and allow installation of stock android from google at user discretion, and wouldn’t force people to wait for updates approved by them – then they wouldn’t have any people coming in with bricked phones. All topic wouldn’t exist, there would not be any rooting enterprise, except 5 geeks in the whole world.
User choice:
- beautiful, carrier customized skin with they super useful dedicated to enhance user experience crapware
- or stock stable and current android (straight from Google)
If carriers are so sure that their stuff is so much better than stock, then why they won’t give a choice and prove this in the free market?
Or maybe…. my fellow Americans, they benefit on locking the devices to stuff things they could earn more money on and delete stuff they do not like, for their, not user advantage. If so then the whole article thesis is wrong (and personally I think this is the case). The thesis is: they lock because they earn money on this. And they are trying to block it more securely because the rooting became so simple, and not rooting became so annoying (late updates), that many users started to do this – and very much not because of the bricked phones.
2. Waiving all support, even hardware specific, is unfair to the user. I agree that software support could be waived. Also there is a problem with overheating by some users which overclock their devices (tiny fraction), but talking about broken buttons or bad pixels, the waiving of all guarantee is unfair. And with benefit to the carrier.
Software support could be waived, but carriers would never agree to this either, because (see first section) this is not the point of locking.
Mini Wheat
I think they are legal!The way the networks operate in America is not going to change overnight and is not the point of this article. It would be great if you could go to HTC, Motorola, Samsung and any other manufacturer and purchase any phone you desire in an open, unlocked state, but it still wouldn’t help with support. There are many reasons why the carriers try to lock down their devices from support issues to software functionality that compromises their networks or increases their operating costs like tethering.The point of this article is try and put thoughts into the community and hopefully the carriers to see if there is some way to find a happy medium for everyone.Even outside America where you can purchase your phones separate from the carriers there has never really been a phone that is run on an Open Source OS that is designed to and can easily be modified. This is a new world and new ways need to be found to work in it!
Do you have any suggestions to make this an easier process? Leave us your thoughts below!…….. Yeah dont buy the phone!! If carriers want to play that game, dont buy the phone, boycott, and let your voice be heard
Better yet, do what I did…
Pre-order it anxiously awaiting a new “stock google experience” device… Find out T-mo has LIED to us about the protection (proof: http://pastebin.com/cm75Z9UA ) and return it as soon as possible.
Congrats T-mobile, you just earned yourself a nice B-stock G2.
I agree, this has nothing to do with installing custom ROMs… this is all about preventing people from using tether and hotspot apps. Surprised this wasn’t even mentioned.
And to the guy going on the rant about “allow installation of stock android from google at user discretion,then they wouldn’t have any people coming in with bricked phones.” DO YOU REALIZE THIS ARTICLE IS ABOUT THE G2 WHICH COMES WITH STOCK ANDROID?
More proof this is ONLY about tethering! The G2 ALREADY comes with stock android – WHY are people trying to root it? Look at the forums on XDA and you will know – they are now talking about how to try to get tethering to work without root!
Actually, custom roms provide a lot of extra functionality, fix bugs ignored by the manufacturer, etc. I agree, most people want to tether. But I modded my Nexus One (already had tethering capability in stock 2.2) for these reasons.
Let me also add the fact that “Stock Android” and “Google Experience” means tethering is included, and the phone is not loaded up with crapware that T-Mobile gets paid for (ie. photobucket.)
As HamNCheese said. Carrier controlled android-like looking system is NOT a stock Android experience.
Think a minute about what will happen when Google will release new version of Android – will you be able to download it and upgrade right away? Or you will have to wait weeks until the carrier will load stuff he wants and blocks stuff he wants?
Although the article happen to be about the particular situation with G2, my comment is general and holds also for Droid X, and every other device that will be released with stronger security. And I just wish Mr. Simon would not post similarly biased articles in the future. The future when every computer you buy is controlled by a carrier. Bare in mind that the portable computers will be sold with a wireless data plan. Does the fact, that you want to have internet on your machine automatically means that some corporation can decide what programs you can install and which you can’t?
Also it would be nice if author give any indication of the source of the data – some statistics, some rough numbers. Without the source, the article like this looks more like a manipulation than journalism.
How do we *really* know that bricked phones are the cause of the locking down of the phones? I mean have anyone ever produced a statistic with the numbers of phones returned to TMo or other carriers because of bricking from failed rooting attempts?! I find it hard to believe the return rate for this specific reason is so great that TMo felt it necessary to pour the resources into anti-root tech for the G2.
Who cares. What they are doing is wrong and goes against the spirit of Open Source Software.
We are supposed to be able to contribute back to the community – how is this possible if the carrier locks us out of the device, and the manufacturer does not comply with the GPL and release kernel source?
I strongly agree.If they come up with a fee to pay,it will make it a lot better.I know me my~self,got my first G1 by knowing what I could do with it and what it could do.It will make the sales of devices go up and up if they didn’t put up brick walls.I say we all sign a petion of some sort to let the carriers know that we are rooting for android phones to be rootable…I mean come on,its worth it…
Yes the tethering issue is a major deal hear we all agree to that, but also when we mod our devices it will keep most people from buying a new phone for allot longer then if they didn’t root look at the G1 it has lived a long life and actually out lived some newer phones out there without root the G1 would have never made it to 2.1 and definately not to Froyo. But if you think about it without root on the G1 it wouldn’t have had such a long lasting impact on the whole phone world and basiclly wouldn’t have made as much money in my opinion. Anybody agree
ah, i love it. giving these new guys a taste of what android was all about back in the day–giving haykuro some props i see. man, i miss those days when the g1 was the only device…
ah, i love it. giving these new guys a taste of what android was all about back in the day–giving haykuro some props i see. man, i miss those days when the g1 was the only device…
oh my G1 is STILL my only device. Going blazes with SuperD Rom amd new ($6!) 2400mah battery. Long live the G1.
the sad thing is most of these new guys dont even know what a g1 is or how it looks. and thanks to verizon wireless, every new idiot that buys an android phone calls it a droid. its annoying as hell. only motorola made the droid lineups idiots
HTC makes “Droid” phones too idiot . . . . and George Lucas Owns The Term DROID, Motorola and HTC Pay a Fee to License It
I agree, this has happened to me so many time. I pull out my Nexus One and people are like Tmobile has DROID phones as well? This is soo annoying nice going verizon…..
Can you blame people for not knowing? T-mobile’s advertising is a damn joke!!! Lets advertise our cheap plans rather than a phone that could potentially make us money by bringing more people to them..
As ‘tmobileisajoke’ said, the carriers do not advertise OSes on phones they are selling.
In most cases you have to dig deep into the specification to learn that the phone, they are trying to sell you, have actually Android, Symbian or Windows on it.
The only thing they advertise is the internet access, messaging features, social networks integration and ability to install apps, with a little or no mentioning of underlying OS.
I am sure they could earn more customers by telling them: this is a super sexy phone and it is running the same platform you are familiar with already (for example Android).
This is actually a message the Verizon tries to give: we have a uniform family of devices (called Droid) and they are all awesome, and if you like one, you could choose from all pool of devices, and you would like them all as well. Moreover you can choose between the one with a keyboard, without a keyboard, fast or big. And if your Droid gets old, be sure that in 2 year you would be able to buy a new Droid: better, newer, but working in a way you are familiar with.
This is a good strategy. The only problem for us, is that they are calling this family with their own, proprietary name rather then Android. This is beneficial for them, as they do not help with advertising other carriers, which can also have Android devices, but cannot have Droid devices.
That is why carriers won’t advertise Android (or any other common OS).
I am sure that if T-Mobile or Sprint would come up with the catchy name like Droid by themselves, they would choose the same path as Verizon. T-Mobile is trying to send similar message, with their G* phones family, but in a more clumsy and less cool way then Verizon.
T-Mobile can’t possible send the same message with only 2 phones in their “family”. Verizon has some 5-6 phones all within the “Droid” family, now most of those phones are the exact same phones just with minor changes. If t-mobile wants to even consider having a family they need ramp up production of the “G-Series” phones instead of have two phones. Hell the “MyTouch” line will have three phones in its so called dis-functional family.
i stand semi corrected but my point is that these people think every phone that runs on android is a “droid” regardless of the maker
My Incredible is looking better and better for a long term Android phone. I had already told myself that I would wait for the dual core’s but at this rate we are going to have the same boring Symbian experience where its no fun to own a nice phone. I came with the G1 and that is what excited me about Android, if the features only go away as the OS gets stronger than well it feels like there moving backwards to me. But it looks like forward development from a carriers standpoint as long as they are making more $ than last year.
If the main issue carriers have is the tethering, then here is the solution:
Let people pay for the data they use. Then, there would be no issues with tethering at all.
It should be free market regulated by money! I use, I pay. And more importantly: I don’t use, I don’t pay. (Now, every grandpa wanted to use Facetime on his home wi-fi, to see grandchildren have to have data plan for $30.)
Of course some granulations, some steps would be beneficial. Like, you pay:
- $10 for initial 0.5GB of usage
and then you pay on per MB basis, but rate drops with number of megabytes you use.
I propose formula:
Total price you pay = $40 – $35.1 * exp(-0.314 * data) , where data is in GB
and formula for the rate would, in this case, look like:
rate = $11.02 * exp (-0.314 * data), is in [$/GB], where ‘data’ is an amount of data used to date.
It is good to add a condition that over 10GB the rate would be flat at level $11.02 * exp (-3.14) = $0.48/GB
For example the outcome would look like this:
~ $14.3 for 1GB ($10 for first 0.5 GB, and then ~$4.3 in variable exponential rate)
~ $21.3 for 2GB
~ $30.0 for 4GB
~ $38.5 for 10GB
~ $57.5 for 50GB
~ $81.4 for 100GB
It would be fair for both parties. First there would be no issue with tethering, and you could finally use your phone to have real internet on the go with your laptop. And second, people using internet less, would be happy they can pay only $10 and have the ability to use, but would not worry about the data. And third, people using more, would be happy the price is dropping.
Of course in this case, you would not be forced to buy laptop with new data plan from your carrier. And this is second problem the carrier have (first was loosing control on your software).
I believe that exponential variable rate with cutoff on 10GB and starting point at 0.5GB is fair for both parties. This is for now, at the current state of the market and network and usage profile.
You live in America, the country which is proud of its free market. At least in 20th century, you had a free market, but you are still proud and you still have a desire that many things were regulated by customer choice and not by laws and rules.
I agree, that we live in very locked society, and it is hard to do anything, but if you propose for the public to work with the carriers on something, it would be good to work on stuff that is a step in good direction. Now in US everything is regulated by corporations an lawyers (and patents) and in Europe everything is regulated by European Commission’s laws and lobbing corporations. So if we want to grasp some freedom, I would like to seek the freedom in things that matters. That would truly change the situation. And transparent pricing scheme would be one of this things.
Boycott, boycott, boycott. That’s the only real power you have as a consumer. When you rush to buy the newest device, just because you want to be the first among your friends to have it, you’re no better then those iDiots who camp outside apple stores for days just to get their hands on the first new iPhone in their area. Nothing but drones. Stop buying the G2, is that simple. Unfortunately the damage has already been done with all the pre-orders, but hopefully people have learned their lessons about rushing to buy the newest phones without knowing all the limitations (doubt it). The first batches are almost always plagued with issues anyway. Now I know to avoid the G2, at least for now. If T-mobile continues this route with all their new phones I’ll have to switch carriers. For now, my HD2 still has plenty of juice left.
I don’t know about T-Mobile, but Verizon does make you give them your IMEI first thing.
guys i think cyanogen is closer to cracking this. the so-called smart-chip is a hoax that t-mobile decided to play along with. besides i freaking love this damn phone. after having my g1 as my primary phone from the start, ive tried many android phones across all carriers and i gotta say this is a true successor. and stop flipping about the hinge it doesnt slide out, it slides up and then out.
Just don’t buy a phone until it is rooted.
They will have to give out the source code to the G2 soon, so it will be a matter of time before it is fully rooted.
Tethering could be the main issue but I’m pretty sure the T-Mobile users who root their phones do it to get the latest OS from Google as well as increasing the performance of their phones. If T-Mobile and HTC actually knew the reason behind we root they might actually do their job instead of lying about sending Froyo to MyTouch users.
I agree with what someone else said, don’t buy the phone. The best way to let your voice be heard is with money. with your website yiu guys could be doing even more. Make articles requesting that no one buy the phone. Get other android websites to participate. If we punish these companies financially they will listen. companies will think twice about doing this if they think its going to have all the top android sites boycotting then and asking its users to. If the developers got on board with this it would be even better.
NO NO NO.. Leave it just the way it is …I have bricked 2 g1 an tmobile replaces them right away..of course your not gonna tell them what you was doing to coz the for to be INOP..if you have insurance that will cover everyting..dont carry this idea to the carriers..i like when the phone isnt to easy to root…gives it a kinda edge for me…just leave shit the way it is please….
you are an idiot
you are an idiot
Please, these feeble attempts to “lock down” android handsets are just speed bumps on the road to 100% open source goodness. #TeamAndroid
To me the solution seems really obvious. T-mobile got it half right with the G2. There needs to be a Read-Only system partition that can restore the phone to default settings. But it should only be accessible from a recovery or another special pre-boot access point. Give end users full control when to restore their phone.
The community will probably find a way around this, and then they are just going to be stuck in the same situation as they were with the G1.
I just left UPS, sending my G2 to LaGrange GA. Android’s growth is dependent on its Openness…IMO!!
The Nexus One had the right idea: You explicitly unlock the boot loader and void your warranty. Forever after a small, white padlock appears on the screen at power on time to notify anyone who is looking that the bootloader has been unlocked. A person who owns such a phone would know they have consciously decided to rely on their own resources in its use and maintenance….and leave the telco alone.
I’ve always thought people who bricked their phones then went whining to the phone company were acting like babies….unwilling to accept the consequences of their own actions and looking to make someone else pay for their mistakes.
The Nexus One had the right idea: You explicitly unlock the boot loader and void your warranty. Forever after a small, white padlock appears on the screen at power on time to notify anyone who is looking that the bootloader has been unlocked. A person who owns such a phone would know they have consciously decided to rely on their own resources in its use and maintenance….and leave the telco alone.
I’ve always thought people who bricked their phones then went whining to the phone company were acting like babies….unwilling to accept the consequences of their own actions and looking to make someone else pay for their mistakes.