Slashdot Mirror

HTC isn't a generic Chinese OEM. They have their own line of phones, and some of them are quite popular.

Turning HTC BlinkFeed on or off:

http://www.htc.com/us/support/...

I like how the "new design approach" and "sophisticated look" boil down to "making it look more like an iPhone 4."

And the leaked iPhone 6 pics look like the HTC One.

Can we get off the "Company X is copying company Y" fanboy bandwagon? There are only so many ways you can design a housing for a flat rectangular screen which needs to fit comfortably in your pocket. The "metal band around the edges" look for example originates not with Apple, but with the early Sony Clies (though it was a plastic band made to look like it was metal).

The problem isn't companies copying. The problem is fanboys trying to claim their favorite company "owns" simple design elements like rounded corners, metal bands, and lines. You don't see car racing enthusiasts trying to claim a certain manufacturer or driver owns the concept of racing stripes painted on a car.

http://www.htc.com/us/smartpho... Nuff said.

Certainly a page on Apple's website explaining this would be useful.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ts...

http://www.samsung.com/us/supp...

http://www.htc.com/www/support...

but still everyone is going to say how people don't read emails from companies....

In the last ignorant rant about this posted just a day or so before this story, it was pointed out that their provider DID in fact send them an email that told them what they had to do when they switched phones.

At some point, the user has to actually pay attention to what they are doing and put some personal effort into it.

MOTOROLA STRONGLY RECOMMENDS AGAINST ALTERING A PRODUCT'S OPERATING SYSTEM, WHICH INCLUDES UNLOCKING THE BOOTLOADER, ROOTING A DEVICE OR RUNNING ANY OPERATING SOFTWARE OTHER THAN THE APPROVED VERSIONS ISSUED BY MOTOROLA AND ITS PARTNERS. SUCH ALTERATIONS MAY PERMANENTLY DAMAGE YOUR PRODUCT, CAUSE YOUR PRODUCT TO BE UNSAFE AND/OR CAUSE YOUR PRODUCT TO MALFUNCTION. IN SUCH CASES, NEITHER THE PRODUCT NOR ANY DAMAGE RESULTING THEREFROM WILL BE COVERED BY THIS WARRANTY.

The particular android phone I wanted to get was the HTC One (I have an HTC Amaze and it's a great phone, removable battery too). The One however, has an embedded battery. So I haven't bought it.

http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one/#specs

Also from HTC that was out a number a years ago with a dedicated button to post what was on screen to facebook.

https://support.htc.com/en-us/HTC_Status_ATT

Even though they mention T-Mobile support for LTE, if you look closer at the frequency support on the phone's specs at HTC's site, there is something important to note.

HSPA/WCDMA: 850/1900/2100 MHz

This will not support T-Mobile 3G in a number of areas where they haven't converted AWS from HSPA+ use to LTE use. For people considering this phone for T-Mobile, you may get stuck on 2G depending on where you live.

Do you even understand how power distribution works? Do you think that there is a separate grid with separate dedicated conductors for green power? Do you think that a supermarket doesn't have a choice because of the physical connection to the grid? I can switch my house to renewable by telling my utility that I want to do that. They'll adjust their power purchases accordingly and adjust my bill appropriately. If I want, I can buy carbon offsets and pay for the build out of renewable generation plants to account for the carbon produced by my car, or the trucks that deliver my food.

What is the mix at Samsung, HTC, Sony, Dell, HP?

EE here, so I do understand a bit but I also understand Third World practices and we're talking about China. I seriously doubt that they can choose what kind of source they're supplied from (feel free to correct me). Still they could buy carbon credits as you mention (possibly through Foxconn) and brag about it but they just leave China out of their press release. A quick search failed to find anything about Apple involving itself in the chinese carbon market (again, please tell me if you know better than I).

I also suspect that other vendors have a similar environmental impact, but if they actually make their stuff their green statements should be closer to the truth.
http://www.samsung.com/us/aboutsamsung/citizenship/oursustainabilityreports.html
http://www.htc.com/www/about/corporate-responsibility/

without at least rooting the device and perhaps voiding warranty

Everyone talks about "voiding the warranty."

But has anyone ever actually had a warranty claim denied just because the phone is/was rooted and/or running different software?

Indeed, even HTC's own warranty statement doesn't seem to automatically exclude coverage for devices that are simply running different software.

(Also: Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, etc.)

http://www.htc.com/us/

It's also interesting to note that this guy implies that HTC is only an Android platform, when in fact, if you just take look at HTCs' actual home page.

What comes front and center of that main page is their failed HTC Windows phones and their failed 'Beats Audio' music platform, with their Android phones being relegated to the right-side menu, and completely stripped out of all Android branding, or markings (as if it had been purposefully done that way).

So if you ask me, what's dragging down HTC is not the fact that they've stopped having replaceable battery covers, and stopped having sdcard slots, in one of their lines, it's more the fact that they've repeatedly launched and relaunched Windows Phones and 'Beats Audio' -- wasting all their efforts and money on these ventures, when in fact, they should just have focused on promoting their Android offerings with one or two focused messages (that people actually cared about).

Conveys a level of quality similar to "Lucky Goldstar," or "High Tech Computer," doesn't it? Not as bad as naming a company after a fruit, though!

I'm your average hardcore computer geek and didn't like the iPad-induced tablet hipe all that much - mostly because it favours devices that factually arent turing complete because I can't programm them (Apple Developer Lockin, iTunes lockin, Controll over Deployment, etc.), Android fragmentation hassles, etc.

Anyway:
6 months ago I gave in and bought the only tablet that I've seen to date that is or was actually interesting to me: A special bargain offer of the HTC Flyer. Turns out, I use it every day. It's a very neat device as far as tablets go, and I maybe even swap my smartphone (HTC Desire, also very nice) for a dumbphone somewhere down the line, because usage on the Flyer is so much more comfortable.

It's quite good right up to very great for almost anything besides programming. It's small enough to fit anywhere, the enclosure is the best on the market (even better than the Apple stuff), it runs Android 3, it's great to watch movies on, it's great to read novels on. - Neal Stephensons Reamde is my first Kindle Book and I've been reading it on the Flyer exclusively, using the kinlde app. I use it regularly in situations where a Notebook - even the MB Air I'm typing this on - just wouldn't suffice: The Bed, the Beanbag, leaning back in the seat on the train, standing at the bus stop, checking prices and reviews at the store or checking my schedule in meetings.

Everynote is a great experience, and the calendar, albeight not quite as good in functions and features as the blackberry ones (those are the best imho) is still awesome. And the stylus is great for navigating tricky stuff on the browser that isn't built for tablet navigation yet.

Long story short: The HTC Flyer showed me that tablets can actually be worthwhile for the relatively small niche they service. And the Flyers 7" size and its slightly elongated cinema display formfactor tops it off.

I expect this 7" hipe to continue and become the dominant formfactor of portable tabletcomputers. I for one will now probably slowly move away from dead-tree reading to this sort of tablet. From my experience in the last 6 months I think it's safe to say that that time has now actually come.

There are virtually no Android handsets with keyboards, and most of those that do have keyboards are low to mid range phones.

Really? Is that a fact?

I normally agree with you on looking something up, but the summary was 3 sentences long. There was plenty of room to say:

"Thunderbolt (Apple's latest data transfer protocol) ports have been spotted on a PC motherboard, but the reality is that the technology is far from mainstream outside of Apple products. Which is why it is interesting to hear Intel predict that 'a hundred' Thunderbolt devices are expected to be on the market by the end of the year. The comment was made this week at Intel's presentation at IDF in Beijing. Ultrabooks with Thunderbolt are expected to appear this year."

I don't mind looking things up, but at least give me very general idea about what type of info I'm about to read up on. I (yes, I am being serious) thought that these were ports to hook my Thunderbolt directly to my PC in some fancy new Intel/HTC project, and wondered what the hell Apple had to do with any of it. When I clicked the link, I was a little annoyed at just how wrong I was. If you're gonna use an ambiguous name, come up with a half sentence to disambiguate it, or at the very least provide a clarifying link.

I admit, this is a bit old, but on Page 6 of this HTC Incredible manual, it tells you exactly where NOT to put your fingers because it'll interfere with reception.
http://member.america.htc.com/download/Web_materials/Manual/HTC_INCREDIBLE(Verizon)/100421_IncredibleC_VZW_English_Safety-and-Warranty.pdf

Everyone wants you to hold your phone some particular way. :/

First: I personally don't own any Apple products, thus your assertion is wrong.

In fact, here is a comment explaining why I HATE these types of phones, and here is a comment describing the phone that I do own. Yes, it's a simple old Nokia 6303c, with buttons, with camera taken out and with all phone unrelated functions turned off.

Thus I have just proven another AC to be wrong on his assertions. What an accomplishment.

Secondly: the wealth of new ideas that Jobs has generated are more than just the iPhones and iPads and iPods, all that.

He also produced the first computer animated movies, like Toy Story. He basically ensured that Pixar lives.

While you may be in a camp of hating Apple products, you cannot deny, that other products have borrowed extensively from Apple hardware and software solutions, as so many current gadgets look like they might have been created by Apple, and it's not a coincidence. So yes, by saying what you are saying, you are proving to be an idiot, which was my point.

Of-course I was not talking about that kind of idiot, I was more talking about this kind of idiot, but you are almost out there with them.

For grumpy HTC owners that want to bitch a little or get them to fix things... http://www.htc.com/us/about/contact-by-email

HTC support suxx, the warranty is a joke

For grumpy HTC owners that want to bitch a little or get them to fix things... http://www.htc.com/us/about/contact-by-email

+1. CyanogenMod is ridiculously good and showcases how good the Android platform can be when it is not crippled or loaded with bloatware. I installed it recently on an old HTC Tattoo, which is a "low end" Android with no official updates from HTC, and the difference with the stock 1.6 version is astonishing.

It's almost like a brand new phone. Hell, even battery life is better.

http://sourceforge.net/motorola/wiki/Android/
http://developer.htc.com/

Are you finished trolling or are you just this uninformed?

You mean in the same way other handset manufacturer's also told their own user the 'proper' way to hold a phone?

http://member.america.htc.com/download/Web_materials/Manual/HTC_Ozone/Ozone_Users+Manual.pdf

http://member.america.htc.com/download/Web_materials/Manual/DROID_ERIS_Verizon/DROID_ERIS_Verizon_English_UM_11_5.pdf

These types of instructions are common for any phone, smart or otherwise.

You mean in the same way other handset manufacturer's also told their own user the 'proper' way to hold a phone?

http://member.america.htc.com/download/Web_materials/Manual/HTC_Ozone/Ozone_Users+Manual.pdf

http://member.america.htc.com/download/Web_materials/Manual/DROID_ERIS_Verizon/DROID_ERIS_Verizon_English_UM_11_5.pdf

These types of instructions are common for any phone, smart or otherwise.

The HTC Desire already has a tiny pointing device integrated into its selection key (an optical mouse). How much smaller do these things need to be?

http://www.htc.com/www/product/desire/overview.html

"Unbeknownst to me, my 5-year-old found N.O.V.A. on my phone and was shooting the guns and weaponry and killing enemies in the N.O.V.A. game," someone wrote on an HTC customer forum. "Thanks a lot HTC and Sprint for forcing violence on my 5-year-old! I am protective of my kids and would never install a game like this on my phone, but now you forced this app onto my phone and I can't uninstall it! I'm very frustrated and VERY ANGRY!"

Something tells me you haven't heard of the HTC Surround. Reminds me of when kids had speakers built into their backpacks...

Today I go weeks without ever shutting my Android phone off. That is why WinMo was garbage.

Samsung epic reboots daily
G1 freezes daily
HTC EVO reboots continuously after update

I could go on and on about anecdotes about Android phones crashing, freezing and rebooting endlessly after updates. Guess it's garbage as well, no?

The best one according to PCPro's megatest of phones is the HTC Desire. They do a version of it with a slide-out keyboard called the Desire Z

the keyboard is very very good, we have them on our (windows 6.5) phones and although everyone hates the OS, they like the keyboards a lot.

Only if the manufacturer has obeyed the GPL. HTC hasn't, I'm still waiting for the kernel source they're supposed to provide on request for the phone I bought nearly a year ago.

Really? I see quite a few available here. Are you sure your phone isn't on the list?

and every single one of them will void your warranty on the hardware.

It will?

Where, exactly, is that spelled out in the warranty agreement?

The warranty for my Droid 1 doesn't seem to care a bit about software -- in fact, it goes on at length about exactly how little Motorola gives a shit about how poorly the software on the device behaves.

HTC's warranty is similarly worded.

Hack away.

It's working out pretty well for those of us who bought the right one. I don't at all believe that choosing an open platform relieves you of the burden of comparison shopping.

You absolutely do NOT want a garbage collector on a mobile device with limited memory and CPU power.

This is just one of the many things that Apple got 101% right in iOS.

My mobile phone has over six thousand times the compute power and over a million times the memory of the first computer I worked on, and that supported 18 concurrent users. More than that, my mobile phone has over five hundred times the compute power and one hundred times the memory of the first dedicated LISP workstation I worked on, and that had a full GUI and generational garbage collection. The idea that modern phones have limited memory or limited CPU power is an idea which only beginners or amateurs could possibly believe.

Back at the beginning of the automobile age, cars were so primitive that they didn't have automatic oil pumps. If the driver didn't remember to keep pumping oil, the engine would seize. We no longer think that's good engineering. Nowadays, our cars have automatic oil pumps, which use a tiny fraction of the engine's power to prevent it happening. Back at the very beginning of the computer age, software systems were so primitive that they didn't have automatic memory management. If the programmer didn't remember to keep freeing memory, the memory system would silt up and the machine would freeze. Do you really think that's good engineering?

Hey .. shit for brains ..

Show me where I can download and compile my own version of htc sense ?? Or the 2.1 package that sprint just pushed ... Or any of the manufacturers specialized versions.

Come on .. please .. show me , I would love to see it.

Stock froyo (which is what my phone runs): http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

And this is where you get Samsung's froyo mod: http://opensource.samsung.com/ (search for i900 under mobile )

And this is where you get the source for the HTC phones: http://developer.htc.com/

I guess you love to see that?

Unless you can do that , your comment about the OS being open source so you can check it , is just stupid.

Even if you were right about manufacturers releasing the source, my point about stock android being open would still completely valid. Parent said it was google that made them so nervous. Sense, motoblur, and other android mods were written by hardware companies. And if your hardware manufacturer wants to snoop on you, they don't have to modify the OS. Which was, of course, my actual point.

Shit for brains.

It's that kind of typical Apple fanaticism that will allow Android to eat their lunch. I've had an Android phone for six months that can do everything my partner's phone can do and a hell of a lot more besides (admittedly she's using a 3GS, I can't comment on the iPhone 4, but from what I've read about it in the press I'm not exactly green with envy). She's had her iPhone for 7 months and really wants to replace it with the same model as me. I even prefer the look and feel of my phone, although I realise that's entirely objective, and price-wise they were roughly the same when I bought this. I desperately hope that Google don't have aspirations to make Android like iOS, because I think it's already the better system and that would be a big step backwards.

Made by HTC, not Motorola

He said "brand from" not "made by".

Motorola markets the Droid brand under 4 names - Droid, Droid Pro, Droid 2 and Droid X

HTC markets 2 phones with the name Droid - the Droid Incredible and the Droid Eris

Yes... no other cell phone but iPhone 4 has that extra problem... oh, except for this one...
Look at page 169

oh... and this one too.... Look at page 6

Do we REALLY have to relive this? IT's MAKE BELIEVE, you gullible clown.You've been hypnotized by Gizmodo, LMAO.

ALL CELL PHONES, ALWAYS will have their antenna detuned by a human's touch, and THEY ALL have a death spot.Sure do. Show me any cell phone, I'll show you how to detune the antenna, and I'll find it's death spot.

But... you go ahead... keep evangelizing against Apple and iPhone 4. Whatever floats your boat, mate.

See page 6

The iPhone4 was accused of having a flaw where touching a single spot on the phone can significantly degrade its signal and Steve Jobs successfully managed to change the discussion to two-handed death grips of other company's phones. Unbelievable.

Again, all cell phones have a death spot. They all have a spot you can touch, more thqn any other spot on the phone, that will cause the most signal loss. Many smart phone manuals point this out to the user.

HTC EVO
Look at page 169

Antennagate is bogus. It tracks directly back to Gizmodo lashing out because they humiliated themselves buying stolen property.

HTC Incredible
Look at page 6

Probably not, as you could get it right now: http://www.htc.com/us/products/aria-att

I know, but that doesn't change the fact that Verizon (the current paid licensee of the trademark Droid) is referring to the device as the "Droid Eris".

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

For the Nexus One, HTC waited around 6 months after releasing the phone to release the kernel source. The HTC Hero still doesn't have the most current source released.

It's sad to see that the manufacturer of flagship phones for every major US mobile phone carrier (other than AT&T) has no respect for the GPL and has reduced developers to reverse engineering Linux kernel sources, asking clueless customer service reps for a source release, and generally trying everything they can think of without getting any positive results at all.

Regardless of what you call it, I'm sure it will work equally well!

There's so much truth in that! nexus one reception issues eve reception issues I don't see how the story should be anything other than about Gizmodo, desperately compromising their journalistic integrity, or lack thereof

Oops. Wrong link:

See page 6 of the HTC Incredible manual:

http://member.america.htc.com/downlo...d-Warranty.pdf [htc.com]

Please tell me where I can touch my Nexus One (with a single finger, mind you) that will cause it to drop a call. Calling this a nonissue is moronic.

shows you in the manual

see page 6, moron

Notice that HTC proper does not sell direct to end users

Well, in the US at least, they do.

You can buy a no-contract Evo 4g, for example.

Notice that HTC proper does not sell direct to end users

Well, in the US at least, they do.

You can buy a no-contract Evo 4g, for example.

LOL. You use a Windows Mobile phone to make your point about Android? Please. ROMS? What is this, 1988 and we need to cook up a bios upgrade?

There are about 50,000 apps in the Market. It ain't that difficult.

Yes, it is up to manufacturers to release updates. That's why you don't target the latest versions, just like EVERYONE in the Android developer community recommends. And yes, sometimes a manufacturer will have a flaky phone. It doesn't happen that often. If you don't like getting cut, don't sit on the bleeding edge.

I hope upgrading the Desire doesn't mean loosing all your personal data, like with the Hero. If Android is really competition for the iPhone, shouldn't they get this basic stuff done properly?