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where do you come up with this shit? on android you have an .apk that can run whether or not google removes it from the app store or entirely for that matter.

Not only that, but these .apk's aren't hidden, they're on your phone, and even without root access you can back them up easily with plenty of solutions. Plenty of people install android apps without ever hitting the android market or ever having a wifi connection. in fact, there's an entire forum dedicated to it, essentially . Did I mention that things are fairly well documented?

on iphone you can have it forcefully removed remotely, even by using the old version.

And, stopping by XDA Developers, I see they have a group of Captivate forums. Voila, you can have Froyo too (the Android Development forum gives details).

Now, with this Apple update barely running on old ones, Apple may indeed end-of-life them by the next update. It will come some day. Then what? Will people find a way to reverse-engineer enough to make their own iOpenSource ROM? Doubtful.

My point is, at least with Android, we can continue development after the manufacturers/carriers give up on the device. Hell, in the case of HTC and their stupid Sense UI, my phone works a hell of a lot better with plain Froyo than it ever did with the legitimate software.

And on Angry Birds, the first version (1.3.6) ran just fine on my Hero, which is similarly low-powered. Find that version and give it a shot.

And, stopping by XDA Developers, I see they have a group of Captivate forums. Voila, you can have Froyo too (the Android Development forum gives details).

Now, with this Apple update barely running on old ones, Apple may indeed end-of-life them by the next update. It will come some day. Then what? Will people find a way to reverse-engineer enough to make their own iOpenSource ROM? Doubtful.

My point is, at least with Android, we can continue development after the manufacturers/carriers give up on the device. Hell, in the case of HTC and their stupid Sense UI, my phone works a hell of a lot better with plain Froyo than it ever did with the legitimate software.

And on Angry Birds, the first version (1.3.6) ran just fine on my Hero, which is similarly low-powered. Find that version and give it a shot.

The Nexus S is a pure Google phone (just manufactured by Samsung), and can use OS updates directly from Google. No manufacturer/carrier interference. At least that's the theory.

So if this is important to you, your choice is: no keyboard.

Well, not quite. If this is important to you, you can take the 3 minutes to root the phone. The T-Mobile G2 for example requires the extra step of removing write-only from the emmc, but that is now done simply and quickly with the "gfree" program, which besides giving radio S-OFF has the added benefit of SIM-unlocking the phone.

Once unlocked, you can put whatever OS you like on it. Cyanogenmod works nicely and will deliver gingerbread to many, many phones before the manufacturer/carrier dies, keyboard or not.

Your mistake was buying a Motorola phone. Next time, stick with a vendor that doesn't add their own crapware on top of Android. The original Nexus One was good, presumably the upcoming Nexus S will be the same.

That doesn't help with your current phone, but luckily that's a relatively easy process to fix, assuming a basic level of computer competency. You found Slashdot, so hopefully that means you fit the requirements.

There are two ways of fixing your problem, the easy way and the good way. The easy way:

Get root
adb uninstall /path/to/shit/application.apk
adb remove /path/to/shit/application.apk

Hopefully there aren't any other processes that require that apk, or they'll break. Seeing as how you're using a phone with all kinds of vendor crap dropped on top of the os, and custom 'motoblur', etc you may have a problem. Hopefully it works.

The good way:
Go to xda, install a custom rom (I use cyanogen, but it doesn't look like there is one for the droid 2)
You can try this one, looks like it's pretty close to stock: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=851623
Congratulations, you now have an Android device that isn't crippled by vendor bloatware. Hopefully you've learned your lesson for the future.

A year ago, the procedure used to be to back up the Google apps from your phone, install CyanogenMod, and restore them. Is this still the case, or is there a newer yet still legit way to get these apps? A bit of browsing CyanogenMod's wiki referred me to Google for Android, which appears to have everything but the Market.

http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php?title=Latest_Version#Google_Apps
http://kitchen.yaam.mobi/

It isn't technically legit but Google seems to tolerate it.

But apparently, some newer phones block the use of a custom recovery that allows verification to a root certificate other than the phone maker's.

http://www.absolutelyandroid.com/second-gen-snapdragon-devices-gain-root-world-rejoice/
http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/index.php?title=HTC_Vision#Rooting_the_G2
http://unrevoked.com/rootwiki/doku.php/public/unrevoked3

So, yeah... it sucks. G1 just required root exploit to reflash recovery partition. Lately only the bootloader can write to recovery (if that) and h/w weakness is required.

About what fraction of Market apps are DRM-opting, and are any major ones?

http://www.google.com/#&q=android+build.prop+protected

I don't know specifically. I haven't owned an Android phone since 1 year ago. I still sometimes screw with ones my friends/coworkers buy though.

Ok, I hadn't really looked in to this before. It seems like the Netflix app is an x86 compiled apk so it will not run on ARM. But if they ever get that compatibility layer for Ubuntu running, it would give you Netflix on Linux ;)

XDA already ripped the app from the Google TV. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=812601&page=6

Something along the lines of ExtUSB is probably a better solution to that problem than a dongly adapter, but that would be very un-Apple like.

Hmm, My HTC Touch works just fine using my fingers. Sure the original WinMo 6.0 is not finger friendly but it becomes clear when you flash it with Android http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=712310m or install a later version of TouchFlo 2D, that the resistive nature of the screen is not an issue. Plus, I still have the option of using a stylus if I want to. Really, if you want a tiny form factor device with the ability to pick out small things during an RDP session a stylus can come in handy (although it does make me feel a little embarrassed - sort of like having to put on reading glasses in front of your younger coworkers).

The Samsung Galaxy S family appears to have (among other things) a UART hidden on its USB port via the Fairchild FSA9480 chip.

This thread at xda-developers ( http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=8834946 ) suggests that if you put a 150k resistor (1% tolerance) between pins 4 and 5 and power up the phone, the two pins normally used for USB data will be repurposed as a serial console for the bootloader.

You can also explicitly toggle the FSA9480's mode via software (though not necessarily without root and your own kernel extensions).

Note that it's not using USB as serial... it's acting as an electronic crossbar, disconnecting the D+ and D- pins from the USB circuit, and connecting them to pins elsewhere that are a real UART. Think: old-fashioned telephone switchboard with patch cables and jacks that dynamically establish and tear down circuits as needed so a few physical pins can be put to occasional niche uses that wouldn't merit full-time pins of their own.

Personally, I suspect two pins on the headphone jack can be nudged into acting as a UART as well. Sigh. What the mod community really needs is for someone to raise the cash to pay a company that does intelligence reports for consumer electronic devices to tear down the Epic4G (or some other variant) and draw up a schematic showing which externally-accessible pins are connected to what (and how) inside the phone. There's a lot of good stuff inside of these phones that's undocumented publicly or via the official kernel source. Lots 'o happy bitbanging ahead! :-)

Several DOS emulators are available for Windows Mobile. Here's a thread about it on XDA. XDA Forums by the way is a great resource for both Windows Mobile and Android device hacking. (Especially HTC devices, but they support some other popular phones too.)

It is a myth that AT&T Android phones are all locked down. I'm running the Cognition 2.2beta7 Froyo build on my Captivate right now. There are ROMs and communities for a ton of Android phones at http://forum.xda-developers.com/ If you are smart enough to read Slashdot, you can figure out how to root and upgrade your phone ROM.

Necron69

HT to DesignGears, who is making my experimentation with the Cognition builds possible. :)

"You mean jailbroke it."

No. I rooted it.

"You use a different term so it hides..."

No... I use a different term because that is the term used for this platform, regarding this activity on all of the sites that describe how to do it and how to revert.

As for any implied attempt to compare one device to another, please...do tell?

Where did I accuse any device of being more crippled than another?

Where did I even mention *any* device other than the Samsung Galaxy S Fascinate??

Oh...right... I didn't.

(It's all in your head...)

As for it being crippled, I suppose it depends entirely on one's definition of crippled.

Lockdown, as dictated by the practical reality that no popular consumer device has ever actually *been* successfully locked down, is irrelevant.

It is what you can do *after* the device has been unlocked that dictates my opinion on how "crippled" or not it may be.

Please do not ever again try to assume you know anything about me. The mere thought of it is absurd. ...and you are apparently very bad at making assumptions.

From... http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=794053&page=49#post8490526

There IS NO REINSTALLING ROOTKIT!!!!

Don't you get it? It is simply WRITE PROTECTED with REDIRECTED WRITES!

It wouldn't say spoiled completely, but it seems like the recent surge in desktop-Linux mindshare is mostly an effect of Ubuntu becoming popular. Most consumers don't want a whole lot of choice, they just want something that works. If they can have several choices of things that work, even better, but the Linux community was so fragmented across different distributions for a while that there really weren't any working solutions for a lot of folks.

What's going to spoil the Android market is carriers adding tons of shovelware to the phone that can't be uninstalled, locked down the phone so you can't sideload applications, and all the other evil crap that they do.

Yeah you can fix all of these problems if you root the phone, but the average user isn't going to be able to do that. You could also buy an unlocked phone, but I really wonder how many people know these even exist.

Here's the scoop.

You're welcome ;-)

Hi Milamber,

I implore you: Please inform yourself about the situation with the Desire before telling me I just don't know what I'm talking about. Try these links (just the first two Google results for "read write system desire"):

http://android.modaco.com/content/htc-desire-desire-modaco-com/315002/htc-desire-system-partition-write-access-in-progress/
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=690744

After reading just a few of the posts in each thread, you should get an idea of the situation. There is a solution that has been proposed, and does work, in theory, but IIRC it involves an overlay file system that caches writes until the device is rebooted... or something like that.

About this AOSP ROM on the Droid X: How was the kernel modified? Since you can't boot a completely different kernel, you would have to modify the existing one at runtime... do you have any more information about this? I would love to see a link for it...

As for your point about full NAND access and custom kernels not going away: I wish I could share your optimism. As a former Milestone owner I've seen what manufacturers can do on a whim, and contrary to the headlines circulating in blogs lately, we've seen that it's definitely possible to lock down devices to a level that makes them uninteresting for modders. I would advise you to take a closer look at the Milestone situation, as it should give you a very good idea about the challenges that will be faced by users of subsequent Motorola devices like the Droid X.

awesome tip, thanks; but I might hold off until they get apps2sd working on my poor weak G1
Do I just uninstall through Titanium Backup correct? No need to wipe date/delete the app through Titanium?

Link for anyone interested in CyanogenMod 6(2.2)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=722801

Also ...

Customer roms are SO much easier to make for these phones (try the $phone_model android development forums, they're well worth it). Personally I'm gathering courage to try this out on my hero : Froyo for Hero ROM !.

Given what happened last time it'll take a week's time to pick up the pieces, but hey.

De-facto these are (more or less) open phones. Lots of them. Fuck GPLv3.

Also ...

Customer roms are SO much easier to make for these phones (try the $phone_model android development forums, they're well worth it). Personally I'm gathering courage to try this out on my hero : Froyo for Hero ROM !.

Given what happened last time it'll take a week's time to pick up the pieces, but hey.

De-facto these are (more or less) open phones. Lots of them. Fuck GPLv3.

> No ... no one bothered counting those 8 people because they are statistically irrelevant, stop bringing them up like they matter.

Er, I think there are quite a bit more than 8... http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=735

heya,

Lol, sorry mate, I'm going to have to politely disagree with most of your points.

I have a Nexus One, and I've had Froyo for some time - ever since the leaked pre-release copy.

1. Those who use a task-killer on Android show a serious lack of understanding of how the OS actually works. Please do some reading before citing ignorant examples like this:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=6426198 (links to below article)
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
http://androidspin.com/2010/05/25/why-you-dont-need-a-task-killer-app-with-android/

2. Yes, you can disable this feature. It's under Settings, Privacy, Automatic restore (Yes/No).

3. Once again, please do some reading before citing ignorant examples like this. See the above link on how Android handles background processed.

4. I don't know about random. However, you can unmerge Contacts quite easily - just hit the menu button on an open contact, and hit "Split". To be honest, I've found this feature quite useful in certain cases, and it's not hard to tweak.

Do you actually own an Android phone? *sigh* Please read a bit (or just play around it, I found a lot of the above, just through using the phone).

Cheers,
Victor

Seriously, grow a pair and follow some simple instructions to root. It's not hard at all. Some phones have a PC app to do it for you (EVO included): http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=706411

macs4all, Posting as AC because I've reached my daily posting limit... >:(

o long as you're aware of the facts, and didn't have to read a massively long agreement before being aware of it.

People are acting like this is the first "massively long" EULA. Guess what? THEY'RE ALL MASSIVELY LONG! But, it really IS your responsibility to READ them. Having said that, I don't, you don't, and not one person in ten-thousand reads them. They all suck. I'm sure Android has a massively-long EULA too, just as chock-full of confusing terms and conditions as every other EULA.

It's unfortunately what EVERYONE's legal department insists on. And you know why? Because otherwise, people will sue, and sue, and sue (and if there really IS no disclosure), win...

Everything can't be in the first paragraph; so what? If you don't like it, don't click "I Agree." Simple as that.

BTW, here's some Android Devs. bitching to high heaven about what Google's Android EULA gives Google the power to datamine. I don't see one single Apple-Hater bitching about that in the comments to this article.

BTW, I can't even FIND a copy of the Android EULA for USERS (not devs) on Google, but the Android Developer Distribution Agreement is EVERY BIT as long and involved as Apple's EULA in question.
 
 

Before you say it - how often does GPS search for a cellular network? On a schedule? Or just when it losing signal... as in when you move location?

So, you are SPECULATING on a FALLBACK mechanism being used for nefarious purposes?

You do realize, don't you, that there is already a protocol for "tower-handoffs" that works MUCH better than using GPS, because GPS doesn't take into account things like the instantaneous traffic load on any particular tower (and towers pretty well overlap coverage in most urban and suburban areas, that's why you can drive around all over and (usually) not drop a call).

Isn't it getting a bit hot under that tinfoil hat? (Or maybe that's just the mind-control waves being beamed into your head by the Gummint)...

macs4all, Posting as AC because I've reached my daily posting limit... >:(

o long as you're aware of the facts, and didn't have to read a massively long agreement before being aware of it.

People are acting like this is the first "massively long" EULA. Guess what? THEY'RE ALL MASSIVELY LONG! But, it really IS your responsibility to READ them. Having said that, I don't, you don't, and not one person in ten-thousand reads them. They all suck. I'm sure Android has a massively-long EULA too, just as chock-full of confusing terms and conditions as every other EULA.

It's unfortunately what EVERYONE's legal department insists on. And you know why? Because otherwise, people will sue, and sue, and sue (and if there really IS no disclosure), win...

Everything can't be in the first paragraph; so what? If you don't like it, don't click "I Agree." Simple as that.

BTW, here's some Android Devs. bitching to high heaven about what Google's Android EULA gives Google the power to datamine. I don't see one single Apple-Hater bitching about that in the comments to this article.

BTW, I can't even FIND a copy of the Android EULA for USERS (not devs) on Google, but the Android Developer Distribution Agreement is EVERY BIT as long and involved as Apple's EULA in question.
 
 

Before you say it - how often does GPS search for a cellular network? On a schedule? Or just when it losing signal... as in when you move location?

So, you are SPECULATING on a FALLBACK mechanism being used for nefarious purposes?

You do realize, don't you, that there is already a protocol for "tower-handoffs" that works MUCH better than using GPS, because GPS doesn't take into account things like the instantaneous traffic load on any particular tower (and towers pretty well overlap coverage in most urban and suburban areas, that's why you can drive around all over and (usually) not drop a call).

Isn't it getting a bit hot under that tinfoil hat? (Or maybe that's just the mind-control waves being beamed into your head by the Gummint)...

My choice is to download apps and not view adverts. I can do this by jailbreaking and firewalling off the ad servers, but I want it to be simple for those who aren't technically minded. Apple are pretty much alone in the computing market by demonstrating an approach so totalitarian as to not permit this.

Really? Can you do it on Android or Symbian or WebOS?

You definitely can on Android, though that requires rooting the phone (but then it's not claimed by the manufacturer to be illegal, unlike with iPhone).

For others, I don't see any legal restrictions there, but given that they don't have any centralized ad framework for apps to use - so each rolls out their own - it would be tricky to implement in practice.

HD2 has none of these problems. dont lie to yourself. i have hd2 and i look and search for hd2 news and tweaks and i've never seen anything like that reported.

Liar, Liar, Pants on FIRE!.

HD2 has none of these problems. dont lie to yourself. i have hd2 and i look and search for hd2 news and tweaks and i've never seen anything like that reported.

Liar, Liar, Pants on FIRE!.

Do you not have this problem? Check the test videos. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=658136

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.

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.

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.

heya,

Haha, gosh, another Chinese Communist Party Lackey *grins*. They're probably paying you what, 10 yuan a day to post here? I jest.

Seriously though, I'm not sure where this ideas above it's station idea comes form? Weird. Reads like some weird Confucianistic moral tale about how people shouldn't be aspirational and should stick to their caste or something. We left those ideas behind what, a thousand years ago?

Anyhow, Google actually does a lot of good - far more than any other tech company, and in fact, far more than any company in many industries, full-stop. They've contributed consistently to the open-source community, and they've consistently been quite transparent in how they operate. They've even publically admitted being wrong on quite a few occasions - e.g. how they handled the Wifi debacle. They're not perfect, as aforesaid debacle shows, but I'd pretty sure they can take the moral high ground here against the CCP. Oh, and they've been *very* consistent from the beginning about how they feel about the free flow of information.

I'd hazard a guess that they might have contributed more to the good of society than either you or I, my friend. When death comes to claim you or I, I'm not sure whether we'd make a bigger footnote in history than Google, sad as that sounds. *shrugs*.

And interesting you should mention phishing. Man, if I had a nickel for every time some Chinese mainland idiot tried to phish or con me, I'd be richer than Ellisson, lol. I mean, take a case in point, look at this idiot, yaocard, from the mainland who tried to pass off fake 2Gb MicroSD cards as 32Gb.

http://www.toolhaus.org/cgi-bin/negs?User=yaocard&Dirn=Received+by
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6838353&postcount=33
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6838938&postcount=34

Right, and after I confronted them about their fraud, they first tried to bribe me for USD10 to remove their negative feedback, and then said God would bless my family many times if I removed it. It's actually kind of comical, their attempts at fraud/lying.

And China has standards? Please. I assume here you're referring to how the government in China operates. There's a distinction there to Chinese culture which I have a lot of respect for because...err...I'm Chinese? Haha. The government twists the standards how it sees fit. Unless things have changed since I've been back, they're woefully corrupt, hopelessly bureaucratic, and will engage in thuggish/bullying behaviour to make you comply with whatever serves the official you're currently dealing with.. Hardly the hallmarks of a transparent government that only cares for the wellbeing of its people.

Cheers,
Victor

heya,

Haha, gosh, another Chinese Communist Party Lackey *grins*. They're probably paying you what, 10 yuan a day to post here? I jest.

Seriously though, I'm not sure where this ideas above it's station idea comes form? Weird. Reads like some weird Confucianistic moral tale about how people shouldn't be aspirational and should stick to their caste or something. We left those ideas behind what, a thousand years ago?

Anyhow, Google actually does a lot of good - far more than any other tech company, and in fact, far more than any company in many industries, full-stop. They've contributed consistently to the open-source community, and they've consistently been quite transparent in how they operate. They've even publically admitted being wrong on quite a few occasions - e.g. how they handled the Wifi debacle. They're not perfect, as aforesaid debacle shows, but I'd pretty sure they can take the moral high ground here against the CCP. Oh, and they've been *very* consistent from the beginning about how they feel about the free flow of information.

I'd hazard a guess that they might have contributed more to the good of society than either you or I, my friend. When death comes to claim you or I, I'm not sure whether we'd make a bigger footnote in history than Google, sad as that sounds. *shrugs*.

And interesting you should mention phishing. Man, if I had a nickel for every time some Chinese mainland idiot tried to phish or con me, I'd be richer than Ellisson, lol. I mean, take a case in point, look at this idiot, yaocard, from the mainland who tried to pass off fake 2Gb MicroSD cards as 32Gb.

http://www.toolhaus.org/cgi-bin/negs?User=yaocard&Dirn=Received+by
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6838353&postcount=33
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6838938&postcount=34

Right, and after I confronted them about their fraud, they first tried to bribe me for USD10 to remove their negative feedback, and then said God would bless my family many times if I removed it. It's actually kind of comical, their attempts at fraud/lying.

And China has standards? Please. I assume here you're referring to how the government in China operates. There's a distinction there to Chinese culture which I have a lot of respect for because...err...I'm Chinese? Haha. The government twists the standards how it sees fit. Unless things have changed since I've been back, they're woefully corrupt, hopelessly bureaucratic, and will engage in thuggish/bullying behaviour to make you comply with whatever serves the official you're currently dealing with.. Hardly the hallmarks of a transparent government that only cares for the wellbeing of its people.

Cheers,
Victor

IIRC OTA updates can be prevented by flashing a new recovery image that replaces the flash_image binary with one that requires the update to be signed with a custom key (like this image does).

I guess the same thing can be done with the marketplace app, but then it loses a lot of its functionality.

And to address something another AC brought up... Google's apps (Maps, Gmail, Browser, ...) are all voluntarily updated, automatically, by adding a new notification status entry. Ditto for all other (non-Google) apps. IIRC it even prompts when running the market app.

No need to worry about HTC (who, with your worry about speed, will probably only ever update your device once. Or twice) - just jump on the XDA-Developers bandwagon!

http://forum.xda-developers.com/

Yes, AT&T are being their usual pricks. But even on their crippled phones you can apparently install arbitrary apps using the Android developer tools.

Besides the fact that the link to the file in the summary didn't work, there are other potential problems if you click through to the source (on the forums, not the blog linked here).

The procedure that's linked to will get you to 2.2, but it won't be rooted even if you were rooted before.

I just did the classic "spend two hours trying to fix what you screwed up" routine trying to get it rooted again so that I could run the backup created by titanium backup, which requires root.

For those interested, the steps for a fool-proof upgrade if you're rooted are:

-Do a full backup using titanium backup first, obviously
-Install Amon Ra 1.7 custom recovery loader: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=611829
-Use it to flash the zip file update-nexusone-FRF50-signed.zip from here: http://android.modaco.com/content/google-nexus-one-nexusone-modaco-com/309286/frf50-froyo-pre-rooted-update-zip/ - note that this wouldn't flash for me using the stock recovery loader (which requires renaming it to update.zip but it fails saying it's unsigned), hence the custom one above
-Use it again to flash froyo-rooter-signed.zip from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=686627
-Restore your backup

Besides the fact that the link to the file in the summary didn't work, there are other potential problems if you click through to the source (on the forums, not the blog linked here).

The procedure that's linked to will get you to 2.2, but it won't be rooted even if you were rooted before.

I just did the classic "spend two hours trying to fix what you screwed up" routine trying to get it rooted again so that I could run the backup created by titanium backup, which requires root.

For those interested, the steps for a fool-proof upgrade if you're rooted are:

-Do a full backup using titanium backup first, obviously
-Install Amon Ra 1.7 custom recovery loader: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=611829
-Use it to flash the zip file update-nexusone-FRF50-signed.zip from here: http://android.modaco.com/content/google-nexus-one-nexusone-modaco-com/309286/frf50-froyo-pre-rooted-update-zip/ - note that this wouldn't flash for me using the stock recovery loader (which requires renaming it to update.zip but it fails saying it's unsigned), hence the custom one above
-Use it again to flash froyo-rooter-signed.zip from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=686627
-Restore your backup

http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=512

What makes you think that a mobile version needs to be any different from the current version?

I can watch Hulu videos on my Android phone just fine...

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=5253967

Why would you volunteer to pay for something "extra" that isn't actually any extra effort on their part?

I was very close to ordering one but there are a lot of loose ends which Google appears to have given up on.

I'd suggest waiting for 2.2 release due this month before you render the final judgment. Until then, we don't really know what Google has given up on. We know for sure that it will have Flash, but I think that much more exciting news is that it brings a proper JIT for the VM - which means serious performance improvements across the board.

The fact is though. The HTC Dream/T-Mobile G1 was one of the first mass market Android devices out there, released a few months after the iPhone 3G and it's not getting 2.xx goodness, yet the iPhone 3G is.

Au contraire enter the brilliance of Open Source and Android.

Android modder Cyanogen has ported his version 5 mod based on Android 2.1 to the G1/Dream and MyTouch3G/Magic.

With Android, you are not beholden to a single supplier of updates.

Got it from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=640535

It seems to be working OK, but I only installed it yesterday, so I’ve no long-term observations.

My G1 is a dev version bought from a Google employee (some of them got one for free last year).

Actually, CM Updater seems developed still, but something went wrong with automatic updates a while ago. I updated to 5.0.1 manually (searched for it in the Market app) and then it found the .15.1 ROM.

Apparently some people have managed to get JIT working with Dalvik: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=652911 (at least on Cyanogen's version)

Who looks to their phone manufacturer for support? XDA Developers have several contributors who will cook ROMs almost to spec, and there are dozens for any HTC device you can think of. Unlocking, SIM lock removal, flashing new radio versions, porting ROMs and apps from other models, there's even several groups porting Android to different HTC devices. 2.0.1 is currently alpha on the Topaz (Touch Diamond 2 / Pure).

The community supports HTC phones far better than HTC themselves ever could:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=512

Check out xda developers who have a working version of Android on the WinMo HTC TP2. http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=589

If they have to jump through enough hoops to do so, and may not even be able to legally distribute what they've made, many will just switch to a more open platform.

Do such platforms exist? Is there a smartphone that allows you to download and install random staff from the Internet as a PC does? Or are all of them basically just mobile storefronts to the manufacturer's shop?

Yes.. Windows Mobile, ironically. (not Windows Phone 7). Here's a subforum at XDA-Developers for the phone I have: http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=491

Your cell phone is more powerful than the biggest supercomputer that existed in 1970.

Intrigued, I checked wikipedia for supercomputers and found that in 1969 the CDC7600 was rated at 36 MFLOPS. Now, my phone is a couple of years old HTC Elf which I found a russian website claiming about 1 MFLOP for, but I found that an iPhone page claims 5-6 MFLOPS is normal, and a post at XDA developers forum claims 1-2 MFLOPS for Android G1 even with overclocking

So, come back in a couple of years because I don't think we are quite there yet..