Verizon Crippled Bluetooth Features in Motorola V710

djdoubles writes "Apparently Verizon Wireless has put firmware with crippled Bluetooth features in the new Motorola v710 phone. A lot of people have been anticipating a Bluetooth phone from Verizon, only to be disappointed by lack of OBEX. Verizon says they have no plan to add OBEX because it doesn't fit their business model--greedy bastards. PC Magazine doesn't have very nice things to say either. More discussion here."

Comments

As a Verizon customer

[Anonymous Coward]

I recognize the fact that if Verizon tells me I don't need something, then I don't need it.

Re:As a Verizon customer

[PowerBook2k]

Here's what you do- call 611 on your T-Mobile phone, get to customer care rep., and ask to open a trouble ticket for bad coverage. They'll ask for the address where the trouble spot is and a brief description of the situation (inside vs outside, number of bars, etc.). They'll send out a crew to the towers around that address and you'll get text message and call updates about the progress, including when they intend to put new towers in, etc. Best policy of any cell provider I've seen.

(Standard disclaimer applies- don't work for them, just a happy customer)

What are you complaining about again?

[stecoop]

Would you rather get shoot with by the BlueSniper with a virus-outy BlueSnarf dart? And we wonder why Ericsson is moving on to other projects - highlighted from the greedy bass-turd article ...so wireless carriers can charge people... Gotta get paid ya know.

And if you really want a blue tooth phone there is a nifty niche and free capitalist market called eBay.

Re:What are you complaining about again?

[BoldAC]

But Verizon disabled the phone's Bluetooth file-transfer function, so you can't wirelessly transfer photos to your PC without using the carrier's for-pay Pix Messaging service

Yeah, they are doing it for security reasons... yeah, right. As the quote above shows, it's all about the dollars, baby.

Verizon is developer-unfriendly

[n2rjt]

They do everything possible to keep people from downloading apps, tones, etc directly to the phone. No J2ME on any Verizon phone, as far as I can tell.
Better to use T-Mobile or Cingular in the US.

Re:Verizon is developer-unfriendly

[Pii]

This only makes sense if you are making money selling the hardware...

US Wireless Tecos don't make any money on selling the phones themselves... They lose money.

All of their cash comes on the back end, through service agreements, long term committments, overage changes, and add-on services with their accompanied charges.

It doesn't make business sense for Verizon to let you transfer pictures for free, when they could instead charge you for on-air minutes.

Don't worry... Capitalism has a mechanism to protect you, the consumer. It's called choice. Use another provider, but there are trade-offs. Cingular or TMobile may has cooler phones, with better features, but their coverage areas are far weaker that Verizon's.

You need to decide up front what you need out of the service... The ability to make phone calls anytime, anyplace, or a cool techno toy that can send pictures to all your pals?

crappy photos to

[oneishy]

It's not only the bluetooth support that is lacking. The colors in the camera are really bad to!

oh... and you can use iSync with the usb cable, just not over bluetooth

As an owner of this phone...

[DaHat]

I've been quite happy with this phone since my purchase of it a month ago, I wish it had full Bluetooth support and I was told only yesterday by customer service that an update will be out in 3-4 weeks to enable full Bluetooth support.

Syncing of phonebook here I come!

Re:As an owner of this phone...

[madcow_ucsb]

Yeah and I was told a year ago by their executive offices that there'd be a tool released by Verizon "in 3-4 weeks" to go in via the data cable and upload progs and ringtones without GetItNow.

Don't believe a thing those guys say...

NYNEX Still SUX

[Doc Ruby]

Verizon's business model is to force people to place all communications through *them*, regardless of the sensibility of that network model. They're protecting their wireless empire as hamfistedly as they protected their dialup model, charging people 10x for "data lines" for modems over 9600bps, seeking Congressional protection from "always on" ISPs, crushing DSL competition. Too bad the WiFi genie's already out of the bottle. In the future, circuit-switched landlines and CDMA radios might only serve as backups, when our fibers and WiFi associations fail. With luck, the DSL conquest won't be repeated by Verizon Wireless, since colocation infrastructure isn't as necessary.

Maybe they should have dubbed...

[Anonymous Coward]

...their crippled version BlueBalls. All that promise of sexy features, getting everyone excited, then not delivering the goods.

Nothing New from Verizon

[retsaMedoC]

This isn't the first time Verizon Wireless has crippled a phone. Motorola's T720 phone was also the victim of a nasty hack. The T720 was designed to use Java and Verizon uses Qualcomm's Brew for their Get It Now service. Java was stripped from the phone, not to mention other features like being able to recieve pictures via SMS Messages or the builtin web browser.

ringtones

[linuxpng]

I was pretty disappointed to find out they strip midi files from incoming emails. Making it impossible to send yourself free ringtones.. It's even worse that certain polyphonic phones can't receive SMS messages with midi files either. I had to resort to a motorola phone programmer and USB cable. It's unfortunate, alot of people would never go that route to get a dollar ringtone into their phone.

Confucius say

[Julian Morrison]

..."if honorable business model depends on building a toll-gate where there are open roads to left and right, soon will have new business model involving burgers and fries"

vote with your wallet

[gl4ss]

buy unhindered phones.

or well, if you really like the walled garden aproach then why not, sure, give them away dollars for doing some simple stuff like moving data few feet. if their services are otherwise very cheap then as a customer it could make sense to cave into feature reductions like this, but i doubt it.

this is also why on some phones it's a bitch to get the pictures out even if the manufacturer could have very very cheapily added usb or whatever connectivity. it's left out intentionally so the networks that want walled gardens can feel good about them.

and if you claim that things like this are needed to make running a network profitable/possible.. that's just pure bullshit. you don't even need locked phones for fast adaptation, hell, i'd argue that locked phones being illegal make for a faster adaption.. much easier to compare a) handset prices b) network prices (=less bullshit hidden costs pricing).

oh and if you start with the "i'd only buy a linux based phone", the 'linux' phones coming are locked up tight - tighter than smartphones available now.

v710 hacker reward

[venicebeach]

If you didn't catch this from the nuclear elephant article, he's got a reward pot going for anyone who can provide a hack to enable OBEX on the phone. I think this is a great idea... I would love to see Verizon lose control of this thing. I almost bought one of these things just to be able to sync my address book with bluetooth, and at the last minute my intuition (or experience with Verizon/Moto) saved me.

This is bogus and untrue OBEX will be enabled.

[GhengisCohen]

Verizon is releasing thing phone with some features disabled, they will be enabled in November for full compliance including OBEX come November. Will someone fact check before this is posted. They released that information last monday. -GReg