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Droid X Self-Destructs If You Try To Mod
An anonymous reader writes with some discouraging news for hack-oriented purchasers of the new Droid X phone: "If the eFuse fails to verify [the firmware information (what we call ROMS), the kernel information, and the bootloader version], then the eFuse receives a command to 'blow the fuse' or 'trip the fuse.' This results in the booting process becoming corrupted, followed by a permanent bricking of the phone. This FailSafe is activated anytime the bootloader is tampered with or any of the above three parts of the phone has been tampered with."
Now people's heads will hurt. Great Job!
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Someone will find a way around this very quickly
Not to defend a company which builds stuff which will brick your phone if you mod it, but ...
Might there be legitimate reasons why Motorola would be required to do this? Patents they've licensed? Covering their asses against the RIAA et al? Perhaps Verizon wanted this?
Or, is this truly a case of a company taking an open platform and buggering it up by locking it? It sounds shifty, but there might actually be strong reasons why they did it in the first place.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Does your phone self destruct if you mod it? Where others don't... Droid does!
Seriously, I can understand your warranty being voided if you do unapproved modifications to a device, but designing the device so it blows up if you try to modify it is just wrong.
Why do hardware companies think they should have the right to own the device forever? Why should I buy a device that has a time bomb built in that may trip if the official software gets corrupted due to a bug?
The whole thing reeks. I'm done with Motorola. What is the point of this exactly? What does Motorola lose by you running a custom ROM? New phone sales when they decide after a year not to provide any Android updates?
In this case it's more a case of "Motorola Evil". Google provides the OS but the manufacturer still integrates it into the device.
My next upgrades isn't until December, but I can already say that Droid X is off the table. Hopefully HTC will have out something new and shiny by then. If not, I'll still go for the Incredible over the X. I've had nothing but trouble from Motorola phones anyways.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Termite? Methinks maybe thermite?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If I purchase the phone outright, wouldn't this be willful destruction of property on Motorola's part? Does a company have the right to destroy a purchased product - after the sale - if the consumer doesn't use it in a prescribed manner?
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
I know I wouldn't be pleased with a termite charge. Imagine all the structural damage!
"If you see a man on a horse, he is likely an enemy. Kill the man and eat the horse."
Well, it's more of a Motorola issue than an Android issue. Just because an operating system is open doesn't mean the corporation that installed it isn't going to be a jackass.
It's not as if there's no precedent for this. There's a certain operating system based upon open source components from Mach, FreeBSD, GNU, and KDE, which is somewhat infamous for being closed. At least you can load and run your own programs onto the Droid X, even if you can't update the operating system to your own version.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Ah... I guess I won't be buying a DroidX then. Sad, really... I was looking forward to getting one when the contract was up on my Droid.
And I've been very happy with my Droid. Now, one wonders...was this done to suit Verizon or if it was on Moto's own thinking that it was done. I might not have modded my phone when I got it, but doing things like this are a real put-off. I bought the phone, it's mine to do with as I see fit- and putting in things like this take that away from me. It turns it into Motorola's device or Verizon's device and I'm just renting it. Sorry, you SOLD me a phone guys and if you're concerned about "user experience" or "risks to the network" design the damn phone to not need to be concerned about EITHER- and anything else is lying to the customer outright.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
No, just an excuse to stay away from the Droid X. The Droid line has a number of phones from different manufacturers that make it. The original Droid and Droid X are made by Motorola while the Droid Incredible is made by HTC. Only the Droid X (so far) suffers from this problem that will likely have a way around it soon enough.
eFUSE is a chip technology developed by IBM is a special type of chip where the code isn't completely static- based on the operation of the device, an eFUSE can blow itself. This can reroute the logic in a variety of ways, or be used as a self destruct mechanism.
It's reversible, but only by Motorola directly via JTAG. They have the custom code needed to flash the chip back to its original state.
Sure they will... But I don't appreciate having them try to transform it more into a rental of the device than a sale- and then framing it in as a sale. I'm sure there's other people that'll view it the same way as I.
Sadly, I'm fairly sure Verizon asked Moto to do this- they always seem to find a way to miss the point and try to assert "control" over everything.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
If developers don't want to use the phone, the platform's potential will be limited to the imagination and the business model of the original vendor, which is usually very limited. Android phones like this one will be selected against. Users will want to 'unlock' their phone's power by clicking the install button in the windows program they download from that .org site everyone they know goes to, and phones that brick when they do this will eventually not be bought. Really its a stupid move for Motorola.
--"You are your own God"--
If you follow the link in the story to here, it says:
Basically, they've added trusted computing to a phone.
The eFuse is the gatekeeper -- if it detects that you've done something they haven't approved, it causes the phone to self destruct.
So far, it doesn't seem like this is an easy thing to work around.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Because of this setup--isn't it entirely possible that some sort of malware can be created to actually attempt to brick the phone by triggering efuse?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFUSE "By utilizing an eFUSE (or more realistically, a number of individual eFUSEs), a chip manufacturer can allow for the circuits on a chip to change while it is in operation."
I understand how someone can decide not to officially support modding since that could translate into more costs, but actually investing time and money to prevent modding?
Seriously, whats wrong with them? They are supposedly part of the Open Handset Alliance.
Hey moto, most people actually want to run other andriod "mods" (such as cyanogenmod) in order to have the latest and greatest android version, since you guys are obviously too uninterested in keeping your own phones updated. Most of them don't actually care about platform development.
I hope you realize you should actually support - at least not make it difficult to - flash alternate operating systems. Providing an unlocked bootloader is a big first step which should be almost cost-free to do and can IMHO only bring you benefits. (Ever heard of the Nexus One's "oem unlock" command?)
It's Slashdot's new plan to make people RTFA by picking a random paragraph to quote out of context in the summary, thus forcing them to visit TFA in order to work out what it's about.
Not that it's worked in the past, of course...
You gotta wonder what they perceived the benefit was of putting this "functionality" in place. I can't think of a single thing they gain by doing this...
A hardware company actually put a self-destruct mechanism in the phone when you change the software.
A. This will get tripped accidentally, even for naive users, and will cost owners money to fix.
B. This violates the idea of ownership of the device. Motorola figures that they're licensing you parts, not selling. For an "open" OS, this is insane.
C. Once you get around it, unless you can destroy the code, you still have that thing hanging around. A mistake or bad combination later on could trip it -- there's no reason to have to put up with walking through a minefield.
All this translates to "Spread the news, blacklist the phone, send a message to Motorola." Because if this goes on as a "who cares" thing, all Motorola Android phones will have it in future and other companies will follow suit.
This needs to be a black eye for Motorola, they need to notice that, and they need to quickly backpedal.
This is just another nail in the coffin for Motorola, who becomes more and more irrelevant every year, being pushed out of the market on both sides by Apple and HTC.
HTC makes the most robust and moddable phones on the planet, and do not try to stop the modding in any way - in fact one may say they passively encourage it.
This post is coming from someone who owns a 4 year old HTC Vogue that came shipped with Windows mobile 6.0, but thanks to the modders, has been upgraded to 6.1 and 6.5, and more recently ove rthe past 3 months, has been running a fully working version of Android that is lightning fast. All on 4 year old hardware.
This is what can be done when you don't shut out your customers - I am an HTC purchaser for life now.
I did follow the TFA to the origin of the story (MyDroidWorld forum), and I still don't see any code, captured data or even a photo of the said eFuse chip inside the DroidX. I understand that the original poster appears to be a reputable hacker, but come on, what kind of real reporting is this? Can anyone else verify these claims? More information needed, thank you very much whoever posts it, because if true, this is an outrage.
Compared to the eFuse, their new iFuse just works, which makes for an infinitely superior bricking experience.
I'm under the impression that the Droid X is intended for the business market, to try to take a bite out of RIM's market share. This sounds like an attempt to make the phone more "secure" by preventing people from getting at the data by rooting the phone. Not that it's necessarily the best way, but thats just my 2 cents.
"Open the pod by doors, Hal" > "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" sudo "Open the pod bay doors, Hal" > alright
There's also another OS that is based upon open source components from Mach, FreeBSD, GNU and KDE which allows me to install whatever I want without having to jailbreak, root, break bootloaders, etc...Clicky
Move along.
In reality, the main appeal of Android operating systems is that they give phone manufacturers a serious competitor to Apple and they don't have to pay Microsoft. Not to mention, they probably don't care for Windows Mobile.
The problem is that what made the Android OS a serious competitor to Apple was that it wasn't locked. If a phone running Android is locked as tight as an Iphone, I may as well get the Iphone and the "coolness" of owning an Apple product.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
twice as deadly!
Metal termites filled with thermite!
"Written in JTAG" implies a program written in a language called JTAG.
The problem is that JTAG is a standardized electrical communications protocol used to support debugging of ICs, and often also used to program them.
Nothing can be "written in JTAG" because it isn't a programming language. I question whether the poster on that forum has any clue what's really going on. So far the only evidence of this is one forum post that has very little detail and has some glaring technical/grammatical errors (see above). I'll believe it when I see a more in-depth analysis.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
To be fair, OS X doesn't implode if you recompile the bootloader, which is open source under Darwin. You can either download apps for OS X (many free), make your own using Apple-supplied tools (XCode), third-party paid tools (why?), or use free-as-in-speech-and-beer OSS tools.
This can be done in any combination of interfaces, from CLI and X11 to Cocoa and Carbon.
None of this, or even (to make an accurate analogy) installing Windows or Linux on your Mac, is going to make the Mac go boom. In fact, if you buy the system and install the exact same Linux distro as you did on your IBM or Compaq... it'd work.
I hope Motorola get's a nice class-action suit out of this.
Imagine a nice little virus, designed to trigger the 'self-destruct' and some innocent users getting infected.
Markus
Apple evil, Google good.
And it still holds.
Google can't be responsible for everyone else though.
(But they for sure could restrict usage for more open phones by pushing whatever demands they wanted. The risk for them of course would be that phone companies may decide to pick another product and hence Google would lose the data of their consumers. In a perfect world I would had preferred a "open" phone as far as the OS goes directly from Google, which is sure to run future versions. Stock everything would be fine. I trust them much more than any third-party provider.)
A great excuse to stay away from Motorola. It's not the OS, it's the hardware, and only Motorola (that we know of) is doing this crap.
Right. Droid is the Motorola trademark (licensed from Lucasfilm) for their hardware that runs the Android software.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Apparently, this is not the Droid you're looking for.
Except for the Droid Eris and Droid Incredible, which are HTC.
Certain handset makers want their phones to have a short lifetime. I'm sure the handset maker views it if the phone is not rootable, nor flashable to a newer version of Android, it eventually gets thrown out, as opposed to being used a longer time. Plus, blown phone == more new phone sales.
This appears to be a very short term profit attitude here, and if this is true, this will ensure I never buy a Motorola device again and will actively tell people to go HTC or another vendor who does not put self destruct mechanisms in their devices.
Oh, so we just have to wait a couple of weeks for some teenager to crack it. Awesome.
Unlikely...
If they've put eFuse stuff on the phone, you might be able tapdance around the issue a bit- but the odds are good that if you're modding the phone you'll brick it. And it's liable to brick a few un-modded phones as well. There was a reason they quit using it a while back (this stuff is from the early part the last decade...)- and I'm kind of surprised they brought it back on this phone.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Don't forget that Motorola phones only have a few die-hards working on ROMS. Compare the forum for the CLIQ on modmymoto.com to the ones for HTC devices on xda-developers. The iPhone also has a big jailbreaking/modding scene, and I'm sure there will be a bunch of cool apps on Cydia once iOS 4.1 comes out and is jailbroken.
If I were to buy an Android phone, I'd go with an N1, or the "official" Google stuff. Second choice will be almost any HTC device because they actually put out source and tools to help with modding.
So a guy [p3droid] few know posts a speculative comment
and /. takes it as fact? At least p3droid has the courtesy to warn his readers what a conjecture is and that's all his post is.
Where's you god now, Googlebots? WHERE'S YOUR GOD NOW?
Come over to the iSide, it's shiny!
I've heard that Cyanogen and other groups that do this sort of technical work on Android phones have sworn off the Droid X because options that are equally good as phones and won't make getting a custom ROM on a process that will destroy several phones and be risky every time someone flashes it themselves exist.
is that Verizon will be the first one out of the gate with Block C 700MHz LTE service -- which will put them on the spot: they are *required by the terms of the license* -- thanks, Google -- to allow any device that meets their published tech specs to connect to that network.
So if the do this to their handsets for LTE700, then they'll just lose sales *directly*.
Fun to watch massive corporations try to turn on a dime.
Microsoft couldn't do it.
Betcha Verizon can't either.
eFuse is an IBM brain child, and they have it in several of their RISC products. The XBox 360 has one in its xenon (ibm power pc) processor. The Texas Instruments OMAP processors that motorola chose for their droid x are using the eFuse technology. The statement that it is not reversible via software is bull, once you figure it out, you can set up a JTag interface (as any serious modder will do anyway) and then you can reverse the eFuse bits and try your mod again.
What about the Nexus One?
I don't know if it's open for future OS versions (or even whatever normal people can get access to and build the code, but I guess we can?)
Also I live in Sweden, Europe and I don't know if we can order it or if it was US only?
I won't go through too many loops to get one. If they don't want to sell me a phone: Fine! Don't ...
Wasn't the android phones meant to be the openish alternative to the wall^H^H^H^Hputrid compost offered by Apple?
No.
The Android operating system was meant to be an openish alternative for the phone manufacturers. It's up to them to repeat apples ways by walling up their phones too.
Butthey shouldn't forget that people who trade in a stable system with a hand-picked selection of possibel apps for a locked down system tend to buy an iPhone in the first place.
bickerdyke
Return the devices for refund. Tell Verizon why.
That term is not compatible with the GPLv2, which is what the Linux kernel (an integral part of Android) is licensed under.
You fuckers all laughed at GLPv3, but look where it got you.
That opinion... You're holding it wrong.
eFUSE can blow itself.
Lucky eFUSE!
Tom Geller
It's like Tivoization: the software is open, but the hardware blocks any changes.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
The laughs will come if consumers decide that they don't care and buy the phone anyway despite headlines saying how Motorola has put a self destruct chip in the phone. The carriers will probably play hardball with every device manufacturer and get this technology in every Android phone so they can brag about an open platform but lock down the updates and stop providing Android updates a year after the phone is released.
If consumers ignore the Droid and other phones that implement such anti-consumer chips, then it'll be a victory for Android users, resiting attempts to take away from the openness of the platform.
That's actually pretty much even with other smartphones in its class. The trouble is, most carriers(at least in the US); subsidize handsets but don't offer less expensive plans to those who BYO hardware...
If there were a "zOMG Free Phone* *(with $$$$/month contract)" option and a "Pay full retail phone price, or bring your own, $$/month for voice/data" option, the American preference for crippled carrier phones would be an example of the "stupid consumers, only looking at upfront costs" phenomenon. As it is, though, you pretty much choose between getting a subsidized phone, then having the subsidy(and some extra) gouged out month by month, or you pay full price, and then face exactly the same monthly costs. This adds up to paying a fairly major premium to purchase your own device.
Haha, that reminds me. I recently bricked my Wii, *real* brick by erasing IOS60 (the main "function" that makes the system boot), not even the "preventive" homebrew apps were helpful.
However, it was revived by a simple re-flash of the NAND chip using an specialized programmer.
I doubt this "fuse" brick will be unbreakable
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
In reality, the main appeal of Android operating systems is that they give phone manufacturers a serious competitor to Apple and they don't have to pay Microsoft. Not to mention, they probably don't care for Windows Mobile.
The problem is that what made the Android OS a serious competitor to Apple was that it wasn't locked. If a phone running Android is locked as tight as an Iphone, I may as well get the Iphone and the "coolness" of owning an Apple product.
Nah, openness had nothing to do with android being a serious competitor.
Gah, not you necessarily, but so many people latch on to a company/product just like they would a sports team. This isn't sport, this is business, and most people buy what's convenient (standing around at a phone store...walmart, radio shack etc...) and what is seemingly cool (shiny graphics... yay), and more and more, what is cheaper than their current stuff.
The coolness factor is probably a bigger factor than anything else. Apple has sexy commercials for their products. The lesson to be learned here is that sexy sells, technobabble mostly sucks by itself, but throw in cute people and wow, I gots to have that 10g phone with xyz widgets now!
All the worlds a stage, and I'm the guy running the lights...
They saw all the press Apple has been getting lately, first for "not really having a retina display" then for displaying the wrong number of bars to indicate signal reception strength. They wanted in on this, so they... wait a minute, they had to have started all of this before the iPhone4 was released. Dunno, maybe they're just plain evil.
Is all the GPL code in Android under such a version of GPL, that this is legal? I mean, it prevents the user from changing certain parts of the GPL software, something which at least some versions of GPL require, as far as I understand.
I would like to take this moment to give a shout out to T-Mobile, which actually offers a bring your own phone plan for less than the subsidize your phone plan.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
Android users can buy a different, more open Android device. You've not even got that option on iOS.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Isn't this exactly what the GPL v3 is designed to prevent (Tivo-ization)? Seems like FSF's concerns are once again coming true. Too bad Linux won't ever adopt v3, it seems.
Return them and tell Verizon that you're returning them because of the eFuse.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
You keep getting handed options, then just purchase the stuff that is designed on purpose to frustrate you. Why not more love for projects like openmoko?
Droid, DroidX, Droid2 and others -- they all have this efuse, it's nothing new. Perhaps rather than making assumptions based on the presence of a device, someone could do some actual research to find out if this is really a concern? Just because the chip is present does not mean it's configured to brick the phone - it certainly hasn't done so in other Android devices using it.
From where I sit, Motorola / Verizon are more evil than Apple / AT&T. Well, OK, AT&T is pretty fucking evil, but the reality is that Apple has never been about open devices and so has never violated any trust with any communities, because iPhone has always been a walled garden. On the other hand Android is wide open, yet they are coupled with Verizon, notorious for locking down phones and removing features, and Motorola who knows fuck all about good software. Android + (Verizon and Motorola) seems like oil and water to me. Plus the Droid-X software seems to not be getting good reviews today: http://gizmodo.com/5587225/motorola-droid-x-review meaning that hacking it is even more desirable.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
I would guess that if Verizon is the one that is requiring this of Motorola, then they are doing it to restrict people's ability to tether 2.2 without having to pay Verizon.
The Android 2.2 platform has built-in wifi tethering that you have to pay your carrier for in order to use, an extra $20/month or some such. Rather than do that, a quick root and install of a free wifi tether app allows the owner to bypass the carrier Tether requirements and build their own little wifi network to access the 'net from any wifi capable device without paying... The data becomes just another set of packets.
If you're looking for a business reason, that's it.
-SM
Even a locked down self destructing Android phone is 10x more open then an iPhone. You know you can still install your own applications, right? You know you can use your locked up tight Android phone for streaming podcasts (over 3G no less!), tethering, instant messaging, multi-tasking, wifi metering/sniffing, file management, accessing FTP servers, playing non hardware-supported media types, google latitude, free theft protection, customizable home screens, widgets, porn(!), universal file system, change the default launcher, use skype, flash, use non-webkit browsers, use a full bluetooth stack, VOIP, tight google voice integration, expandable memory, remote or local torrent control, reading around the world in 80 days by Jules Verne, offensive apps, installing apps outside the app store, listen to nine inch nails, use alternative music players/music stores, dope wars, watch south park, use alternative keyboards, voice texting/typing, plenty of navigation apps, replace the battery, alternative SMS/alerts/quick reply apps, search emails, apply custom themes, console emulation (nintendo, sega, super nintendo, ps, etc.), sample apps and return them if they suck. The iPhone does none of those things (or does them in some sort of crippled way) so who is laughing at who?
or else!
The story most probably refers to an actual fuse inside a chip that is made by a layer of polysilicon - it can be made to melt and blow just like the common electrical fuse. In this case, there is no return.
Can't wait for it.
Burn FAT not OIL
Reading comprehension is not your strength is it? 1) p3droid admitted right from the start that it was all guess work but somehow everybody ran with it and concluded that there should be "shame on Motorola" etc, 2) Motorola admitted to locking down the bootloader but not to bricking the phone in case an attempt to replace the bootloader was made. Btw, reports came in that the Droid X does not get bricked when trying to fiddle with the bootloader.
In past days this would be properly seen as a hardware quirk to be worked around. Like a buggy SCSI controller which trashes your disks when you hit it with an obscure command sequence. You don't throw up your hands, foam at the mouth, and threaten the manufacturer! You figure out what you need to do to avoid the undesirable behavior.
My God, you modder people are turning into a bunch of pussies and whiners. THE WHOLE POINT OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING is to have fun and push the hardware into areas it was not meant to go. In this case, the manufacturers have laid a few things in your path to make life interesting. Take it as a challenge, as we've always done in the past, rather than acting like a whiny bitch. My God, the hacker spirit is well and truly dead.
Fuck you. They pointed out that there is exactly that at T-Mobile, and then you turn around and bitch some more? What more do you want?
True. Also my experience has been that they are one of the FEW U.S. carriers NOT to cripple their phones from the get-go (Bluetooth File Transfers to/from the phone, no extra software needed to offload your pictures/audio/video).
I'd imagine that the T-mobile Android phones should be nice and "open", but I recently got an iPhone through work, so for now all my T-mobile number is doing is forwarding calls. :D
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Welcome to Slashdot, you must be new here!
In case you hadn't noticed, this is a technology site where a large number of people are dedicated to "fucking with stupid shit" on a regular basis. So talking about modding your phone is kind of right up the proverbial alley here...
"But this one goes to 11!"
Seriously, Motorola fuses the Droid X to prevent tampering with the bootloader, etc, etc. So if you attempt a mod, it bricks the phone?
Ok. Let's roll with this for a moment.
So I buy a Droid X, fulfill my 2-year contract, and I've fulfilled my obligations, paid my bills, and I'm off contract.
Does Motorola or VZW disclose that even after this, the phone is limited to official software rleases, and despite being both out of warranty and fully paid for, it's still 'locked' to official software?
Bogus. If I have paid for it and Moto and VZW have no further obligtation to support it or even repair it at any expense, why would they care? what does it matter to them if I mess with the software?
Well, it's not at all about what happenbs to the phone after contract. It's about the 2-year contract, and that's all.
Since most users ditch their phones after the contract and upgrade at the first opportunity, Moto/VZW have little incentive to accomodate users that keep the phone past the contract. The most obvious reason is to sell a new phone, AND and a new contract. Alternatively, though, why expend any effort to support a phone that is, by marketing, considered obsolete? Let it die, and the users will re-up with a new phone and all. Moto/VZW win, you just keep on paying for a phone no matter what.
And during the contract, Moto/VZW have learned from the Android community that those hacking root and installing custom ROMs is a non-trivial portion of their users. It brings with it support problems (l0sers bricking their fonz), possible network impacts (users bringing up WiFi hotspots and cranking data), and discontent from other users (asking "why don't you give me Android 3.0, the modders have it, I hate you", causing angst and loathing amongs the user community and possibly impacting future sales). Samsung is getting a dose of this for a couple of phones that aren't going to get Android 2.x OTA updates, and T-Mobile risked it with the G1 (my phone) not getting Android 2.x at all. So a big impact here is the fragementation of the user experience, all the reputaitonal damage, and just the complications.
But there is something EVEN MORE SINISTER at play here, and both Motorols and VZW are players well-experienced at this. It's ALL about revenue. That's right, this is about profits. Directly impacting the bottom line.
This is not the first time Moto/VZW have 'conspired' to lock users into their desired experience. Remember the RAZR? Many users could download ringtones and have some fun. But not VZW users. Not only were ringone downloads via USB blocked, but also on Bluetooth. Intentionally. Of course, you could BUY ringtones from VZW. Nice chunk of change, too. This happened with GPS services also, and wasn't limited to VZW.
I do not doubt that 'fusing' the Droid X is in part intended to keep the users on the VZW farm, and prevent them from installing non-Market apps, ROMs, and probably even getting services that VZW would rather you pay for. We'll find out about that very soon.
One more reason for me to avoid Verizon. As if I needed another. And Moto also. Just an in-your-face slapdown, reminding you they have an ownership stake in YOUR phone.
If you can't root it, it's not yours.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I can't tell if you're trying to be sarcastic, but I'll bite. You really think that paying $99 a year is a good way to have a 3rd party application environment? How does that enable a community of any kind? Seems like you're probably only able to install apps that you write at that point and that is nothing compared to being able to access a development community. What if your business model doesn't match Apple's rigid App store?
What good is tethering if you're not allowed to do it? It's effectively the same problem. What good is multitasking if you STILL can't do instant messaging? What good is even having instant messaging if you still don't have anything even close to a reasonable notifications system?
You cherry picked a few things out of a long list and even those are pretty piss poor substitutes.
Look, I love the iPhone and I love iOS, but if you're trying to defend it as being open then you're delusional. I own an iPad. It's a toy. I would never accept an OS like that on my phone.
or else!
If I paid for the hardware then it's mine, I own it, in spite of what big telcom wants you to think.
I was actually considering getting this phone, I guess they just lost a customer.
^^vv<><>BA
I guess that is the euro-peon way to spell boogers..how quaint and continental and all...
anyway, I said "like" Openmoko. And here's the deal. No huge corporation is going to sell you an open anything any more, it conflicts with their skewed notion of "shareholder value" and "leveraging their intellectual properties" and other buzz speak. So..ya'all phone modders can either start supporting projects like openmoko, so it can be developed beyond the "boogers" stage, or just keep whining that your new iGS turboprofitphone is "locked down" and you can't do what you want to do with it.
Also on telco "plans".. I see kvetching galore about stupid two year "plans".. geez loweez this *ain't* rocket surgery, stop using plans, stop rewarding those lame ass "plans", go prepaid. Vote with your wallet, or don't be surprised when eventually your options for cellphones plus connectivity have been narrowed down to very sucky versus extremely sucky. You get what you pay for, keep paying for closed off/locked down two year suck plans on closed off/locked down suck phones, they'll keep selling that to you.
>> Not only were ringone downloads via USB blocked, but also on Bluetooth.
>> One more reason for me to avoid Verizon.
Dude its not only Verizon. my Cingular (now AT&T) Sony-Ericsson W810i did exactly that too. Even though a stock W810i supports the user putting their own tones on, with the Cingular-supplied one, if you wanted to use anything other than a small selection of (probably purposely) very crappy built-in ringtones, you had to buy/download them via the phone. Furthermore once bought, they only lasted about a month!! the intent was to force you to re-buy eve the same ringtone at least once a month.
I refuse to buy phones from a network providers since that experience. I prefer to pay the overhead and get a fully functional phone by going directly to the manufacturers or unaffiliated dealers. Besides, all the phones that network providers carry (AT&T at least) are a very limited choice entirely comprising of outdated or undesireable models.
HP/Palm continue to support their homebrew community, and provide a virtually un-brickable device that you can modify without even compiling any code.
WebOS FTW!
If Motorola clearly states up front that you are not allowed to modify the phone and doing so may cause your phone to stop functioning properly then I don't really see what the issue is. If you want to mod your phone there are several models out there that allow it and to some degree even support it.
The point is that they "can't" say that. Once you buy the hardware it is yours to do with as you please. They can't force you to only be able to use in a certain way. It'd be like saying they would only let you dial phone numbers in your own area code or only numbers with a "4" in them.
Not true. When you buy the phone, liquidated damages (something called an "Early Termination Fee") gets tacked on if you don't complete the contract. It's your property the moment the credit card gets swiped through the reader or the cash goes in the register.
By law, if you request that your phone's SIM-lock (if GSM) be removed, or that you be given its MSL code (if it's CDMA), the phone company MUST give it to you as long as 30 days have elapsed since purchase. I'm not 100% sure, but I think even the 30-day waiting period can be eliminated if you waive your right to cancel the plan or return the phone.
American phone companies (at least Verizon and AT&T by virtue of being AT&T's offspring) aren't allowed to keep the phones as secured assets or lease them due to the consent decree that broke up AT&T's monopoly 25 years ago that prohibited them from forcing customers to lease phones instead of purchase them from independent sources on their own. I'm not sure, but I think the FCC incorporated its terms directly into its own regulations, so they probably apply to Sprint & T-Mobile as well. On the other hand, that might be the reason why Verizon was grudgingly forced to open its network to any phone you can physically figure out how to make work, while Sprint can get away with refusing to let anyone use any phone not purchased from Sprint.
I believe the first cell phone companies tried to lease phones to customers, but were prohibited from doing so by the FCC out of concern that if carriers were allowed to lease phones, the price of purchased phones would be wildly inflated and customers would be forced into leasing anyway. As a practical matter, subsidies turned out the same way (in the US, at least, though Google's fought the hard fight to at least try and change it a little).
No, a mortgage is a loan secured by the property. When you buy a phone, even a subsidized phone, you legally own it outright the moment you sign the credit card slip or hand the cashier the money.