Motorola Sticks To Guns On Locking Down Android

jeffmeden writes "'These aren't the droids you're looking for' proclaims Motorola, maker of the popular Android smartphones such as the Droid 2 and Droid X. At least, not if you have any intention of loading a customized operating system. According to Motorola's own YouTube channel, 'If you want to do custom roms, then buy elsewhere, we'll continue with our strategy that is working thanks.' The strategy they are referring to is a feature Motorola pioneered called 'e-fuse', the ability for the phone's CPU to stop working if it detects unauthorized software running."

Comments

What a great way to die

[aliquis]

Hundreds of thousands of potential costumers go "ok."

Re:What a great way to die

[chaffed]

However, for that to happen, people need to care.

For the vast majority of the smart phone crowd, they do not care. Just as long as they can get that "urgent" work email, post a picture of their lunch and tweet about how tired they are in the evening.

Re:What a great way to die

[udoschuermann]

At least they're not pulling a Sony on us, selling the things as open and then revoking the ability, after they scammed us out of our money. But it looks like I will not be buying from Motorola again from now on.

I wonder what company wants to go on my (permanent) blacklist next...

Re:What a great way to die

[dlgeek]

In other words, a manufacturer is selling a product that does exactly what the vast majority of it's customers want.

Re:What a great way to die

[PopeRatzo]

Are we really so weak that we absolutely cannot do without a smart phone until manufacturers actually start giving us what we want? I mean, we're the goddamn customers. Vote with your feet.

Some company's going to do the right thing and that's the phone you buy. That's all. You're not going to die if you wait a few more months to buy an Android phone. Or, you can do what I did, and buy a wi-fi only handheld device and use your regular phone because who wants a phone with 4 hours of battery life anyway? Do you really want to have to run to an AC outlet as soon as the plane lands so you can make a call just because you wanted to watch two movies on a cross-country flight?

There is power in being a consumer, and it's astounding that people have been so diddled by advertisement and marketing voodoo that they won't even consider using that power to get what they want.

Re:What a great way to die

[AchilleTalon]

Since the vast majority of the smart phone crowd just don't care, why did Motorola spent so much time to make sure they have a technology to prevent it? I mean, if peoples don't care, there is no reason to make sure they can't. And for the rest of us, what's the problem?

Re:What a great way to die

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting anonymously because I work for a company vaguely related to all this.

The only purpose of this is to allow them to use the next version of Android as a selling point ...

I'm not entirely sure that's true. I've been watching this for a few years, and I have this weird impression that this is all because wireless carriers, like cable companies, need to feel ... special. And that's really all there is to it.

Really. Take cable companies. Comcast wants to be your main squeeze, selling you a DVR and a selection of channels, and not just be a dumb pipe through which bits flow. Because deep down, that's all they are: a bit pusher. If it really came down to it, you could get (or build) any old DVR, and/or stream Hulu and Netflix, and/or do the torrent thing. It's all just data, so that's really all Comcast is: a bit pusher. And let's be clear: being your personal bit pusher would be a great job for a cable company. It's vital to the economy. But the cable companies don't want this job, even though they already have it and are making a killing on it. They think it's beneath them.

The wireless carriers are the same way: they want to be special. They're not mere bit pushers (even though you and I know they really are, and even though we know the bit-pushing job is perfectly respectable and important). No, they want you to love them. Verizon, for example, wants you to really HEART the fact that you have a Verizon phone with a stupid red checkmark as its default wallpaper. And Motorola is catering not to you and me, but to these poor, sorry carriers who don't want to accept that they're just bit pushers, and want to feel loved.

OK, end of rant.

Re:What a great way to die

[eggnoglatte]

Yeah, you can keep telling yourself this - everybody who doesn't want exactly what you want clearly doesn't have a clue.

Here is a reference point: I am a computer scientist, I've been using Linux both professionally and privately on the desktop for almost exactly a decade now. But the very last thing I want of a phone is yet another device to upgrade or configure a kernel for, or worry about malware and viruses. Locked down sounds pretty good to me. I just want to have access to email wherever I go, I don't buy a lot of apps (I have 4 total), and I am not going to start developing for the darn thing. There is only so much time in a day, and the phone is one device that I don't want to have to fiddle with to have it work.

Re:What a great way to die

[Haeleth]

Some company's going to do the right thing

I admire your faith in humanity.

Or, you can do what I did, and buy a wi-fi only handheld device and use your regular phone

Which is totally useless if the reason you are interested in a smartphone is so you can, I dunno, use the internet everywhere or something. Maybe you live in some magical land with free wifi everywhere and you never go travelling at all, but most of us aren't so lucky.

Do you really want to have to run to an AC outlet as soon as the plane lands so you can make a call just because you wanted to watch two movies on a cross-country flight?

You watch movies on your phone? How strange. Most of us use the movie-watching device handily built into the seat in front, or a laptop if we want to bring our own.

There is power in being a consumer

Yeah, like there's power in being a voter. But I don't see many supporters of minority parties celebrating because their interests are being represented in Congress.

Re:What a great way to die

[sveinungkv]

What do you think is the most likely reaction of a politician when he hears about this technology that makes it impossible for a user to change the software on his devices? Will it be to ban it or to make it obligatory so the government can put stuff in your firmware. (Only to be used against terrorists and pedophiles of course. (At least in the beginning. (At least officially.)))

Dump your Motorola stocks

[Ariastis]

A company who tells its clients to go buy from someone else is usually on the way out...

Re:Dump your Motorola stocks

[Bogtha]

Apple have this exact attitude and they just posted a record revenue of $26bn for this quarter, beating Wall St estimates by $2bn. Looking at their iPhone sales alone, they are the largest mobile phone vendor in the world by revenue. They have $60bn in cash reserves and no debt.

All other things being equal, sure, more customers = more profit. But all other things are rarely equal, so summing an entire company's future up into one single factor is idiotic.

Re:Is that a challenge?

[Seumas]

The ones who know what they're doing aren't the masses. They're the ignorable minority.

Great!

[fotbr]

Let 'em fail. It wasn't that long ago that motorola could barely GIVE their phones away.

Misleading Headline.

[mjwx]

This is not locking down Android, this is locking down a Motorola Handset.

Hardware lock down, not software. Pretty big distinction.

But Motorola has jumped the shark. HTC are offering better handsets and MotoBlur is a complete joke. I liked my Milestone too, but due to Motorola's insistence on locking it down I wont be buying the Milestone 2. HTC Desire Z looks a lot better.

Re:Misleading Headline.

[CharlyFoxtrot]

What's the practical difference though ? The big advantage of Android compared to iPhone, I'm always told, is that it's open and there are so many different models to choose from. But what remains of those advantages when you have to eliminate a lot of phones because they are just as locked down and then have to research the remaining models to see which can be rooted, what the difficulties are, etc. ?

Re:Dumbfounded...... Can anyone explain?

[Spykk]

e-fuse doesn't stop you from rooting your phone and installing wireless-tether. e-fuse is there so that Motorola can stop releasing kernel updates when the droid 3 comes out so that you are forced to buy a new phone if you want the latest version of android.

Re:welcome to the future

[martin-boundary]

That's why the GPLv3 is so important. There are two trends going on here: there's locking down of software to prevent hacking and keep monopoly control on the devices, but there's also the use of free software components.

Without free software to do the heavy lifting, the phone manufacturers wouldn't be able to compete at the same price point in the market, so free software developers actually have some leverage to prevent lockdowns in the future.

But for that, the community must be smart and use the right kind of license, eg GPLv3, but not BSD. If the Linux/embedded systems developers drop the ball and continue to use the wrong kinds of licences (GPLv2 is not good enough), then the future you talk about will certainly happen.

Re:welcome to the future

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Without free software to do the heavy lifting, the phone manufacturers wouldn't be able to compete at the same price point in the market, so free software developers actually have some leverage to prevent lockdowns in the future.

Here's a newsflash for you: Google created Android to make sure they have a presence in the lucrative mobile market and could care less about "open" and "free." The reason Android was released as open source is to take advantage of the geek word-of-mouth (or geek internet press) and the geek anti Apple backlash. There won't be any "leveraging" done. I guess this is the point where a a bunch of disillusioned geeks get together and vow to create a 100% pure open(tm) alternative (ETA: 2015.)

Re:welcome to the future

[icebraining]

Android's core is composed of the Linux kernel and the Apache Harmony libraries. They don't get to decide the license of those - and any code of the kernel they modify and distribute _must_ be released under the same license (GPLv2).

If Torvalds et all changed the kernel's license to GPLv3, Google and the phone manufacturers would either have to comply with it or stop upgrading.

So thinking that Google holds all the keys is wrong.

Re:Is that a challenge?

[mug funky]

i get quite annoyed at the constant arrogance and elitism on /.

sorry to burst your bubble - this isn't an elite site, and the "99% of the masses" argument is pure shit that i hear everywhere all the time, in many different disciplines.

whenever someone asks me to recommend them a TV, the conversation will lead to "nobody would ever notice that", but yet we're talking about it and a choice about what to buy is being made based on it.

what do the masses do when they need advice? they ask that nerd friend of theirs. if the nerd has communication skills slightly above the lower end of the Autism Spectrum, the masses will even get a useful answer.

be honest, how many times have you heard a friend say something to the effect of "i'm looking for a smartphone but i don't want an iPhone... what should i get?".

consider each time someone asks that as a lost sale for Motorola...

i don't think it'll kill their business, but their overall crap products certainly are having an effect, and political issues such as this (yes! political! not technical and therefore outside the grasp of the average simian on the street!) will certainly make a large dent in the long run.

Dirty Secret - Carriers want this, not Motorola

[Anonymous Coward]

Motorola does not want to lock them down, the carrier(s) are forcing them to. I have inside info from a dev about this, and I've argued with him about it at length angrily. Unfortunately, their hands are tied, it's the carrier's way or the highway.

If you want to be upset at anyone, be angry at e.g. Verizon. People need to fight the carriers on this, it's about our freedom!!

Re:Update to article

[John Jamieson]

I think they said they were sorry... is that the same as an apology?

I really think they are only sorry that this is a big black eye, and is going to hurt in the morning.

"The response does not reflect the views of Motorola." can be translated as "our responses should not piss off customers"

This just seems like damage control to me, an apology means they are sorry about What they have done, not just sorry about the consequences of a poorly worded but truthful response.

Re:Is that a challenge?

[Opportunist]

Quite the opposite, we're very uninteresting as customers.

Do we buy ringtones? No, we know how to make our own (provided we care about them altogether).

Do we buy background pics? No, same applies.

Do we buy applications? Rarely. More often than not, we'd know a free alternative.

We're not really the dream customer of someone trying to peddle phone crap.

Apple doesn't sell a commodity

[rsborg]

Motorola plays in the commodity Android space. You know, where features rule and competition is fierce.

Apple doesn't play by those rules and makes up their own... but they write their own OS, design their own chip, and create a unique product out of the whole mess.

Apple "gets away" with their arrogance because they have something other companies don't... and consumers like what they have.

What has Moto done lately that HTC or Samsung can't match?

Open or "open"

[leuk_he]

Androids big advange is that is is open (compared to iPhone). All apps can run upon i without approval from the apple app store border. That does not make iPhone bad, it can still give a very good expierence.

But if you have an adroid phone, that is supposed to be open , and then you start locking a (big) part down, then you are limping: You don't have the advantage of an completely open platform and you don't have the advantage of closed expensive controlled fantasy environment of the iPhone.

If you do a thing, do it good. iPhone is a good closed platform.
Android is a good open platform.
Motorola is good at ?? making deals with carriers???