Rooted Devices Blocked From Android Movie Market

tekgoblin writes "Google has released the Android Movie Market to Android tablets with Honeycomb 3.1 and in a few weeks for users with Froyo and Gingerbread. However Google has stipulated that the Android Movie Market will only be available to Android devices which are not rooted. So if you have a rooted Android device, don't expect to download anything from the Android Movie Market any time soon (or at least until a workaround is found)."

Comments

Android

[Anonymous Coward]

Android has kinda been a fiasco. Security problems, malware, hardware fragmentation, software piracy and now this blocking of rooted devices. Wasn't Android supposed to be open? I guess not. It doesn't hurt Google's bottom line tho, they still get the advertising revenue and even got the geeks to do the marketing for them.

Re:Android

[tripleevenfall]

I know this will get modded down, but I think AC has a point.

People will say "It is open - I can see the source". But shouldn't it mean something, in practice?

If we only have a platform that is open on the theoretical level - if users have to root a phone (something most people will never do) for it to be open, if making your phone open entails giving up other features, if manufacturers are actively hostile to people doing this and attempt to install countermeasures to rooting and sideloading...is this really "open"?

Or do we have a situation not unlike the iPhone and jailbreaking - a walled garden?

A fiasco in every way but one important one.

[aussersterne]

Android is the marketing triumph of the mobile phone age. It demonstrates very clearly that there is tremendous value in the "open" brand. And that's what it is here, make no mistake. Android devices in practice are as open as Ferrari laptops are made by Ferrari.

Let's look at how open they are:

- Carrier locked, walled garden, locked-down out of the box = Little choice, little freedom
- Must root to be able to use important features
- When you root, you are locked out of other important features
- Fewer apps than iOS = Less choice = less freedom
- Less polished user interface, more fragmentation = less flexibility, smaller userbase, less choice = less freedom

iPhone jailbreak == Android root
After jailbreak == You can use all iTunes, Apple App Store, AND alternate sources
Vastly more apps == Vastly more choice, freedom
Less fragmentation, more polish == More ease of use, larger community, more choice, more freedom

In all practical terms, the iOS ecosystem is less restrictive. Somehow, however, the only thing that matters is the branding—the ideological and theoretical terms of the equation. Here somehow Google has managed to brand Android as "open" (despite the above) and this makes all the difference.

As a result, activist geeks and savvy tech users FLOCK to Android and push it to their families and friends, assuring all that this is important because Android is OPEN, while iOS is CLOSED.

They then immediately go about rooting the Android phone as the first order of business and then explain (rationalize) about how not all apps are compatible, rooted phones won't have access to things like movies, may create problems with carriers, etc., but all of this is justified by their OPENNESS... Unlike those poor iOS users that must "jailbreak" their phones.

It's 1984 style doublespeak. In one case, rooting = "open" = good. In another case, rooting = "jailbraking" = evil. It's the same damned act, with the same damned consequences, only in the case of the jailbreak, you end up with more functionality and more choice in the end.