Leak Updates

[TheOldFart]

So it's a pretty safe assumption that unless the bootloader issue is cracked anyone that has 2.2 with the 2C.7C loader is pretty much stuck where they are unless they un-root and accept future OTAs which will probably further lock down the phone?

My guess is the ultimate goal is to eliminate the use of apps that allow a free go-around for services that carriers offer paid services for such as tethering both USB and WiFi.

I think this is correct and, as far as I am concerned, I will welcome it. The Droid I got last November was my first smartphone. The internet connection was faster than I expected and I was very happy with it. Now, 9 months later, it has slowed greatly. It has been getting slower and slower over the past few months. I suspect this is because of the number of people violating the TOS and tethering all day or perhaps just streaming a lot of movies. Of course, the later does not violate the TOS AFAIK. I live next to a university and the antenna that I normally connect to is at the university. I'm sure that the illegal usage there is very high. I will be very happy if it is stopped and my service is back to what it was when I signed the contract.

 

[Terradactyl]

its kind of ironic that we are the ones that brought Moto out of the depths of near mobile destruction and then to have them shut us down.. Almost makes you want to jump ship like we did with Windows Mobile. LOL!

Who is "we" who resurrected Moto?

"WE" The Customers that they are screwing with.
"We" the customers that stopped buying the Moto Products because they sucked... Starting with the moto Razor and ending with the Cliq..

 

[TheOldFart]

its kind of ironic that we are the ones that brought Moto out of the depths of near mobile destruction and then to have them shut us down.. Almost makes you want to jump ship like we did with Windows Mobile. LOL!

Who is "we" who resurrected Moto?

"WE" The Customers that they are screwing with.
"We" the customers that stopped buying the Moto Products because they sucked... Starting with the moto Razor and ending with the Cliq..

They are not screwing with you. You are screwing with them. You are the one violating the TOS if you are tethering.

The Droid does not suck just because you are prevented from playing with it to your hearts content. The Droid is a great phone for millions of people who couldn't care less what you want to do with it.

 

[lilliboss]

I have a DROID

 

[furbearingmammal]

The 2c. 7c. bootloader has been broken. I helped talk a n00b through rooting it last night via RSD Lite and SPRecovery. MotoCache1's files and instructions are valid, at least till the next bootloader update hits.

Like I kept trying to tell people, if you're going to root, root now, because it may not be possible in the future.

 

[furbearingmammal]

@TheOldFart;

Without empirical evidence, blaming a crummy signal on people violating their TOS instead of just blaming it on more users period is a bit judgemental.

99%+ of Droid users don't root, and even rooters don't all tether. I'm sure the majority of people on that campus use the campus-based hard-wired or wireless networks, which are up to 100X as fast as 3G.

 

[jntdroid]

I'm tired of this entitlement mentality.

Lest we forget we're dealing with 3 for-profit corporations here - Verizon, Google, Motorola - whose #1 goal is to increase value for shareholders - that's every corporation’s #1 goal, and it should be. The execs that control the money could not care less (or very very little) about a hacking community that has very little effect on their bottom line. It's easy to feel like the Droid world we live in is the norm, because most of us live on this forum. But that's simply not the case, at all.

I believe the Droid was a "loss leader", per se, for lack of a better term. Motorola needed it to resurrect themselves. Verizon needed it to compete with the "imania". Google needed it to bring Android mainstream. Verizon's marketing blitz (which was harder than the purple people eaters!) was extremely successful. The Droid is a solid piece of hardware. And Android has attracted a lot of people and carriers because of it's flexibility (and I'm not talking hacking here, I'm talking simple customization). It was the perfect storm, and it worked like a charm.

Now, all 3 corporations are in a completely different position than they were a year ago. Verizon now has a much larger presence in the smartphone market, Motorola is back in good standing and making solid products again, and Android is more of a household name (at least more than it was a year ago), and continuing to grow fast.

Here's why I think that Verizon/Moto/Google want things to be more locked down, and have every right to do so.

Verizon – it's their data, and their customer service is the frontman for any problems. Despite their claims, their 3g network is still limited, and will be affected by having more smartphone users in their system. They want to control their data to keep it running as smoothly as possible for as many customers as possible. Hence, tethering breaks the TOS, and you have to pay for it on the new phones where they allow it. Any time one of their phones have a problem, they’re the first to receive the call – and despite the loads of instructions, people still screw their phones up when they root and flash custom roms, leaks, whatever.

Motorola – they make the hardware. Hacking affects the hardware – especially overclocking (yes I know the arguments here).

Google – They want Android to be mainstream. They want devs to look at developing on Android first. The more hacking there is, the more piracy there is. The more hacking there is, the more little problems occur that might not occur otherwise (FC’s, incompatibilities, etc.). They want Android to be a smooth sailing process from dev to end user.

Open source has little to do with hacking. Do I love being able to root (and flash custom roms, etc) my phone for full control? Yes. Are a majority of users willing to take the time to read up before they do this? No. Does that mean more problems? Yes. Does that cost these companies money? Yes.


Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pleased about this either. But I’m not going to act like they owe it to us at all – we’re not the majority of users, and we have little affect on their bottom line – and that’s the bottom line (sorry, couldn't resist the pun).

 

[Pandemic187]

They're taking an open-source operating system and making it a closed-source operating system. We may as well get iOS on our phones.

 

[jntdroid]

They're taking an open-source operating system and making it a closed-source operating system. We may as well get iOS on our phones.

We can install whatever we want, can we not? We just can't DO whatever we want (i.e. wifi tethering, overclocking, etc.). The more open source becomes mainstream, the more it will be affected by the bottom line (i.e. the $$) and therefore the more control the corporations will want to have over it. We'll never be fully open-source with anything because we are a capitalistic country with corporations that like to make $$. That's why I think the Droid 1 was a "loss leader".

 

[Pandemic187]

Lest we forget we're dealing with 3 for-profit corporations here - Verizon, Google, Motorola - whose #1 goal is to increase value for shareholders - that's every corporation’s #1 goal, and it should be. The execs that control the money could not care less (or very very little) about a hacking community that has very little effect on their bottom line. It's easy to feel like the Droid world we live in is the norm, because most of us live on this forum. But that's simply not the case, at all.

I believe the Droid was a "loss leader", per se, for lack of a better term. Motorola needed it to resurrect themselves. Verizon needed it to compete with the "imania". Google needed it to bring Android mainstream. Verizon's marketing blitz (which was harder than the purple people eaters!) was extremely successful. The Droid is a solid piece of hardware. And Android has attracted a lot of people and carriers because of it's flexibility (and I'm not talking hacking here, I'm talking simple customization). It was the perfect storm, and it worked like a charm.

Now, all 3 corporations are in a completely different position than they were a year ago. Verizon now has a much larger presence in the smartphone market, Motorola is back in good standing and making solid products again, and Android is more of a household name (at least more than it was a year ago), and continuing to grow fast.

Here's why I think that Verizon/Moto/Google want things to be more locked down, and have every right to do so.

Verizon – it's their data, and their customer service is the frontman for any problems. Despite their claims, their 3g network is still limited, and will be affected by having more smartphone users in their system. They want to control their data to keep it running as smoothly as possible for as many customers as possible. Hence, tethering breaks the TOS, and you have to pay for it on the new phones where they allow it. Any time one of their phones have a problem, they’re the first to receive the call – and despite the loads of instructions, people still screw their phones up when they root and flash custom roms, leaks, whatever.

Motorola – they make the hardware. Hacking affects the hardware – especially overclocking (yes I know the arguments here).

Google – They want Android to be mainstream. They want devs to look at developing on Android first. The more hacking there is, the more piracy there is. The more hacking there is, the more little problems occur that might not occur otherwise (FC’s, incompatibilities, etc.). They want Android to be a smooth sailing process from dev to end user.

Open source has little to do with hacking. Do I love being able to root (and flash custom roms, etc) my phone for full control? Yes. Are a majority of users willing to take the time to read up before they do this? No. Does that mean more problems? Yes. Does that cost these companies money? Yes.


Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pleased about this either. But I’m not going to act like they owe it to us at all – we’re not the majority of users, and we have little affect on their bottom line – and that’s the bottom line (sorry, couldn't resist the pun).

You make some valid points here, sir; however, an open-source operating system is no longer an open-source operating system when these corporations are trying to ensure no changes are made whatsoever. Because that's the direction they're headed. Why don't they just stop us from getting our hopes up, and, as I said in my above post, just give us something as locked down as the iPhone OS? Why don't they start only allowing only apps they like in the Marketplace?

Plus, I fail to see how me bricking my phone, or something along those lines costs them money. Do phone warranties cover that? Unless I'm mistaken, they do not.

 

[Pandemic187]

They're taking an open-source operating system and making it a closed-source operating system. We may as well get iOS on our phones.

We can install whatever we want, can we not? We just can't DO whatever we want (i.e. wifi tethering, overclocking, etc.). The more open source becomes mainstream, the more it will be affected by the bottom line (i.e. the $$) and therefore the more control the corporations will want to have over it. We'll never be fully open-source with anything because we are a capitalistic country with corporations that like to make $$. That's why I think the Droid 1 was a "loss leader".

I can install whatever I want on Windows or Mac OS, and God knows those are not open-source operating systems.

 

[furbearingmammal]

Good points, but I disagree with the hacking/piracy argument. Piracy is rampant no matter what -- why pay when you can get for free? On the iOS platform piracy is unbelievable because of the one-touch jailbreaking apps, etc, and there are whole alternative app stores set up to deliver warez apps to anyone who wants them -- furthermore, there are still more iPhone users than Android users at the moment, so do the math.

It's technically easier to pirate apps on the Android platform, but so far piracy (though still rampant, as it always will be) is still fairly low-key because of the advantages and low-cost associated with the Market. That and, for the most part, Android users aren't jackholes.

Maybe that should be the motto -- Come to Android OS: Most of our users aren't jackholes, unlike a certain other company we won't mention.

 

[jntdroid]

They're taking an open-source operating system and making it a closed-source operating system. We may as well get iOS on our phones.

We can install whatever we want, can we not? We just can't DO whatever we want (i.e. wifi tethering, overclocking, etc.). The more open source becomes mainstream, the more it will be affected by the bottom line (i.e. the $$) and therefore the more control the corporations will want to have over it. We'll never be fully open-source with anything because we are a capitalistic country with corporations that like to make $$. That's why I think the Droid 1 was a "loss leader".

I can install whatever I want on Windows or Mac OS, and God knows those are not open-source operating systems.

Good point. I guess part of the problem is that open source is something a corporation can never fully adopt (at least the way things are today), because it's somewhat counter intuitive to the inherent nature of a for-profit corporation.

Oh, to your previous post, I simply meant that causing problems on your phone costs customer service time and money, potentially. As you said, if you simply have to replace it, it's the insurance company's "cost".

I guess the other part of the problem is that you have three corporations from three different industries at play here, all profiting from their "partnership" with each other. When Google had the 2.2 press conference, they said wifi tethering would be native. Then what happens? Moto/VZW nixed that idea completely on the Droid 1, and decided to make it more controlled on the D.Inc, DX, and D2. And again, I can understand why Verizon would want limitations on that, and I can also understand (to a lesser extent) why Moto would be against that as well, because, technically, the Droid 1 does not have the hardware capable of being a true hotspot.

You have three corporations that benefit from their partnership with each other, so there will inevitably be some give and take between them, at the cost of open-source, or whatever else.

 

[furbearingmammal]

JNT:

You sure about that with the Droid 1? I've been reading it's a case of a missing driver, not a hardware issue.

 

[Pandemic187]

JNT:

You sure about that with the Droid 1? I've been reading it's a case of a missing driver, not a hardware issue.

The way Motorola is sounding here, that would make sense to me. They make us think it's a hardware issue, so you have to upgrade to the D2 or DX to get it. Oh, and then you have to pay Verizon $20/month to use it...