Related
I struggled long and hard with the decision to purchase the EVO. Its competitor for my patronage was the Nexus One on T-Mobile. At last, I made my decision based upon the following criteria: 1) better hardware, 2) better network, and 3) better price. Seems a no brainer, right?
Now that what's done is done, I'm left with a sense of remorse. Over what? Openness. Fortunately, I haven't bricked my Evo yet, but there is a very real possibility that I will at some point. With no open boot loader and a carrier hellbent on closing their system, I have to break into my own phone with a bunch of borrowed hacks, the mechanics of which are about 3 miles over my head.
What was Google really trying to do? By cutting out the carrier from distribution, the carriers don't have an opportunity to bake the system with their garbageware and close the door behind them. By failing to support Google's effort, each of us makes it less likely in some small amount that Google will do this again. We sold them out for a front-facing camera and a bit more screen (with light leak).
Then there we will be on the forums complaining about those evil, freedom-hating carriers. But then, perhaps we chose this and deserve our fates.
If you really were deciding between the nexus one and the evo how come you didn't know the evo was locked .... I mean about just everyone knew this, every single phone but the nexus one its locked from the beginning give it a few days for people to release root, I had a nexus one and couldn't be more happy to have bought the evo I hope you enjoy your phone man
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Sent from my HTC Evo via the XDA Tapatalk App
Rooting isn't THAT hard. Stop being such a drama queen.
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Sent from my EVO 4G using Tapatalk Pro.
TheBiles said:
Rooting isn't THAT hard. Stop being such a drama queen.
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Click to collapse
You do realize that we do not have full root--and might not ever have full root, right?
You also realize as time goes on that this will inevitably become more difficult?
As charged as the OP's post is, he does have a point.
aLdaRiS said:
If you really were deciding between the nexus one and the evo how come you didn't know the evo was locked .... I mean about just everyone knew this, every single phone but the nexus one its locked from the beginning give it a few days for people to release root, I had a nexus one and couldn't be more happy to have bought the evo I hope you enjoy your phone man
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Sent from my HTC Evo via the XDA Tapatalk App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I knew the evo was locked. I was just too caught up in the specs and the excitement. I got greedy. She was hot, so I cheated. Now I'm sober and feel a sense of remorse.
nihilion_Zero said:
I knew the evo was locked. I was just too caught up in the specs and the excitement. I got greedy. She was hot, so I cheated. Now I'm sober and feel a sense of remorse.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why don't you just return the phone if this bugs you so much?
Shidell said:
You do realize that we do not have full root--and might not ever have full root, right?
You also realize as time goes on that this will inevitably become more difficult?
As charged as the OP's post is, he does have a point.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm fairly confident that we will get NAND access fairly soon. There is no such thing as an "unhackable" device. Even now, though, it is NOT that difficult to access recovery and easily flash custom ROMs.
Just my two cents, I have only had one android phone and that was the mytouch from t-mobile. I now have the HTC - HD2 and really like it. When it comes to flashing roms, especially for someone new to winmo like me, it can be a bit scary. The developers have a HSPL flash that takes away almost all the risks as long as you use common sense and read things carefully. With that said I did see where a Chef of the HD2 bricked his phone just a few days ago (I have no idea what he was attempting to do when he bricked it but it did make me realize the danger)
Thanks
Derbyman32
Yes, if the remorse is really that bad, take it back. Sprint will refund ALL of your money. Then get the Nexus One for T-Mobile for $179. No-brainer...and the N1 is still an awesome Android phone!
I've seen enough issues on this forum to know that some people have no business flashing a camera, let alone a $500 phone. These are the same people that will install a GSM radio on their CDMA phone, come here and beg for a fix only to be told "sorry, read the instructions next time." They then head to Sprint, shrug, and say "I don't know, it worked fine yesterday" in the hopes of getting the phone replaced under warranty.
I agree with the premise that they are our phones and we should be able to flash whatever we want on them; however, if *I* break my phone, I do not expect Sprint to fix it. Unfortunately, common ethical behavior such as this escapes enough that Sprint made a business decision to make it hard enough so only those competent enough to follow complex procedures succeed in taking ownership of their phones. I get that. I also knew this before buying the phone.
If it's the principle of the matter for you, you can always go back to the N1, but I'd wonder why you're here in the first place.
Me? I have enough faith in this community to undo the locks, and I'll patiently enjoy the marvel of technology the EVO is while shackled until the benefits of rooting outweigh my perceived risks in performing the procedure.
Until then, I have what I consider to be the best handheld computer on the planet. Sorry for being long winded.
jmxp69 said:
Until then, I have what I consider to be the best handheld computer on the planet. Sorry for being long winded.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I second that emotion! And it can even make the occasional phone call, too!
nihilion_Zero said:
carrier hellbent on closing their system, I have to break into my own phone with a bunch of borrowed hacks, the mechanics of which are about 3 miles over my head.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think a LESS true statement could be said.
Sprint doesn't give two flying flips what you do with your device. They have never made a move to precent root access, and MANY of the same reps who sell these devices root when it becomes available. The phone comes locked because of security and licensing agreements.
An example for the Evo is QIK. QIK is not made by Sprint, HTC, or Google. It is its own entity who paid HTC and Sprint a great deal of money to bake this app into the firmware. It would be a violation of that agreement to allow you to remove this app by default, therefore Root access is removed.
Android, when rooted, has so many holes in the security that information on the phone (like your contact list!) would in no way be considered safe. Sprint has to make some guarantee for that information, so those holes are filled and Root accessis denied.
However, should you be one of those FEW people competent enough to handle this kind of power, and you understand that Sprint, HTC, and Google will honor to warranty for the device should you break it then go for it. None of these companies will make even a token effort to stop you.
You are, for all intents and purposes, ignored. Software updates will be made as though Root did not exist. Known issues and fixes will be sent to employees and techs as though you did not exist. Features will be advertised as stock that you might no longer have, because you no longer exist.
It's not that the "carrier is bent on closing the system" it's that they are bound be several contracts to not help you.
For those of you moaning and throwing you toys out their prams with regard to the delay in Samsung releasing Froyo and threatening to sell your SGS, I have some good news for you.
Rather than post you rants in other threads that are useful, use this one to act like children.
Those of us who like the SGS don't care about you in the slightest.
There are far more people here giving the phone their support that you the minority.
The only thing I ask is that when you buy your next Android phone, can you please let us know that you are selling it because you are once again throwing your toys out of the pram?
Believe me, I an many others will not be in the slightest bit surprised, however, you could buy and Iphone or better still, give up on the idea of smartphone for now and pray that the likes of Nokia can pull something out of the bag.
This forum would be a hell of a lot cleaner if people could engage their mental ignore more often (and yes, I realise posting just to say this is hypocritical in the extreme). Instead of creating a thread especially for people "to act like children" (which is childish in itself, IMO), why not just ignore them? They'll get the message eventually if people stop responding...
That would NORMALLY work Voleo. But...
Firstly, the Mods aren't closing those threads.. They should because they are dupes anyway, and angry rants aren't relevent to XDA. We now have many copies of the same thread..
Secondly, people who are leaving often feel the need to "threaten" Samsung and whine in every thread for a few weeks about the same problems. Then slowly, some of them seem to switch to blatant lying/deception to spark a mutiny (ie. "the GPS/lag IS a HARDWARE problem" which can't be fixed). Finally then, they sell their phone, post in a few existing threads that they got fed up and sold their phone. Some also start their own thread. Those who are considering doing the same give them a pat on the back and given words of advice off the other trolls considering leaving, for eg "it's healthy to rant". Which continues the chain going. Since they have issues (with the phone and otherwise), they want to make Samsung suffer.
The big problem however, is that doing so, their BS/exaggerations accumulates and if nobody responds, we have a forum filled with rubbish like "33% of the time my phone is laggy". So, in part, we need to tell them to prove their claims, or STFU, because otherwise, they enforce each other, reduce morale here, and cause other people to exaggerate minor problems in their mind, and on the forum.
Oh here we go, yet another thread to ***** around Thought we had enough of them?
If you are not happy with your "product" sell it move on and enjoy the life. Simple. As you definitely wont be loosing money on SGS.
Have always worked for me.
Cheers
Vlad
Now is a good time for Luecke's laws...
Luecke's first law
Those who are dissatisfied will always strive to exaggerate minor device problems in technical forums.
Luecke's second law
When making technical comparisons between devices in arguments, dissatisfied users will compare to devices based on company reputation alone, and will totally ignore fixed problems with that device.
dovla_sa said:
Oh here we go, yet another thread to ***** around Thought we had enough of them?
If you are not happy with your "product" sell it move on and enjoy the life. Simple. As you definitely wont be loosing money on SGS.
Have always worked for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I said once again, not everyone can just "sell on", and I disagree you "definitely wont lose money"... how not?
The 8Gb SGS was £450 on launch here, if I were to sell now I probably wouldn't even get £300 for it - that's depreciation whichever way you wrap it up - unless of course you bought it second hand to begin with.
I agree in some ways that there are some childish rants in here. I have myself been criticial of the SGS, but my "rants" were detailed and constructive. In some ways, some of the replies I got which were defending the SGS were actually more childish than my constructive criticism, so its not the one sided affair that threads like this portray.
Incidentally, I get the impression that some people simply don't like hearing any criticism of their beloved phone. This is "fanboy" behaviour. Most level headed people would admit that the phone has some relatively major problems, and to say otherwise is burying your head in the sand. I've said it before, it comes down to how heavily you use the phone, and what your past experiences / expectations are.
I'll be honest, I've come close at times to selling the SGS. By xmas there will be a number of phones I would swap with quite happily for one reason or another, but its the phone I've got, and the idea of losing a load of money selling it does not sit easy with me no matter how many faults it might have.
To be fair, thanks to this forum I've actually managed to tweak the phone and get it to a standard which is pretty much more than acceptable, but it has taken me lots of time, and it has taken developers on here lots of time to produce fixes for some of the problems. If it time is money, then the SGS has been by far the most expensive mobile phone I've yet owned!
Wow, the OP is pure hypocrisy.
But I've seen one thing. Most of us hate apple fan boys, but it looks like xda is full of SGS fan boys too.
The point is, the SGS does have problems because of buggy software. No one knows when official fixes are coming out. So for some people, its better to sell, make Samsung look like idiots, and walk. Samsung do deserve to look like fools. Their QA dept. is just royally screwed. Its just sad how great HW is killed by crap SW.
If people wanna rant, then let them. Most of the time the rants are true, but maybe quantitatively exaggerated, example 50% of the time lagging. It nevertheless brings to light real problems of the SGS's SW.
Many people do rant over and over again in every tread. It kind of boring to read same thing over and over again from same people. If they stayed in this tread it would be 30-40% less post in every tread and it would be nice and more correct.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
asicman said:
Wow, the OP is pure hypocrisy.
But I've seen one thing. Most of us hate apple fan boys, but it looks like xda is full of SGS fan boys too.
The point is, the SGS does have problems because of buggy software. No one knows when official fixes are coming out. So for some people, its better to sell, make Samsung look like idiots, and walk. Samsung do deserve to look like fools. Their QA dept. is just royally screwed. Its just sad how great HW is killed by crap SW.
If people wanna rant, then let them. Most of the time the rants are true, but maybe quantitatively exaggerated, example 50% of the time lagging. It nevertheless brings to light real problems of the SGS's SW.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome post! Thank you. The SGS fanboys are just as annoying as the Apple ones.
Chill, it's just a phone.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
While I've been using Linux as my main OS since 1997, not all my friends have. I've fixed the lag issue. I wouldn't trust my friends to realize the root cause of the lag problem and then find a fix. They would think the product is bad. And it is. What the hell kind of product has to be jailbroken to correct bad engineering? I'm not talking of too-restrictive-engineering (like App Store), but straight-out bad engineering. After a few days of use and few tens of applications (which is well within normal and encouraged use of a flagship product, non?), lagging becomes terrible. Applying a lag fix results in a roughly ten-fold increase in effective IOPS.
Anyhow, I cannot fix the GPS issue. It has to be done in firmware. I got this phone in JU-FREAKIN'-LY and Samsung STILL haven't fixed this issue. And I ain't complaining about lack of Froyo.
I'M COMPLAINING ABOUT A LACK OF BASIC BUGFIXES!
Oh, and that the slow, overengineered, proprietary Kies application crashes whenever I try to install whatever firmware update they just posted. They were three months late in posting fixes. And now their update procedure doesn't work. Adding insult to injury is not a good idea. What the hell kinda management will let such products out the door - both the 2.1 firmware for the SGS and the now-broken Kies?
Sorry I had to yell at you. I hope you misunderstood because you've listened to too much awesome rock'n'roll music and that has fried your ears.
My phone got faster after lagfix on 2.1 and 2.2, but i never had any big lag that the wieners here have.
I also have an iphone and can compare them. Iphone do lag sometimes to. Sometimes it just freezing. Sometimes it crash. I can say the sgs is better on everything.
The gps is much better.
Better screen.
.....
....
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
For me, who had a htc diamond and then an iphone 3g... GPS is amazing in the SGS lol
Fanboyism is never good.
Samsung shouldnt have made promise
that they can't keep. Thats not professional.
However, apple fanboys are the worst.
Steve Jobs has become like a religion.
I have used the SGS for 2 months and I am on stock firmware with voodoo lagfix. I don't know why people are complaining about buggy firmware. The firmware is NOT buggy. I never have crashes or major issues with core software components. The only issue is the lag but this can be fixed (i am using voodoo and this fix has eliminates most lag).
As for GPS, I did not encountered any issues with it with most navigation software. Some times accuracy may not be perfectly accurate but is still within tolerance.
Froyo may bring more goodies, but even as it is now, the Galaxy is near perfect. I think this phone will still come out on top in any pro-con list with other phones.
whats is the big deal.. every phone has bugs.. I had an I phone3g and once it was loaded with apps it would hang up from time to time and lag.. the same with the blackberry bold 2nd gen that I had it would lag all over once it had alot of apps... HTC's phones are the same way.. This is what can happens once the OS's on smart phones becomes complex.. its not just the Samsung S..
I'm running JPK with no lag fix.. (no need for it with JPK) and alot of people I have showed the phone too can't get over how fast it is.. these are people with Iphones and Blackberrys.
TriC_101 said:
whats is the big deal.. every phone has bugs.........
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The big deal is Samsungs ignorance or incompetence to make a bug fix. I bought my SGS late june, and still no GPS fix from Samsung.
I can live with a laggy and erratic GPS, but I can not live with a GPS who sometimes are running in the parallel streets and tries to guide me back to the street I am actually driving for the moment.
Edit:
My SGS is in for service for 3. time now. If the GPS is not working when it returns, it will be "3 Strikes Out" and my money back and Samsung's ignorance or incompetence has saved me my money.
TriC_101 said:
whats is the big deal.. every phone has bugs..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, because every phone has bugs we have to shut down the mouth and say nothing?
If an iPhone 4 has bugs we have to say that, if an HTC has bugs we have to say that.
Nobody is saying don't say anything.. But what is getting annoying:
People posting dedicated threads containing the bugs which annoy them, instead of posting to the threads already discussing the separate bugs. Strangely, they aren't marked as dupes...
The constant exaggerations and lies. Rather than have an honest debate, many are choosing to heavily exaggerate/lie about their problems. Rather than have an honest debate, many people are also trying to close debate with BS such as "the gps problems ARE HARDWARE, end of story!", or use fake statistics such as "this phone is unusable 66% of the time it's so laggy". The other side isn't perfect either though, and some are saying "the GPS is perfect, but they wont post tracks".
The lack of proof. People are getting away with inventing claims too easily. ON BOTH SIDES. People are accepting "it's detailed in another thread" as evidence, whilst in many cases, it isn't actually PROVEN in any other thread, or the "proof" has flaws .
People are getting called fanboy's when they question a claim. This shouldn't happen
People who are dissatisfied need to patting their fellow whingers on the back for creating threads and venting.
We need more people to question what is said, and just because something IS said, to not allow them to be called a fanboy. That's the problem. There's a lot of BS on both sides, and not enough questioning.
No external linking is allowed?! How am I going to prove this? Let's be manaul:
My endomondo account 225326 has workouts using both a Nokia n82 (before July) and Samsung Galaxy S (starting in july). The Nokia workouts rarely had GPS issues aside from inaccuracy when running close to larger buildings. I do all the time with my Samsung Galaxy S, it will only have sporadic locks. It is useless for tracking workouts, it only works as a glorified stopwatch. Google Maps is close to unusable, especially when outside urban areas where there's enough base stations to triangulate with fair accuracy.
If you turn off the radio assist thing, you'll experience exactly how reliable the GPS is. I dare you to try!
Consumer Product Liability Law quote
"Products that malfunction or cause harm due to design flaws, manufacturing errors or inadequate warnings or directions are considered defective."
How much more time should we, consumers, give Samsung before asking Feds to help us? I personally would like to believe that consumers have rights, a concept that Samsung is not willing to accept.
For the curious ones, this post has to do with Samsung recalling the broken phones for the purpose of fixing them. For the ignorant ones, pat yourself on the back for accomplishing nothing again.
I suppose the other thread with people whining was not adequate?
You didnt even address what you are upset about? I assume GPS.... which is funny since the VAST MAJORITY on here have absolutely no issues.
Lawsuits and such
Krzysiek_CK said:
Consumer Product Liability Law quote "Products that malfunction or cause harm due to design flaws, manufacturing errors or inadequate warnings or directions are considered defective." How much more time should we, consumers, give Samsung before asking Feds to help us? I personally would like to believe that consumers have rights, a concept that Samsung is not willing to accept.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm assuming based on your other postings that this relates to GPS issues. I'll try to address your questions with as little drama as possible:
How much more time should we, consumers, give Samsung...
- After you have exhausted all other remedies. In some cases, never. Were you aware of the issue in the time window when the product could still be returned or exchanged?
...before asking Feds to help us?
- There is no "Asking Feds" to help. You can file complaints with the FTC or maybe another federal organization, or with your state attorney general. As you probably know, your likely success in this area will be close to zero.
I personally would like to believe that consumers have rights, a concept that Samsung is not willing to accept
- you do have rights, but from a civil law perspective, what are your damages? Do you think a reasonable person on a jury would find Samsung liable for anything, when 98% of the phone functionality works just fine, and as for GPS, it works fine for some significant percentage of the consumers? You should be asking yourself what is your personal responsibility in this... did you keep the phone past the initial return period in hopes of a fix coming out? Did Samsung do due diligence and provide a fix eventually, that appears to have work for the vast majority of users? (Yes).
I know it frustrating, my device is the second one I had, the first one was crap, and this one the GPS works but is occasionally flaky. I'll get over it, and I have not relied on any assertions of Samsungs that caused irreparable harm. Generally, you cannot sue for grief (and while we as a country seem to have drifted that way, thank god that's still basically true). You will have this phone 1 to 3 years of what is hopefully a 80+ year life. You will make better buying decisions in the future, and do more due diligence when buying a phone. And this assumes you just don't sell this one on e-bay and buy another one.
So my long ramble is summarized, and aiming at all the other class action ninnies, into this one short sentence: "Get a life".
Mike (Who obviously has to much time on his hands today)
I'm confused by all of the people who complain about the GPS. Mine has always worked fine from stock through the latest ROM I am on. It seems like there are dozens of ways to fix the issue that have worked for many people. Are there still people out there who have exhausted every lead and STILL cannot get it to work? Whenever I read a complaint about GPS, people don't specify what they have tried and what has failed.
s15274n said:
I suppose the other thread with people whining was not adequate?
You didnt even address what you are upset about? I assume GPS.... which is funny since the VAST MAJORITY on here have absolutely no issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am seriously tired of seeing this response to people who are suffering with GPS issues to no avail. I don't really care about how the"vast majority" isn't having issues. I care about my phones issues. Obviously there are phones out there with a non functioning GPS. I am one of them, so is my wife. Even if 70%-80% of the phones had a functioning GPS that still leaves 20%-30% SOL.
Did I notice the GPS issue when I bought the device? Yes. Did I notice that a good number of others had the same problems? Yes. We were advised by tmobile to wait for a patch. The patch came well past the return date.
tl;dl
If your GPS is working that's great, that doesn't mean that everyone's is working. There are people that still have major GPS issues. If you don't like the complaints don't click on the thread.
I have tried all of the fixes btw. My wife and I still have extremely inconsistent performance and locking issues.
velocd said:
I am seriously tired of seeing this response to people who are suffering with GPS issues to no avail. I don't really care about how the"vast majority" isn't having issues. I care about my phones issues. Obviously there are phones out there with a non functioning GPS. I am one of them, so is my wife. Even if 70%-80% of the phones had a functioning GPS that still leaves 20%-30% SOL.
Did I notice the GPS issue when I bought the device? Yes. Did I notice that a good number of others had the same problems? Yes. We were advised by tmobile to wait for a patch. The patch came well past the return date.
tl;dl
If your GPS is working that's great, that doesn't mean that everyone's is working. There are people that still have major GPS issues. If you don't like the complaints don't click on the thread.
I have tried all of the fixes btw. My wife and I still have extremely inconsistent performance and locking issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you should try AXURA if you havent, my GPS never worked until then, its a few feet off, but i dont mind that.
@OP, why is the only reason that you people think vibrants suck is the GPS?
WOOPTIDOO! a gps doesn't work.
Think of it this way, would you take a IPhone from which your calls would drop, and wouldn't be able to call anyone half the time? or not be able to use your dang brain to read the street names and figure out where your going.
...................
So basically the op didn't do his research before buying a product and now wants to cry foul. I bought my Vibrant in August, bought two, after researching it for a good two weeks. I compared it to most of the other offerings from all carriers with the exception of iPhone. I was fully aware of the gps issue before hand, very well documented. I even went so far as to have the work around sitting on my computer when I brought the thing home. One of the first things I did was apply the work around.
All that said maybe you should take a good hard look in the mirror and ask yourself who really needs to be blamed for you owning a product that doesn't work to the abilities that you think it should.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
And I'm REALLY tired of people coming to a development forum making posts about class action lawsuits.... Heaven forbid they use an existing thread (there was one on the very same page when the op created this thread).
There is nothing wrong with the vast majority, this can't be denied. There are a ton of ways to try and correct the problem.
H,eck send me your phone and I'll create a video of YOUR phone navigating me to the local bar so I can celebrate one less annoying "let's sue... For something" thread.
bigragu said:
I'm confused by all of the people who complain about the GPS. Mine has always worked fine from stock through the latest ROM I am on. It seems like there are dozens of ways to fix the issue that have worked for many people. Are there still people out there who have exhausted every lead and STILL cannot get it to work? Whenever I read a complaint about GPS, people don't specify what they have tried and what has failed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While the OP is kind of a tool (yeah, the Feds are going to leap in and fix your phone...), these "My GPS works great!" posts are almost as ridiculous.
It isn't as if a bunch of us got together and pretended to have insurmountable GPS problems.
In my case, the GPS has become usable after the second Eclair update. My wife's still doesn't work but she doesn't use it, so she doesn't care. The other two in the house now work normally. So just in my house, we pretty much cover the range.
Just because it isn't affecting you doesn't mean the rest of us are merely delusional.
And since you asked, yeah, I have tried pretty much eveything that was suggested here on XDA, short of some of the more recent ROMS (which I don't want for a variety of other reasons).
xriderx66 said:
you should try AXURA if you havent, my GPS never worked until then, its a few feet off, but i dont mind that.
@OP, why is the only reason that you people think vibrants suck is the GPS?
WOOPTIDOO! a gps doesn't work.
Think of it this way, would you take a IPhone from which your calls would drop, and wouldn't be able to call anyone half the time? or not be able to use your dang brain to read the street names and figure out where your going.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you recommend medication for a person with hardware problems. That says more about your condition than that of the person you're replying to.
Maybe people are upset because the Vibrant was advertised as having a GPS, and a GPS is a huge part of Android's functionality? Just because your GPS works, or because you don't use it, doesn't excuse you coming in here and acting like a jerk.
Col.Kernel said:
So you recommend medication for a person with hardware problems. That says more about your condition than that of the person you're replying to.
Maybe people are upset because the Vibrant was advertised as having a GPS, and a GPS is a huge part of Android's functionality? Just because your GPS works, or because you don't use it, doesn't excuse you coming in here and acting like a jerk.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. My GPS never worked until I found the Axura rom it worked on all 3 of my vibrants.
Try the rom if you want the GPS so dang much. Is all I'm saying.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
This is not legal advice, but:
As far as a lawsuit goes, the best argument would be that product was "not fit for the particular purpose for which it was sold." Most jurisdictions have some form of breach of warranty laws that could provide the basis for a suit if the product was advertised or represented as having working gps. However, Samsung/T-Mobile would have the defense that when you purchased the phone, the gps didn't work but you kept it anyways (past the 14 or 30 day buyer's remorse period). In other words, by not returning it, you accepted the non-conforming goods.
As for the "Feds" stepping in, I wouldn't count on it. Your best bet would be to find an attorney that would take on a class action suit in hopes of a big fee award. Usually if there is any merit to a claim like this, attorneys are jumping at the chance to sue, b/c at the end of the day the settlement is usually something like pennies for the consumer, a promise by the company to play fair in the future and a big award of attorneys fees.
All that being said, I would think that if you sent Samsung/T-Mobile a well drafted demand letter under your jurisdiction's consumer protection laws, they would make an offer of a return or exchange of the phone to avoid the hassle. Better yet if you had an attorney friend that would do it for you.
Well, as someone with GPS issues, I'll say that something like a class action is largely useless.
I also think that "oh, just try another ROM", while valid in some cases, is also completely ridiculous. One shouldn't have to modify their phone and void a warranty in order to have functional hardware (note I've done both ).
I know it's frustrating. For me, no update or work around worked. I had to crack open my phone and bend up the contact on my GPS Antenna (which plenty of us are trying here) and now it works great. Is my SNR the strongest? No, it doesn't really go above 40. But I get 10-14 satellites to lock and it holds a signal even inside the house.
Yeah, it's insane to have a problem with something so basic on a smart phone these days. But the reality is that the vast majority of smart phone users never even turn on GPS. Out of the ones that do, a small percentage have issues. That means that there's only a small fraction of SGS users experiencing GPS issues and the people that tend to be the loudest are the ones that have problems. Samsung doesn't care. Neither would HTC or Motorola.
They also know that the average length of time the average user keeps a phone is 20 months. That number decreases with smart phones AND with people that are tinkerers. I'd imagine it would be a rarity for a lot of people here to keep a phone longer than 16-18 months. All of these manufacturers know that you'll move on to the next device long before you get a class action lawsuit going.
I may be an exception, but my time is worth more money than a class action over a device that is 97% functional.
"Plaintiff asserts that Defendant's product is 'laggy', as such term is commonly understood within the North American phone nerd community; and even the use of third-party measures such as 'Ryan's OCLF' did not transform the product into the 'buttery-smooth beast' that Plaintiff had intended to purchase..."
If you have tried the workarounds and have got all the current updates and your GPS is not working, walk into a T-Mobile store or call customer service and complain. Every day people are getting replacement phones and if they tell you that you are out of your return window, explain that you kept getting told to wait by your local rep.
This is a basic customer service issue, no need to get all bent out of shape. If yours doesn't work, ***** up a storm with T-Mobile for a replacement.
xriderx66 said:
No. My GPS never worked until I found the Axura rom it worked on all 3 of my vibrants.
Try the rom if you want the GPS so dang much. Is all I'm saying.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
I couldn't agree more and that was the point of my earlier post. I understand there are people who have issues that others don't. (I had the hardware lock issue). It just seems that there ARE ROMs out there that have fixed the problem. If you need GPS that bad (and I do), try them until you find one that works.
I jusy don't get peaple...Just call Tmobile and tell them your issue like some other user and they will replace your phone...
This was posted by p3droid on mydroidworld - many of us know him, or have at least heard of him. He knows what hes talking about, and this info is somewhat disturbing. This is just a copy/paste of his OP.
Bootloaders, Rooting, Manufacturers, and Carriers
Background
I don't believe that I need to introduce myself, but if I do my name is P3Droid. I am a phone enthusiast and have been working in the Android platform for 17 months. I have been very lucky in my short time on the Android platform. I think more than anything I have been lucky enough to be in the right places at the right times. The day I first saw and played with the Droid (OG) I thought “that is the ugliest damn phone I've ever played with”. Then I was asked back into the store by my friend (nameless) to get some time with the Android platform and he began to explain to me how open the phone was and how a “smart” person could do anything they wanted to the phone. That turned what I thought was an ugly phone into the sexiest beast ever. I guess that was approximately October of 2009, and I was excited about the possibilities and dove right in without checking the depth of the water.
I spent much of the year on an open phone and an open platform, and sometime in July I picked up a Droid X. I soon found a great bunch of friends and we formed Team Black Hat. Really wanting to break the bootloader, we spent more hours working on it than we did our 9 – 5 jobs. Eventually we came to the conclusion (with help from some unique resources), that we were not going to accomplish our objective. Every so often we still pluck away at it, but we have moved on to other things that will help people enjoy their Droid phones.
Fast forward to October 2010. I'm still in love with the concept of android, and I've done more than my share of developing, themeing, creating ROMS and even hacking. *Having been involved in so many things and having developed some unique contacts, I have been privy to information that is not disseminated to the masses. Some of this information I was asked to sit on. Some information I sat on because I felt it was best to do so for our entire community. You have probably seen me rant on occasion about what I thought the community was doing wrong and causing itself future pain. Each of those days I had received even more disheartening information. So where does this leave me? It leaves me with a difficult choice to make. What to tell, how much to tell, and do I want to give information out that could possible be slightly wrong. I've worked very hard to verify things through multiple sources, when possible, and some other information comes from sources so reliable that I take them at their word.
This brings me up to today. I've tossed and turned regarding how to say this, and how to express all of the information and my feelings in regards to this information. I guess the solution is to just let you all decide for yourselves what you think and what you want to do.
One Shoe Falls
Beginning in July, we (TBH), began hearing things about [FONT=inherit !important][FONT=inherit !important]Motorola[/FONT][/FONT] working on ways to make rooting the device more difficult. This was going to be done via [FONT=inherit !important][FONT=inherit !important]Google[/FONT][/FONT] through the kernel. No big deal we thought, the community always finds a way. When Froyo was released and there was no root for some time we became a bit concerned but soon there was a process and even 1-clicks. This was good news and bad news to me, because it simply meant that they would go back to the drawing board and improve upon what they had done.
During this time there were still little rumors here and there about security of devices, and other such things but nothing solid and concrete. Until November.
The Other Shoe Falls
Beginning in October, the information began coming in faster and it had more of a dire ring to it. It was also coming in from multiple sources. I began to rant a little at the state of our community, and that we were the cause of our own woes. So what did I hear?1. New devices would present challenges for the community that would most likely be insurmountable, and that Motorola specifically – would be impossible to hack the bootloader. Considering we never hacked the previous 3G phones, this was less than encouraging.
2.Locked bootloaders, and phones were not a Motorola-only issue, that the major manufacturers and carriers had agreed this was the best course of action.(see new [FONT=inherit !important][FONT=inherit !important]HTC [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=inherit !important][FONT=inherit !important]devices[/FONT][/FONT])
3. The driving forces for device lock down was theft of service by rooted users, the return of non-defective devices due to consumer fraud, and the use of non-approved firmware on the networks.I think I posted my first angry message and [FONT=inherit !important][FONT=inherit !important]tweet[/FONT][/FONT] about being a responsible community soon after getting this information. I knew the hand writing was on the wall, and we would not be able to stop what was coming, but maybe we could convince them we were not all thieves and cut throats.
Moving along, December marked a low point for me. The information started to firm up, and I was able to verify it through multiple channels. This information made the previous information look like a day in the park. So what was new?1. Multiple carriers were working collaboratively on a [FONT=inherit !important][FONT=inherit !important]program[/FONT][/FONT] that would be able to identify rooted users and create a database of their meids.
2. Manufacturers who supply Verizon were baking into the roms new security features:
a. one security feature would identify any phone using a tether program to circumvent paying for tethering services. (check your gingerbread DroidX/Droid2 people and try wireless tether)
b. a second security feature would allow the phone to identify itself to the network if rooted.
c. security item number 2 would be used to track, throttle, even possibly restrict full data usage of these rooted phones.The Rubber Meets the Road
So, I wish I had more time to have added this to the original post, but writing something like this takes a lot of time and effort to put all the information into context and provide some form of linear progression.
Lets get on with the story. March of this year was a monumental month for me. The information was unsettling and I felt as if we had a gigantic bulls-eye on our backs.
This is what I have heard:1. The way that they were able to track rooted users is based on pushing updates to phones, and then tracking which meid's did not take the update. There is more to it than this but that is the simple version.
2. More than one major carrier besides Verizon has implemented this program and that all carriers involved had begun tracking rooted phones. All carriers involved were more than pleased with the accuracy of the program.1. What I was not told is what the carriers intended to do with this information.3. In new builds the tracking would be built into the firmware and that if a person removed the tracking from the firmware then the phone would not be verified on the network (i.e. your phone could not make phone calls or access data).
4. Google is working with carriers and manufacturers to secure phones, and although Google is not working to end hacking, it is working to secure the kernel so that no future [FONT=inherit !important][FONT=inherit !important]applications[/FONT][/FONT] can maliciously use exploits to steal end-user information. But in order to gain this level of security this may mean limited chances to root the device. (This item I've been told but not yet able to verify through multiple sources – so take it for what you want)
5. Verizon has successfully used its new programs to throttle data on test devices in accordance with the guidelines of the program.
6. The push is to lock down the devices as tight as can be, but also offer un-lockable devices (Think Nexus S).The question I've asked is why? Why do all this; why go through so much trouble. The answer I get is a very logical one and one I understand even if I don't like it. It is about the money. With LTE arriving and the higher charges for data and tethering, carriers feel they must bottle up the ability of users to root their device and access this data, circumventing the expensive tethering charges.
What I would like to leave you with is that this is not an initiative unique to Verizon or Motorola, this is industry wide and encompassing many manufacturers.
So what does all this mean? You will need to make your own conjectures about what to think of all of this. But, I think that the rooting, hacking, and modding community - as we know it - is living on borrowed time.
In the final analysis of all this I guess I'll leave you with my feelings:
I will take what comes and turn it into a better brighter day, that is all I can do because I do not control the world.
Disclaimers:
I am intentionally not including any names of sources as they do not want to lose their jobs.
This information is being presented to you as I have received and verified it. *
I only deal with information pertaining to US carriers and have no specific knowledge concerning foreign carriers. "
**** the carriers. There will be a revolt. There are enough intelligent people in our community to stop this from happening. I went with the Android OS because Apple is a POS and RIM just doesn't offer what I need in a smart phone. The carriers can try doing what they want but there will be an ugly battle.
Despite this being extremely upsetting news, thanks for sharing it. I'm hoping for the best and not going down without a fight.
Just thought of a potential solution. We could have someone develop a program which accepts these apps and finds whatever sort of signature the carriers are checking for. It can keep it on our phone and ping back to the carriers when queried.
Just a rough idea. But I know there are people far more intelligent than me that can get this done. Or perhaps something more ingenious. I have faith. It will be a nuisance but if we support our strongest devs we will get through this until the carriers piss the **** off.
Isn't Google throwing out the baby with the bathwater here? If the main objective of the carriers is to prevent unauthorized tethering, isn't there a way to do that without blocking root access?
bongd said:
**** the carriers. There will be a revolt. There are enough intelligent people in our community to stop this from happening. I went with the Android OS because Apple is a POS and RIM just doesn't offer what I need in a smart phone. The carriers can try doing what they want but there will be an ugly battle.
Despite this being extremely upsetting news, thanks for sharing it. I'm hoping for the best and not going down without a fight.
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This is my gut reaction as well. However...... Having spoken with a friend and engineer in the industry (I cannot say her name so take this quote with as much salt as needed) it was explained to me like this.
" Most cell carrier's infastructure are having a tough time dealing with the current customer load as it is. In fact, if you look at events where the influx of people can shut down networks such as AT&T ( the South by South West music fest in Austin TX for example) the cell carries are currently not too worried about losing, what they believe to be, a few customers.
Especially when you figure in the fact that you modding your phone and placing it on thier network is looked upon as you violating their contract. And as it was YOU who violated the contract in thier eyes, the cell carrier can continue charging you for your contract as well as making you purchase an "approved replacement handset"
I am not sure if this is truly the outlook of the carriers or simply the way one employee understands the situation to be......but it wouldnt surprise me if this was exactly how the dev community was viewed by them.
BUT, being around and playing with my phones for a few years now has taught me one thing. There are people on these forums with everybit the brains and know-how as the engineers the carriers employ. And given enough time EVERYTHING can be cracked.
bongd said:
**** the carriers. There will be a revolt. There are enough intelligent people in our community to stop this from happening. I went with the Android OS because Apple is a POS and RIM just doesn't offer what I need in a smart phone. The carriers can try doing what they want but there will be an ugly battle.
Despite this being extremely upsetting news, thanks for sharing it. I'm hoping for the best and not going down without a fight.
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Click to collapse
responses like this make me laugh. A revolt? What, more petitions, more rants on forums? This is a momentum shift that the end user can't do much about. There is pressure from a bunch of angles to start locking down certain aspects of android. If you read the whole post you'd notice the part about how a bunch of these security measures are being baked into android at the google level. This is not just verizon making demands of their phone makers.
and as intelligent as some devs are here, we're going to see their advances slowing way down. People are so hopeful that the devs will crack the bootloader (even though they've driven most of them away), yet they ignore the fact that the droidX has been locked down since release, and little to no progress has been made there. (i'm well aware they are slightly different, so don't bring it up). Even look what they did with the last update to the atrix, they blocked known root methods. No matter what the devs manage to do, teh makers have teams of people that just have to look at the exploits, and close them up.
i'm not saying i agree with the way things are going, i'm just trying to remain focused on the facts and be realistic.
cegna09 said:
responses like this make me laugh. A revolt? What, more petitions, more rants on forums? This is a momentum shift that the end user can't do much about. There is pressure from a bunch of angles to start locking down certain aspects of android. If you read the whole post you'd notice the part about how a bunch of these security measures are being baked into android at the google level. This is not just verizon making demands of their phone makers.
and as intelligent as some devs are here, we're going to see their advances slowing way down. People are so hopeful that the devs will crack the bootloader (even though they've driven most of them away), yet they ignore the fact that the droidX has been locked down since release, and little to no progress has been made there. (i'm well aware they are slightly different, so don't bring it up). Even look what they did with the last update to the atrix, they blocked known root methods. No matter what the devs manage to do, teh makers have teams of people that just have to look at the exploits, and close them up.
i'm not saying i agree with the way things are going, i'm just trying to remain focused on the facts and be realistic.
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I am being realistic. Nothing has been implemented yet, so how can we start brain storming? Nothing but ideas at this point, but it's a hard.
And by a revolt I don't mean one of those stupid petitions. We have people with varying specialties and occupations. Perhaps someone can find a legal clause that will help the battle, something in the ToS that would prevent the segregation of rooted versus non-rooted customers, etc.
Don't get all pissy on me about things. I'm not dreaming of anything outlandish. It's better than being a pessimist and taking it in the ass. Many people chose the Android platform for the freedom it provides. It enough customers are grossly outraged, it will NOT come to pass.
Look at Usage Based Billing. I work for one of the biggest ISPs in Canada and when we tried to introduce UBB we saw customers CHURN tremendously. We've received death threats for Christ sakes... and now ask me, cegna09, please ask if we've decided to go forward and bill customers under UBB?
In case that wasn't blatantly obvious and cynical enough, no, we haven't. It scared CEOs ****less and irritated the hell out of front line staff to the point where many of us feel no loyalty to the company anymore. It has shaken what little trust the consumers had in us and they've flocked for other providers. If Google wants to do this, they'd better be prepared for a ****storm of negative press. This is either fear mongering, exaggerations or a bad idea for Google and wireless carriers.
P.S. I type most of my posts at work so they're not always grammatically sound or eloquent. I don't give a **** though. Thanks for caring.
Okay tracking rooted users is new to me. but I thought the rest was normal procedure?
...Root exploit>carrier update (patches root)>new root exploit>new carrier update (patches new root)>newest root exploit...
How is the op any different than current procedure.? Is it just the addition of carriers tracking rooted users that makes this post notable? Because it seems like scaremongering to me. Should I really be that concerned? I already knew att doesn't like me to tether without a plan, and will do what it can to stop me. I dont have any more reason to believe att will stop service to my phone now than before I read this post.
Basically what started all this guys, was theft of services (free tethering) Everyone who has used the free tethering 'hacks' are largely responsible for this movement. Had everyone modded their phones responsibly, and not stolen services from the carriers because they thought they 'had that right' then this would probably not be happening to the extent that it is. I, for one, do not nor have i ever used a free tethering hack. I have unlimited data and use that freely on my phone. I use my pc for web browsing when i have a lot to do online. Below is a quote from a friend of mine on the Atrixforums.com site that is a very good view and quite accurate interpretation of whats happening.
das8nt said:
Yeah, I always knew something like this was going to come down the pipe... it was only a matter of time.
The third part, The Rubber Meets the Road, has been added. I've had some more time to think about this, and I've come to realize a few things. The following is my opinion on the whole subject. It might not be a very popular one, and posting it is not meant to start a large debate or anything, I just wanted to express my feeling on the matter. Please do not take offense to any of the points I'm trying to make; hopefully some of you know me well enough so far to know that I don't mean offense to anyone.
Opinion starts here...
They're right. The manufacturers, the carriers... they're right. We may not like it, but in the end they both have the full say in what happens. I'll give a few examples in a moment as to why I see it this way, but first I need to let you know where I'm coming from. I have a rooted phone; it's not my first rooted phone. I have tethered; though not often or very much at all, but I have tethered without a tethering plan on my account. I have installed ROMs, custom kernels, MODs, hacks... you name it, I've done it. I enjoy it if only because I can. Did I do it because it was needed? In some circumstances, I might argue, "yes;" in others, not in the slightest... it was just fun. The point to this being is that I have done most of everything that is being discussed in the Food For Thought post; and I've done it because I wanted to.
That brings me to a first example. You buy a car; a $20k car at that. Say you pay cash for it; it's yours. You don't even have to have full coverage insurance on it if you don't want to (some states.) You bought it as you daily driver, but you want to make some mods to it: aftermarket exhaust, lowering kit, cool-air intake.... and nitrous. You can do all of those things.; there's no one stopping you. What you can't do though, is maintain a factory warranty on your new car if you install those mods. When you alter the build of the car you are losing your right to claim that that car was manufactured improperly since it's no longer in the same state in which it was delivered to you. No big deal, right? Nothing ever goes wrong until the warranty expires anyway, we all know that. So, you take it to a drag track to see what it can do; how fast can it go? How quick can it hit the quarter mile line? You want to be know as the fastest, so you don't hold back... you kick in the nitrous.... but there's a problem. You didn't realize that the car was not meant to take that kind of load the way it was built. You blow your engine. Is the dealership or manufacturer going to warranty that engine? Would you really expect them to?
Second example. The same car you purchased, before you ever take it to the track, you want to drive it.... I mean really drive it; feel the true power and handling on the road. You take it out on the Interstate because that has the highest speed limits. You quickly get it up to to 70 mph, but that's not enough. You need more. You start to push it a little farther; no big deal... law enforcement doesn't usually care if you're only going a few mph over the limit, right? Well, you haven't been caught yet, so why not push it a little more? Before you know it you're at 95 mph and you see blue lights coming up quick behind you. Is that office going to let you off the hook because you own the car, have it modded and you feel you can do what you want with it? Would you expect them to?
Yes, we buy the phones. Yes, we own them. Yes, we can mod them how ever we can. What we can't do, though, is agree to a service contract and expect the provider of that contract to allow us to ignore their rules and exploit their services to the point that it costs them money. They are a business. They are not in the business for giving away free service, or replace products because the end user did not use them as intended; if they were they would not be in business very long. The carrier has the right to charge what they do, whether we like it or not. We, as users, have the right to find service elsewhere (most of us) or do with out. We agree to their terms when we allow them to provide us service. You do not have to sign a contract to agree to their terms; activating your phone on their network makes the agreement for you. Manufacturers have the right to lock their phones down, after all, they manufacture them. They are not in business to provide two or three phones for the price of one just because we broke the first couple trying to make them do things they were not intended to do. Again, if they were then they wouldn't be in business very long. If we do not like their practices we can buy from others.
I guess what it all boils down to in my mind is that if modding and hacking had been used the right way, we, the modding community and it's followers, might not have this situation coming down on us. If we did it just to customize our phones the way we want them, I'm sure they would have allowed that and worked with us. Since the opposite has been true for the most part, it surprises me in no way that this is about to happen. Users have been 'jailbreaking' and 'rooting' their phones for years, with a vast majority of them being used to circumvent the rules. So, the rules are about to change... like it or not.
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Click to collapse
bongd said:
I am being realistic. Nothing has been implemented yet, so how can we start brain storming? Nothing but ideas at this point, but it's a hard.
And by a revolt I don't mean one of those stupid petitions. We have people with varying specialties and occupations. Perhaps someone can find a legal clause that will help the battle, something in the ToS that would prevent the segregation of rooted versus non-rooted customers, etc.
Don't get all pissy on me about things. I'm not dreaming of anything outlandish. It's better than being a pessimist and taking it in the ass. Many people chose the Android platform for the freedom it provides. It enough customers are grossly outraged, it will NOT come to pass.
Look at Usage Based Billing. I work for one of the biggest ISPs in Canada and when we tried to introduce UBB we saw customers CHURN tremendously. We've received death threats for Christ sakes... and now ask me, cegna09, please ask if we've decided to go forward and bill customers under UBB?
In case that wasn't blatantly obvious and cynical enough, no, we haven't. It scared CEOs ****less and irritated the hell out of front line staff to the point where many of us feel no loyalty to the company anymore. It has shaken what little trust the consumers had in us and they've flocked for other providers. If Google wants to do this, they'd better be prepared for a ****storm of negative press. This is either fear mongering, exaggerations or a bad idea for Google and wireless carriers.
P.S. I type most of my posts at work so they're not always grammatically sound or eloquent. I don't give a **** though. Thanks for caring.
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Click to collapse
The world of mobile devices is a bit different though. I would wager a bet that 90% of users have no interest in rooting, modding, etc, or even a knowledge of what it is. They just don't care. So when 10%, or even if it's as high as 20%, of the user base shows dissatisfaction, i doubt it would sway them. In the mobile world you always have the choice to change platforms, carriers, etc. With ISPs (at least here in the US), you really have no choice over who you use for where you live.
And my point on the developers is just that's always easier to close exploits than to find them. And it looks like there is new modification to close exploits. I think it's going to start to turn into a 1 step forward 2 steps back game. I sincerely hope it doesn't go that way, but that's where i see it with the information presented.
The place you might have a chance of fighting is the recent ruling that made it legal to root/jailbreak phones. Though i bet AT&T and verizon's lawyers are hard at work finding ways around that.
Oh, and i never commented on your grammar.
cegna09 said:
The world of mobile devices is a bit different though. I would wager a bet that 90% of users have no interest in rooting, modding, etc, or even a knowledge of what it is. They just don't care. So when 10%, or even if it's as high as 20%, of the user base shows dissatisfaction, i doubt it would sway them. In the mobile world you always have the choice to change platforms, carriers, etc. With ISPs (at least here in the US), you really have no choice over who you use for where you live.
And my point on the developers is just that's always easier to close exploits than to find them. And it looks like there is new modification to close exploits. I think it's going to start to turn into a 1 step forward 2 steps back game. I sincerely hope it doesn't go that way, but that's where i see it with the information presented.
The place you might have a chance of fighting is the recent ruling that made it legal to root/jailbreak phones. Though i bet AT&T and verizon's lawyers are hard at work finding ways around that.
Oh, and i never commented on your grammar.
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I'm sure there are a slew of celebrity lawyers on speed dial, and I know that the Apple jailbreaking case will be strongly referenced if there is a class action lawsuit.
I also recognize and appreciate the circumstances regarding closing and finding exploits. It's always a game of cat and mouse. And it sucks having to find exploits and holes. Sometimes it's easy but sometimes it's extremely tough. I'm hoping it's not the latter.
In any event, I'm going to hold out. I know that there'll be a work around or at least a ton of backlash. You bring up a good point that it's a very small percentage of users who root. But that small percentage is virtually all made up of power users. While we're small in numbers, we're more intelligent than the tweenies who just get Androids for texting and Facebook.
I know that petitions and things like that normally don't get done (I never bothered with the bootloader petition for example) but I know that more constructive and intelligent users will chime in with glorious ideas to keep this **** at bay. I sincerely hope it was a late April fools day joke or something. I don't mind Google data mining and harvesting all my consumer logistics as long as they don't clamp down on my phone. Win win situation. I don't mind their parasitic or insidious intentions at all.
kdspiv said:
And given enough time EVERYTHING can be cracked.
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Except Motorola's bootloaders.
jgc121 -
The two parts of the car arguments are invalid. First, loss of warranty, is invalid due to the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (federal law) and states that a manufacturer cannot automatically invalidate a warranty because of what an end-user has done. There's a burden of proof. It's a consumer protection.
On your friend's second point, exceeding the speed limit is illegal. It is not in the same class as modifying a device. There is no law being broken. You might argue that unauthorized tethering is theft, which I'd need to hear the argument for - who has sustained damages? How can those damages be quantified?
I do, however, agree that this has been brought upon by the end-users who do naughty things (unauthorized tethering, malware creation, piracy).
RacecarBMW said:
Except Motorola's bootloaders.
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Click to collapse
It only takes one disgruntled or sympathetic employee...Where are the social engineers?
Kueller said:
It only takes one disgruntled or sympathetic employee...Where are the social engineers?
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Click to collapse
If only someone was willing to risk their job
phobos512 said:
jgc121 -
The two parts of the car arguments are invalid. First, loss of warranty, is invalid due to the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (federal law) and states that a manufacturer cannot automatically invalidate a warranty because of what an end-user has done. There's a burden of proof. It's a consumer protection.
On your friend's second point, exceeding the speed limit is illegal. It is not in the same class as modifying a device. There is no law being broken. You might argue that unauthorized tethering is theft, which I'd need to hear the argument for - who has sustained damages? How can those damages be quantified?
I do, however, agree that this has been brought upon by the end-users who do naughty things (unauthorized tethering, malware creation, piracy).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you read how the car arguments are compared - you will understand my friends point. And just by rooting your device, you void your warranty - just like if you add nitrous to your car - warranty gone.... its the same thing. It is the same as modifying these devices, running 'unauthorized firmware' IS technically a warranty voiding action.
Also - these are not MY opinions - just opinions and information from others that im passing along - dont shoot the messenger buddy And tethering without a plan - the way its setup on the network - is theft. It costs them money, and they dont like it.
ok i can sorta understand them wanting to stop free tethering, but why root in general, some people like adding custome roms, or tweaking themes to make their phone that THEY purchased look the way they want it to. I really don't use tether, but locking down root, that's just ridiculous...smh
No; that's exactly my point. Modifying something you own does NOT automatically void the warranty. Read the act; it isn't complicated. I've been modding vehicles for 10 years - I know the law.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act
jgc121 said:
If you read how the car arguments are compared - you will understand my friends point. And just by rooting your device, you void your warranty - just like if you add nitrous to your car - warranty gone.... its the same thing. It is the same as modifying these devices, running 'unauthorized firmware' IS technically a warranty voiding action.
Also - these are not MY opinions - just opinions and information from others that im passing along - dont shoot the messenger buddy And tethering without a plan - the way its setup on the network - is theft. It costs them money, and they dont like it.
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Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
phobos512 said:
No; that's exactly my point. Modifying something you own does NOT automatically void the warranty. Read the act; it isn't complicated. I've been modding vehicles for 10 years - I know the law.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
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I too have been modding vehicles for nearly 15 yrs now, I am an ASE certified technician with EPA certifications, and an Associates Degree in Business Management as well. (Feel free to pm me for proof) I am well aware of this act and the laws. You are missing the point of the previous posts.
A manufacturers warranty would never cover a blown engine due to N20 use.... it just wont. Its intended to cover the engine as it was from the factory. Any changes to the factory setup (within certain limits) are ok. Something like N20 - thats a deal breaker.
As i said before - the previous posts are not MY opinions.... just information i was passing along.
Not sure about that whole Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act..... didn't feel like reading up on it.... but in regards to the whole thing with AT&T and potentially other carriers shutting off all form of cell service to a person with a rooted/jailbroken phone by way of discovery with a special code in the software.... it won't happen unless they're using it in an illegal way (as in using a free tethering workaround, and abusing it to the point that it's easily distinguished that something fishy is going on).... plain and simple. As i mentioned in the other thread with the exact same article linked to in the Atrix forums (one of the other recent threads), the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was ammended in July 2010, and one of those ammendments was that jailbreaking/rooting a mobile phone to install unauthorized or unapproved applications on the phone is legal.
So.... in regards to the earlier comment someone made laughing at the idea of a "revolt"..... if AT&T starts shutting off service to people who rooted/jailbroke their phone for the sole purpose of either installing a modified ROM or allowing further customisation of the OS than the non-rooted/jailbroke device will allow, then yes, there WOULD be a revolt. That revolt would take the form of... what i believe would fall under a class-action lawsuit. If they can't prove that the person who's service they cut off was using their rooted/jailbroken device in a way that was hindering their service.... which would mostly be the free tethering workarounds and some of those morons downloading quite a few gigabytes of data in a month..... then they would technically be breaking federal law by doing so.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Froyogate/112615255487997
Just started this page, like it if you do. I will update tomorrow. I know it wont do much, but it makes me feel better. If anyone wants to help, PM me here or on Facebook.
Why worry about this when you see things progressing? You're wasting your time, watch development and you will be happier than you would be with stock froyo anyway.
I see things progressing because off our devs, not because of verizon or samsung. I'm tired of big business getting away with anything they want. I get your point, but I'm still trying to get answers.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA Premium App
Quite frankly, no one will care about a Facebook page. Even if everyone on XDA with a Fascinate liked it, it still wouldn't be anywhere near an impressive number.
And Verizon/Samsung haven't really 'lied' to us (not counting their lower level reps, but no one should be trusting them anyways), they've never officially promised any sort of release date AFAIK... meaning long as they eventually release it, they'll have kept their promise (things like 'soon' are totally subjective, which is why they say them).
Verizon/Samsung have, simply put, just given us terrible support. We're low priority for them- we're basically an offbrand (i.e. not a Droid) phone, with a relatively small userbase. We're small fish in a big sea. Taken on top of Verizon & Samsungs already poor support, it really shouldn't be a surprise to us that we're still waiting for Froyo (unfortunately that's a lot easier to realize in retrospect... if I'd realized it back then, I'd have likely gone with the Incredible).
It is so sad that we are considered "not a droid". The one thing that attracted me to my Fascinate was the nice hardware, sweet screen, and the Android OS. I don't know what I would do without the devs around here. It's a shame that we have been swept under the rug by Samsung and VZW.
Sent from my ComaVolted Fascinate running SC 2.9.2
KitsuneKnight said:
Quite frankly, no one will care about a Facebook page. Even if everyone on XDA with a Fascinate liked it, it still wouldn't be anywhere near an impressive number.
And Verizon/Samsung haven't really 'lied' to us (not counting their lower level reps, but no one should be trusting them anyways), they've never officially promised any sort of release date AFAIK... meaning long as they eventually release it, they'll have kept their promise (things like 'soon' are totally subjective, which is why they say them).
Verizon/Samsung have, simply put, just given us terrible support. We're low priority for them- we're basically an offbrand (i.e. not a Droid) phone, with a relatively small userbase. We're small fish in a big sea. Taken on top of Verizon & Samsungs already poor support, it really shouldn't be a surprise to us that we're still waiting for Froyo (unfortunately that's a lot easier to realize in retrospect... if I'd realized it back then, I'd have likely gone with the Incredible).
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Agreed, but if we never take any action, the corportations will continue as usual and we will get even less actions. Corporations already run this country. Its not we the people anymore, its whatever corporate america buys in our congress.
Just like it! Is that a lot to ask?
Just vote with your wallet and don't buy samsung phones anymore.
Also, always make it a habite to tell anyone shopping for a phone about how bad samsung is and why they shouldn't buy a samsung phone.
It's amazing how many people are complaining about froyo, yet they get really excited when they hear about the Galaxy S 2 that's coming out soon!!!!
modus81 said:
Just vote with your wallet and don't buy samsung phones anymore.
Also, always make it a habite to tell anyone shopping for a phone about how bad samsung is and why they shouldn't buy a samsung phone.
It's amazing how many people are complaining about froyo, yet they get really excited when they hear about the Galaxy S 2 that's coming out soon!!!!
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I will NEVER buy another samsung phone, Eff the Galaxy S2. It's too bad, the fascinate has some great qualities, but I refuse to give money to someone who doesn't care. I was burnt once, not gonna get me again. I'm debating if I leave Verizon, quite honestly.
I completely agree with you about voting with your wallet!
I will always argue that you should make your decisions based on the hardware. Not the software, not the manufacturer, not the carrier. Hardware will always win out, and Samsung makes great hardware.
Kevin Gossett said:
I will always argue that you should make your decisions based on the hardware. Not the software, not the manufacturer, not the carrier. Hardware will always win out, and Samsung makes great hardware.
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I used to say the same thing, based upon past experience with numerous WinMo phones.
I no longer agree. Not in the least. I had a Samsung WinMo, but my last two WinMo phones were HTC. Compared to this Samsung.....
a) The Samsung pulls 300ma max from the PC USB port. That is fine. It only pulls 650ma max from a 5 volt adapter. The phone can consume well over 650ma to operate as a car GPS (screen bright, downloading map data, etc). So, the battery can rather quickly die even plugged into a high rate charger in the car. I have never seen an HTC phone do that. If the operating current goes up, the HTC pulls more current from the charger. Usually up to about 1 amp. So if it is plugged into a high rate charger, the HTC phones will never drain the battery even in the worst conditions. Charge rate FAIL.
b) In total darkness, it is too bright. In bright sun, it is too dim. You can go to manual mode, and adjust to a good level, but that misses the point of having the AUTO sensor... Auto brightness adjust FAIL.
c) On my phone, when used for a long while on charge at high brightness (car again), the four bottom buttons appear to be pressed randomly. The phone becomes a worthless brick. According to Verizon, this is fairly normal for the generated heat and there isn't anything I can do but not use it when it is charging. FAIL button sensor sensitivity. (though I believe this is just my phone being defective, and I can't get it fixed)
d) Charge plug. Who designed that piece of garbage. Pretty much every plug I have, and I have a lot of them, had to be cut up in the front side to allow it to fully seat in the Samsung jack. FAIL plug placement.
e) No notification LED. What??? FAIL.
f) Minor items like the mediocre loudspeaker placement, no camera button, and slippery back cover add up to another FAIL IMHO.
I used to think highly of Samsung devices from my past experience. This device has tarnished that image. I would only recommend this phone to someone because I thought they might want to buy this one that I have.
So, I sent an email to verizon, and this is what I got....
Good afternoon Mr. ****,
Thank you for contacting Verizon Wireless through our website. My name is Nicholas and resolving your issue is my top priority. I sincerely apologize that you are dissatisfied with the new froyo software update not being available for the Samsung Fascinate. I can recognize the importance in having the newest, most sophisticated software when purchasing new equipment. Despite all, I'm eager to assist with all of your concerns today.
Mr. *****, I can understand your urgency in regards to this matter. However, before new software is released, it must be approved by the manufacturer ( Samsung ) and Verizon Wireless. Therefore, based on this process I'm unable to provide a definitive answer as to when the froyo software update will be available for the Fascinate. This information is not readily available for the public. Nonetheless, if or when it becomes available you will receive a text on the handset prompting you to update your phone.
Additionally, based on your inconvenience I've issued a $ 50.00 courtesy credit on the account. The total credit amount of ( $ 50.00) , will appear on your next billing statement, ( Apr. 26, 2011 ), and will include an additional adjustment for taxes if applicable. You can check your revised balance immediately by dialing from you wireless device, # BAL and the SEND button. You will be connected with an automated system which will relay your account balance as a free text message to your wireless phone. You may also continue to listen and follow the voice prompts to receive the information airtime-free. You will be provided with the amount and date of your most recent payment, as well as your current balance due.
Lastly, I am also pleased to offer you the option of obtaining a new device with the software update currently, if it doesn't become available for the Fascinate. This offer will not extend your contract nor upgrade date. If you wish to take advantage of this option, you may contact me directly at ( 803 ) 231 - 1825 / Mon - Fri / 2:30pm. - 11:00pm. For your added convenience, below I've listed a link that includes our available device line - up. I hope you find this information to be beneficial:
So it does pay to continue to fight the good fight! I suggest you ALL email verizon and let them know your unhappy!!!
My old Samsung dumb-phone was wonderful. I took crap care of it, and it took a beating (I'd frequently toss it), I'd never give a single concern for maintaining the battery, it got great signal pretty much everywhere (when I went to the woods with a bunch of people, the people on AT&T would have a paper weight, the other people on Verizon would have occasional signal, and I'd have consistent, albeit poor, signal), and I'd easily go a week on a charge.
Occasionally I'd get hit by a software bug, like once ever several months, but over the several years I had the phone (5+ I think?), those were quite few in number.
My Fascinate, on the other hand, other than the screen the hardware seems moderate at best. The processor/GPU don't matter a lot long as they're at least as good as what 'most people' have, since generally programs are designed to be used on the more common phones. Now the GPU could have been leveraged on Gingerbread, but, we don't really have Gingerbread, although people like PK are working on it.
There's also 'only' 384 MBs of usable RAM in the phone, meaning less apps can be kept asleep in the background, causing apps to have to save their state & be restarted more often (IIRC, all the other Galaxy S phones have 512 usable!).
Then there's the GPS. It was flat out broken when Samsung released this phone, and I still have a horrible GPS- the other day it took ~25 minutes for the GPS to lock (even after downloading AGPS data, and getting the no help that cellular triangulation and wifi location services provides), just in time for us to miss the turn to our destination! (resulting in everyone agreeing that my phone "sucked").
No notification LED... we've had to work around that with 'No LED' and BLN- hardly ideal solutions... more like clever hacks. 802.11N also doesn't support the 5Ghz band, apparently... lovely. The battery life is also nothing to write home about. And there's quite a number of other shortcomings with this phone's hardware.
Is the Fascinate's hardware horrible? No, with the exception of the screen (which is quite good), most of it's around par, some above, some below. But the Fascinate's problem is it's crippled by horrible software! Our Devs will fix that, you say? So how's that CM7 working for you? MIUI? AOSP? Your options, at this point, are either use a hacked up Samsung ROM, or lose various hardware support. Is it because our devs suck? Hell no, they've long since shown they're damn good at what they do- but even so they can only do so much at a time. Take the best hardware in the world, but put **** software on it, and you've got ****. Bad software will ruin any hardware.
Good software on bad hardware, though, can at least make the hardware bearable. Next time, I'm picking my phone based off which actually has a fully custom ROMs ported to it, like MIUI or CyanogenMod- that should be a good indicator of how good the software support should be- then I'll go by hardware.
Edit: New post while I was writing... Does "obtaining a new device" mean, "trade in for a phone with Froyo"? If so... that's quite surprising, and it'd be interesting exactly what phones are available for that. Although, at this point, I just feel like taking it until my renewal comes around- all the phones are going to be far superior by then, and, with any luck, this sort of BS will have been reined in by Google.
Im going to call tomorrow and see what that means....but its a start. 50 bucks off my bill is nice!
modus81 said:
Just vote with your wallet and don't buy samsung phones anymore.
Also, always make it a habite to tell anyone shopping for a phone about how bad samsung is and why they shouldn't buy a samsung phone.
It's amazing how many people are complaining about froyo, yet they get really excited when they hear about the Galaxy S 2 that's coming out soon!!!!
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Click to collapse
but look at the specs on the galaxy S2, at least here in america its gonna have the samsung Exynos chip that is a 1.2 Ghz Dual Core, 1 GB of RAM a super AMOLED+ screen and does FULL HD VIDEO </Sarcasm>
sounds nice but knowing samsung it won't receive any support i've only had this phone since thursday and i really, really don't like it and wish that even with the locked bootloader i had gone with the droid X simply because i'd like to have gingerbread instead of eclair, though putting the miui alpha on it sorta make the fascinate worth while
420fan said:
So, I sent an email to verizon, and this is what I got....
Good afternoon Mr. ****,
Thank you for contacting Verizon Wireless through our website. My name is Nicholas and resolving your issue is my top priority. I sincerely apologize that you are dissatisfied with the new froyo software update not being available for the Samsung Fascinate. I can recognize the importance in having the newest, most sophisticated software when purchasing new equipment. Despite all, I'm eager to assist with all of your concerns today.
Mr. *****, I can understand your urgency in regards to this matter. However, before new software is released, it must be approved by the manufacturer ( Samsung ) and Verizon Wireless. Therefore, based on this process I'm unable to provide a definitive answer as to when the froyo software update will be available for the Fascinate. This information is not readily available for the public. Nonetheless, if or when it becomes available you will receive a text on the handset prompting you to update your phone.
Additionally, based on your inconvenience I've issued a $ 50.00 courtesy credit on the account. The total credit amount of ( $ 50.00) , will appear on your next billing statement, ( Apr. 26, 2011 ), and will include an additional adjustment for taxes if applicable. You can check your revised balance immediately by dialing from you wireless device, # BAL and the SEND button. You will be connected with an automated system which will relay your account balance as a free text message to your wireless phone. You may also continue to listen and follow the voice prompts to receive the information airtime-free. You will be provided with the amount and date of your most recent payment, as well as your current balance due.
Lastly, I am also pleased to offer you the option of obtaining a new device with the software update currently, if it doesn't become available for the Fascinate. This offer will not extend your contract nor upgrade date. If you wish to take advantage of this option, you may contact me directly at ( 803 ) 231 - 1825 / Mon - Fri / 2:30pm. - 11:00pm. For your added convenience, below I've listed a link that includes our available device line - up. I hope you find this information to be beneficial:
So it does pay to continue to fight the good fight! I suggest you ALL email verizon and let them know your unhappy!!!
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If you dont mind me asking, what all was in your email? It may be beneficial to know the way you went about contacting them if there are those (like myself wishing to get a tbolt lol) that want to go this route. Also what email address did you send the complaint to?
Neuman.Tim said:
If you dont mind me asking, what all was in your email? It may be beneficial to know the way you went about contacting them if there are those (like myself wishing to get a tbolt lol) that want to go this route. Also what email address did you send the complaint to?
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yea, I emailed and they called me back. They offered to give me a new phone line instead... I would also have to pay for another phone... Bogus... What did you tell them?
I've looked for the email on yhier website and all and I can't find it. Anyone got a quick link to it?
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/contact/index.jsp
is the page I used.
Email I sent
Why am I still waiting for my fascinate to be updated to froyo? All the other galaxy S phones have received it, Samsung has given you the code, now I am curious as to why we still don't have it. I was told when I purchased the phone that it would be 'soon'. I did a lot of research and am tired of being lied to by your company. Your contract states that I can't lie to you, but your are not held responsible for what an agent tells me. WTF is that?? You will probably loose my business when my contract is up, and maybe even before if I can sell this phone. Why won't you take care of your existing customers? Too busy trying to sell 4G when its not even in my area. I was told 'soon' about that too! I understand that the email I will get will say Im sorry for the delay, but we are working hard at it....BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!!
420fan said:
I see things progressing because off our devs, not because of verizon or samsung. I'm tired of big business getting away with anything they want. I get your point, but I'm still trying to get answers.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA Premium App
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I'm afraid I have to disagree with you. While it's very true that our devs are to be applauded for their efforts, the very reason that we have working Froyo roms like SuperClean (aside from jt's AOSP, which still is lacking a few features) is because of leaked builds from Samsung/Verizon. Our devs did not make those, only released them and cleaned them up a bit. We have three leaked builds total now, so there is no longer any basis upon which to claim that the official update will not be released. They would not be putting that much work into builds for this phone if they did not intend to release it once it's complete. Also, I think we should be grateful that they are taking the time to properly fix issues like GPS, which the new radio does, instead of rushing a new release with more bugs.
I too am disappointed at the time it's taking for them to get this release out, but it is clearly coming, and soon, if the last leak is any evidence at all, so I think we all just need to remain patient for a little bit longer. However, I do have one question. We have had working Froyo roms here for quite some time now. If you're posting here on XDA, I can only assume you're interested in modifying your phone, as opposed to leaving it stock, since that is, after all, what XDA is all about. If that is true, why are you still complaining about the lack of official release? Just install SuperClean or your rom of choice and move on.
Sent from XDA Premium on my Super Clean Fascinate