Hey everybody. Been lurking here for a long time, but this is my first post, and potentially last. After reading Gerry's excellent editorial the other day on the site about rooted users not being able to access the Market's new movie rental service I got to thinking. I'm more than a little perturbed about the current state of Android.
My first Android device was the OG Droid. I loved the thing due, in no small part, to the fact that it was a hackers dream. Thanks to all the great devs behind it, I was able to do some amazing things with that phone that I'd never even dreamed of doing with any mobile device I had owned before it. The day the sliding mechanism started going and Verizon decided to ship me a Droid 2 as the warranty replacement ( the Droid had already been EOL'ed by then) ranks as one of the worst moments of this little hobby of mine. Which actually brings me to my first pain point: Locked bootloaders.
A device with a locked bootloader was just not gonna fly with me, already having been spoiled by Koush's initial ports of Cyanogenmod and CVPCS' excellent Sapphire ROM. No biggie though, HTC had just released the Incredible a couple months earlier and at least they were still releasing open devices. So I did what any geek would do; sold my BNIB Droid 2 and picked up an Incredible. Kept it for a week or so, did some cool stuff with it, and returned to get a Fascinate. (I know, I know. Hindsight's 20/20 and all that)
The Fascinate was fun. Rooted the day it came out, debloated/de-Binged ROMs soon after. Couldn't wait to see CM6 running on that SMOLED beauty. But unfortunately Samsung borked the source release for this one. (I know, it's Samsung. But I had a really good feeling about this one) So, an AOSP ROM would never run quite right on this thing, despite some kick-ass effort by JT1134, Adrynalyne, and punkkaos. Specifically, RIL and some quirky little kernel issues. So once more we went back to the well, mostly because my sister needed a smartphone and didn't care for any of this geekery, but also because HTC was putting out a new phone on Verizon.
So, the Thunderbolt. Nice little phone. And I do use the term "little" quite loosely. HTC's newest device for Verizon, and the one place I was certain the best and the brightest of the VZW Android dev scene would be headed. Only one problem: a locked bootloader. If I'm not terribly mistaken, the first HTC phone to ship in the US with a locked bootloader. Luckily, JCase was able to get around that pesky little roadblock with some nice prerelease firmware voodooery. Yeah, I just invented a word, but this far in that's gotta be the least of my digressions. Anywho, I'm happy with my Thunderbolt. The devs are doing some cool stuff with this baby, even some names I recognize, and trust, from my Fascinate days. But the problem is this: despite the fact people were able to get around it, its still another device that is being shipped locked down. Which will apparently be the norm for HTC going forward. Another frustration with this otherwise great platform.
So, how does this tie in with my shiny, unlocked, rooted, overclocked, beast that looks like it may eat me in my sleep Xoom and Android movie rental service? Its just another locked down service. Specifically, it's Google viewing me as a thief, criminal, pirate, whatever, simply because I want full access to my device. And right now, that kind of feels like the final nail in mine and Android's relationship. Google has gone from being the champion of open, the company that got Verizon to release what was essentially a dev phone, got them to let me choose whatever GPS service I wanted to use on my phone, to being just another company. One that backs down to their OEM partners and lets content distributors dictate to them what I can and can't do with my device.
Sorry this ran a bit long, just had to get that off my chest. And sorry about the formatting, typed this all out on my xoom. I should probably look into changing that title too.
My first Android device was the OG Droid. I loved the thing due, in no small part, to the fact that it was a hackers dream. Thanks to all the great devs behind it, I was able to do some amazing things with that phone that I'd never even dreamed of doing with any mobile device I had owned before it. The day the sliding mechanism started going and Verizon decided to ship me a Droid 2 as the warranty replacement ( the Droid had already been EOL'ed by then) ranks as one of the worst moments of this little hobby of mine. Which actually brings me to my first pain point: Locked bootloaders.
A device with a locked bootloader was just not gonna fly with me, already having been spoiled by Koush's initial ports of Cyanogenmod and CVPCS' excellent Sapphire ROM. No biggie though, HTC had just released the Incredible a couple months earlier and at least they were still releasing open devices. So I did what any geek would do; sold my BNIB Droid 2 and picked up an Incredible. Kept it for a week or so, did some cool stuff with it, and returned to get a Fascinate. (I know, I know. Hindsight's 20/20 and all that)
The Fascinate was fun. Rooted the day it came out, debloated/de-Binged ROMs soon after. Couldn't wait to see CM6 running on that SMOLED beauty. But unfortunately Samsung borked the source release for this one. (I know, it's Samsung. But I had a really good feeling about this one) So, an AOSP ROM would never run quite right on this thing, despite some kick-ass effort by JT1134, Adrynalyne, and punkkaos. Specifically, RIL and some quirky little kernel issues. So once more we went back to the well, mostly because my sister needed a smartphone and didn't care for any of this geekery, but also because HTC was putting out a new phone on Verizon.
So, the Thunderbolt. Nice little phone. And I do use the term "little" quite loosely. HTC's newest device for Verizon, and the one place I was certain the best and the brightest of the VZW Android dev scene would be headed. Only one problem: a locked bootloader. If I'm not terribly mistaken, the first HTC phone to ship in the US with a locked bootloader. Luckily, JCase was able to get around that pesky little roadblock with some nice prerelease firmware voodooery. Yeah, I just invented a word, but this far in that's gotta be the least of my digressions. Anywho, I'm happy with my Thunderbolt. The devs are doing some cool stuff with this baby, even some names I recognize, and trust, from my Fascinate days. But the problem is this: despite the fact people were able to get around it, its still another device that is being shipped locked down. Which will apparently be the norm for HTC going forward. Another frustration with this otherwise great platform.
So, how does this tie in with my shiny, unlocked, rooted, overclocked, beast that looks like it may eat me in my sleep Xoom and Android movie rental service? Its just another locked down service. Specifically, it's Google viewing me as a thief, criminal, pirate, whatever, simply because I want full access to my device. And right now, that kind of feels like the final nail in mine and Android's relationship. Google has gone from being the champion of open, the company that got Verizon to release what was essentially a dev phone, got them to let me choose whatever GPS service I wanted to use on my phone, to being just another company. One that backs down to their OEM partners and lets content distributors dictate to them what I can and can't do with my device.
Sorry this ran a bit long, just had to get that off my chest. And sorry about the formatting, typed this all out on my xoom. I should probably look into changing that title too.
Last edited:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram