Gingerbread and New Phones releases

[Ricky Babalu]

Gingerbread and New Phones releases..........What you should know.

http://forum.androidcentral.com/motorola-x-rooting-roms-hacks/74366-p3droids-cat-out-bag.html
And
Some Food for Thought - Bootloaders, Rooting, Manufacturers, and Carriers

 

[xelhabb]

These rumors flew around for years when I was using Blackberries. If you place Beta OS builds on your phone you void your warranty yata, yata.

SHENANIGANS!!!

RIM was leaking those OS builds intentionally because they knew there was a healthy underground loading them into phones as fast as they were leaked. I will venture to say most forums are well monitored by RIM.

I am not in the know, but it is quite evident Motorola is well aware of the widespread rooting and customization of their phones. Their website offers software to access the phones. I can't see why they would care as they simply make the units and sell them in bulk to carriers. Honoring warranty claims does not hit them in the pocket to the extent that it overshadows the massive profits they make in bulk sales.

If VZW was driven to end rooting and unauthorized tethering, it could be remedied quit quickly. Send notice, push out a minor upgrade OTA, and cut off access to the network by rooted handsets.

I will venture to say this. The majority of Droid consumers don't root. They buy the phone and use it as is until the contract ends and they get the new toy. For Verizon, the amount of rooted users accessing unauthorized tether data is negligible. Most people are paying for the data and VZW is ranking in plenty. While they might invest some into restricting the ability to root specifically for tether access, I think they actually know they profit from selling units that are highly customizable. I say this because I've been told by more than one VZW employee about rooting and adding custom ROMs to get better performance out of the phone. IN FACT, the first Beta OS I ever had installed in my Blackberry was loaded into my phone by a VZW employee inside the store.

I actually would like to start playing with ROM's to enhance my phone operation and get better battery performance, which is the only complaint I have about my Droid X.

Anyone else wanna chime in on this?

 

[wabyrd]

I am not in the know, but it is quite evident Motorola is well aware of the widespread rooting and customization of their phones. Their website offers software to access the phones.


I will venture to say this. The majority of Droid consumers don't root. They buy the phone and use it as is until the contract ends and they get the new toy. For Verizon, the amount of rooted users accessing unauthorized tether data is negligible.

Those are both very valid points. I think RIM was using the "leaked" versions as a way to beta test new versions on a large, tech savvy group for FREE. Seriously, they were "leaking" a new update practically every day at times.

As for the software Moto provides? Of course they know what people are doing with it! If they wanted to provide it ONLY to the carriers, they would do so. SECURELY! It's obvious that they are interested in an active community to come up with new ideas. I'm sure Moto looks at the custom ROMs for future Blur ideas.

And you're right, it's a VERY small number of people that root their phones. I work in a large department of about 150 people. It's split about 60% iPhone and about 40% Android. I think I'm the only one that is rooted in the group. They buy the phone because it's "pretty" and they use it to check Facebook or Twitter. That's about it. I'd say less than 20% of smartphone users actually know what their device will do, much less hack in to it.

 

[Ricky Babalu]

Not sure where the motivation is coming from? As everyone knows the rooting community is a drop in the bucket. Yet the amount of time, resources, monitoring and costs devoted to locking devices up is ridiculous.