> I don't know WTF the cyanogenmod team was thinking, non-technical people messing with CM will just lead to negative press.
I know atleast three people who tried to install Linux and formatted their Windows partition in the process. So you mean Linux CDs and DVDs should never have been bundled with magazines?
I don't think there's any danger of grandma seeking out CM and going through the process to install it. CM has over 8M installs, having a handful of bricking incidents is nothing at that scale.
This isn't a bloody OpenMoko phone - this is a working consumer device that's sold to you as a "dumb" device. It's like buying a television or DVD player, flashing some weird third-party firmware, then taking it back and saying, gee, it just stopped working...
Or flashing your car's ECU chip.
The manufacturer is certainly not expected to fix your mistake. They might for goodwill, but they have no obligation to.
Yes, there is certainly a danger in the proverbial grandma flashing her phone (why do we always pick on grandma's? I mean, geez, Hopper Grace was a grandma wasn't she? Lol).
I've seen countless phones soft-bricked by bad flashes. It's like upgrading your BIOS - if you get unlucky, or the power goes, you're SOL.
Google's just being responsible. The whole point of Android is that you can sideload ADB's easily.
Think of it as a entry test - if you can't load a non-PlayStore ADB onto your handset, you have absolutely no business installing a custom ROM.
Put it this way - you ask me how to flash your car's ECU.
I say, well, firstly, you need to pop open the bonnet and read me some numbers. And then you said to me, "Gee, how do I do that? I've never popped a bonnet open".
My next thought would probably be, "Err, are you really sure you want to flash your car's ECU?".
Actually, it's quite a good analogy. I have installed Linux on half a dozen newly purchased PCs and was just recently flummoxed by UEFI and trying to retain a Windows partition. I had to make an informed decision to do without Windows entirely on this latest machine. The effort to install an aftermarket ROM is similar.
No it's not a good comparison because you cannot brick a PC installing Linux. At most you lose any data that wasn't backed up, but you can then just use the normal recovery discs to get your machine back (which is a process the average user is expected to do every few years anyway - if just to fix the natural decay of Windows)
That particular ROM Manager requires having root and an unlocked bootloader prior to use while the CM installer does not. That alone is a big difference, since it implies someone should be aware slightly of what they're doing if they have gotten past the unlocking/rooting stage.
The only thing that matters is who pays when someone bricks his device with that software.
And those users are surely not expecting that they are going to pay themselves, since they installed the software from the official Google Play store.
What CM does (doesn't matter if intentionally or not) is externalizing the cost for support to Google and the device manufacturers, since they themselves are not willing to replace or repair devices that have been bricked by their own software.
>So you think that a user should be able install an OS that bricks their phone and still have the phone still covered by warranty?
Yes
>How does that make sense?
It makes sense the same way that installing Linux and/or wiping Windows doesn't void a PCs warranty.
Should users be allowed to install any programs including keylogging malware on Windows computers? Shouldn't Microsoft protect them by locking it down so that only approved apps from their app store can be installed? Like mobile app stores?
It is rare to "brick" your PC by installing linux/windows. Phones are different because their input/output interfaces are limited to a single usb port, and in many cases that usb port doesn't even support host mode. Technically the phone isn't really bricked, but there's no way for a normal user to fix it without cracking open the phone to attach a jtag.
If PCs in the 1980's could be destroyed simply by improperly installing an OS, you bet manufacturers would void warranty for software misuse.
Sounds like bad design though. It's normal for embedded devices to have a non upgradable bootloader that can always be triggered at boot and is able to reflash a pristine copy of the original firmware wiping whatever was later written. iOS does that (see DFU mode), and all embedded devices I design at work do the same. Why an Android device shouldn't? Apple devices are nominally warranty voided when you jailbreak them, but since you can always reflash an original firmware leaving no traces behind, it's basically moot.
NOTE: no sarcasm here, I'm genuinely interested on why android phones can be software bricked and can't have a boot loader like anything else.
Android devices have similar failsafes (e.g. recovery, fastboot mode), but since they're part of the infrastructure that validates that you're only flashing authorized changes, you are often working around them when you modify your device.
> It makes sense the same way that installing Linux and/or wiping Windows > doesn't void a PCs warranty.
Have you ever actually tried getting warranty support for a Windows PC you installed Linux on? The last time I tried even just mentioning the word "Linux" was enough to get many support departments to drop you like a hot potato. In my experience, the minimum bar for support is keeping around a Windows partition and any diagnostic/recovery partitions they have, whether or not you want them otherwise. If you're unlucky, you'll have to blow away your Linux install even if it's completely irrelevant to the issue at hand.
Modded Windows PCs are easier to deal with because you can usually erase all traces of Linux/other OSes if you need to for support (no eFuses and similar nonsense), but the on-the-ground support policies aren't all that different from modded phones.
> It makes sense the same way that installing Linux and/or wiping Windows doesn't void a PCs warranty.
You need to take another look at user grade warranties for PCs. Many of them are void if the users installs a different OS. Especially if they break the HPA partition where the OS reinstall stuff is kept.
The funny thing is that many of the same people you talk about were vehemently against UEFI Secure Boot on Windows 8 being on by default although it actually protects tens of millions of normal users from undetectable rootkits and bootkits because it made installing Linux slightly more difficult by needing to fiddle with the boot settings.
Now the reason being given for this removal is that it needs root(a lot of apps in the Play Store require root on Android, including ROM managers) and that it may brick a few devices, while ignoring the fact that for many who are stuck without security updates because of OEMs and carriers actually benefit from CM.
Also wonder if this news was strategically timed before Thanksgiving when most people are on vacation traveling or busy with family.
The installer itself doesn't require root and that isn't why it was pulled. It was pulled because trying to install an unapproved OS on the device may have left the device in a state that non-technical users may not know how to fix. when their device is now "broken" manufactures say that installing the unapproved OS voids the warranty. The finger pointing goes back to Google for allowing an application in the Play Store that voids warranties. Since no application on the Play Store should break a user's device, they asked CyanogenMod to remove the application.
This in no way is meant to prevent users from voiding their warranty, users can still side load the application or they can use more traditional ways of installing a custom ROM. I'm not sure why this decision is ruffling feathers. CyanogenMod has over a million installs to date, and is still thriving. The installer made things a little less complicated, but removing it from the Play Store won't really slow them down.
I find this kind of comments very funny. If Microsoft had the ability to install their moles as CEOs, why don't they do the same thing to Samsung, Apple, Google, HTC, etc. etc.?
How exactly does one company go about installing their moles as CEOs of other companies? Bribe and blackmail the board members? You're ascribing Microsoft the powers of a comic book supervillain while they cannot even sell a few million Surface RT tablets.
For reference, this is the profile of the chairman of the board. Do you think a bribe from Microsoft is likely to influence this person's decisions?
>Jorma Jaakko Ollila (born 15 August 1950) is a Finnish businessman, since 1 June 2006, Non-Executive Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell. He was Chairman (1999–2012) and CEO (1992–2006) of Nokia Corporation. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Ford Motor Company (2000– ), UPM-Kymmene (1997– ), and Otava Books and Magazines Group Ltd. (1996–).
>For Nokia, he was credited with turning the company into the then world's largest handset maker.[1]
>As CEO of Nokia he has led the strategy that restructured the former industrial conglomerate into one of the major companies in the mobile phone and telecommunications infrastructure markets.
So you're telling me that Microsoft somehow bribed that guy, who no doubt would've made tens of millions from turning Nokia into a $100+ bilion dollar company, made him risk everything including national shame and prison time if exposed and seeing the company he built destroyed and hand over the reins to a Microsoft mole?
Or perhaps the Nokia board evaluated their options and wanted Nokia to have the bags of cash from Microsoft which Google reportedly was not willing to supply and save Nokia jobs instead of turning it into another slowly dying RIM and wanted to go Windows Phone, and hired Elop to do the transition. Now, the merits of the decision itself is subject to analysis, doubt and discussion, but the accusations of Elop being a mole derail the discussion that can be had about the Symbian and Blackberry burning platforms.
My conclusion is that a number of people who so strongly seem believe in this idea on tech forums either a) Don't know how CEOs are hired or what a Board of Directors of a company does b) Listen to the conspirational ideas on Slashdot, Groklaw, /r/Android and /r/linux and take it as gospel without thinking it through because the story fits the "Evil M$ kills a Linux OS" victim mentality narrative they want to believe in and they want a 41MP Nokia Android phone real bad c) Jump on the popular anti-MS bandwagon without any rational thought, oh hey, free and easy karma points! d) Believe in the NASA moon hoax too.
That comment says more about the writer than what it says about Elop, how can otherwise smart people succumb to such group thinking?. I haven't found one remotely plausible explanation about how Microsoft installed Elop as the CEO of Nokia. Maybe someone can help me and explain it here, but I am not holding my breath.
You're closer to the truth than the conspiracy theorists, but when Elop was hired, Meego was still actually on the table as The Nokia Future. He took it off the table because in his estimation it just wasn't ready. (I worked for Nokia at the time, saw the N9 prototype at the same point in its life he did when he made that call, and he was right. It just wasn't ready.)
And, as a fairly long article in Business Week (I think) detailed a couple years ago, Android was actually the first choice over Windows Phone, but Google and Nokia couldn't come to terms: Nokia wanted to be able to use the official Android branding and use Nokia's existing services (mostly their maps), but Google's license doesn't allow that.
Having said all that, I can understand some of the conspiracy mindset around this. Nokia wrote Elop's contract in a way which basically gave him a huge golden parachute if the handset division was sold to someone else, and that really is nuts -- I doubt the intention was to explicitly reward failure, but it's damn easy to paint it that way. But this whole "secret mole" thing? Frankly, whatever one thinks about Microsoft's business practices, I don't think it's plausible that they're really clever enough to pull this off.
> Nokia wanted to be able to use the official Android branding and use Nokia's existing services (mostly their maps), but Google's license doesn't allow that.
Can you elaborate? It's hard to understand in light of all the extra cruft the carriers put on their Android devices.
Nokia wanted to use its maps and not Google's, but still be a Google services licensee. That's a no go as far as Google is concerned. Microsoft let Nokia replace its Bing maps with Here, and in fact licensed it as a replacement for the Bing mapping data.
Third party apps on carrier devices that have the Google Play store are in addition to the Google services, not replacing them. The Google services are all there, even if they're hidden.
Would the thing have been feasible if they'd simply bundled Here and kept the Google Maps app on the menu as well? It seems like an odd thing to become a sticking point.
There have been rumours that the Nokia board chairman Ollila would have chosen someone from inside Nokia, but that largest owners of Nokia (some big American funds, who probably own a lot of Microsoft, too) told that this is not acceptable.
Hedge fund ownership for the level of influence you're talking about is public information. One can easily compile and compare lists of top hedge fund holders in Microsoft and Nokia.
Historical data should also be easy to find if someone really wants to look.
The article is in Finnish and seems to be pretty short and not even attempt some basic research for what would be a big story. Even if that were true, what has this got to do with Microsoft executives? The deal certainly didn't raise Microsoft's share price. In fact, Microsoft's share price dropped when the takeover deal was announced, so these alleged hedge funds went from a Nokia share price of $11 before they got Elop hired and ended up with $7 with a low of $1.60(!!!) after influencing the decision to go Windows Phone? Does not make much sense to me.
Again, acting in other's companies' shareholders' interests is illegal for board members, and IIRC punishable by fines and prison time.
Maybe someone from Finland can tell us if the media outlet you referenced is more like the New York Times or a tabloid trying to cash in on a controversy while peddling conspiracy theories.
So between you and me, we uncovered more than the entire Finnish press with a few minutes of web searching?
This is looking more and more like a thread in /r/conspiracy.
Anyway, I don't know what Dodge & Cox achieved if they really influenced anything, Nokia stock went from ~$11 to $1.60 to $8 after the acquisition, and whatever Microsoft share price gained during the same time, it wasn't because of the Nokia acquisition or Windows Phone.
From the infamous burning platform memo, the rationale for leaving Meego for Windows Phone:
>"The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things. Our competitors aren’t taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means we’re going to have to decide how we either build, catalyze or join an ecosystem."
Jolla's move to support Android apps is to try to mitigate the above effect, but it may lead to the Windows vs. OS/2 scenario where OS/2 ran Windows programs too well, so companies never bothered making native OS/2 apps, after all, why waste precious resources on supporting yet another incompatible platform?
On the other side, as I said in another comment, you have huge companies selling smartphones at or below cost using their profits from other lines of business(Nexus 5, Moto G, Lumia 520(a surprisingly good smartphone for $59 off contract?!!)). They're doing this to either gain marketshare for the ecosystem effects(Microsoft) or as a moat, to sell ads, or to commoditize and reduce Apple's smartphone margins(Google)[1].
Jolla has to compete with these and ultracheap Chinese and India OEMs at the low end and the iPhones, high end Galaxies, Lumias with 41MP cameras and 6" screens, HTC, LG phablets at the high end.
On the other hand, one can create Sailfish-native Qt apps that run on Android and iPhone as well. I'm not sure if Qt iOS support is completely ready, but it is something to look forward.
It's unfair to compare a phone hardware company that needs to make money to survive to a company that gets almost all its money from ads, searches, cloud and personal data and uses that money to subsidize hardware as a loss leader(or making bare profits) both to gain marketshare and also to undercut and weaken other smartphone companies' profit margins so that they have less money to compete in web search now or in the future. [1]
From a consumer point of view, you're right though. The market is heading towards commoditization and Jolla will most likely fall into the moat if people compare them on price alone.
Kinda off topic, but as soon as I opened that page in a new background tab, it froze my browser and PC for about a minute with an hourglass before it would respond to my inputs. I thought it crashed the system, but everything is okay now. I did close the tab after giving it a cursory look because it looked too noisy and light on content. Perhaps someone can analyze how much RAM, CPU and bandwidth that page takes up. And I am rocking a quadcore computer with 8 gigs of RAM.
Sigh, the more the hardware giveth, the more the new fangled web pages taketh away.
Thanks, very nice. How do you get story point scores from the RSS feed? The last time I looked at it, it was missing that crucial bit of information, and I don't see it now either. Or are you using parsing or another data source to get at them?
E.g. Rom managers such as this one. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.koushikdut...
> I don't know WTF the cyanogenmod team was thinking, non-technical people messing with CM will just lead to negative press.
I know atleast three people who tried to install Linux and formatted their Windows partition in the process. So you mean Linux CDs and DVDs should never have been bundled with magazines?
I don't think there's any danger of grandma seeking out CM and going through the process to install it. CM has over 8M installs, having a handful of bricking incidents is nothing at that scale.
Hopefully this has nothing to do with CM making its own handsets http://www.rethink-wireless.com/2013/09/20/cyanogen-aims-cre...