Sometimes you may have to say no for quite a while. I manage to do so.

It’s great that you’re in a market or situation with choice. Do you believe that this is universally true?

All in all I like the G2, and at least at this point, I don’t see the need to root it. If the day comes when I need to do that, I’m sure someone will have found a solution to the problem anyway.

I have data and text switched off, it’s voice only.

Up until last year, I had a Motorola flip phone which I originally got in 2003: again, voice only.

So my choice, where all the new, shiny smartphone plans come with data caps and jailed phones, is to opt out.

If enough other people did so, the problem would eventually solve itself.

what is the reason they do this – why go out of your way to reduce your customers experience, and in a sly way too…can anyone tell me?

also is this google or t-mobile doing this?

I bought a T-Mobile myTouch, and found it to be loaded with spyware, including about 50 apps, which it would not let me uninstall. These apps came with permissions to read call history, files, text messages, contacts, basically everything. These are apps from companies I don’t trust, like Facebook. Oh and I can’t uninstall them.

So here’s my idea.

These apps are all copyright and all come with End User License Agreements (EULAs).

What I will do is look at the EULAs (they came with the phone) and see who I am licensing the software from. Then send a letter:

“Dear Sir:

I no longer agree with the terms in the EULA for _____ which came my purchase of a T-Mobile myTouch on November 15, 2010. I propose the following replacement EULA:

Licensor (“Facebook Inc”) grants licensee (“My name”) a perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to redistribute, decompile, modify, sell, make available for download, incorporate into other products or systems, and / or sublicense, the (name of app). Further, licensor grants licensee a perpetual royalty-free license to use and sublicense any of Licensor’s patents which may be used in the application.

If you disagree with this new EULA, respond in writing within 30 days. Otherwise, non-response indicates agreement. In any case, I exercise the option in the EULA to exit the agreement, and it indicates that I must return or destroy all copies of the software.”

That’s my idea. I need to send them a letter like that. I notice that after I make a call, the 3G connection icon lights up, indicating that some app is uploading my call data, and I have no way to block it.

Sounds like Apple-sourced FUD to me.

But it might just be that the concept of a “hardware rootkit” is… just too wrong-headed to be real.

On the flipside of this argument, hopefully this will help keep new users like me from bricking the phone as we tear into the (amazingly unmoderated) app market.

Its only been on sale a couple of days, they’ll crack it eventually.

It’s a useful safety feature if so.

Basically whenever the device is rebooted all the files in the /system folder are overwritten by some hardware. The folder is restored to some previous state and the phone is locked down again.

So you can jailbeak the device but once you reboot it it will be locked down.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=794053

Sadly, the reality is that the market is (obviously) not rational. In fact, cannot be, as long as the available options are stacked.

I’ll certainly buy an unlimited data, non-jailed, stock Android, reasonably priced package with excellent coverage and top of the line hardware as soon as it comes along. Especially if it comes packaged with unicorns!

But waiting for that seems overly optimistic (even without the unicorns). Sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good: In my case, I have a smartphone with unlimited data and a reasonable rate, but a slowish locked phone with “Touchwiz”.

Waiting for the perfect concordance of features is indistinguishable from indifference to the market. Choosing the best *available* option has more influence.

I hope you are able to wait it out and get the best deal, though. Buying technology is also like getting a haircut: the longer you wait, the more you get for your money. ;)

(My first two phones were V-Mo, as well. The choice of drug dealers and cheapskates!)

The fact is that if this story was about iPhone, there would by now be 300 comments claiming this was typical Apple evul from a company that wants to control the universe. NO ONE would be saying they don’t believe it “until there’s any kind of credible evidence”.

That’s not to say the story is correct – but I hope that the next time some bullshit story comes out about, say, Apple ordering cops to beat up protestors or inventing some super-DRM which will be applied to everything you own, you all stop and think for a minute instead of rushing to your Twitter-barracades.

1. This isn’t “a rootkit”.
2. What it is is HTC (who make the phone) disabling writes to /system.
3. Thus, it frustrates attempts to get root.

It’s annoying, and I have no idea why they’ve done it.

But it demonstrates something that I’ve been saying for a long time – in a year or two, you aren’t going to be able to buy an Android phone that isn’t as locked-down as an iPhone (ie you have to jump through jailbreaking-style hoops to get access to it). The era of “open Android” is coming to a close.

Anyway, I <3 Android.

I also can’t change the software on my TV or in my satnav, why would I care that I can’t change it in my phone? If you don’t like the OS then don’t buy it.

But then I’ve also never felt the need to jailbreak an iPhone. I’m paying for the convenience of not having to deal with the OS and the UX when I buy the phone, I’d rather not take that responsibility on myself thanks – and ‘freedom’ aside, this isn’t a service, it’s a product; it’s not always up to you how you use it.

Time is money friend.

Now I’m considering just dropping T-Mobile.