Petition to Require Unsupported Devices to have Bootloader Unlocked - Off-topic

Here is my formal petition for carriers and manufacturers to unlock the bootloaders of handsets they are not providing updates.
1. Updates are not being provided for in timely manner
2. Capable devices are not being updated and consumers are left at risk or forced to pay for on open source OS.
3. Consumers are not gaining full control of devices that no longer property of carriers and manufacturers.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//p...aders-handsets-they-no-longer-plan-supporting

Petitions are great and all, though I doubt a very tiny majority of their customers are going to create any waves. Very very few have any idea about bootloaders and all the stuff we do on xda.
So, my suggestion for people like us, is to not buy devices that are locked down in the first place. A little research before purchasing is all it takes. That is your only safe way to know you will be able to lean on developers after end of life. Manufacturers want you to buy a new device, so they certainly aren't going to do anything that may help you avoid buying new.

A tiny, tiny fraction. Among smarpthone owners, a fraction own Androids (split mostly with iPhones and marginal numbers of those others). A very small fraction of those have even heard of "root", and a smaller fraction even have the basic concept of what that means. Smaller still are those that have actually rooted a device. Then we're finally getting in to unlocked bootladers and custom ROMs, kernels, Xposed, and that kind of stuff. A tiny, tiny fraction. I don't disagree with you. But expecting anything to be done about it is a pipe dream.

Related

staring to feel ripped off.

I'm starting to feel ripped off with how long these upgrades take. I mean when you have phones manufactures posting profits in the millions and billions, yet they wont hire the manpower to get these updates out, it gets old. I have an evo3d, and feel like we should have ICS already. I know when I had a palm pre, at launch, the armchair programmers did more for that phone for free, then palms paid programmers ever did. Thats what I dont understand, if these rom guys can do so much in a couple hours after work, then why can't these paid 8 hour sh%theads get the job done in a reasonable amount of time. Just like my acer 100 tab, when you buy it they say january have ICS, after you've bought it, now its april maybe. Ridiculous. Just venting I suppose, although I feel its a justified vent.
I'm not sure why they don't update things faster either. I guess it's just that a new version of android would confuse the majority of users. idk
Why would android OEMs want to upgrade their old devices? They get their money from selling more phones, if your g1 was officially kicking ICS, why would you want to upgrade? It's sales strategy. If you want updates, go to pretty much any other OS.
z33dev33l said:
Why would android OEMs want to upgrade their old devices? They get their money from selling more phones, if your g1 was officially kicking ICS, why would you want to upgrade? It's sales strategy.
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This is partly true, this rest is garbage.
Another thing is, people who want upgraded OSs are in the minority. So it just doesn't make since to put resources into stuff people don't care about.
A lot of my friends are still on IOS4.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
Are there any programs that will only work on ICS that you absolutely must have?
There's none in my case.
My phone works great, so why do I need the OS updated to the latest?
xaccers said:
Are there any programs that will only work on ICS that you absolutely must have?
There's none in my case.
My phone works great, so why do I need the OS updated to the latest?
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99% of the time I'd agree with that, but I'm fastidious when it comes to having organised bookmarks. I use Chrome at home and at work and have bookmark syncing enabled. I've used ChromeMarks to access my Chrome bookmarks on my phone, but I've always wanted it to be part of the browser.
Enter, Google Chrome for Android. It does the bookmark syncing.
I literally have ICS on my S2 for that 1 reason. Even with a few bugs and lags every now and then (it's still beta, after all).
I find the people not wanting updates comment as b.s. As for them not wanting to update to sell new phones, I agree with that, but as a consumer it gets tiring having every penny milked from you in one way or another. I buy a new phone outright every year, I have an evo3d, so comparing its update to something like a g1 is ridiculous at best.
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA App
^ as stated you're the minority. The majority don't buy phones for updates. Hell most don't know what OS their phone has.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
if they dont update it you will be more willing to upgrade your phone sooner. They have nothing to gain from spending time updating there phones when they can slap a slightly better os on a slightly better phone and get you in a new two year contract.
bacnat86 said:
if they dont update it you will be more willing to upgrade your phone sooner. They have nothing to gain from spending time updating there phones when they can slap a slightly better os on a slightly better phone and get you in a new two year contract.
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Correcto, thats why carriers love Android so much.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
sleekgreek said:
I'm starting to feel ripped off with how long these upgrades take. I mean when you have phones manufactures posting profits in the millions and billions, yet they wont hire the manpower to get these updates out, it gets old. I have an evo3d, and feel like we should have ICS already. I know when I had a palm pre, at launch, the armchair programmers did more for that phone for free, then palms paid programmers ever did. Thats what I dont understand, if these rom guys can do so much in a couple hours after work, then why can't these paid 8 hour sh%theads get the job done in a reasonable amount of time. Just like my acer 100 tab, when you buy it they say january have ICS, after you've bought it, now its april maybe. Ridiculous. Just venting I suppose, although I feel its a justified vent.
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because the programmers get paid for it so they have no hurry. the dev community wants to use it so they put alot of hours and concentration into and get it out. I feel your pain man
This.
bacnat86 said:
if they dont update it you will be more willing to upgrade your phone sooner. They have nothing to gain from spending time updating there phones when they can slap a slightly better os on a slightly better phone and get you in a new two year contract.
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This is the most common candidate for being the main reason. Why make people content with the last Big Thing when you can instead beef up and get them hyped for the next Big Thing?
But then why schedule the Ice Cream upgrade for the SGII just before the SGIII comes out? Beats me. Maybe companies are just schizophrenic. Maybe it's a genius plan to make people fume into wanting the SGIII (people tend not to to change their minds once they've made it up) while ensuring the people who can't afford it still remain happy after six months. Maybe it's just a publicity issue (Samsung needs the positive publicity of coming out with ICS, so they'll eventually need to follow through, but not until the very last moment). Any explanation seems likely to me at this point.
This is why it's generally best to buy a future-proof phone. With the Nexus, for example, you'll be able to get indefinite upgrades from google (even if you have to go through a few hoops). The easier something is to unlock (and I suppose: the more popular it is so that more devs are working on it), the more likely you'll be able to keep your phone upgraded yourself, even if you'll have to go through a few hoops to do so. You can't rely on your manufacturer*, and you definitely can't rely on your carrier to have your best upgrade interests in mind.
Of course, if you get a new phone every year (or even every two years), this isn't so much of an issue for you. Most people probably do this (indeed, the very system encourages them to do this), and so there's little incentive to actually change the system.
*This is supposedly where Apple excels, but at what cost..
I can answer that....
You see, all the armchair programmers have a disclaimer that says "We are not responsible if we break your phone..It may, or may not work as expected and if it blows up your phone it's not our fault"
A huge corporation like Motorola/HTC/Samsung/LG/Nokia/etc have millions of users worldwide with a large set of carriers that all want to tweak the user experience to what that particular carrier wants to standardize on. The phone manufacturer may build what they think is a perfectly reasonable piece of software (ALL software has bugs by the way) only to have it kicked back by the internal quality assurance team because it fails a particular test case. And when you have several dozen/hundred developers working on software it's a coordinated effort to meet internal timelines and goals. And if it passes the internal testing it has to be tested by the carriers who can reject the software build due to bugs/user experience/last minute enhancements which triggers the whole cycle all over again.
Smaller development teams where it's a few people working on code do not have as much overhead and probably don't have as much internal testing processes for all possible corner cases as a huge company does so they can coordinate and release a build much quicker.
sleekgreek said:
I'm starting to feel ripped off with how long these upgrades take. I mean when you have phones manufactures posting profits in the millions and billions, yet they wont hire the manpower to get these updates out, it gets old. I have an evo3d, and feel like we should have ICS already. I know when I had a palm pre, at launch, the armchair programmers did more for that phone for free, then palms paid programmers ever did. Thats what I dont understand, if these rom guys can do so much in a couple hours after work, then why can't these paid 8 hour sh%theads get the job done in a reasonable amount of time. Just like my acer 100 tab, when you buy it they say january have ICS, after you've bought it, now its april maybe. Ridiculous. Just venting I suppose, although I feel its a justified vent.
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As said above, the biggest issues are that Devs here and elsewhere have no responsibilities if the upgrades fail, and secondly, there are a ridiculous number of devices being released. There are about 100 android devices available as current phones, and I don't know how many total. Rather difficult to keep so many up to date. It would be nice if they would scale back how many products are out at once, but manufacturers don't seem to get that yet.
psychephylax said:
I can answer that....
You see, all the armchair programmers have a disclaimer that says "We are not responsible if we break your phone..It may, or may not work as expected and if it blows up your phone it's not our fault"
A huge corporation like Motorola/HTC/Samsung/LG/Nokia/etc have millions of users worldwide with a large set of carriers that all want to tweak the user experience to what that particular carrier wants to standardize on. The phone manufacturer may build what they think is a perfectly reasonable piece of software (ALL software has bugs by the way) only to have it kicked back by the internal quality assurance team because it fails a particular test case. And when you have several dozen/hundred developers working on software it's a coordinated effort to meet internal timelines and goals. And if it passes the internal testing it has to be tested by the carriers who can reject the software build due to bugs/user experience/last minute enhancements which triggers the whole cycle all over again.
Smaller development teams where it's a few people working on code do not have as much overhead and probably don't have as much internal testing processes for all possible corner cases as a huge company does so they can coordinate and release a build much quicker.
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I just dont agree with that, after being with the palm pre from its launch, through all the manual hacks we had to implement before preware, then finally recieving an update months later that couldn't compete with the unofficial code from the guys over at precentral. There is a problem there. I understand there is alot of red tape involved with official releases, but even given that, the time frames are still ridiculous to the point that there is nothing reasonable about it. As awesome as the pre was it was missing basic functions, functions that were there in the code, perhaps they wanted to follow apples model of screwing the customer into the next model, idk. The fact of the matter is, there is no reason why htc or acer or samsung, despite touchwiz and sense and cant push out a nice update in a timely manner, none.
bacnat86 said:
if they dont update it you will be more willing to upgrade your phone sooner. They have nothing to gain from spending time updating there phones when they can slap a slightly better os on a slightly better phone and get you in a new two year contract.
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In the UK where contracts (compared with what I've seen in other countries) are actually pretty good value, you get a new phone for free or not very much every time you renew your contract.
After even a year, there are much better phones out there, the phone you have may be a bit scuffed around the corners, battery will be down on capacity.
So most people upgrade when they get a new contract anyway.
It kills me when i read about the supposedly new "jelly bean" that's supposed to be coming out within the year. Seriously? get ICS out on more phones before you even THINK about releasing another update. Who knows the actual reason behind the delays for these updates but someone needs to get on it. When some of the newest phones out right now still don't have ICS or won't for awhile, there's something wrong.
The obvious plan is to push people to buy the newer quad core phones, more contracts, more money, not to mention if there's a premium because they're "quad core" just like then 4G first came out.
the majority of people buy what their salesman makes look good. some chick at the t-mobile store i was in bought some old phone cuz it was a few bucks cheaper than a new phone, which is like twice as fast and will have support at least 6 months longer than the other..
Shano56 said:
the majority of people buy what their salesman makes look good. some chick at the t-mobile store i was in bought some old phone cuz it was a few bucks cheaper than a new phone, which is like twice as fast and will have support at least 6 months longer than the other..
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This is true. A while back when I was trying to buy my first smartphone I ended up buying an original Droid just because of the salesman telling me about buy one get one offer, after reading about them, I had found out that this phone was so outdated, luckily I had found out before my 30 days.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda premium

[Q] Why do the carriers want phones so locked down?

It seems to me that the carriers are the one who push the phone manufacturers to lock down their phones so tightly. What is it that we can do with our phones, other than say get free WiFi tethering, that would be so bad for the carriers if they were more easily modifiable?
Is the problem with the added cost of having to have reps to deal with the myriad things that can go wrong if a device is more easily modifiable?
Or is there something dangerous to the network that you could do if you can modify the device?
Why is it so terrible to the carriers for us to be able to mod our devices?
The simplest answer I can think of is people who root their device and install custom roms and such have a bigger risk of bricking the phone. These things void the warranty, but in many cases people can get their phone to appear to have been unmodified. So now they have to pay to replace the users phone who technically voided their warranty but are able to put it back in a way where it looks like it was never voided.
Another potential reason is that carriers put things on their phone in an attempt to get you to sign up for more of their services, but with rooting you can remove or replace any of these services without them being able to "market" it to you. Think VZ Navigator. Verizon wants customers to pay them to use their navigation software, even if it is super stupid to use it considering Google maps and navigation is free. If you root you can remove VZ Navigator from the device completely. I think this specific argument is a bit dumb, but the best I can come up with at the moment.
One more, there maybe many noob users who root their devices and create big problems by doing so. Carriers do not want to have to devote technical support resources to customers who screw up their device through mistakes caused by them rooting it. If they publicly say they allow rooting, they give people the okay to contact their tech support teams for mistakes the user made. Rather than add that cost and hassle, easier to try to prevent noobs from doing it.
yes, those reasons all seem to make sense! It's all about money.
An additional reason I can think of is that many users who root their devices do so to install custom ROMs, which often extend the useful life of the device, allowing users to delay or forego the purchase of a new device from the carrier. But I really think the primary reasons are as stated above - the increased support required for modified devices, and the ability of modified devices to access paid services (i.e. tethering) without paying an additional fee every month.
The support issue is easily remedied by Motorola's approach of unlocking the boot loader via their web site - it's easy to do, but they have a record of it being done, so the warranty is void and there's no support burden for the (potentially) modified device.

LG Development contact

Hi all. I'm posting this in General because it's a general request. I'd like to see if we can pressure LG a little by sending as many requests as we possibly can to get them to reconsider their stance on this locked bootloader crap. Here is a copy of what I sent. I encourage everyone to register at [url="https://developer.lge.com] the LG Developer site[/url] and post their requests. I also emailed them at [email protected] with the following:
DaemeonZane said:
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing to you today with a request for more information regarding the locked bootloader of all LG G4 devices, save the European G4 variant, the H815.
In the past, LG has been a developer friendly company that has, albeit somewhat grudgingly, supported development of custom software for their devices. As the owner of many LG devices, it saddens me to no end that your company no longer seems to support the unlocking of its many Android devices.
Unlocking one variant whilst refusing to even consider unlocking the others in a series is tantamount to shooting yourselves in the foot as a company. While many believe that securing the bootloader will prevent warranty issues with the devices in question, by not allowing the software (and hardware) to be utilised to its full potential, you run the risk of people attempting to modify their phones through unsupported and unsafe means, increasing the overall cost of replacements and repairs to both yourself as well as the companies you supply with these devices.
Furthermore, you have not released the source for all the G4 variants, which makes testing almost impossible.
We, the staff at Tofflemire Tech Solutions, as well as the development community as a whole, respectfully request that you consider unlocking the bootloaders of your devices, specifically the G4 and G5 variants. We also respectfully request that, should you continue to keep these bootloaders locked, that you provide us with a reason as to why they cannot/should not be unlocked.
Respectfully,
David Tofflemire, Lead Consultant
Tofflemire Tech Solutions
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I support you , and i also write in LG. Please send answer LG, if they respond.
They're being real bastards about this, but I'll tell you what... Despite the G series being the perfect design for a giant like me, I will NOT be buying the G5 unless its bootloader is unlocked on ALL carrier variants. As much as I loathe to abandon LG, the in-hand comfort just isn't enough to make me stay when I can't flash my own kernel for battery optimizations, or my own radio for signal improvements, or my own ROMs for overall performance boosts and the ability to convert it to (with the exception of proprietary blobs for certain hardware) an open phone, free of Google services or any nonfree software.
LG really screwed the pooch with the G4 by taking a phone with great specs, expandability options, and form factor considerations then locking it down for no good reason aside from "warranty" issues. Fact is, 90% of us would restore it back to stock in a way that THEY can't even tell it's been modified as the VERY FIRST thing we'd do if it bricked, and if that didn't fix it, then it most likely is a valid warranty issue and not something the user did.
agentfusion said:
They're being real bastards about this, but I'll tell you what... Despite the G series being the perfect design for a giant like me, I will NOT be buying the G5 unless its bootloader is unlocked on ALL carrier variants. As much as I loathe to abandon LG, the in-hand comfort just isn't enough to make me stay when I can't flash my own kernel for battery optimizations, or my own radio for signal improvements, or my own ROMs for overall performance boosts and the ability to convert it to (with the exception of proprietary blobs for certain hardware) an open phone, free of Google services or any nonfree software.
LG really screwed the pooch with the G4 by taking a phone with great specs, expandability options, and form factor considerations then locking it down for no good reason aside from "warranty" issues. Fact is, 90% of us would restore it back to stock in a way that THEY can't even tell it's been modified as the VERY FIRST thing we'd do if it bricked, and if that didn't fix it, then it most likely is a valid warranty issue and not something the user did.
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Agreed. I'll probably go with the next Nexus phone next time.
DaemeonZane said:
Hi all. I'm posting this in General because it's a general request. I'd like to see if we can pressure LG a little by sending as many requests as we possibly can to get them to reconsider their stance on this locked bootloader crap. Here is a copy of what I sent. I encourage everyone to register at [url="https://developer.lge.com] the LG Developer site[/url] and post their requests. I also emailed them at [email protected] with the following:
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Well i sent lg a email ofcoarse straight to the trash there offical word is no plan to ever spport ls991 wow cold lg. Looks like im nott keeping this phone after all after having this thing for a few days i love it but i cant type for nothin the on screen keys are so innacurate sprint says 14 days i have to returen it i want my g3 back i traded in
I'm with Agentfusion I'll be forced to move on from the G series if we don't get a bootloader unlock. ?
2348z said:
I'm with Agentfusion I'll be forced to move on from the G series if we don't get a bootloader unlock.
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I agree 100%. I should have just waited and paid full price for a N6P.
I'll be honest, I've been doing some research on doing that sort of hack, but it's gonna be a damn hard thing...damn hard.
Im meeting some lg engineers for a week. I could ask them if they worked in the mobile division
How'd it go?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
So far they've declined to comment in any way. I have a feeling they're getting tired of responding.
I'm moving to the Moto X Pure good bye g4
Yeah, I think most of us here won't be staying with LG in the future.

Are OnePlus trying to shake off their "Enthusiast" brand image?

While this really doesn't bother me, all the decisions OnePlus have done since the OnePlus 3 makes it quite clear that OnePlus wants to get rid of their Enthusiast brand image for a more mainstream (Apple/Samsung) style image. The focus on marketing the camera, hiring famous models/actresses to market their products, selling their products in brick and mortar shops. The list can go on.
Like I said this doesn't massively bother me. The more people who know OnePlus the better and hopefully this shift will make them improve parts of their business like customer service or to try and supply "apple" levels of software support..
Would love to hear everyone's thoughts this.
I think you're probably right, but I see it more as natural progression of their business. They're not going to grow if they continue to cater towards us enthusiasts.
I suppose they've probably hit a critical mass of enthusiasts and now need to aim at the more mainstream audience whilst trying to maintain their "cult like culture" at least for 1 more generation.
Business has to grow, make money and appeal/reach to broader audience. And OP is no different there.
Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk
I don't really care.
Define enthusiast. When I think of enthusiast, I think of someone who wants to unlock and root their device. It's as easy to unlock and root the OP5 as it was to unlock previous phones. So what is your definition of enthusiast? Models and cameras doesn't mean a device doesn't want the enthusiast crowd. As for style, there hasn't been a big change in smartphone design since the black square brick came out. The bezels just went away, materials changed, screen sizes grew. What else has changed?
As long as they keep letting bootloader be unlocked and phones be rooted that's all that matters.

What happened to the good old days of people having super modded ROMs

These days we have to be lucky to even get a circular battery, what happened to the industry?
Warranty getting voided.
Better built OEM roms
Companies being more restrictive about open bootloaders
darkriff said:
Warranty getting voided.
Better built OEM roms
Companies being more restrictive about open bootloaders
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Neither of these are changed since then, OEM ROM are limited in 2019 still.
If android grows boring for the average user it can end up pretty badly for the OEMs so maybe they will stop the warranty voiding if (eventually) rooting dies and everyone stops buying them.
Financial security
Photo's[emoji2398] by Sully using SM-N960U or SM-870A
eduardo193 said:
Neither of these are changed since then, OEM ROM are limited in 2019 still.
If android grows boring for the average user it can end up pretty badly for the OEMs so maybe they will stop the warranty voiding if (eventually) rooting dies and everyone stops buying them.
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Regarding your point about the "average user" of Android, the vast majority, probably 98 to 99% of users of Android phones have never heard of Android or know that it's on their phone. Again the vast majority will use only a small amount of available features.
Android enthusiasts on XDA for example are a completely insignificant percentage of customers.
In the extremely unlikely event that we all stopped buying them, the manufacturer wouldn't notice the tiny reduction in sales, without considering what "we" who stopped buying Android phones would buy instead, Apple ?
Locked bootloaders.
Locked bootloaders is the primary reason for the lack of custom ROM's for the U.S. variants. Everyone knows this.
paul_59 said:
Regarding your point about the "average user" of Android, the vast majority, probably 98 to 99% of users of Android phones have never heard of Android or know that it's on their phone. Again the vast majority will use only a small amount of available features.
Android enthusiasts on XDA for example are a completely insignificant percentage of customers.
In the extremely unlikely event that we all stopped buying them, the manufacturer wouldn't notice the tiny reduction in sales, without considering what "we" who stopped buying Android phones would buy instead, Apple ?
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This right here!!!
This is exactly why I get irritated at the kind of complaints that occur on xda. It just seems like a lot of folks think that the small amount of folks in this community can control what companies do. You put it beautifully, we are such a small scratch on their bottom line that it's not even funny.
You often see folks come here and complain about bootloaders and such being locked without thinking of the reasons why securities such as these are developed. For whatever reason, folks think it is just to stop rooting. Software engineering goes a lot deeper than simply rooting a device and getting super user access. Even that alone should be scary enough for people not to want to root their phones but what do we know. Apps sneaking through in the play store haven't been stealing personal information and such on NON ROOTED phones for the past 5 years or nothing.???
Imagine what they can do on a rooted one with Google Pay or Samsung Pay if it were possible to enable. The lawsuits a lone would bankrupt a company, which is why I'm one of the few people I know of that do like the fact that once the device is rooted, those feature such as Google Pay and Samsung Pay can no longer be used. Unless it's a Pixel device, then you can just flash back to stock.??

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