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Mad as hell

almahix

almahix

Android Enthusiast
Okay, maybe not that mad, just annoyed.

When the Motorola Bionic ws introduced I bought one. My beloved original droid was failing and I was by then addicted to smartphones. I was seduced by all the hype, and the very generous Costco offer with all the useful accessories (batteries and chargers) and I bought it. And I love it. I rooted it immediately and loaded the brilliant Th3oryRom, and upgraded continuously as the Th3oryRom team created better and better and easily customizable roms, all the way up to the [K]in3tx which I still run today.

Motorola and Verizon refused to unlock the bootloader, and introduced newer models, which in my opinion do not measure up to the Bionic. To add insult to injury, the development community abandoned the Bionic, except for 1 delevloper who has been striving to give us Ice Cream Sandwich, which Motorola had promised but has yet to deliver. His solo efforts have been productive, and I have tried to run his rom on a daily basis, but it meant sacrificing some useful features that he hasn't yet successfully implemented.

I guess I just resent that the prolific development community has turned its back on the Bionic, Motorola (and Verizon) drag their feet in unlocking the bootloader or releasing ICS, and Google, who is in the progress of acquiring Motorola Mobility, has yet to step up, and seems reluctant to do so.

The first Bionic I bought had to be replaced because the headset jack that I use to feed music to my bluetooth-challenged car) failed. The second phone has started to exhibit the same failure.

The lovely community I call home is in Ventura County, California. We are surrounded by the ocean on one side, mountains on another, and LTE on the other two. We have no LTE. Verizon has not seen fit to include us in their much-hyped LTE footprint.

This phone has tremendous capabilities and admirable features, but hasn't been allowed to realize its true potential. Even if I could get another phone instead of the Bionic I would be reluctant to do so.

There. I feel better. Thank you for indulging my vent.

:mad:
 
You've learned a lesson - if rooting and ROMing is important to you, the next time that you buy a phone, check to see if the device has an active dev community, and, of course, a bootloader that is (or can be) unlocked. Do not trust anybody who tells you that a particular phone will have an unlocked bootloader in the future until it actually happens.

And, to be fair, Motorola never said that they would unlock the bootloader on the Bionic. They did say that they hoped to have a tool that could unlock bootloaders on phones, subject to carrier approval, by the end of 2011, but never promised it to any particular handset - it could easily be interpreted to all handset sold from the end of 2011 going forward. Obviously, that did not happen anyway, or at least not yet.

I have to say - after spending so much time on updating ROMs, etc., on my last phone, I was looking forward to a phone that would be great without rooting it. I think that the Bionic is a great phone stock (I say that despite the fact that I returned it for another phone.) And, honestly, I think that Verizon sells a lot more Bionics (well, Android phones in general) to people who have no intention at all of rooting it at all. I don't think that rooters are the majority, and Motorola and Verizon rightly are concentrating on supporting the people who will always run it stock. If you want to root and customize on VZW, it seems as if the Galaxy Nexus (or the HTC phones that are getting bootloader unlockers) are the way to go, at least for now.
 
almahix said:
Okay, maybe not that mad, just annoyed.

When the Motorola Bionic ws introduced I bought one. My beloved original droid was failing and I was by then addicted to smartphones. I was seduced by all the hype, and the very generous Costco offer with all the useful accessories (batteries and chargers) and I bought it. And I love it. I rooted it immediately and loaded the brilliant Th3oryRom, and upgraded continuously as the Th3oryRom team created better and better and easily customizable roms, all the way up to the [K]in3tx which I still run today.

Motorola and Verizon refused to unlock the bootloader, and introduced newer models, which in my opinion do not measure up to the Bionic. To add insult to injury, the development community abandoned the Bionic, except for 1 delevloper who has been striving to give us Ice Cream Sandwich, which Motorola had promised but has yet to deliver. His solo efforts have been productive, and I have tried to run his rom on a daily basis, but it meant sacrificing some useful features that he hasn't yet successfully implemented.

I guess I just resent that the prolific development community has turned its back on the Bionic, Motorola (and Verizon) drag their feet in unlocking the bootloader or releasing ICS, and Google, who is in the progress of acquiring Motorola Mobility, has yet to step up, and seems reluctant to do so.

The first Bionic I bought had to be replaced because the headset jack that I use to feed music to my bluetooth-challenged car) failed. The second phone has started to exhibit the same failure.

The lovely community I call home is in Ventura County, California. We are surrounded by the ocean on one side, mountains on another, and LTE on the other two. We have no LTE. Verizon has not seen fit to include us in their much-hyped LTE footprint.

This phone has tremendous capabilities and admirable features, but hasn't been allowed to realize its true potential. Even if I could get another phone instead of the Bionic I would be reluctant to do so.

There. I feel better. Thank you for indulging my vent.

:mad:
Click to expand...

Could you take a minute to indulge me, please? I'm curious why you find it necessary to root a phone. My Bionic works like a champ, and now that I put Nuance's Go voice app on it yesterday (it just hit the market yesterday), it's even more awesome.
 
dave1812 said:
Could you take a minute to indulge me, please? I'm curious why you find it necessary to root a phone. My Bionic works like a champ, and now that I put Nuance's Go voice app on it yesterday (it just hit the market yesterday), it's even more awesome.
Click to expand...

I like to root my phone because I like to play with things. In order to protect myself from making a stupid mistake I like to use programs like titanium backup to restore data that might have been lost otherwise. Without routing I wouldn't be able to use that program or play with alternate roms. The product ought to be mine to do with as I please and efforts on anyone's part to preclude that are unreasonable in my own opinion. There is nothing sinister about it. I am not trying to steal anything or abuse anything. I just want to play with my "toy". I choose to do that and to all those who choose not to, I say fine. Live and let live!
 
I agree with you 100%.

Permanently disconnect your Bionic from all communications (wireless providers, WiFi, and BlueTooth) and then do WHATEVER you want with your Bionic.

The problems come in when you connect it to the outside world through any of those mechanisms. Believe it or not there are dishonest people out there. They tend to surface whenever money is involved.

Apparently root-ing is no longer a no-no. Some of the apps you can run when root-ed are.

That's the catch.

... Thom
 
Thom Little said:
I agree with you 100%.

Permanently disconnect your Bionic from all communications (wireless providers, WiFi, and BlueTooth) and then do WHATEVER you want with your Bionic.

The problems come in when you connect it to the outside world through any of those mechanisms. Believe it or not there are dishonest people out there. They tend to surface whenever money is involved.

Apparently root-ing is no longer a no-no. Some of the apps you can run when root-ed are.

That's the catch.

... Thom
Click to expand...

Well I am not going to disconnect from the service they require me to buy. I am not doing anything that violates their terms of service running these programs that require rooting. I am not stealing service, compromising their network, or causing any harm to anybody. Arrest and prosecute those that do, but don't penalize me. Owning a fast car isn't illegal, but driving in a manner that harms others is. (I own the slow version of a potentially fast car and drive like a senior, without the hat!)
 
There are a lot user's out there that root to use their phone as they want to, not for the "free wifi tether". I rooted my phone to eliminate the bloat, increase my battery life, customize the look of it and see what it is capable of. Nothing I have done is illegal it just voids the warranty (which I accepted the consequences when I press "root my phone"). If I do screw up my phone I will take the hit not Verizon by trying to warranty it.
 
almahix said:
Well I am not going to disconnect from the service they require me to buy. I am not doing anything that violates their terms of service running these programs that require rooting. I am not stealing service, compromising their network, or causing any harm to anybody. Arrest and prosecute those that do, but don't penalize me. Owning a fast car isn't illegal, but driving in a manner that harms others is. (I own the slow version of a potentially fast car and drive like a senior, without the hat!)
Click to expand...

I never said you were. I never implied that you were.

The problem is that the technology is not readily available to stop the bad guys without also negatively affecting you. If there was then you would not be confronted with this problem.

Some people who are getting nailed are closing down. They can't tell ,you are a good guy renting the movie on your root-ed phone. They can tell that you have the technology to be a bad guy. The chose to deny you the ability to rent the movie because you have the capability to steal it.

Sort of like ... you visit a Friends house and have to ring the bell and be let in. Your Friend knows you and knows you won't rip him off but the door is locked so some bad guy doesn't rip him off.

... Thom
 
dfib said:
There are a lot user's out there that root to use their phone as they want to, not for the "free wifi tether". I rooted my phone to eliminate the bloat, increase my battery life, customize the look of it and see what it is capable of. Nothing I have done is illegal it just voids the warranty (which I accepted the consequences when I press "root my phone"). If I do screw up my phone I will take the hit not Verizon by trying to warranty it.
Click to expand...

I have a root-ed Droid X and an un-root-ed Bionic. (I want to keep the Bionic "production".)

From some other threads in this forum it is not clear that root-ing violates your warranty. It could if they chose to enforce it. I don't think you have an exposure.

... Thom
 
Thom,

That was not directed at you as I have read in other post that you have a rooted Droid X. It was a general statement of my stance on unlocking and rooting a phone.
 
dfib said:
Thom,

That was not directed at you as I have read in other post that you have a rooted Droid X. It was a general statement of my stance on unlocking and rooting a phone.
Click to expand...

I think your stance is fine. My only observation was that you probably don't have an exposure. There were a bunch of posts from the Moderator that indicated that in a thread talking about some unaccepted uses.

... Thom
 
I feel ya almahix. I'm also disappointed with the lack of roms but its not killing me. My hope is that motorola doesn't take too long with the Ics update. If this phone
wasn't such a good phone to me, i would be going nuts by now.
 
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