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Samsung - GPS Fix/Froyo
- Thread starter Cuerbo
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- samsung captivate
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Jack45
Android Expert
Well, I just can't let this pass. I believe some points of clarification are in order.
>>> Apple addressed the issue with a conference 2 weeks after the phone was released.
Apple was forced to address the issue by a press and public that was incredulous that a pinky could so significantly degrade the phone's signal. They also "addressed" the proximity sensor issue which has still not been fixed, almost two months after the press conference. Mr. Jobs did not get on stage because he woke up one morning and determined that it would be a good thing to do. Both of these issues relate to the prime functionality of the device, after all it IS an iPhone.
>>> Apple offered a bandaid fix (a bumper) for free.
Very reluctantly, and only after placing death grips on competitor phones in his transparent attempt to deflect from the real issue at hand. If I sat on my Captivate I, too, could degrade the signal. Remember the pinky comment from above? Besides, what was the alternative? A recall? This was an inexpensive way to appease the great unwashed. A sort of peace offering to salve the injury caused by the iPhone's telephonic shortcoming.
>>> If one wasn't satisfied with the bandaid fix from Apple, one could return the phone for a full refund.
I wouldn't expect anything less from an instrument touted as a phone that couldn't adequately perform as a phone.
>>> If Samsung can't fix the GPS to 2010 smartphone standards, can we expect a full refund? Partial refund? Anything other than "better luck next time"?
I expect the GPS issue to be resolved. Short of that, we'll simply have to wait and see what happens. I wouldn't expect a full refund, though. After all, its primary purpose in life is to be a phone - not a TomTom.
Jack45
Android Expert
I grabbed a screen shot of "Do you want them to half-ass it..." before it's gone for good.
Actually, on second thought, I think that should be Samsung's motto. "We don't half-ass our fixes."
™ Chicknlil 2010
Wow, that Fascinate video makes my Captivate GPS look like its working to spec. AT&T has until the end of October, at which time, I will ask for a full refund. Regarding Apple and the proximity sensor, it has been fixed. IOS 4.2 coming out 9/8 (tomorrow) will have the fix for that and the Bluetooh issue as well. That's what, two months to solve the issues. Not great but at least there's progress. There are also some performance improvements for older phones running IOS4.
As for the comment of get a GPS, this is really a phone. Sorry, tell Samsung to remove the claim of having GPS from their specs if they can't built and release one that works. I had plan to travel and use my phone to get around, one device fits all, seems like that might not be the plan after all.
Keep waiting for the end of September, you'll see nothing will be delivered by Samsung.
As for the comment of get a GPS, this is really a phone. Sorry, tell Samsung to remove the claim of having GPS from their specs if they can't built and release one that works. I had plan to travel and use my phone to get around, one device fits all, seems like that might not be the plan after all.
Keep waiting for the end of September, you'll see nothing will be delivered by Samsung.
Jack45
Android Expert
Let's also tell Honda to stop advertising that their Minivans and SUVs have brakes since brake problems have led to a major recall.
I concur exactly with what Cuerbo said above. My issue is in a featureset that is mislabeled, false and nonfucntional.
Even for a free Captivate, I don't want to be wedded to a phone and carrier for two years that works worse than others I have had. Regardless of how fantastic the screen looks.
my Captivate replacement:
No contract. GPS works. Unlimited text messages. $40 a month. Will tide me over until an Android 2.2+ phone (Cupcake anyone) is released that works 100%, maintains calls, and provides a noticeably superior end user experience.
It only took Microsoft 24 years to release an OS that worked nearly as well as its competitors. Perhaps Samsung and AT&T will get it some day.
Even for a free Captivate, I don't want to be wedded to a phone and carrier for two years that works worse than others I have had. Regardless of how fantastic the screen looks.
my Captivate replacement:
No contract. GPS works. Unlimited text messages. $40 a month. Will tide me over until an Android 2.2+ phone (Cupcake anyone) is released that works 100%, maintains calls, and provides a noticeably superior end user experience.
It only took Microsoft 24 years to release an OS that worked nearly as well as its competitors. Perhaps Samsung and AT&T will get it some day.
No doubt about it - this is possibly THE hot issue on the Galaxy-class phones right now.
For some, it's a bigger issue than for others.
Man! Try getting around Boston, home of "you better know where you are, we forgot to put up street signs!" I know I can't.
Anyway, I'm keeping a good thought and hoping that Samsung really comes through on this for everyone concerned.
For some, it's a bigger issue than for others.
Man! Try getting around Boston, home of "you better know where you are, we forgot to put up street signs!" I know I can't.
Anyway, I'm keeping a good thought and hoping that Samsung really comes through on this for everyone concerned.
Seriously, stop making these threads. Take your phone back, get an iPhone, or and Aria, or switch to Verizon and get a Droid X or Incredible, or perhaps go to Sprint where the Epic (the exact same phone as the Captivate with EXTRA features) where Samsung has already addressed and fixed the GPS. There's the proof that they obviously already have fixed it. We are just waiting for them to fully test it before rolling it out to the Captivate\Vibrant. But since you need GPS to work NOW NOW NOW (because you are so entitled) why don't you do one of two of the sensible things: a) trade the Captivate for whatever phone keeps you from whining to the people who are happy with their Captivate or b) BUY A GPS UNIT. I'm fascinated (BTW, the Fascinate is coming out on Verizon - maybe wait and see if the GPS is fixed on that and switch over to that) by how entitled some people seem to get over a feature that cell phones have just started adding as a BONUS to phone only just a few years ago. Believe it or not, people at one point had to carry maps in their glove boxes, pull over and unfold these things that unfolded to the size of an IMAX screen, and then try to trace the route with their finger to figure out where to go, and then hopefully remember what they just looked up after figuring out how to fold the thing back up again. Now we have devices that hold our hands and tell us exactly where you go. This is amazing technology that we have at our disposal, but now we have people that have access to all of these privileges, and throw little kid hissy-fits whenever something goes wrong to the point where they have to put a little extra effort into their daily life that is already made super-easy by technology in the first place.
How important is GPS to you? If it is so important that this phone is ruining your life over it, then get an actual GPS. A standalone GPS unit can cost around $200-$500 for a decent unit. Did you really think that a $200 multi-function cell phone was going to be as good as a dedicated GPS unit that can easily be twice the price of the cell phone that has GPS as a side-function? You've fooled yourself if you did. Anyone that has that much of a reliance of GPS, should get a GPS standalone unit. No questions. For people that need some basic GPS that can help out in a pinch, the Samsung's upcoming GPS fix is fine. Hey, I need GPS too. I have a GPS unit. Portable gaming is important for some people too. Hardcore gamers aren't content with the games on cell phones, so they buy a Nintendo DS or a PSP. Cell phone games are geared more towards casual gaming as a way to kill time while waiting in line at the DMV.
Look I get frustration. My knee-jerk reaction when my cell phone seizes up for a few beats, is to grit my teeth and grown and sometimes even shout 'Come on!" I blow off steam. I don't complain to the world that the technology that has made my life easier owes me so much more and that the company that makes it owes me upgrades and fixes yesterday. You paid for what was in the box. Period. This GPS issue has been public knowledge since the phone first came out. The people who complain about the GPS either failed to research their major purchase, or bought it anyway under the expectation that the issue would be fixed by the end of the week. Either way, its all your fault and you got what you deserved. I'm just a little burned out on certain people coming to these forums and trying to get a pity-party going about it.
There are too many threads on this issue. It's tiring. We are all aware of it. The dead horse has been beaten to a pulp. Wait patiently like the rest of us, or move on. Most of us are happy enough with our Captivates. We are trying to help each other out and have discussion about it. At the very least, keep the GPS complaints in a single thread and stop flooding the forums with this tired complaint. We're sick of hearing it now.
Samsung has issue several statements about this and has confirmed a fix is on the way. It has been posted by Engadget on numerous occasions. This information was a Google search away. Try looking it up. I'm not going to do it for you, but others in this thread have seen the same confirmations. This is not information that is being hidden from you.
The truth is, companies provide updates and support as a means of staying competitive and keeping customer loyalty. You paid for what was in the box. There's no law that says that Samsung has to provide ANY fixes for this phone. They would just be stupid if they didn't because that would hurt their business and their reputation. The fact that they are working on the fix shows that they are going to support it. Stop acting like you paid for this update in advance as part of the price of the phone. You did not. Samsung will get it out when it is ready. If they released it before it was ready, do you honestly think that would be better? They have said they are shooting for the end of September. You are complaining because they didn't give a specific day? Do you want a time down to the minute as well?
I've come to this thread to help and be helped. I have no problems with people saying "I wish my phone could do xxx. Is there an app that can do this?" or something constructive. The few threads I have posted have been to help expand the potential of the phone and hopefully show people something that can help them out. The "disable\enable data" thread seemed to do that for people. I've also learned about a lot of apps that have really helped me out from this forum. That's what this is about. I'm just tired of coming here and seeing more of these "This phone sucks, and instead of just taking it back, I'm going to take my anger out on all of you" threads.
I encourage you to watch this video for a better understanding of what afflicts you. I'm pretty sure that Louis C.K. was talking about people like this here in this video
Everything's Amazing & Nobody's Happy
YouTube - Everythings Amazing & Nobodys Happy
Samsung is lucky they haven't been exposed like Apple, otherwise, this GPS issue would have been a different story by now. EarlyMon, went for a walk with the wife the other day around town and the Captivate had me all over the place. How can anyone be happy is beyond me.
The time-to-fix is relevant to those who are prospective purchasers on a clock to decide whether these companies will implement a satisfactory solution.
let's assume that User A trusts Samsung and AT&T to push a fix out within his evaluation period. This fix never arrives. Too bad for User A. Does he have reason to be upset?
Lets say we have 10,000 users who fall for such a situation. Can you say "Class Action Suit?" I bet you can.
True, it's really not this important. It's also potential sales, word of mout advertizing from happy customers, and a paradigm shift away from Microsoft and Apple's policies.
I advocate Open Source. I make my living from UNIX products. I want this platform to succeed on many fronts. Upsetting one's techie user base and poisoning the well is not a good business practice. This is why I post.
let's assume that User A trusts Samsung and AT&T to push a fix out within his evaluation period. This fix never arrives. Too bad for User A. Does he have reason to be upset?
Lets say we have 10,000 users who fall for such a situation. Can you say "Class Action Suit?" I bet you can.
True, it's really not this important. It's also potential sales, word of mout advertizing from happy customers, and a paradigm shift away from Microsoft and Apple's policies.
I advocate Open Source. I make my living from UNIX products. I want this platform to succeed on many fronts. Upsetting one's techie user base and poisoning the well is not a good business practice. This is why I post.
Jack45
Android Expert
Sounds romantic.
ArchVile, I posted to share my thoughts with others and at no point were you force to click on it. I don't click on other posts in the forum which don't interest me, so I recommend you do the same. I love my phone but when I can't use apps that rely on GPS then I have a bone to pick. Unlike you, I don't settle that easily and I expect service and/or a response after paying for something that should work out of the box.
So if you are upset then simply ignore the post and move on.
So if you are upset then simply ignore the post and move on.
Endoran
Android Enthusiast
I encourage you to watch this video for a better understanding of what afflicts you. I'm pretty sure that Louis C.K. was talking about people like this here in this video
Everything's Amazing & Nobody's Happy
YouTube - Everythings Amazing & Nobodys Happy
Holy god man that video just made my day. Thank-you.
This response is shortsighted at best. The phone is a *smart* phone. GPS is a *large* part of location based apps, not just maps and navigation. If I just wanted a dumb phone, I would have bought a dumb phone.
Fact is people use smartphones more for internet, media, text, email, photo, and video than as an actual phone. How would you like it if your data/email/text only worked some of the time? Would you say that's ok since it's purpose is being a phone and not a computer? *You* probably would. But most others wouldn't.
For the sake of fairness, I did direct my post specifically at you, when in all honesty, your name can easily be replaced with any number of people who are coming in and creating the exact same thread, ad nauseum. You just happen to be that one last drop in the bucket the made all of the water spill out the side for me.
I all seriousness, if it was JUST this one thread I wouldn't have said anything. A few months ago, when this first came about, it started off being just the one thread we ignored. Now it's practically a pestilence. I understand you saying "don't read this thread" and I usually do ignore complaint threads now, because I've heard it all before. Just to be clear, the topic of this thread was "GPS Fix/Froyo". I check it out, thinking, perhaps this is some news or update on the GPS fix and Froyo. Lo and behold, it happens to be yet another complaint thread, repeating the same thing we have heard time and time again. It's not like I can go back and unread it. If you had named this thread something like "Another complaint about the non-functional GPS" you probably wouldn't have had to endure a long jag from me. You can't expect you create a thread with an ambiguous title and then tell people it was on them for clicking into it and reading the contents.
I think Archville and others are jsut expressing thier fustration with the 121092382093 threads that are already active on this same subject. it seems everyone wants to make thier own thread on the the subect however, which does get fustrating when trying to pin down information.
While IMO its OK to post your fustrations, I think people were checking a little early. I beleive as it was said earlier Samsung said Late September for the fix\Froyo. Also, even if they said september it has to go through ATT afterwords.
Also, as its been said before in other trheads, this issue has been WELL known about for some time now. If you bought the phone with the expectation that within the 1st week of september both Samsung and ATT would ahve this out, IMO its a little far off. Samsung announced this at the end Of August saying they were working on it and hoped to have it out by the end of September, now once they get done ATT can take thier sweet time as they dont have a timeline.
Again, I do understand your fustrations with the phone, but we really shuold try to concentrate on haveing maybe 1 thread for all of the GPS venting that needs to be done. That thread will get a lot of views and hopefully would prevent the multiple posting of "I am still having GPS issues" or its Sept XX where is the update".
Personally I have seen the GPS issues and experienced them, but unlike many I guess I dont rely on my phone for GPS (Navigation in the car for that). Its not going to ruin my experience with the rest of the phone though.
Jack45
Android Expert
I'd await a fix, since I originally purchased the device trusting that the company behind it would support it. I wouldn't whine about it, cry about it, or moan about it. That approach is non-productive, childish, and a result of parental skills that lacked sufficient measures of discipline.
ArchVile, this is what forums are all about. This is not the only forum in town with repetitive entries, I think you can say any of these have been posted more than once (Lag, GPS, Reboots, Rooting, Firmware, Newbie,etc). That does not mean you unload on anyone just because they posted a million times. I'm not upset at anyone here but I do think a lot of you are making the mistake of sitting back and watching the hours go by when it comes to this GPS issue.
Could my topic been a bit clearer, I agree. But we're all in this together and we all paid a good amount of money for a smartphone not a dumb phone. The entries of, oh it doesn't bother me, is BS. I bet those posters flame here and there when they can't use an app that relies on GPS. Take FourSquares for example, you might visit a business next to a strip joint but when your Captivate reports your location, you're at the strip joint.
For any moderators reading this, we should create a sticky at the top called "Tracking GPS Fix and Froyo Update". That would save a lot of headaches and posting.
Take a deep breath, hopefully, the GPS issue will soon be in the history books and we can all go on enjoying each others company here at the forum. If this forum is going to be a flame war each time I post an opinion then that will be the end of it soon. I don't keep track of how many GPS entries there are in a week and I don't expect anyone to do so either. So be a bit forgiving when someone does create a duplicate and try to understand their point of view.
Recommendation, for moderators reading this, can you create a "Tracking GPS Fix" and "Froyo Update News" sticky so we can avoid a future flame war.
Could my topic been a bit clearer, I agree. But we're all in this together and we all paid a good amount of money for a smartphone not a dumb phone. The entries of, oh it doesn't bother me, is BS. I bet those posters flame here and there when they can't use an app that relies on GPS. Take FourSquares for example, you might visit a business next to a strip joint but when your Captivate reports your location, you're at the strip joint.
For any moderators reading this, we should create a sticky at the top called "Tracking GPS Fix and Froyo Update". That would save a lot of headaches and posting.
Take a deep breath, hopefully, the GPS issue will soon be in the history books and we can all go on enjoying each others company here at the forum. If this forum is going to be a flame war each time I post an opinion then that will be the end of it soon. I don't keep track of how many GPS entries there are in a week and I don't expect anyone to do so either. So be a bit forgiving when someone does create a duplicate and try to understand their point of view.
Recommendation, for moderators reading this, can you create a "Tracking GPS Fix" and "Froyo Update News" sticky so we can avoid a future flame war.
what make you post this? have you seen the other 100s posts about the same havent you seen the sticky that is talking about this?
what make you think yours is diferent? please stop wasting space with duplicates
That's funny. Some call it discipline. Others call it oppression.
My GPS on the Captivate doesn't work well either and am waiting for Samsung and AT&T to rollout the correction. In the meantime, I just keep using my Garmin nuvi...works very well for GPS but I can't make a call on it. The Captivate works pretty well as a phone but isn't all that smart yet 
People regardless of whether you use the GPS or not, the fact is Samsung ADVERTISES AND MARKETS this phone as having GPS capabilities. The fact that this does NOT WORK is false advertising!! PERIOD. And they have sold over a million of these devices which do not work as advertised. This is simply ripe for a class action lawsuit unless Samsung fixes this ASAP.
TDQuiksilver
Well-Known Member
You do realize that by the time a silly class action lawsuit goes to court a fix will already be released... right?
Okay, this is a half-way valid point. At least up to the class-action lawsuit thing. Lots of things don't work as advertised but they don't all turn into lawsuits. Generally if it is cheap enough people just say, "what a ripoff" toss it aside as a loss and not bother with it again, but I'll grant you that a cellphone, laptop, car or other major purchase is a different scenario. It is true that Samsung advertises a working GPS. For that I won't disagree. I will say that any major purchase should include research, and through research this is a known problem. That's not to excuse Samsung for the issue, but my biggest beef I think is that people right fully complained until Samsung promised a fix and gave a deadline (albeit a flexible deadline, but that can go either way, and I doubt people would complain if it was pushed out earlier than projected). They at least addressed us and gave us assurance that it will be fixed. If they gave us all the middle-finger, I would share your ire.
I think people don't appreciate how complex these devices, GPS included, really are. It's not just a matter of changing little bits of code and calling it done and fixed. My guess is, they had to rewrite the driver from scratch due to a buggy foundation (but that's only a speculation). Stuff like this takes time from skilled people who know what they are doing. I'm just not sure I like the sweeping generalizations that Samsung doesn't care and isn't doing enough when we know nothing about what goes into this kind of thing. I'm not saying that they need to be excused from pushing a product with a major glitch in it, but cut them at least a little bit of slack for doing what they can. Pretty much everything tech related comes out with bugs these days because technology is too complex for everything to be caught and sometimes they aren't caught until the devices are tested en mass. Let's not make the pre-assumption that Samsung has let us down before th deadline has even come around. If we hit mid-October without an update or at least some feedback, then I might share into some frustration.
Class action lawsuit doesn't factor into this. That would only apply if there was no option for a full and complete refund, which there is. Because this is considered a functional defect, people have been able to return the phone directly to AT&T with the restocking fee waived even. If the device isn't working as advertised, you should, like others have, return the device and either go with another device, or return to your old device and wait until the issues are ironed out and try again when the feedback has improved on the issue. Its not grounds for a class-action lawsuit and no one who speaks of one usually has any intention of starting one. They just say that to blow off steam and often think it's a motivational threat to the company that they feel wronged them. Let's just wait and see what Samsung does. Judging by the fact that the fix is already applied to the Epic and that bootleg Froyo ROMS are already floating around for the Captivate, I'm guessing they are pretty close to being ready to give us something.
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