I bought a new phone today...

[DiscipleDOC]

Originally Posted by Roadhog

With how often DD changes kernels.. I think he is going to cry.

I can live with it. So far, I'm impressed with the speed of this phone.

Can.


CAN YOU?! YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE LOCKDOWN!

[Rakeesh]

I treat phones the same way I treat PC's - laptops in particular. Although you can't build your own laptops, if they told me that I couldn't remove all of the crapplets that they included and I couldn't roll my own OS setup from the ground up, I'd get a different laptop, plain and simple.

I don't get why motorola is pretty rabbid about making sure you don't roll your own setup (could be that they profit from e.g. the amazon mp3 app, and thus want to ensure you can't remove it)

That said though, just today the developer community announced there may be hope around the corner for atrix owners:

http://www.xda-developers.com/androi...o-be-unlocked/

[nekrosoft13]

Originally Posted by shabby

Its beyond locked down, no custom kernels at all, it should be avoided like the plague for people who like to tinker with phones.

so was droid x, give it time. its a great phone. much better then the galaxy s crapshoot.

[nekrosoft13]

Originally Posted by Rakeesh

I don't get why motorola is pretty rabbid about making sure you don't roll your own setup (could be that they profit from e.g. the amazon mp3 app, and thus want to ensure you can't remove it)

That said though, just today the developer community announced there may be hope around the corner for atrix owners:

http://www.xda-developers.com/androi...o-be-unlocked/

1) there is no amazon mp3 app on the phone
2) all apps that come with the phone can be removed with zero issues.
3) custom rom (minus the kernel) can be flashed to the phone
4) kernel will be unlocked in due time, just like droid x (had a locked bootloader before)

[zoomy942]

I just can't stand how big phones are getting. So and I have debated this over and over. Large doesn't = portable. Why would I cram a 4 inch screen into my pocket? It's a hue slab. In using an OG Droid right now and it's borderline. The Eris is a perfect form factor but it's just too underpowered.

[DiscipleDOC]

Originally Posted by nekrosoft13

so was droid x, give it time. its a great phone. much better then the galaxy s crapshoot.

+1. I like my Atrix much better than my Captivate.

Originally Posted by zoomy942

I just can't stand how big phones are getting. So and I have debated this over and over. Large doesn't = portable. Why would I cram a 4 inch screen into my pocket? It's a hue slab. In using an OG Droid right now and it's borderline. The Eris is a perfect form factor but it's just too underpowered.

Look into the HTC Aria/Legend. Nice size vs performance in it. I have one laying around somewhere.

[zoomy942]

Originally Posted by |MaguS|

Look into the HTC Aria/Legend. Nice size vs performance in it. I have one laying around somewhere.

nice! too bad im VZW

[Rakeesh]

Originally Posted by nekrosoft13

1) there is no amazon mp3 app on the phone
2) all apps that come with the phone can be removed with zero issues.

I never said any of this wasn't true, just that I don't know why motorola wants to lock the bootloader whereas companies like samsung don't care what you do with it.

Originally Posted by nekrosoft13

3) custom rom (minus the kernel) can be flashed to the phone

Without being able to modify the kernel there aren't a whole lot of interesting things you can do. For example without modifying the kernel you'll never see a port of cyanogen which IMO is the best android distribution there is. Or if you're into MIUI you'll never see that either.

Originally Posted by nekrosoft13

4) kernel will be unlocked in due time, just like droid x (had a locked bootloader before)

There are no guarantees of that. I've been involved in the development scene of many different systems over the years that ended up seeing revisions of hardware whereby modifications were never made even years after release, or if not that, physical hardware modification was necessary which most people aren't able to perform.

The best example of this is the tivo scene. The series 2 units came with digital signature checking on the kernel which prevented modification. However a kernel exploit was found so that we could prevent the kernel from performing a signature check on the binaries it executed.

Such a kernel exploit was never found for the series 3 units, so modification required us to physically de-solder surface mount components, reprogram the prom, and install a socket.

The series 4 units now have a CPU that performs a signature check on the prom, so reprogramming it is useless, and given that there are no known kernel exploits, it's gg. It may be possible to work out a solution that would involve replacing the CPU, but that would be so costly that nobody would want to bother with it, hence modification became impractical.

So the "it's only a matter of time" or the "if man can make it, man can break it" philosophy doesn't always work. There are a few phones out there that haven't yet seen any progress, take a look at the Incredible S or the Desire S.

[bob saget]

whats a kernel ?

[DiscipleDOC]

Originally Posted by Rakeesh

Without being able to modify the kernel there aren't a whole lot of interesting things you can do. For example without modifying the kernel you'll never see a port of cyanogen which IMO is the best android distribution there is. Or if you're into MIUI you'll never see that either.

I've tried both (CM7 and the latest MIUI), and I wasn't impressed with either. Continuum5 however, showed a lot of promise.

I still think it's just a matter of time before motorola will be unlocked fully.