I also dislike this move by Motorola. It's like using tamper proof screws and violates the idea from Make: "If you can't open it, you don't own it."<p>DIY/Makers and anyone else who ends up repairing fancy devices (phones, after market stereo head units, various lab equipment) have constantly fought with this type of thing. It comes in forms of bios that self destruct, glue that's only purpose is to break something internal if a panel is removed, or tamper proof screws on replacement parts.<p>See the Makers "Bill of Rights" - <a href="http://cdn.makezine.com/make/MAKERS_RIGHTS.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://cdn.makezine.com/make/MAKERS_RIGHTS.pdf</a> (pdf). I tend to judge companies on whether or not their products are outright MADE to prevent me from being able to fix it myself. If I can't, I won't buy products from them again. As @meunierc said, "vote with your dollars."
What do they gain by doing this? I just don't get it. I have no problem with them not supporting hacking their devices but to go out of the way to prevent it (let alone bricking it) doesn't make any sense. We wouldn't accept it from a computer manufacturer, so why with a phone?<p>EDIT:
I know most here will get it but this drives me crazy because it stifles progression. Did Motorola every think that their next best engineers might be the kids that are so passionate about this stuff that they want to tinker with their phone in these ways?
That's Motorola's policy and it's clearly documented ( <a href="http://community.developer.motorola.com/t5/MOTODEV-Blog/Custom-ROMs-and-Motorola-s-Android-Handsets/ba-p/4224" rel="nofollow">http://community.developer.motorola.com/t5/MOTODEV-Blog/Cust...</a> )<p>"Securing the software on our handsets, thereby preventing a non-Motorola ROM image from being loaded, has been our common practice for many years."<p>It's really depressing :(
The efuse paranoia has, to a large degree, already been debunked. DroidLife[0] quotes BGR[1] as saying:<p>"The current theory being put forth by the non-alarmists in the Android hacking community suggests that the DROID X is locked in a similar manner to the Milestone. Though it may be difficult to crack, and may lead to many hairs being pulled out, mucking with the bootloader probably won’t brick your phone."<p>[0]<a href="http://www.droid-life.com/2010/07/15/enough-with-the-efuse-talk-already/" rel="nofollow">http://www.droid-life.com/2010/07/15/enough-with-the-efuse-t...</a><p>[1]<a href="http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/07/15/reality-check-modding-the-droid-x-may-not-lead-to-a-bricked-phone/" rel="nofollow">http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/07/15/reality-check-modd...</a>
I was planning on getting the Droid X until I learned of this. It's a slap in the face and unfortunately most people won't even realize it. Slowly innovation and growth in smart phones will slow and no one will realize why. They won't realize they were cutting of their own noses. How popular was Moto's Linux phone before android? Not as popular as they are, that's for sure. They need the hackers and tinkers to push the platform forward. Moto and Verizion sure has heck won't do it.
this is the source of the article:
<a href="http://www.mydroidworld.com/forums/droid-x-discussion/3330-how-droid-x-locked-down-let-me-tell-you-what-i-know.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.mydroidworld.com/forums/droid-x-discussion/3330-h...</a><p>from the source, the things checked before blowing the fuse are: "the firmware information (what we call ROMS), the kernel information, and the bootloader version"<p>it seems like if you get any kind of corruption, in any part of the above components, for any amount of time, your phone becomes a brick.<p>corruption happens: my previous phone was a motorola. i stopped using it because it would randomly redirect phone calls to other numbers in the phone book (but it was usable for a long period despite this).<p>motorola phones' get corruption (which keep essential functions working), but now any temporary, minor problem results in permanent, intentional bricking.
Damn it. Just cancelled my order (placed yesterday). Funny thing is I was switching from AT&T to Verizon to get it, so now Verizon has not only lost my $200 but my future monthly fees as well.<p>Now I'm considering the Nexus One, but then I wonder when the Nexus Two might come out? From a hardware standpoint (aside from the 8GB internal storage, HDMI out and bigger screen) the DroidX doesn't look <i>that</i> much better.<p>Thoughts?
Sadly, this is not new. See "Tivoization" at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization</a>
Are the comments on mobile crunch for real or just a pack of trolls? I wonder what the actual public perception will be.<p>Is this "Motorola stops would-be cell phone hackers!" or "Motorola puts self-destruct sequence in your phone!"?
I really like how companies don't understand that the possibility to modify and fiddle with a device makes this device much more attractive for the right customers lke us hackers.
Not quite as evil, but T-Mobile Germany is preventing me from flashing my HTC Hero and at the same time delay official updates by months. Suffice to say, I won't ever buy a phone from a mobile phone company again - they suck at software!
I don't really care, and I certainly wouldn't change my recommendation of a phone to a consumer based on this. But read to the end before you downvote :)<p>As a vendor, dealing with hacks, jailbreaks, and other such things is remarkably expensive. Consumers (not developers) wind up installing these things without understanding the implications of what they're doing. The OS breaks, the applications break, things go haywire, things go bad. The hardware vendor, the OS vendor, and the application vendor all take the blame and have to deal with the support costs. We get support e-mails all the time that can be traced to iOS jailbreak-induced issues.<p>It's a massive pain in the neck that, understandably, a vendor just doesn't want to deal with.<p>Moreover, as a consumer, it's incredibly wasteful to be spending so much time on trying to break into undocumented systems that the vendors just aren't interested in supporting.<p>Instead, I want to support vendors that provide more open platforms for a more premium price. It <i>costs</i> more to produce an open, supported platform, and I don't mind paying a little bit for an Android development phone that allows me to experiment with OS-level work, or something like the Ubiquity RouterStation Pro[0] as an alternative to consumer wireless routers. The advantage to me is that hacking the device is <i>supported</i> and I don't have to fight with a consumer manufacturer -- a company with very different priorities to my own -- to do it.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.ubnt.com/rspro" rel="nofollow">http://www.ubnt.com/rspro</a>
When are you kids going to learn? If you have to root it, hack it, jailbreak it or otherwise mod it against the terms of purchase which you signed voluntarily when purchasing, why are you surprised when your candy is removed from you? If it doesn't do the job and the maker doesn't want it to do the job, it's his problem. Don't act like a spoiled brat and give in to the cat-and-mouse game of hacking and counterhacking.<p>Vote with your dollars.
I can just imagine the reaction if it had been <i>Apple</i> releasing a phone that self-destructed when you modded it. Since this is Android - and Android is 'open' - expect the story to fall into news-cycle oblivion by next week.<p>Where's the outrage now?
Wow, Google is giving away their OS for free, and Motorola is locking it up.
It's not even theirs to lock up.
We PAID for it....do they not get the concept of money or what?