The Android Dev Phone 1

Posted Dec 30, 2008 2:57 UTC (Tue) by ikm (guest, #493)
Parent article: The Android Dev Phone 1

I really don't like the idea of Google storing all my personal information, analyzing it, peeking at it, handling it away arbitrarily according to its whims, keeping it for an indefinite amount of time, and even disallowing to erase it. Since it's this what this phone is really about, I'd rather get a (still currently non-free) Symbian phone which, despite having non-free firmware, still is designed to be owned by me rather than by some friendly Mom's corporation. Google rightly separates information from everything else, and it's that what it wants to have, not some source codes. Probably not by a coincidence, it's what I want to keep to myself as well.

The Android Dev Phone 1

Posted Dec 30, 2008 3:26 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

Well it's open source so you can change it if you want. The Dev edition, which does no firmware signing and is not restricted to any carrier, can be made to do whatever you want. It's effectively a new operating system that uses a Linux kernel.. it's just not posix.

Find all the mentions of IP addresses or 'google.com' and point them to something else if your paranoid about it.

As far as the Symbian phone goes all you can do is take their word for it that it's not going to be used to spy on you in any manner.

The Android Dev Phone 1

Posted Dec 30, 2008 10:59 UTC (Tue) by nedrichards (subscriber, #23295) [Link] (4 responses)

Well, most Symbian phones are designed to work in the interests of whoever paid the most for them. If you paid for it yourself, then it's Nokia/Samsung etc.; if you bought it on a contract then it's your operator. For example Vodafone and Orange branded N95s infamously had the VoIP stack ripped out of the branded firmware and just like the subsidised G1s (though not this Dev Phone) you can't change to a non branded firmware.

The Android Dev Phone 1

Posted Dec 30, 2008 14:11 UTC (Tue) by ikm (guest, #493) [Link] (3 responses)

Normal companies have the sole interest of selling their phones and that's it. By contrast, Google doesn't really have any direct interest in selling phones, as this company's real business is centered around data mining. So while the normal company's interests end after I've bought their phone, with Google, its interests only start there.

Hmm... Why told you these lies?

Posted Dec 31, 2008 0:03 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (2 responses)

Normal companies have the sole interest of selling their phones and that's it.

Sorry, but that's not true today - was not true for many years. Phone is commodity, they can not get good money out of it. Ringtones, Wallpapers and yes, information about your habits (it can be sold to advertisers) make the difference. Symbian-based phone suppliers often go much further then G1 (let alone "The Android Dev Phone 1")...

Hmm... Why told you these lies?

Posted Dec 31, 2008 0:27 UTC (Wed) by ikm (guest, #493) [Link] (1 responses)

Much further how? What I usually see is just some online stores' apps/links, N-Gage games, stuff like that, and all that looks quite innocent to me. No mother ships, no compulsory account creations, no nothing. Sure some service providers make branded versions with locked-out features, messed up firmware, make people grumpy -- not cool, but I'm talking about the normal, unbranded phones.

Hmm... Why told you these lies?

Posted Dec 31, 2008 5:30 UTC (Wed) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]

The un-branded phones are where cell companies lose money on. So they are focused on less and less. The way that they profit is by adding in the various mothership items to sell information about habits to other groups.