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Google To Sell Truly Open Android Dev Phone
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Dec 08, 2008 09:32 AM
from the what-were-they-waiting-for dept.
from the what-were-they-waiting-for dept.
binary.bang writes "Google has announced an unlocked version of T-Mobile's G1 for sale at the same unlocked price of $399. The Android Dev Phone 1 is the G1, except being truly open: no SIM-lock, no hardware lock. Feel free to flash your customized Android build — the bootloader won't be checking for signatures. Don't be misled by the word 'Dev,' looks like all you need to qualify is an Android Market account. This looks like the Open Handset Alliance delivering the promised Open Handset: yes root, yes flash-your-build, no contract, no strings attached. Anyone else relieved & thrilled?"
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No support (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get this if you expect them to support it when it breaks. It's for "advanced developers", "not for end users". Rea
Re:No support (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you modify the OS, compile it and put it on your phone, you can't expect Google (or any other company) to support it for free.
Re:No support (Score:5, Insightful)
you can't have it both ways. if you wanna be able to run your own unsigned code, then you can't expect the device to still be fully supported by Google.
i mean, why should Google be held responsible for any damage you might cause screwing around with the device? ever tried to modify/fix a video game console or other commodity electronics yourself and see a sticker that says "warranty voided if seal is broken"? it's the same basic principle. if you want to tinker with the product beyond what is considered normal usage, then the vendor can't be held responsible for any damage you might cause.
the dev phone obviously isn't meant for regular end-users. if you lose all your data or brick your G1 using the SDK, then that's on you, as it should be. if you want full support and warranty, then you shouldn't get a developer device.
Parent
Actually it's $ 424 (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If that's the price of freedom, I'm glad to pay it.
No, it's $594 if you are in Europe (Score:5, Informative)
Also, shipping to Spain:
UPS Innovations (Tracking) - $170.14
That small piece of info is shown after you give your credit card details. So the total price if you are in Spain (I assume it's the same everywhere in Europe) is $594. I don't feel like giving UPS half the price of the device, so I'm going to pass. $25 down the drain, though.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No, it's $594 if you are in Europe (Score:5, Insightful)
They could ship it from China (or wherever) and we wouldn't be paying double of everything for no good reason.
Trust me, the Chinese have decent shipping fees.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Except that they're warehoused in the US. And shipping fees around Europe are astronomical (borders and unions everywhere). And VAT is added to the base cost of an item in Europe, whereas in the US our sales tax is added after the cost of the item. Heck, with Spain's 20% duties and 16% VAT, you can quickly reach that 40% threshold.
If you've ever tried to get an Italian suit in the US, you'll see that cross-global commerce is expensive. You think those 40 dollar pants sell for 40 dollars in Thailand? Ev
Re:No, it's $594 if you are in Europe (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:No, it's $594 if you are in Europe (Score:5, Insightful)
How many people do you know in Spain? And asking for a stranger to do the transaction for you is a good way to get ripped off.
Parent
Re:No, it's $594 if you are in Europe (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a developer (not an android developer, though), so I'd like to get the unlocked version just in case I feel like doing something eventually.
Anyway, I'm sure these facts: - You need to pay $25 to get all the details
- You need to give your credit card details to Google and some other party
- Only when you do 1) and 2) you learn that you have to pay at least $179 extra for shipping (much more in other countries according to another post)
Is going to be enough to render what was originally a good thing into a piss off for many potential developers.
By the way, you can only order ONE. If at least you could get 10 and share the shipping cost it could be somewhat more of a decent deal.
Parent
Re:No, it's $594 if you are in Europe (Score:5, Funny)
You don't know anyone in the US who would purchase the device for you and ship it for $20? Time to get a pen pal.
Penpals in Nigeria are waiting to serve you...
Parent
i heard about this yesterday (Score:2, Redundant)
it's not much, but it's worth mentioning that it is part of the cost. this is really awesome though.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not only that however you can only submit applications to the marketplace for free.
You can't charge for apps yet which seems weird that I have to pay money for the privilege of writing and giving Google free distribution rights.
FCC (Score:5, Insightful)
How does the FCC ensure that this phone is operating within [parameters]?
I would have to assume that the G1's output power is hardware limited.
Otherwise I don't see how the phone will stay within its FCC certification.
Re:FCC (Score:4, Informative)
As you have probably read, it states that these devices are 'not for end users', and therefore should be considered as prototypes.
That means they probably have no certification, although hopefully some of the RF calibration be set.
Effectively this means you are liable for any problems that you cause.
Parent
Re:FCC (Score:5, Interesting)
Like all cell phones, you are not legally allowed to hack the actual modem. Ultimate protection is at the modem layer.
Personally, I think this is another huge step for Google/Android. I've already bought a G1, and the software from Google rocks. Unfortunately, the hardware from Taiwan's HTC sucks big-time. I'm eagerly awaiting Motorola's Android offering next year, and T-Mobile's G3 roll-out in NC. The iPhone is awesome, but Android is a huge threat.
Parent
Re:FCC (Score:5, Interesting)
"I've already bought a G1, and the software from Google rocks"
Uhuh.
The POP email client is dysfunctional; not retaining downloaded mail in the Inbox but making me reload it every time I launch the app. It does keep the 11 or so OLDEST messages, and will not delete them. Yahoo! Mail works great, and GMail of course also. So why not POP? Also, the POP client regularly shows a connection error despite my mail server being readily available to the rest of the Internet. K9 doesn't show connection errors, but handles the Inbox the same way. Even in IMAP.
Cut & paste is beyond difficult to use. Just ain't ready for primetime.
Browser has a wierd habit of not honoring a touch on some web page links, but requiring you to click the trackball instead. Go figure.
There are other rough edges. Lack of A2DP is probably temporary, but if it ends up being a failure, that might get me to send this back. We'll see if I can.
If the G1 RC30 software 'rocks' for you, God bless you. It ain't rockin' my world.
And yet, I'm strangely attached to this device. My life as a happy BlackBerry user has evolved into a Linux phone struggle. Not-quite-right software, waiting for the next release, and of course the ever-helpful advice from the community.
It's my fault. I admit it. Step One.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Why are you still using POP?
Also, grab K-9 Mail. It's a fork of the default mail application with a lot of 'fixes'. I'm not a fan of his new 'small font' crap, but hopefully that will become an option shortly.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Had you read my comment, you would have seen my reference to K9, and what i thought about it. you also would have seen that I had issues with IMAP as well.
Any more helpful advice?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I haven't used a BlackBerry, so I can't compare to that. However, I use to own an iPhone, so I can compare against the software available there early on. The iPhone had no cut and paste, no ability to download files, but the POP client worked OK. There was also no app store, only a 4-function calculator, and no dial-by-voice. In comparison to the iPhone trajectory, Android looks quite good to me.
Re:FCC (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure what the laws are, but there are plenty of technical barriers to messing with the modem.
The radio portion of these devices is NOT like modern WLAN cards or Winmodems where the host O/S controls most functionality - it's like the classic modems/printers where there is a clearly defined interface between the host and the device, and the device has its own firmware/regulatory functions.
In the case of GSM modems, the GSM module itself has a lot of anti-tamper functionality in it, and can only be accessed by predefined interfaces. There's not much hacking you can do.
Note: Some devices do allow you to update the firmware for the modem section, but while many devices allow for unsigned host O/Ses, nearly all devices still require signed radio firmware. See for example the HTC Kaiser (aka TyTn II aka AT&T Tilt) - Removing the host O/S locks were easy and happened quickly, but getting modified radio ROMs (for the purposes of removing SIMlocks) were a whole different story.
Parent
Re:FCC (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm pretty sure you can just reflash the Calypso GSM firmware used on the Openmoko [openmoko.org] - e.g. see this Openmoko thread on firmware hacking [openmoko.org] Though apparently it's all based on leaked docs, and may be illegal.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For what it's worth, I've owned several HTC devices over the past few years (currently, I have an AT&T-branded HTC Touch Pro), and I've never had any trouble with the "moving parts."
You're free to like what you want, of course- but if you're just worried that it might be fragile or get damaged, your fears may be unwarranted.
No keyboard? (Score:3, Interesting)
Some of us want to do more than play swishy windows to impress our friends, and don't care if our phone isn't a BlingBlock (that's what I call iPhone-like devices that sacrifice function to get the "clean" look). Some of us want to type stuff, fast. Flipping and sliding forms allow big screens and space for controls at the same time, so they're not necessarily bad things.
The G1 dev edition is a nice phone that I'm seriously considering as my next phone, but to me any phone without a keyboard is a deal-break
here's why (Score:5, Informative)
It's possible to compartmentalize things in firmware for that. Everything that radio-wise interacts with the cellular network can be on firmware on a chip, (possibly not an open source chip either) and the phone just tells it how to operate within its fixed parameters.
The "open" nature of the phone doesn't refer to its being open to mods on its cellular networking, but on its functional platform. Things like writing apps for the phone.
Sort of like how I can't write an iPhone app that spoofs my ESN or cranks up my transmit power. The API doesn't have any function calls for that sort of behavior. The firmware on this phone doesn't have to have that either.
We need to get an expert in the thread here that is in the loop on the design of the chips in the cell phones. Based on my experience with other similar electronics, there's usually a handful of chip makers for any given specialty market, and they all make single-solution chips that handle this sort of stuff for you so you don't have to re-develop the same thing that everyone else needs. You just interface with the chip and tell it what you want to do and it takes care of the details for you.
To illustrate this example, I can't write a program on my linux box to write any arbitrary series of 1's and 0's on my hard drive's platter. I have to hand the sata controller a 512 byte block and coordinates, and it writes it for me, including the headers and checksum etc, I have no control over that. That doesn't mean my linux isn't "open". It just means I don't have that level of control over the hardware.
Back in 'the day', on 1980's hardware, I wrote my own disk IO drivers, and COULD write any arbitrary series of 1's and 0's because I had direct access to the read/write latch. And I bet the first cell phones made, the software had a great deal of control over the radio itself too. But these things change, because other parties want to make end-user products and are looking for chips that handle all the dirty work so they don't have to bother with it. Cheaper, more reliable, faster to develop.
The FCC will type-accept anything that operates within their parameters, and is not easily user-modifiable, but it's a slow process, not something you want to have to redo several times a year. For quicker type-acceptance, manufacturers will compartmentalize their designs so that only one small part has to be type-accepted, and then after they have that developed they can play with the rest of the device all they want without getting it re-typed. (the "radio module" is usually what gets typed) All computers nowadays have their bluetooth and 802.11 on a separate card for exactly this reason. Nothing in the software of the computer can cause these separate boards to operate outside their type-acceptance. So the computer manufacturers can make a new motherboard every week without getting the FCC involved again, as long as they keep using the typed wireless boards.
Parent
Re:here's why (Score:5, Informative)
You're basically right. The control of the RF portion of the design is what the FCC is interested in and they want you to demonstrate that it would be very difficult (nothing is impossible) to change RF operation.
Typically the control is hard-coded in a MAC-like device which runs the phone. Things like channel selection and power output would be hard coded in the sense that even if you had access to the registers which set them, you would not be able to set them to illegal values. However, even setting them to legal values could be a problem, as you could create a jammer, so there has to be a layer there which is responsible for the low-level protocol to talk to the cell site and conduct operation of the physical layer - you can forget about having access to that. So you can't tell the phone to start transmitting on a particular channel, but you can tell it to initiate a phone call.
However you can always get after things with a soldering iron if you are so inclined. Doing that would not be illegal, but causing the phone to operate in a manner in which it is not intended, e.g. as a jammer, would be (duh).
The latest chip sets integrate the RF _and_ the baseband control _and_ the MAC, so even with a soldering iron, you'd have a tough time getting at low-level RF control.
Parent
think of the modem chipset as being a phone (Score:5, Informative)
the best way to think of all these smartphones is as a combined phone + laptop on one circuit board, where they're even connected together using USB.
so what these embedded OSes do is quite literally nothing other than send "AT" modem commands (and sometimes a bit more, using escape sequencing) to the on-board modem chipset.
so, unless you start hacking the firmware of the on-board modem, you will still remain within the FCC regulations.
however, some of the cheaper smartphones - in particular the ones based on the TI OMAP series - run a dual-core processor - a TI ARM core plus a TI DSP core - typically a 200mhz one (because lower than 200mhz is utterly useless for smartphone features. but hey, it's cheap).
these phones _are_ a serious risk, because the two CPUs share memory (!) and you can reprogram the registers etc. etc. you can look up exactly how to do it.
anyway, the point is: the radio modem firmware is downloaded _directly_ to the processor, where all of the signal baseband processing is done. things like the GSM signal-strength of the radio can be manipulated DIRECTLY by changing a memory location, using the ARM cpu.
or worse.
clearly, this is bad.
however, the design of the more expensive HTC-designed phones - typically involves a _much_ better setup - with "standard" 400 to 600mhz ARM cpus and a completely isolated "standard" chipset.
the price of the G1 is indicative that it is one of these better setups.
if you want more info, here's where you're going to get it - from the xda-developers and the #htc-linux irc channel on freenode.net. DO NOT waste the developers time on #htc-linux - they are NOT paid to work on the reverse-engineering of HTC phones, but have stuck diligently to the task for over four years, nearly five now, to bring _proper_ community-driven support for linux to these hand-held smartphones.
forum on G1 dev:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=448 [xda-developers.com]
page listing android devices:
http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=Android_devices [xda-developers.com]
as people do reverse-engineering and/or find out other information (such as take the backs off and photograph the chipsets) you'll find the info listed, there.
Parent
Yes, but! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but will the phone companies actually allow you to use it? Or will they say "No, it's a security risk to our network!"?
Re:Yes, but! (Score:5, Informative)
T-Mobile has (in my experience) not given two shits what phone I've stuck my SIM in, from my t-mo issued Pearl, to various HTC phones, to an unlocked iPhone, to a junk Nokia. And from what I've been told, AT&T is the same way. Sprint and Verizon are different, but that's at least partly b/c of CDMA (no SIM cards) and Verizon's control urges.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, it's a GSM phone. GSM networks don't care which handset you use on them, so long as it's a GSM one. Insert valid SIM card, turn on, it works.
At your own risk (Score:2)
Note that Android Dev Phone 1 devices are not intended for non-developer end users. Since the devices can be configured with system software not provided by or supported by Google or any other company, end users operate these devices at their own risk. [google.com]
T-Mobile are fine (Score:3, Interesting)
Most euro operators won't bat an eyelid if you bring your own phone, and t-mobile US seems to be the same way.
T-Mo US even has an unsupported handsets division to help you get unsupported handsets onto their network.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I know people that work for the handset testing department at Tmo. To answer the points on this thread:
"It's a security risk to our network." Is a weak excuse Verizon uses to charge people insane amounts of money for data services.
The staggering number of iPhone users on the T-Mobile network is a testament to how much they don't give a shit what you unlocked to use their service.
The firmware separation others are talking about speculatively is not speculative. Typically, these handsets are controlled ent
cool pattern (Score:5, Interesting)
Source for Android on Neo FreeRunner available (Score:5, Informative)
http://git.koolu.org/ [koolu.org]
Timing sux. (Score:2)
Wireless attack platform, yessire. (Score:5, Interesting)
This and it's descendants is going to be really useful for hacking/pen testing. It's the perfect platform model for wireless attacks. Imagine walking through a crowd with one of these in your pocket, compromising computers and phones as people stream around you. Or, you could use it as a deniable relay, penetrating a 802.11 network via a cell connection to the phone. Or as a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Box [wikipedia.org], enabling control of a rootkited server via a cell connection. That kind of stuff will be a lot easier to pull off with this kind of platform. Yes, i have a perverted mind. *sigh* But i think people with similiar minds will put this one to some real clever uses. I mean, all the heavy computing can be moved to a host behind TOR hidden service, or in a "bulletproof" country.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So why can't everything you have just described be done with a jailbreaked iPhone? Or any of the windows smarthphones? Or a cell phone tethered to a laptop?
Shipping outside of US (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's ridiculous, it costs more to ship to Canada than to Europe. :( Not to mention that UPS will take another $100 or so in "brokerage fees" and you'll end up paying more for shipping than for the phone itself.
I want Grand Central/Google Talk intergration (Score:5, Interesting)
One really awesome thing for which we could use more help from Google would be this: You get one GrandCentral number and if your phone is connected to a Wifi spot, your calling is by default VoIP. You'd only use the cellular network if you somewhere out of reach of a hotspot.
There should be a way to configure Grand Central to be sensitive to the context of your handset and route the call in the optimal way, automatically.
Since I spend about 90% of my time in some sort of a hotspot (I work at a university), it would mean that I would probably cancel my monthly contract altogether and switch to a prepaid minutes/data plan. That savings would go a long way towards paying back my unsubsidized four hundred bucks for the handset.
Frequencies / UMTS Bands? Will it work with AT& (Score:4, Informative)
The only technical data I can find is for the T-Mobile G1, and it uses the oddball UMTS / WCMDA frequency bands specific to T-Mobile. My understanding is that consequently it won't work on any other 3G network on the planet, including AT&T. I'd love to be proven wrong.
Re:Frequencies / UMTS Bands? Will it work with AT& (Score:3, Informative)
I hope the Dev 1 specs are different, but I doubt it. This leaves many of us out.
Earlier HTC phones supported quad band EDGE and tri band UMTS (W-CDMA). Quad band Edge seems to be sticking around (to allow people to talk everywhere),but UMTS has suffered (The number of bands has grown a bit quickly, we are at 5).
The UMTS bands in question are:
* Band I (2100) in Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania (ITU Region 1) and Brazil (part of ITU Region 2)
* Band II (W-CDMA 1900) in North America and South Am
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
eh. They should give it away for free and sell support.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Oops: I looked again and it seems like the G1 actually does 2100 also, for some reason I thought it was a 1700-only device.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
OpenMoko? Do they still not have a functioning phone yet?