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T-Mobile Bans Others' Apps On Their Phones
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Feb 26, 2007 07:35 PM
from the get-less dept.
from the get-less dept.
cshamis writes "T-Mobile has recently changed their policies and now tell their customers with appropriate data plans and with Java-Micro-App-capable T-Mobile phones: no third-party network applications. You can, of course, still use their incredibly clunky and crippled built-in WAP browsers, but GoogleMaps and OperaMini are left high and dry. Would anyone care to speculate if this move is likely to retain or repel customers?"
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T-Mobile Bans Others' Apps On Their Phones
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They won't care (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.buran.org/)
Re:They won't care (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They won't care (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah. And most of us post to Slashdot.
Re:They won't care (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:They won't care (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://rjmarq.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday October 02 2003, @07:19PM)
Re:Then which indie handheld? (Score:5, Insightful)
A Palm or PocketPC. Both offer a free development platform and no cost distribution.
Re:They won't care (Score:5, Insightful)
While I am a geek and like my phone to do tricks, most people just want to talk and text message. That doesn't make them idiots.
Re:They won't care (Score:4, Interesting)
I hate the crippled nature of verizon phones as much as the next guy, but simply can't look past the fact that my phone is fundamentally there to place and receive calls reliably. No other network I have tried (and I HAVE personally tried all of the other ones) even comes close to Verizon's coverage in the Northeast. And it's not just average joe blow... Easily 95%+ of PhD's and PhD students I know have verizon service...
Re:They won't care (Score:4, Funny)
(http://voicenet.com/~maggie)
And if they have a great app for Windows, they should have to get it tested and approved by MSFT first. After all, imagine the support havok it could cause.
Re:T-mobile acting sys-admin (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.artefaqs.com/)
The Slashdot posting should be rescinded. It's not accurate, not backed up by any proof, and appears to be just a ploy to get page views.
Re:T-mobile acting sys-admin (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Thursday March 22 2007, @08:08AM)
Nope, it appears to be real. Here are some comments from the blog:
I have gotten this confirmed by T-Mobile corporate. I have a tester SIM that has access to everything, and the applications are locked out in the new handsets I have been testing this week. You may have an older handset, before this insidious policy spread. I used to tout T-Mobile for their liberal policies on third party program installation, and I'm very disappointed in the change.
This is a feature phone problem. No carrier, not even Verizon, dares forbid application installation on smartphones such as Blackberries, Windows Mobile phones, or Treos.
The phone that drove me nuts was a Nokia 6133, and I think the point that it's subsidized is bizarre; letting people use Opera Mini would increase, not decrease, T-Mobile's revenues by encouraging people to sign up for data plans. T-Mobile is shooting themselves in the foot by crippling the development of the third party software industry, lowering demand for mobile data.
As several posters have said, they make money on the data plans, not on the phones - so why prohibit applications that would get people to demand data plans?
Subsidies also seem to be a smokescreen here. If you go to a T-Mobile store and buy a Nokia 6133 at full retail, mid-contract, Opera Mini is barred. If you go to a Nokia store and buy the same 6133, inserting the same T-Mobile SIM, you have no problem.
And I need to repeat - this isn't about smartphones. I'm not talking about the SDA, the Blackberry, or whatever. I'm talking about feature phones, which could be dandy computing platforms if the carriers weren't so hostile.
THIS IS TRUE REPORTING! I recently bought a Samsung Trace (T519) and installed google maps. It didn't work, and after about 12 nonstop hours of research I found out that their applications are all digitally signed (VeriSign) and will block out the permissions menu for the network access, thus resulting in the application not being able to connect itself to the internet. The ONLY SOULUTION to this problem is to buy the Firmware Flash cable, download the Flashing software from the phone manufactures website, (and the real tricky part) then find the ORIGINAL firmware to flash to the phone. Of course your going to have to manually set up your T-Zones (webaccess address and port) and a few others, but it will unlock ALL the features of the phone so you will be able to use the phone fully. It's a tricky process, and you need to make sure your not using a T-Mobile "Branded" firmware update. There are many independent phone gurus out there that edit firmware and release it themselves with all features unlocked. If you use a T-Mobile Branded firmware, you'll waste money and time to be exactly where you are right now.
IE... Cingular's D807 and T-Mobile's T809. They are the same phone, same display, memory card slot, ect... However, T-Mobile's phone has limited features compared to Cingular's. The D807 has voice activation and a few other bells and whistles. This isn't the phone's hardware, it's the firmware.
In short, get yourself the syncing software & cables and a fresh Firmware update and you will be able to run any app. Right now Cingular doesn't limit 3rd party software, so if you have to, use one of their Firmwares and then tweak your port settings and you'll be free and clear of the holdups of horrible T-Mobile.
It is true, check Howardforums... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, you can easily prove that the story is true yourself. Ask a friend who lives in the areas where this has already taken effect, has T-Mobile and only pays for the $5.99 plan if he/she can still access anything with Opera Mini. I'll bet you $5.99, he/she can't.
Re:It is true, check Howardforums... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.artefaqs.com/)
The other is a thread about how T-Zones is now giving people what they pay for. When you signed up with T-Zones you were told web and e-mail. T-Mobile let some other data through in some other markets. Now they're expanding their restrictions in what appears to be an attempt to make all markets the same.
So, T-Mobile enforcing the restrictions you agreed to when you signed up for T-Zones service is the same thing as T-Mobile disallowing third-party apps on cell phones? Not even close.
Sounds like you're mad because you finally got caught and you're trying to make this into something it isn't.
Time to switch (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I wanna run botware! (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/ | Last Journal: Saturday August 14 2004, @05:03PM)
No; they have illegitimate reasons. We should have an inalienable right to communicate as we wish, by whatever means we wish. Corporate control of our communication is a guaranteed disaster for everyone but the owners of the corporation.
In particular, the main design goal of the Internet was to end the traditional stranglehold of equipment suppliers and comm companies over communication. Look up the early docs of the ARPAnet; its primary design goal was to make it possible for any piece of equipment from any vendor to communicate with any other piece of equipment from any other vendor. The vendors had always blocked such universal communication, and the US's Dept of Defense was fed up with it. The companies that supply the equipment still put any roadblocks they can in the way of communicating with their competitors' equipment. The phone companies are especially good at this, at least here in the US.
It's true that this is very easy to understand why the companies would be concerned with what we run on our machines. But this concern is not in any reasonable sense legitimate. It's the worst possible way you could run a comm system. We should continue to fight it any way we can.
The only legitimate restrictions should be that malformed packets may be dropped, and "bandwidth hogs" may be throttled to a reasonable speed limit (i.e., whatever speed they've paid for). But note that such restrictions have little if anything to do with what software you or I may be running. Or with the content of our data packets, for that matter.
Repel, obviously... (Score:5, Funny)
2. Lose them to competitors
3. ?
4. Profit!
Infringements on our liberties? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.networkmirror.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday July 05, @04:34PM)
Geez... has the author considered calling them up trying to get out of his contract or if he doesn't have one, to simply cancel and move to another carrier?
What's that? T-Mobile's data plan costs less? Sounds to me like one is gettign what one paid for.
Infringements on our liberties. Puh-leez.... Yeah, I rate this right up their with warrantless wiretapping by the government.
doesn't matter (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.danielthompson.net/)
maybe their network/OS sucks like iPhone/Cingular (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, the only alternative is that they are lying, greedy scumbags, and I wouldn't want to think that about anybody.
Care to Speculate? (Score:5, Funny)
I have T-Mobile and a Blackberry 7290... (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.mediachest.com/)
Sprint has a nice loophole... (Score:3, Informative)
Misinformation (Score:3)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Friday November 23 2001, @04:14PM)
Um, this isn't quite the sky is falling scenario he makes it out to be in the article. Of course, any bad publicity it generates is still a good thing.
This is FUD -- it doesn't affect non-OEM phones (Score:3)
(http://www.unanimocracy.com/about.html | Last Journal: Tuesday April 04 2006, @12:04PM)
This is ONLY if you use T-Mobile branded phones. I called my customer retention agent and she confirmed over and over that this will NOT affect third party bought phones, which is the only way to play unless you want to try to buy an outdated phone of T-Mobiles at a discount price.
FUD, FUD, FUD. I love my T-Mobile phone and I travel to 13 states to do business, plus I work in Europe and Asia regularly and my phone works fine there with my T-Mobile SIM (albeit pricey but it works fine).
Cell networks are stuck in the 20th century (Score:4, Interesting)
Compare cell phone networks to the Internet which was designed mostly by scientists and engineers in an academic, peer reviewed environment with the simple goal of building an efficient network.
If the Internet had been designed phone companies, you'd by your computer from you're ISP and it probably wouldn't work with any other ISP, your ISP bill would list every site you visited that month, overseas sites would be charged at a higher rate, and DNS would probably be sold as a 'white pages' lookup service where they could charge you a penny for every click.
Phone systems are just plain dumb and the people who run them are concerned more with nickel and diming you for every trivial service they can think of than they are in building good network infrastructure.
The FCC is largely to blame for this because they choose to auction off the airways to the highest bidder almost without regard as to how that bidder is going use the medium.
I'm no fan of big government but if we're going to have regulation, then let's do the thing right. Let's require cell phone companies to provide mobile IP addresses and let anybody access their network with the hardware and software of his own choosing. Let the consumer buy *airtime*, nothing more, and let the consumer decide whether he'll use voice, download music, stream video, text message, etc., just like we do with landline companies.
O RLY? (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.jacked-in.org)
Seeing as this morning my office gave me a brand new Blackberry 8700G (Edge network, fast processor) and the first thing I did was install Google Maps.
It installed with Zero problems, and it runs great.
So... what's this about banning third party apps?
repel or indifferent (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.last.fm/user/cannibalcomfort/)
Technologically less educated people in those case just believe the salesperson and assume it is "not compatible" with certains apps (which it is, but on purpose), but buy it anyway because it looks shiny or has a 3 megapixel camera.
I hate phone companies (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
I just want a good GSM carrier in the US that will give me a family plan, a decent data plan, a non-insane lock-in, and half-way decent phones. Or hell, give me decent plans at a good enough price and I'll buy my own damned phones as God intended. Just sell me a SIM card and don't bankrupt me to use it, then stay out of my way. Is that so much to ask?
Re:I hate phone companies (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.ok5studios.com/)
Welcome to the "free" market.
It's the VOIP stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
The third party software they're afraid of is VOIP software that encourages people to use data services as a replacement for their overpriced phone plans.
(Why are there 160 comments above mine with no mention of this?)
My Guess? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://s87365085.onlinehome.us/ | Last Journal: Tuesday October 28 2003, @04:22PM)
Some *much needed* INFO: (Score:4, Informative)
What T-Mobile has done recently, is a slow regional rollout of port blocking. You see, T-Mobile offers a $5.99 WAP access add-on, and a far more expensive "full internet access" add-on. What is happening is that people who bought unlocked/unbranded phones without T-Mobile's silly restrictions are finding that T-Mobile's $5.99 WAP plan just won't work any more for 3rd party apps which need unrestricted access to the Internet. The restrictions stopped just being in T-Mobile's phones. Now, as Verizon is so fond of saying, "It's the network."
There's quite a few threads about this started over at HowardForums, and it is very real. If you think you're sitting pretty because it hasn't happened to you yet, you've been warned. The only way you're safe is if you're already on one of T-Mobile's "full internet" plans (Blackberry, Sidekick, Phone-as-Modem, etc.).