Samsung Blocks Ability To Remap Galaxy S8's Bixby Button (zdnet.com) 119
A Samsung representative confirmed today via Twitter that the company has blocked the ability for users to remap the Bixby hardware button on the Galaxy S8. For soon-to-be Galaxy S8 owners, the news will come as a disappointment, especially since the Bixby voice assistant in English has been delayed and will not be fully functional when units starting shipping later this week. ZDNet reports: XDA Developers first reported a Galaxy S8 firmware update blocked the ability to remap the button to perform a variety of tasks. Before, the button could even be remapped to launch Google Assistant. It's not clear if Samsung will ever support remapping the button. A representative for Samsung tweeted: "Can't say it will never happen, but we won't officially support."
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You are mistaken. The monthly payments are necessary in order to keep your legs nice and healthy. The corporations can't be held responsible if you stop paying and something just happens to occur...
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where's the PC of Mobile Computing? (Score:5, Insightful)
These things are computers; where is the PC of mobile computing?
We need the freedom to program these things as we, the users, see fit. When will we finally have our freedom again?
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When will we finally have our freedom again?
When there's sufficient demand.
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When there's sufficient demand.
Exactly that. I've had this talk with many friends and they simply cannot see any need to control their own devices. In fact they prefer not to, because then someone "takes care of it" and you don't need to think. As long as they can get to Facebook they are happy.
There is little to no market demand for devices that are controlled by their users. The open PC was a historical accident. I do not think it will happen again.
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When we have passed the "Max Headroom" world we live in today.
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Not only has it always required binary blobs and Android, but Google routinely dragged its feet in releasing the latest updates to the Open Source "community".
Requiring binary blobs is pretty much the status quo in the PC market too, there are very few fully open source PCs and of course there are also very few fully open source phones. That isn't to say many people haven't tried but it's hard to develop and fund something that nobody wants.
Re: Nope. Bought a Nexus years ago; disappointed. (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference is, "desktop" Windows has historically given us compatibility with drivers written for older versions (sometimes, as old as NT4) -- imaging drivers being the one notable exception due to TWAIN's brain-dead pre-WDM architecture).
In contrast, Linux only abstracts its ABI for *applications*, not the kernel itself. For example, suppose I have a 4.10.10 kernel compiled for AMD64 using gcc, and a loadable kernel module built for that kernel. Now, suppose I have an identical computer running a 4.10.10 AMD64 kernel compiled with Visual Studio (just to give another widely-used compiler as an example). In most cases, the .ko file built for the "gcc" kernel will die a horrible death on the "Visual Studio" kernel... or possibly, even another 4.10.10 kernel compiled with gcc using slightly different options.
Basically, Linux doesn't even *try* to maintain driver binary compatibility, even within THE SAME KERNEL VERSION, while Windows bends over backwards to maintain driver compatibility more or less "forever". AFAIK, it's an ideological decision... Linux's developers *want* to punish users of binary drivers & inflict the maximum possible pain, totally ignoring the reality that end users (or at least, users of cell phones capable of doing LTE on American mobile phone networks) have ZERO influence on Qualcomm or Nvidia's licensing policies... ironically, empowering VENDORS over end users in the process.
Riddle me this: why could Linux use binary wifi drivers built for fsck'ng WINDOWS (via NDISwrapper), but can't even maintain binary compatibility between two sequential kernel releases with only minor differences? It's insane. I don't even blame Linus... I blame Google. Google has some of the best Linux kernel experts on planet earth. They could EASILY add an abstraction layer that preserved binary .ko compatibility across at least a few releases (think: a stable, open-source thunking layer that Android-certified drivers were required to use instead of directly referencing kernel structures... new release of Android? Just compile a new thunking layer for old binary drivers to use instead.)
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I agree with you on the way the instability of the kernel ABI has an effect on binary drivers but even then there is a solution in the form of compiling a kernel module to load the binary driver - which is what nVidia (and others) do with their binary drivers. Of course doing that requires a compiler and kernel headers which Android may not provide and it might not be practical to do so.
Google could enforce all of this through their licensing of Android in the way they enforce having their apps installed wi
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Another major annoyance: no Android phones -- not even NEXUS phones -- allow you to use the stock rom as a STARTING POINT for further modifications (by furnishing a build script with complete source and any binary blobs required to build the stock ROM). Instead, you're forced to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and reimplement the phone's functionality in its entirety (since AOSP itself usually has major stock features missing, even for a Nexus).
For YEARS, I've been wanting to make a slightly-modified
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> Seemed to contradict yourself there, son.
Not really. There's no contradiction between, "they have the institutional knowledge and resources to do it" and "Google's management isn't interested in dedicating their best senior developers for several months to take leadership of Android's binary kernel-driver problem".
The fact is, if it weren't for Android, Linux's device driver issues would be mostly irrelevant, because they'd meaningfully affect *maybe* a few thousand actual users. Google is the entire r
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OK, fine. Try this: name one real phone available for purchase today by end users with the following features:
* full-speed compatibility with at least one American phone network. This is a hard one, because thanks to bastardized American LTE, even our nominally-GSM carriers have become as de-facto proprietary as Sprint & Verizon.
* 2GHz+ CPU, 3+ gigs of RAM, and 64+ gigs of fast flash. Bonus points for microSD, removable battery, and/or the ability to charge quickly.
* 2160x1440 or better display.
* Releas
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>>"These things are computers; where is the PC of mobile computing?"
>"Nexus and Pixel phones."
I think it kinda died with the Nexus 5 if the comparison is openness AND great value. And now Nexus is completely gone, replaced with Pixel which is just as expensive as all the other phones out there.... although at least more open.
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>Well 'great value' wasn't brought up, so you're just moving goalposts.
Yes it was brought up when they said "the PC of mobile computing" which, to me, implied compatibility, standardization, and low price due to lots of competition.
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Re: where's the PC of Mobile Computing? (Score:2)
We were well on our way towards getting it until Microsoft decided to kill off Windows Mobile for a replacement that was inferior to, and 2+ years behind, every other mobile platform at the time (instead of 5+ years ahead).
If "Windows Phone" (a/k/a Danger Sidekick OS, ported to C# & dotnet compact framework) had never existed & Samsung's latest & greatest phone today ran Hypothetical Windows Mobile 14 instead, upgrading your old Hypothetical WinMo 12 device to WinMo 14 would be like upgrading an
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You never tried to develop for Windows Mobile.
I tried, and I found that there were a lot of API calls that weren't implemented in the OS - for stuff that I needed. I had to get people to implement an alternative solution on the devices to solve the problem that had to be solved - added cost for the project just because Microsoft provided an empty shell of an OS.
So Windows Mobile 6.x was mostly a flashy shell. The light was on but nobody was home in that platform. So the result was that it was hard to make a
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Actually, I developed software for Windows Mobile for work back around 2006-2008. ;-)
One feature I really, really miss from dotnetCF -- it didn't force you to bend over backwards and write explicitly-asynchronous code when you were trying to implement some blatantly-linear activity (like "display a form on the screen", "submit its contents to a server and wait for the response", "deal with its response", "display the next form", "submit its contents to a server and wait for the response", and so on). You co
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This time around, I think the big players learned their lesson. Keep the stuff under wraps, freedom is not profitable, restrictions are. It's annoying.
There is no reason we don't have decent GP mobile computer that's not tethered to a manufacturer and/or carrier. I mean no reason technologically. So the big players are probably actively quashing any attempts to bring something game changing to market, because they like the game exactly as it is.
Meanwhile, Microsoft and Intel are slowly but surely linkin
Re:HULK REALLY MAD! (Score:4, Funny)
Perhaps that's why they disabled the Bixby button.
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Do they have approval from the Bixby family to use that designation?
Also the Hulk reference to the Bixby button is closer than you may first guess, Bill Bixby was one actor in the TV series The Incredible Hulk [wikipedia.org].
Push the Bixby button - get Lou Ferrigno to show up in green.
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Oh, I was aware that Bill Bixby played David Banner on that show. Thanks for getting it.
Perhaps an S7? (Score:2)
I'm upgrading soon from an S5 - I wonder if I should get a 7 while I still can and then wait to see what they do next instead of getting the 8.
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I'm upgrading soon from an S5 - I wonder if I should get a 7 while I still can...
I'm going to upgrade from an S4 and will get an S7 for something like $250* less than the current retail price in 6 weeks or so.
why not try something like a OnePlus 3T?
I won't buy a phone without a microsd card slot, but other than that they look like a really good phone at a good price. If they offer a model with external storage the next time I'm in the market, I will consider them.
* Local money, not $US
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why not try something like a OnePlus 3T?
I won't buy a phone without a microsd card slot, but other than that they look like a really good phone at a good price. If they offer a model with external storage the next time I'm in the market, I will consider them.
* Local money, not $US
He suggested you look at "something like a OnePlus 3T" not just the 3T model or OnePlus . There are dozens of Android vendors and models with about every combination of specs and features one might want. It would serve you well to at least glance over whats out there instead of blindly picking up another Galaxy version
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In modern horror movies, the zombies moan 'flagship' where they used to moan 'brains.'
Re: Perhaps an S7? (Score:2)
Out of sheer curiosity, why is an SD card so important? What sort of data do you carry around on your phone that 64GB isn't enough.
I carry around a 64GB usb drive on my keyring, it contains a bootable Linux image, PuTTy a keepass file and some ssh keys. The rest (the vast majority) is zeroes.
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Not only are most phones not 64GB, when that is an option it's a damn costly one. I'd rather use my cheap as dirt MicroSD than shell out an extra $300 for more built-in storage because some hipster retards at the handset maker felt it necessary to make the shell un-openable because of "muh industrial design".
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I got a CAT S60 last time. Only bad thing on that device is the cameras, otherwise it seems to do what it promises. It do have an IR camera, but (un)fortunately the images are quite fuzzy. They are probably intentionally fuzzy to prevent military applications and revealing nudes.
No reason.. (Score:5, Interesting)
No reason to ever buy a Galaxy S8, then.
Fuck that shit.
Re:No reason.. (Score:4)
Re:No reason.. (Score:5, Insightful)
>"Why is Samsung scared of the possibility? It's annoying."
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is almost irresistible for companies to gain the power to force their agenda on people and then NOT use that power. The only thing that keeps it in check is severe customer backlash (which rarely happens) and hacking (which the companies try to fight endlessly). Samsung is probably no worse than any other typical company. Google is certainly not immune to it- they have all kinds of artificial limitations in Android that favor their own agendas, too. Crap, even their web search page is full of it ("Oh, I see you are not using us as your default search engine." "Oh, I see you are not using Chrome..." dismiss it as much as you like, it will come right back next time or perhaps next week). As does Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, etc, etc.
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Why is Samsung scared of the possibility?
One of the highlights of the computing world in the turn of the century was the emergence of the single experience. Apple showed that you can make stupid amounts of money by creating a single standardized and very tightly controlled experience without providing users any customisation options at all. The idea is you pick up any iPhone you can use it, you pick up any Mac you can use it.
Microsoft and mobile phone vendors have been falling over themselves to replicate this model for many years, locking down th
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Windows 10 has nearly realized it. The installation media is now, roughly speaking, a system image much like a ROM file for Andriod. That is, the image is applied and obliterates the previous one to achieve a simple install/upgrade mechanism that ensures settings and whatnot are forced to known good states upon upgrade.
Observe how certain Windows 10 settings are obliterated after certain large updates such as Creators Edition. Have fun turning all the privacy options back on and redoing any anti-auto-upd
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Totally agree.
The trick is knowing this before you buy... something like this may be pretty obvious to geeks on a technology-oriented forum, but my guess is that the great majority of users won't really pay attention/ notice, and others won't notice till after the fact.
Personally, I never use the voice search features (Siri, Cortana, whatever this one is) ... I think it's probably because I've been "into computers" for so long that my experiences with speech to text have been colored by years of high promis
Re:No reason.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Fuck that shit.
Seconded. But this blunder is easy to undo, and Samsung has a history of responding correctly to criticism. In their own interest obviously, but just a little less arrogant than a couple of Silicon Valley operations I could mention. An example: correctly chose not to follow (courageously!) in Apple's footsteps re the stereo jack. Another example: the sdcard slot stayed. Well, we never got the removable battery back, but I understand why... just so long as it stays repairable as opposed to glued in so insanely that replacing the battery amounts to refurbishing. I will predict that, with widespread condemnation of this stupid, arrogant infringement of the right to use the thing you bought, Samsung will back down and do the right thing.
Should they wisely see the light and do the right thing, I would say that on the whole Samsung will gain trust compared to this incident never having happened. On the other hand, if they stick to their guns on this, that that's enough to flip me. In that case, fuck that shit, there are lots of good Android phones out there, and I will pick one that does not wave an attractive feature in my face then take it away.
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But this blunder is easy to undo, and Samsung has a history of responding correctly to criticism.
We'll see how much of this criticism is real. I'll wager that people won't care less about this button. Heck I didn't even bother remapping the assistant from my previous phone. That didn't stop me using another assistant using one of the many ways that's more useful than having to push a button.
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Well, we never got the removable battery back, but I understand why... just so long as it stays repairable as opposed to glued in so insanely that replacing the battery amounts to refurbishing.
What explanation is it that you've understood? It enables more fancy unibody design and exotic materials? Who the fuck cares about that?!
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If you do not care about unibody design then feel free to drive one of those old cars that had frames and tended to kill you more. And if you can't see how that relates to handset design then just don't worry, be happy.
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Sure, car frames and phones are completely comparable.
One is a transportation device which propels the occupants at high speed and the other an electronic device which propels user data at high speed to the data mongers in S.V. Obviously, a unibody design on your phone will protect the occupants from injury when its involved in a high speed collision.
Oh wait, that's not right. The unibody design will prevent user servicing of things like batteries or replacing broken parts. But hey, at Apple has their "r
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Future Samsung press release : The lagging S8 sales are obviously from the Note 7 debacle, and we need to reduce user functionality to only samsung approved software and functions. It's for your safety.
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No reason to ever buy a Galaxy S8, then.
If your entire purchasing decision for a phone hangs on the ability to customise a single button then your priorities are somewhat skewed.
I can't believe I'm defending Samsung... (Score:1, Flamebait)
...and their comment was certainly snarky; but...
WHAT IS UP WITH YOU PEOPLE?!?!?
Do you whine that you can't reprogram the Play and Stop buttons on your DVD Player?
Do you whine that you can't make the Stop button on you microwave oven launch Spotify?
Just because something has a microcontroller doesn't make it a general purpose computer.
It's an EMBEDDED DEVICE, get the fuck over it.
Re: I can't believe I'm defending Samsung... (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem was they could reprogram it but the devs BLOCKED it just to be asses.
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If the vendor specifically has to break the ability to remap a button; this fairly strongly implies that it was otherwise possible; and the only reason it is impossible now is because they don't want it to happen.
People tend not to feel the same way about fixed-function buttons in weaker devices because the limitations are more architectural than deliberate(and, if only thanks to a couple of decades of co
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thanks to a couple of decades of convergent evolution, there is often a reasonably sane quasi-default layout.
Actually, the default for DVR is insane. There is no good reason to have a stop button right next to play/pause when you almost never want that. Just lose the stop button. I mean, what does it do that pause, eject and power don't already cover? Or at least, place it well away from the useful buttons.
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thanks to a couple of decades of convergent evolution, there is often a reasonably sane quasi-default layout.
Actually, the default for DVR is insane. There is no good reason to have a stop button right next to play/pause when you almost never want that. Just lose the stop button. I mean, what does it do that pause, eject and power don't already cover? Or at least, place it well away from the useful buttons.
...and we're immediately off-topic. Good job!
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I will have to call that a "whoosh".
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They can do whatever they want with the product they build, if you don't like it then don't buy it.
Small wonder there is a slow pileup of failed "open" smartphone endeavours, you're all just going to keep buying Samsung's products anyway, sure you'll whine that the newly introduced dedicated hardware button can't be reprogrammed but it's not that big of a deal and as that time passes Samsung gets further and further ahead and open/free alternatives become less and less of a possibility.
Your freedoms are slo
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Is there some sort of rule that vendor hostility becomes more acceptable as devices become smaller?
If the vendor specifically has to break the ability to remap a button; this fairly strongly implies that it was otherwise possible; and the only reason it is impossible now is because they don't want it to happen.
People tend not to feel the same way about fixed-function buttons in weaker devices because the limitations are more architectural than deliberate(and, if only thanks to a couple of decades of convergent evolution, there is often a reasonably sane quasi-default layout).
That's a very weak excuse.
Re:I can't believe I'm defending Samsung... (Score:5, Funny)
Do you [complain] that you can't reprogram the Play and Stop buttons on your DVD Player?
Why, yes I do. Next question.
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GP doesn't, because Apple does his thinking for him.
Not only are they geniuses, they have proxy-geniuses located in retail outlets right near your home.
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GP doesn't, because Apple does his thinking for him.
Not only are they geniuses, they have proxy-geniuses located in retail outlets right near your home.
Bullshit. I'm and Embedded Developer. I know how easy it would be to allow User-Programmability for that (or any) Button.
But it isn't always NECESSARY or even DESIRABLE. And that's the difference.
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At least pick realistic examples. The buttons on my DVD player (or Blu Ray) are probably on a good place. Besides I'd be using a remote control and almost never use them. I'd love a remote that I could move the buttons around or at least reassign them. There are remotes that have screens and you can do that but then you lose the tactile touch that lets you use the remote without taking your eyes off the screen.
When it comes to assigning a button to a service that not everyone will use then it's a waste of
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I'd love a remote that I could move the buttons around or at least reassign them.
Steve Wozniak invented one back in about 1985. Didn't sell very well, unfortunately.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
And today's smartphones are general purpose computers.
For VERY limited values of the Term "General Purpose".
As I said; just because it has a Microprocessor/Microcontroller, DOESN'T make it a General Purpose Computer, sorry.
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Oh please, there isn't much that I can do on a computer that I can't do on a smartphone. I can run word processors, create spreadsheets, browse the web, play games, and much, much more. Smart phones are more limited in their connectivity to peripherals like printers and scanners though it's getting better. If my smart phone doesn't have the ability to do something then I can probably write an application to do that. In fact that's the definition of a general purpose computer.
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Years ago I had a Motorola K1. It's a little flip phone that could (in theory) connect to the Internet via a dialup connection. Because Motorola wanted to push all that crappy dialup stuff, they put a whole button (on a crowded keypad) for getting onto the Internet. It was so absurdly slow to load the browser, much less dialling up that I found it easier to go online in other ways than to ever use it. Some of the other buttons could be remapped - but not that one. Shame, I could have used that real-estate t
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Years ago I had a Motorola K1. It's a little flip phone that could (in theory) connect to the Internet via a dialup connection. Because Motorola wanted to push all that crappy dialup stuff, they put a whole button (on a crowded keypad) for getting onto the Internet. It was so absurdly slow to load the browser, much less dialling up that I found it easier to go online in other ways than to ever use it. Some of the other buttons could be remapped - but not that one. Shame, I could have used that real-estate to do something useful.
I still have that phone - I use it as an alarm clock. I've remapped all the keys to make it as 'fat finger friendly' as possible, but even though it's in aircraft mode, and had a dead sim in it, one little press of that button still tries to load up the browser. It still annoys me some 10 years after they came out with that phone.
...and your point being?
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Relax, buddy. We are breaking Samsung's balls because they are a bunch of assholes and because it is fun to stick to the man - especially when the man is a complete asshole.
Well, you'll have no argument from me, there, LOL!
Flash another ROM (Score:2, Insightful)
So just flash another ROM into the phone and do what you want with it. How hard is that?
Re:Flash another ROM (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'm not sure where you checked on the XDA forums, but it obviously wasn't the dedicated sections for the Galaxy S4 which is filled with custom roms, for several different variants of the S4:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s4
My wife's S4 has run Cyanogenmod for years, and now runs LinageOS.
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Re: Flash another ROM (Score:4, Informative)
It might be a Verizon S4... VZW takes bootloader-locking 'evil' to creative new heights (lows?).
Apparently, when the Note 4 came out, Verizon actually paid extra to Samsung for them to protect the Sprint version's bootloader the same way (Sprint itself was indifferent) just to make sure there wouldn't be another CDMA model with easy-to-unlock bootloader. From what I recall, the Verizon model of one of Samsung's earlier phones could be cracked by flashing a Sprint bootloader to the Verizon phone... it temporarily bricked the phone (or at least disabled the radio modem), but then you could unlock the easy-to-unlock Sprint-version bootloader & reflash it with a second bootloader that was basically a Sprint Android bootloader w/ripped Verizon radio modem firmware to give you a working, bootloader-unlocked Verizon phone. Verizon was determined to keep it from happening again.
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Jesus, just the thought of using stock Samsung software sends shivers down my spine and a hot anger rise to my face. Fuck Samsung stock ROMs forever, I don't care how much "better" the apologists claim TouchWiz has gotten. It's complete and utter shit no matter what they do, it will always be utter shit, again, no matter what they do. They have produced a software product so bad that nothing short of complete annihilation will ever fix it.
Repeat after me: FUCK SAMSUNG
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Yeah I totally wish I'd never given my S3 to my sister.
Not hard at all (Score:2)
Phones aren't like windows PCs. You can't just go to Samsung's website and pull drivers down. For a flagship like the S8 you probably will be able to find a ROM before long though. Try that with a cheaper phone like an LG D415 or Blu R1 HD...
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Especially with Samsung's later phones, even if it doesn't "legally" void the warranty, it blows the fuse bits in the "Knox' subsystems, and after that not only do they consider the warranty void; the phone will no longer complete some secure transactions like Samsung Pay, and a few other things get disabled IIRC.
So, rooting one kind of cripples it from being a "normal" Samsung phone in that its trust chain is no longer intact even if the warranty thing isn't an issue.
Screw the Corporate Overlords! (Score:5, Insightful)
The quickening pace at which we are losing control over our own devices that we presumably own is frightening
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The quickening pace at which we are losing control over our own devices that we presumably own is frightening
To you.
To me, too.
But not to most, which is why consumers continue to buy the devices no matter how much c ontrol over them they lose.
Originally you could remap the button (Score:2)
Guess someone was able to remap the Bixby button on demo S8 unit in Best Buy. So it isn't that Samsung blocked it from the beginning , they explicitly removed right before launch which is d-bag move.
http://www.androidauthority.co... [androidauthority.com]
walled garden! walled garden! ermagerhd!!!!!! (Score:2)
/wankery
Do we need first fire extinguisher? (Score:1)