android
Motorola shows no love for custom ROM users
Motorola has basically just given the finger to developers working on their Android devices with an unprofessional comment that they posted on their YouTube page. Someone named tdcrooks basically posted a comment on the Atrix ad video saying: “Even though this phone seems to have the best hardware specs yet, no sale if the bootloader is locked like the Motorola Milestone I have. It’s really upsetting to not be able to put custom roms on MY device…Please Moto, do the right thing. [For your customers, that is]”Motorola promptly responded with:
@tdcrooks if you want to do custom roms, then buy elsewhere, we’ll continue with our strategy that is working thanks.
Talk about a way to kill off potential sales – the comment might as well have been “if you don’t like the way we work, go elsewhere!” Obviously the comment has since been removed from the YouTube page, along with tdcrooks’ comment. But people have seen the response and the damage has already been done. The Android hacker/developer community has been a big reason to why Android is this successful in the first place. Granted, the phone hacking community only makes up a small percentage of all Android phone users, but that doesn’t mean they don’t matter and Motorola’s response was way out of line. In fact, the suggestion to “buy elsewhere” could possibly lead to some repercussions. How many of you care about whether your device is locked or not?
UPDATE (8:03 pm): Motorola has posted an update on their Facebook page apologizing for the PR’s rude response, and they announced that they will be coming up with a better bootloader solution to make everyone happy. Whether the company will follow through with their words is another story, but it’s nice of them to admit that they were wrong instead of ignoring the whole issue – something they could have easily done.
The Fairphone 2 was first unveiled in June earlier this year, where this particular handset carried a modular design while featuring majority of its components that have been sourced from conflict-free mines. It seems that this particular handset that you can purchase with a clear conscience has begun to ship to those who happen to live across Europe.
Fairphone announced in a blog post, “It’s been almost two years in the making, and some of the earliest buyers have been patiently waiting since July to receive their new phones. As community manager, I want to personally welcome the new batch of Fairphone owners to our community.” The initial 1,000 units are tipped to ship this month, before the other pre-orders follow in January 2016.
In terms of hardware specifications, the Fairphone 2 will run on a Snapdragon 801 chipset, has a 5″ 1080p screen with Gorilla Glass 3 protection, 2GB of RAM, an 8MP camera, with Android 5.1 Lollipop in tow. It will be a dual SIM capable handset with a microSD memory card slot and plays nice with 4G LTE networks, retailing for approximately €525 a pop.
It looks like the upcoming flagship model from Xiaomi will feature NFC support, at least based on a document that was released by China UnionPay. Just in case you are scratching your head and wondering who China UnionPay is, they happen to be the only domestic payment gateway supplier and card organization, and hence, to see them offer detailed support concerning the newly released NFC-based payment system points to the very real possibility of the upcoming Xiaomi Mi 5 featuring NFC capability.
After all, the Xiaomi Mi 3 was also mentioned on the list, which so happens to feature NFC, and there is no mention of the Xiaomi Mi 4 which does not come with NFC. Still, such a new payment system would be the ideal tool to see the reintroduction of NFC to the flagship model.
OnePlus did make an announcement in the previous month that the Ceramic variant of the OnePlus X will be released on November 24. True to their word, they did exactly that – although only a pitiful number of units were made available, and not only that, this was through a charity auction. Thankfully for the rest of the masses who are on the lookout for this device, it has gone on sale officially already.
Needless to say, this particular variant is available only by an invitation, although do bear in mind that standard OnePlus X invites are not good here – you will still need to snag yourself a specific Ceramic variant invite before you make a purchase. OnePlus is also on the lookout to offer additional methods of picking up this smartphone, although no further details were revealed.
The OnePlus X Ceramic will be available only in select markets, where among them include Europe, India, and Hong Kong. To date, we do know that OnePlus had made only 10,000 units of the handset available. A case of the early bird getting the proverbial worm here?