In case you hadn't noticed, HTC doesn't like devs

[s44]

HTCRUU shut down

Bootloaders, S-OFF crap, delaying mandatory kernel source releases for *months*, and now using lawyers to take stock ROM images and leaks off the net? I'd ask why a bunch of devs still are faithful to HTC, except I think most of them have switched to Samsung already anyway. (Samsung = no locks except Verizon + quick VZ unlock leaks, trivially easy root, kernel source sometimes *before* official device/OTA release, Odin stock images for everything, hasn't tried to zap Sammobile or any such sites.)

Sad thing is that the dev community made HTC back in the WM days. Sadder thing is that leaks do nothing but good for your product and reputation -- hell, Samsung seems to use them as beta testing.

 

[ImDonly1]

Was considering an HTC phone in the future, but if they do this I would definitely not buy one. Android phones without dev support, no thanks.

 

[Bateluer]

Not the smartest move for HTC to be making while they post loss after loss after loss amid declining sales quarter after quarter.

 

[lopri]

Interesting. Couldn't there have been a middle ground? (e.g. Let the devs do what they want to do without official logos) What does HTC gain from this action? Traffics to its own website? Security concern?

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

FWIW regarding Android:

Samsung phones make money for Samsung. HTC barely bring in cah from Android phones.

Anyone else that makes Android phones is loosing cash.

Not sure where to start but remember that there were hundreds if not thousands of companies making cars in 1900. Today, Ford, Chvy and Dodge have survived. jsut keep that in mind is all I'm saying. The winner is the guy that decided to stop buying horses.

 

[s44]

I hope RIM is paying for spreading your FUD all over the place here... otherwise, it's more than a little sad.

Here's a fact about mobile devices:
Samsung makes piles of money
Apple makes piles of money

No other hardware companies are making much profit. RIM is losing money, subscribers, employees, market cap, and cash -- fast. But of course this thread is about HTC screwing up their consumer experience, not irrelevant business-side cheerleading.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

I hope RIM is paying for spreading your FUD all over the place here... otherwise, it's more than a little sad.

Here's a fact about mobile devices:
Samsung makes piles of money
Apple makes piles of money

No other hardware companies are making much profit. RIM is losing money, subscribers, employees, market cap, and cash -- fast. But of course this thread is about HTC screwing up their consumer experience, not irrelevant business-side cheerleading.

Irony: You are the one that brought RIM up in this thread, not me.

Since you did ....
Wrong wrong and wrong


1) loosing money. No, Free Cash Flow is north of $2 billion annually
2) Subscribers? Gained about 10 million this past year
3) Employees ... OK sort of right .... RIMM did their first restructuring in 20 years. Go research LEAN in terms of LEAN manufacturing. That's all RIM is doing regarding employees.
4) market cap? Not sure where you are going with that but it makes little sense. Does it matter that RIMM has triupled market cap since the bottom while Apple has lost half of it's since it's top?
5) For a company burning cash, can you explain how $1 billion in cash was added to the books over the past year. $600 million added this past quarter...

Since you seem to know so much, you might actually want to fact check articles.

 

[WelshBloke]

HTCRUU shut down

Bootloaders, S-OFF crap, delaying mandatory kernel source releases for *months*, and now using lawyers to take stock ROM images and leaks off the net? I'd ask why a bunch of devs still are faithful to HTC, except I think most of them have switched to Samsung already anyway. (Samsung = no locks except Verizon + quick VZ unlock leaks, trivially easy root, kernel source sometimes *before* official device/OTA release, Odin stock images for everything, hasn't tried to zap Sammobile or any such sites.)

Sad thing is that the dev community made HTC back in the WM days. Sadder thing is that leaks do nothing but good for your product and reputation -- hell, Samsung seems to use them as beta testing.

I have to say I was shocked the first time I moved from an HTC phone to a Samsung phone in how easy it was to root, flash or generally diddle my phone (and everyone needs to diddle their phone).

I pretty much fired up odin, clicked a checkbox and pressed a button. Then I spent ages going "that cant be it! What have I missed?".

When I went back to flash an old HTC phone a few months later I had to dick around with gold cards, RUU's, obscure programs (one that involved a linux live cd!!!), installing HTC software then immediately uninstalling it again. It was generally a pain in the arse and took far longer than it should of.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Ok so HTCRUU is just a repository for Sense ROMs. I don't think Samsung likes you hosting a bunch of TouchWiz ROMs on your website either.

It's not like they shut down HTCDev or something and there's no unlocks.

I know this board hates HTC or whatever, or basically brands they don't understand. HTC in the US has been gimped by the carriers. The One X was locked by AT&T and Verizon's not going to sanction easily unlockable stuff.

If you look at XDA there's a flurry of activity on the One X and One X+. Heck their development far surpassed the SGS3 and SGS2 until Samsung released sources. Everyone seems to think Samsung is the most dev friendly just because they gave phones out to devs and hired Cyanogen. But in reality, if you followed the i9100 and i9300 dev threads, development work was just a total hackjob. Exynos stuff is probably the worst platform to develop for despite it being great hardware. Qualcomm and NVidia are far easier, which was why HTC phones in the past were easy to develop for. Why do you think the HTC HD2 is running Android Jellybean despite being like 4 years old or something like that?

So yeah, maybe there's the bootloader challenge of HTC sometimes, and S-OFF, but it's not like you cannot develop ROMs and Kernels and flash them. S-OFF just means you can't flash the boot partition directly from phone. You have to do it via fastboot.

Sounds like people just don't know what they're talking about. Samsung = dev friendly because they have unlocked phones but all their code that they've dumped to devs is practically useless? Go talk to an actual maintainer of the Galaxy S phones on XDA about Samsung being dev friendly.... lol.

 

[WelshBloke]

Ok so HTCRUU is just a repository for Sense ROMs. I don't think Samsung likes you hosting a bunch of TouchWiz ROMs on your website either.

It's not like they shut down HTCDev or something and there's no unlocks.

I know this board hates HTC or whatever, or basically brands they don't understand. HTC in the US has been gimped by the carriers. The One X was locked by AT&T and Verizon's not going to sanction easily unlockable stuff.

If you look at XDA there's a flurry of activity on the One X and One X+. Heck their development far surpassed the SGS3 and SGS2 until Samsung released sources. Everyone seems to think Samsung is the most dev friendly just because they gave phones out to devs and hired Cyanogen. But in reality, if you followed the i9100 and i9300 dev threads, development work was just a total hackjob. Exynos stuff is probably the worst platform to develop for despite it being great hardware. Qualcomm and NVidia are far easier, which was why HTC phones in the past were easy to develop for. Why do you think the HTC HD2 is running Android Jellybean despite being like 4 years old or something like that?

So yeah, maybe there's the bootloader challenge of HTC sometimes, and S-OFF, but it's not like you cannot develop ROMs and Kernels and flash them. S-OFF just means you can't flash the boot partition directly from phone. You have to do it via fastboot.

Sounds like people just don't know what they're talking about. Samsung = dev friendly because they have unlocked phones but all their code that they've dumped to devs is practically useless? Go talk to an actual maintainer of the Galaxy S phones on XDA about Samsung being dev friendly.... lol.

No. Samsung are definitely more consumer friendly here than HTC. You are way, way less likely to brick your Samsung phone than your HTC phone during a flash.

Also does Samsung give sammobile any grief? They host just about every Samsung rom released.

 

[vshah]

sorry, the owner of htcruu was not a "Dev," he was a guy hosting content that wasn't his.

 

[WelshBloke]

sorry, the owner of htcruu was not a "Dev," he was a guy hosting content that wasn't his.

Yeah it is HTCs content but they give it away anyway. It just seems to be a douchy overly controlling act though.

It's not like you can use the roms without buying the HTC hardware.

 

[Anteaus]

Maybe I'm missing something but I'm not sure what the big deal is? What does this have to do with devs producing third party software that runs on HTC phones?

All I see here is an attempt to squash unauthorized distribution of HTC developed software. Naturally there will be numerous opinions on whether HTC is douchy for it, but I don't get how people jump to the conclusion that HTC hates developers simply because they don't open up their doors and let everyone inside. If anything, this sends a message that HTC is protecting the interests of developers who go through official channels.

That being said, I'm not against people doing what they want with their hardware and if they want to run modified ROMs i'm supportive of it. Ultimately, this is more about a website illegally hosting software, and less about HTC declaring war on modified ROMs.

 

[WelshBloke]

Maybe I'm missing something but I'm not sure what the big deal is? What does this have to do with devs producing third party software that runs on HTC phones?

All I see here is an attempt to squash unauthorized distribution of HTC developed software. Naturally there will be numerous opinions on whether HTC is douchy for it, but I don't get how people jump to the conclusion that HTC hates developers simply because they don't open up their doors and let everyone inside. If anything, this sends a message that HTC is protecting the interests of developers who go through official channels.

That being said, I'm not against people doing what they want with their hardware and if they want to run modified ROMs i'm supportive of it. Ultimately, this is more about a website illegally hosting software, and less about HTC declaring war on modified ROMs.

Point is that HTC makes things unnecessarily difficult.

 

[Sheep]

Stick a fork in these guys...they're done.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/25/3...phone-companion-for-your-oversized-smartphone

REALLY?

 

[wirednuts]

Stick a fork in these guys...they're done.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/25/3...phone-companion-for-your-oversized-smartphone

REALLY?

i think that is totally awesome. its basically saying your smartphone is your new laptop.

i dont think htc is putting up the obstacles to dissuade devs, i think its much more about protecting their product. phones arent just a piece of hardware, you are buying the software thats necessary to run it too. and someone has to make the first roms before the customs roms can come out... so that is where hardware makers need to protect what they put money into.

if they didnt want people to develop their own software they would simply eliminate their htcdev site.

 

[Jinny]

Stick a fork in these guys...they're done.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/25/3...phone-companion-for-your-oversized-smartphone

REALLY?

hehe didnt' we leave behind this tech years ago? (dumbphone + pda)

 

[Insomniator]

Took me a few google searches and 30 minutes of reading on XDA to get a custom rom running on my Rezound yesterday. Whats the problem?