UPDATE 2! 7-27-2010: U.S. Government strengthens case for jailbreaking iPhones to allow installation of third party applications. CNET article here.
UPDATE! 7-23-2010: The Droid X was rooted the same day this article was posted (to w00ts and thanks yous to Birdman, igniting 10 pages of forum posts in a few short hours)
Plenty of people have maligned Apple for having a “closed” apps store, conjuring images of King Jobs anointing this app or that app and declaring “off with its head!” to any objectionable app. Now it might be Google’s turn to answer some questions about how open Android really is, now that if you tamper with the software on the Droid X, it becomes a very sexy, yet menacing-looking black paperweight (until you go back and install the original software).
So the big difference so far between iPhone’s mobile OS and (as far as I know) all of the Android OSes out there is in Android, there are less controls on the kinds of apps you can install. You can even check a little box that says “install stuff outside of the App Market.” Then, someone can email you a .apk file (usually what an Android app is) and you just click-and-install. Well, the Android App Market is a pretty shady place anyway filled with both amazing and horrible apps, but should you want to install something like, say, a program that can turn your device into a roving Wi-Fi hotspot, then you could go to this website and download it! Actually, there are tethering apps in the Market, but… you might want to be sure you are getting the right version for your phone.
Oh, wait. You CAN’T turn your phone into a hotspot because you have to have root access to install the program. And no, it appears that everyone who makes these devices to sell them to you at very high prices does not in fact want you to have root.
Yes, folks, when you buy an Android device, you are not the administrator of your phone. Also, should Google decide to delete or add applications from your device, well, they have that power.
Wasn’t Android supposed to be all about freedom and fightin’ “the Man” Steve Jobs and his plan to take over the world? I guess things aren’t quite so black and white and aqua-shiny, eh? It doesn’t stop there. Motorola loves Android, but do they hate the idea of anyone having root? Their policy states the warranty is void if you do it, so why aren’t they encouraging rooting that so they don’t have to support/replace your phone? Their latest and greatest phone (the Droid X) has a wicked little bit of engineering inside it called the eFuse that detects any attempt to basically take full control and then leaps out of the depths of microchips and transistors to slap the hand that got too far into the cookie jar. It’s not quite entirely fair to blame Motorola for this – maybe it’s Verizon’s fault. Sound familiar? Like, maybe AT&T was the evil dictator trying to prevent Google Voice from going on the iPhone.
One angry commenter on the web wrote, “Motorola has taken the very soul out of Android with this phone.” It seems to me that most of the ire is directed at them or Verizon, not Google. Google’s answer to this issue might be that part of the freedom of Android is allowing manufacturers to do whatever they want to it. If you don’t like what they’ve done, go buy a different Android phone that comes pre-rooted, right? You know, it’s this kind of thing that really exposes Google’s massive case of Asperger Syndrome.
It’s wasn’t that easy for people much smarter than I to figure out how to grant root privileges to previous Android devices. But they did. And then software was written around it. Instructions went up on the net. I did manage to figure out how to follow them and at last gain full control of my Droid, after which I got a few nifty features here and there, but I wasn’t entirely blown away by the Brave New World of being fully in control of my android. Still, it felt pretty good, like the time I figured out how to uninstall IE from my Windows 95 PC.
At least until I turned it into a Wi-Fi hotspot. At this moment, any time I go somewhere like a restaurant, I fire up my tethering app and suddenly anyone else around me has access to the net, free of charge. The vision of internet-everywhere just got a little clearer in my mind. I mean, I feel a little excited when my phone buzzes and notifies me “BOBSLAPTOP-124 has connected.” Sure, Verizon may take a second look at people like me and take away my “infinite” data plan. Who knows, maybe Google (Verizon? Motorola?) will pull up my device on their Central Command and zap it with a death ray?
One thing is absolutely clear. The role of “phones” is changing dramatically, accelerating with the invention of the iPhone OS and subsequently Android in particular. Owners of these technologies are interacting with them in new ways, powerful ways, pushing forward the benefit of possessing it. Smartphones are full blown computers now, but they are also different in form and function. When geeks buy a computer, they expect to be the admin so they can install what they want, when they want. We don’t expect our internet provider to control what we can or can’t do with our computers. At the same time, our emotional and practical connections to our phones has, in ways, gone beyond our previous relationship with machines. These feelings of control, soul, power, freedom, and rights are relatively new and startling.
Perhaps there is more to the “I” in iPhone and the meaning behind the term “android” than we realize. They have become part of us, closer than ever to a metaphor for how we think ourselves.
- Ben Collins 07/22/2010
