UNLOCKING CDMA I910 GPS - please help us!

[Guest Hasher]

I suspect they could do it several ways.

One might be a simple application that turns on the GPS and allows it to be accessed via the WM intermediary port. Another would be a ROM update which would include other updates to perhaps fix other issues.

I doubt you would have to take it in to update. None of the other recent updates (i760 for example) did that. They were all firmware updates you downloaded and did yourself.

I just wanted to chime in and say that I successfully got the Igo8 software to install and run ( only works in landscape mode, will error if in portrait)

I use a Delorme Earthmate GPS BT-20 bluetooth to connect via blue tooth and it worked.

At least this way I can use my phone pda for GPS until they unlock it as I like the phone.

Here are the steps I took to get this working.

1. Modify the registry via the information here to get the External GPS to show up in Connections.

2. Turn on Bluetooth and pair up the Earthmate bluetooth device to my I910.

[Guest Hasher]

I suspect they could do it several ways.

One might be a simple application that turns on the GPS and allows it to be accessed via the WM intermediary port. Another would be a ROM update which would include other updates to perhaps fix other issues.

I doubt you would have to take it in to update. None of the other recent updates (i760 for example) did that. They were all firmware updates you downloaded and did yourself.

I just wanted to chime in and say that I successfully got the Igo8 software to install and run ( only works in landscape mode, will error if in portrait)

I use a Delorme Earthmate GPS BT-20 bluetooth to connect via blue tooth and it worked.

At least this way I can use my phone pda for GPS until they unlock it as I like the phone.

Here are the steps I took to get this working.

1. Modify the registry via the information here to get the External GPS to show up in Connections.

2. Turn on Bluetooth and pair up the Earthmate bluetooth device to my I910. Set

[Guest Hasher]

I suspect they could do it several ways.

One might be a simple application that turns on the GPS and allows it to be accessed via the WM intermediary port. Another would be a ROM update which would include other updates to perhaps fix other issues.

I doubt you would have to take it in to update. None of the other recent updates (i760 for example) did that. They were all firmware updates you downloaded and did yourself.

I just wanted to chime in and say that I successfully got the Igo8 software to install and run ( only works in landscape mode, will error if in portrait)

I use a Delorme Earthmate GPS BT-20 bluetooth to connect via blue tooth and it worked.

At least this way I can use my phone pda for GPS until they unlock it as I like the phone.

Here are the steps I took to get this working.

1. Modify the registry via the information here to get the External GPS to show up in Connections.

2. Turn on Bluetooth and pair up the Earthmate bluetooth device to my I910. Set up

[Guest Hasher]

I suspect they could do it several ways.

One might be a simple application that turns on the GPS and allows it to be accessed via the WM intermediary port. Another would be a ROM update which would include other updates to perhaps fix other issues.

I doubt you would have to take it in to update. None of the other recent updates (i760 for example) did that. They were all firmware updates you downloaded and did yourself.

I just wanted to chime in and say that I successfully got the Igo8 software to install and run ( only works in landscape mode, will error if in portrait)

I use a Delorme Earthmate GPS BT-20 bluetooth to connect via blue tooth and it worked.

At least this way I can use my phone pda for GPS until they unlock it as I like the phone.

Here are the steps I took to get this working.

1. Modify the registry via the information here to get the External GPS to show up in Connections.

2. Turn on Bluetooth and pair up the Earthmate bluetooth device to my I910 via the Bluetooth manager in connections. It showed up under devices tab and I chose "use as a serial port". Then I went to Com Ports tab and chose New Outgoing Port and added a Com 2 and set it up on the Earthmate bluetooth.

3. I went to the Connections settings and opened the External GPS and under the Programs tab I set the GPS program port to Com8 and on the Access tab checked the Manage GPA Automatically.

4. I started up Igo8 and did an autodetect on GPS when I had the bluetooth device on and ready. The software found the GPS and when it synced with the satellites the map showed where I was and my speed in the car.

Now I have not tried this with Google Maps or Live yet . but will let you know if this works.

So for now I have been playing with the I910 Omnia since 1/11 and I really like it. I have installed alot of the fixes that have been mentioned here on this board and others and this phone really works well for me.

I have to say I am still annoyed with Verizon for locking down the GPS and trying to say it is a security issue. As GPS has nothing to do with the Cellular network unless it was being used as A-GPS. And even then they could have had Samsung lock out the cellular side to only be used with their Software.

But overall I like the Phone. I like it even better the the Iphone.

Edited January 14, 2009 by Hasher

[Guest ledridge]

I just wanted to chime in and say that I successfully got the Igo8 software to install and run ( only works in landscape mode, will error if in portrait)

I have been using iGo for several weeks on my i910 with a bluetooth GPS and the only catch I have found is that you must make sure your version of the data.zip has the resolutions that you are using. I have both 240x400 and 400x240 and it works fine in both modes.

on the other hand, I have not been able to get copilot to work in Landscape mode. I have also been able to use Live Search, google maps and many other gps tools just fine pointed to my external GPS.

[Guest t_comer]

I was able to get QPST to recognize my phone and dump stuff by opening the control panel item called "Data Connection" and switching it to "As the modem through USB", and then installing the Samsung modem drivers.

Hi M Moogle

Where did you find that option? :D I am trying to make QPST to recongize my i900 but cant find anything to make the phone act as a modem for the life of me. Any pointers, please? :)

[Guest Root-dir]

Hi M Moogle

Where did you find that option? :D I am trying to make QPST to recongize my i900 but cant find anything to make the phone act as a modem for the life of me. Any pointers, please? :)

settings>system>data connection <=on the phone

change it there put in your vzw access manager cd DO NOT INSTALL VZW ACCESS MANAGER plug in the phone let windows find the phone it will pull the drivers off the cd you will problly have to manually add the new com port in qpst and mine didnt reconise the model

Edited January 16, 2009 by Root-dir

[Guest xXDeityXx]

Alright, First of all. I am new to this Forum, and I'm getting a Samsung Omnia within the week. I was looking at this forum and I got really into it. So I did some research on this GPS. And I've seen you guys, Cursing Verizon for doing the things they do. But YOUR VOICE HAS BEEN HEARD. YOU THE CONSUMER HAS WON!

Full Link to the Article --------------------->http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=14710

The carrier's entire statement on this issue is:

Verizon Wireless, like all carriers, orders devices to meet certain specifications inclusive of features. Each of these specs is tested to determine if it meets our performance goals. There are instances when the phone will pass our extensive testing process but a specific feature may not meet the standard. We will often choose to introduce the phone without that feature but ask that the manufacturer come back to us with revised software that has to be tested to make sure the service works the same across our entire wireless footprint --from Maine to Hawaii. In the case of open standalone GPS, we are partnering with the Windows Mobile device manufacturers to provide a software upgrade that will add this capability to the existing assisted GPS capability. This is a complex development project to provide open standalone GPS while maintaining the assisted GPS capability with the level of performance and security that our customers expect. The recently introduced Windows Mobile devices including Omnia, Saga, and Touch Pro are targeted to add open standalone GPS in the 1st half of 2009.

Steve Schwed

Verizon Wireless

HQ Executive Relations Supervisor

Edited January 20, 2009 by xXDeityXx

[Guest paradizelost]

Alright, First of all. I am new to this Forum, and I'm getting a Samsung Omnia within the week. I was looking at this forum and I got really into it. So I did some research on this GPS. And I've seen you guys, Cursing Verizon for doing the things they do. But YOUR VOICE HAS BEEN HEARD. YOU THE CONSUMER HAS WON!

Full Link to the Article --------------------->http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=14710

The carrier's entire statement on this issue is:

Verizon Wireless, like all carriers, orders devices to meet certain specifications inclusive of features. Each of these specs is tested to determine if it meets our performance goals. There are instances when the phone will pass our extensive testing process but a specific feature may not meet the standard. We will often choose to introduce the phone without that feature but ask that the manufacturer come back to us with revised software that has to be tested to make sure the service works the same across our entire wireless footprint --from Maine to Hawaii. In the case of open standalone GPS, we are partnering with the Windows Mobile device manufacturers to provide a software upgrade that will add this capability to the existing assisted GPS capability. This is a complex development project to provide open standalone GPS while maintaining the assisted GPS capability with the level of performance and security that our customers expect. The recently introduced Windows Mobile devices including Omnia, Saga, and Touch Pro are targeted to add open standalone GPS in the 1st half of 2009.

Steve Schwed

Verizon Wireless

HQ Executive Relations Supervisor

Dude, same crap we've heard and seen posted a hundred times in this forum already. They could have simply not locked it down in the first place at all. Its obvious they wanted to get the extra $10/mo from the suckers who didn't know better, but got slapped with a class action lawsuit on the blackberries, and are now opening it up on the rest to keep from getting sued on the rest of them. In fact, I fully expect this "complex development project" to be nothing more than finding a way to charge $10/mo to simply activate the GPS, whether or not you use VZNavigator, and them being able to forcibly disable it if you don't pay up. I just wish that I had AT&T available around where i am because i'd have an iPhone in a heartbeat over dealing with verizon's bullshit.

And by the way, if you'd read even 1/2 of this forum, you'd have seen your EXACT post MANY TIMES. so please stop cluttering the board with it.

Edited January 20, 2009 by paradizelost

[Guest aleis]

Dude, same crap we've heard and seen posted a hundred times in this forum already. They could have simply not locked it down in the first place at all. Its obvious they wanted to get the extra $10/mo from the suckers who didn't know better, but got slapped with a class action lawsuit on the blackberries, and are now opening it up on the rest to keep from getting sued on the rest of them. In fact, I fully expect this "complex development project" to be nothing more than finding a way to charge $10/mo to simply activate the GPS, whether or not you use VZNavigator, and them being able to forcibly disable it if you don't pay up. I just wish that I had AT&T available around where i am because i'd have an iPhone in a heartbeat over dealing with verizon's bullshit.

And by the way, if you'd read even 1/2 of this forum, you'd have seen your EXACT post MANY TIMES. so please stop cluttering the board with it.

ouch dude! :)

he`s a noob cut him some slack :D

anyway, i dont know...i mean 6 months (well about 5 now...) is not that long, but someone put this out...

what if they said 6 months so that people like us will stop trying to unlock it ourselves!

and in 6 months we`ll forget about it...then they make it 7 months or 8 months later!

i think we need to step it up again and push for gps sooner!

but...

i turned into a complete tech fein!

i kind of want the newest phone every time it comes out now...

i`ll keep my omnia of course, some days i`ll have it activated some days i`ll have (insert newest winmo phone here) activated.

what im trying to say is....I LOVE TECHNOLOGY!! :)

[Guest dwallersv]

Note that if you want to play with VZNavigator, Verizon has a one month free program right now.

I set it up and it didn't work the first couple days. When I finally got it to work, I found it to be lacking especially when you compare it to something like Google map or Live Search. Navigation is not what I am looking for anyway so I uninstalled it, called Verizon and told them I would not be using it.

I can't imagine running that buggy thing just so I can attempt to use other 3rd party apps with the GPS.

So I will ether keep using my BT GPS which works great or hopefully an unlock method gets found/developed/released.

It is hard to tell if the internal GPS when unlocked would be as good as my BT GPS though so there may not be a big benefit in the internal one.

I have a BT GPS unit that I got for my Treo 750. It was a package from Palm that included the BT reciever, TomTom 6, and some other junk.

I can't get it to work with my Omnia, but I think it should. I can't imagine Palm locked the BT GPS unit down to Palm devices, as there was no update to WM6 installed to get it to work -- it just worked with the existing External GPS cpl.

Any insight on how to get this thing to work with my omnia? I already exposed the GPS control panel thingy, paired successfully with the phone, but can't get Google Maps (as one example) to see it.

Any advice?

EDIT: Never mind -- figured it out. To help anyone that is having trouble, here's what I forgot I had to do (had to do this on the Treo to get Google Maps to work too, now that my memory's been jogged):

1. After pairing with device, make sure that the "Serial Port" service for your BT GPS device is checked.
   
2. Go to the "COM Ports" tab in the Bluetooth control panel applet
   
3. Click on "New Outgoing Port"
   
4. You should see your external GPS device listed there (for me it's "Palm GPS"). Select it, and hit Next.
   
5. Select a COM port, unselect "Secure connection" (unless you're worried about someone within 20-30 feet sniffing your BT GPS data -- seems ginormously silly to me), press Finish.
   
6. Start Google Maps; go to Menu->Options->GPS Settings
   
7. Select "Set Manually", select the COM port you set up in the Bluetooth config (I used COM6) in the first dropdown list, select a baud rate that gives you a thrill in the second dropdown (doesn't really matter -- I used 38400).
   
8. Press OK
   
9. Now select Menu->Use GPS... you're good to go!
   

If your device has a fix, you should see "Initializing GPS" followed by the usual satellite fix data in short order, and your location nailed on the map. I'm getting 10 sats and a rather precise fix sitting here in my bedroom, not near a window or anything (old woodframe house, signals pass right through the composite roof shingles, framing, and drywall on the cieling with ease). Switch to satellite image view, zoom in, and the locator dot is right over my home where my bdrm is. BOFFO!

With this working, I can hold my nose and tolerate the wait for the promised unlock of the internal GPS.

Edited January 20, 2009 by dwallersv

[Guest Devin C]

IMO VZ Navigator has its faults:

1. In follow mode the map doesn't keep your position at center like Live Search and Google Maps do, Instead, your position runs to the end of the screen and then the map reloads. That means for some of the time you cannot see the route ahead of you. Not good.

2. Traffic only updates when the map reloads. Meaning until your position reaches the end of the map forcing it to reload you get no traffic updates. Again, not great.

3. No satellite view, only map view. Not vital but would be nice.

4. Local Search kinda sucks. Typing in seafood restaurant will get youa listing, but nowhere near as good or complete as Live Search or Google Maps.

Items 1 and 2 clearly seem to be done to cut down on bandwidth usage...at our expense. One would think paying $10/month we could merit more bandwidth.

That said, I have to admit that the actual voice nav portion of the application works fairly nicely. Certainly MUCH better than free ones like Amaze. In fact, even when VZ unlocks the GPS I will probably continue to pay for VZ Nav rather than go back to Amaze.

Devin

[Guest sponrob]

IMO VZ Navigator has its faults:

1. In follow mode the map doesn't keep your position at center like Live Search and Google Maps do, Instead, your position runs to the end of the screen and then the map reloads. That means for some of the time you cannot see the route ahead of you. Not good.

2. Traffic only updates when the map reloads. Meaning until your position reaches the end of the map forcing it to reload you get no traffic updates. Again, not great.

3. No satellite view, only map view. Not vital but would be nice.

4. Local Search kinda sucks. Typing in seafood restaurant will get youa listing, but nowhere near as good or complete as Live Search or Google Maps.

Items 1 and 2 clearly seem to be done to cut down on bandwidth usage...at our expense. One would think paying $10/month we could merit more bandwidth.

That said, I have to admit that the actual voice nav portion of the application works fairly nicely. Certainly MUCH better than free ones like Amaze. In fact, even when VZ unlocks the GPS I will probably continue to pay for VZ Nav rather than go back to Amaze.

Devin

I agree, in addition, vz nav is kinda laggy, even in a good evdo area. southern california nightmare highways, and vz is reporting 2-4 seconds late on actual location. these precious seconds count in 80 mile an hour 6 lane highways. I much more prefer Tomtom maps on sd card...the location reporting is exact.

[Guest somedude]

And they only give you one day, not one month to use VZ navigator for the trial.

How in the hell is one day enough to see if you really like a application?!?!?!

Verizon sure does know how to treat their customers right....

VZ nav is actually pretty decent. But IGO8 and Garmin Mobile blow it out of the water.

They better hurry up and unlock this gps, im losing patience. I will pay to get out my contract with them. I dont care. I am sick of this shit.

Edited January 24, 2009 by somedude

[Guest Daugvolf]

Verizon is at the same time both the worst and best mobile carrier in the US.

Best:

Voice network quality

Customer support

Worst:

Data network quality

Selection of phones (And what they do to cripple them)

It's arguable that they have the worst pricing/plans because all of the major US carriers are pretty awful. Take a look at the monthly bill of anyone who owns an iPhone and you'll see what I mean. They all try to nickel and dime the heck out of you because they know they can, because they ALL try to nickel and dime the heck out of you... Because they can. And so forth and so on. It's like an unincorporated OPEC of mobile phones.

Edited January 24, 2009 by Daugvolf

[Guest JASTECH]

Well I am still trying to get the GPS working too. I am the one who sent the information/evidence to the Attorney that is handling the Black Berry suet in California. This was posted way back in the threads so noobs should start at the beginning and read then we wouldn't have all these duplicate posts. VZW is still trying to charge me the Data Package and I didn't buy the phone from them. So far its been 2 months and no charges.

Ok, back to the i910 GPS issue at hand. We need to have a

1) dump before VZNav

2) with VZNav installed

3)one after it is used via the towers.

The encryption has to be installed in one of the first 2. Then possibly the handshake is "activated" via the first use with towers. M Moogle, what do you think? I can use my Hex editor but mine does not have 2&3.

Thanks, JASTECH ô¿ô

[Guest krelvinaz]

Get real... an attempt at a lawsuit is a joke and a waste of time. You have no standing and won't go anywhere with that since Verizon has already stated they plan on unlocking the device. Furthermore they never advertised the phone like they did with the BB where there was a suit so again, you can't claim a right that didn't exist.

If you didn't like the fact, you had the opportunity to send the phone back. They provided you that option and you chose to not do that even though you knew it was an issue (many posts from you proving that).

Get over it.

As for GPS on the Omnia until it is unlocked you have a couple options:

1) Use an external GPS instead. I already had one since my previous i760 never had GPS. No big deal. Internal would be better (maybe) but external works. I suspect that for some applications the use of an External GPS might actually work better as you can position it in the clear while using your phone. Won't really know though until we see what the internal GPS actually can do, what its power requirements are etc...

2) Try to create your own program. There you are better off trying to gain access to the gpstest program source since that has proved to already talk to the device. It would be a lot easier that trying to hack the whole VZNav app. Potential legal issue too. Somehow, I suspect that you are not up to this task as it requires a pretty good idea of how to program and the ins an outs of internal code design. I know I can't do it and I've got most of the development tools already.

3) Just wait and eventually it will be unlocked. Obviously it has not stopped you from using the phone so far, or do you actually not use what you purchased?

VZNav Trial

As for the trial on VZNav, the website says it is a 1 month trial, but when you sign up it looks like a one day trial. It is actually the former. You can confirm that by just giving Verizon a call and have them check the account. I did that when I tried it and had no problem. I canceled it 2 days later as it is a POS and didn't provide me with the GPS coordinates that I needed. I don't need to navigate, I need to know where I am instead. Not the same thing.

As for the Omnia i910, it is the best phone that I've used so far. Does it have faults, sure, but unless I have someone build me a custom manufactured phone, I will never get a phone that does everything I wanted.

For less than $100 it is a great phone.

[Guest tjbugs1]

For less than $100 it is a great phone.

Less then $100? How did you swing that?

[Guest JASTECH]

I am real. Anything is worth trying which is a lot better then sitting on a chair and complaining eh? I have to switch to AT&T anyways so I will sell my i910 and get the i900 16GB that everything works on:-)

Verizon was not forthcoming on their Ads. IF they had been less consumers would have purchased or got locked into a 2yr contract for a disabled phone.

Thanks, JASTECH ô¿ô

[Guest krelvinaz]

It was $219 ($299 - $80 Instant off) - $70 Citi Card (which went right back on the account to pay it down). I had seen another fellow employee who got an additional $50 discount and asked ... which was then applied to my account after I bought it.

After Taxes it was actually more than $100 since the phone was taxed at the $219 price, but close enough. I thought I was going to be paying $149 + tax when I bought it, so a good deal got better by $50.

Compared to the $299 I paid for my last phone (i760) which was at that time the best phone I had ever used, the Omnia makes it pale by comparison. The Omnia is more functional and capable.

When the GPS finally gets unlocked, it will even better. Since it was never advertised as having an Internal GPS by Verizon, I never expected it, so that will be a nice bonus.

[Guest krelvinaz]

Verizon was not forthcoming on their Ads. IF they had been less consumers would have purchased or got locked into a 2yr contract for a disabled phone.

Forthcoming? I've never seen a single Verizon advertisement that advertised the i910 as having an Internal GPS. Instead, the advertising says that VZNav as an option was available which is exactly what they sold.

If you assumed that since the i900 had an accessible GPS, that the i910 would too, then you made the mistake. It was clear before I bought mine that that was not the case. There are a number of other differences between the two models as well.

I hope that your new i900 and AT&T service work out better for you. I switched to Verizon due to lack of coverage from AT&T.

[Guest JASTECH]

True, I was trying to say that people new about teh i900 and thought the i910 was the same. It is via hardware but VZW cripples it sense their CDMA network does not support video voice at the same time like GSM can. But when you call in like I did they told me it has a GPS chip so I assumed <--we know that one...That it would work out of the box like the i900. I too had the i760 and worked on hacking the registry for better service out of it. Just like my XV6900 that they told me it does not have a GPS chip and yet it does and with the custom ROM I installed the GPS works fine like it should. So that is Verizon for you. I just don't think they or any other provider should cripple their phones unless you pay more money a month. VZW should of had a big sign at the store with the i910 on one side and the i900 on the other showing the difference. That would be the honest way but they would loose potential customers and people would be asking why they disabled some thing on it.

So you work for Verizon?

Thanks, JASTECH ô¿ô

[Guest krelvinaz]

So you work for Verizon?

Nope.

As one gets older, one learns to never assume. Verizon never sold the i900 so why would they compare to it. I don't see this as a confusion issue at all. Its not the same phone (GSM vs CDMA) does not include the same software etc...

Its up to the consumer to do the comparison and then you have the 15 day trial where you can make up your mind. Nobody is twisting anyone's arms here, you had a choice and you made it. Once I got the phone in my hands, it only took a day or two to truly confirm what I already had already read that the GPS was locked. So I weighed that with the other functionality and made a choice. I chose to keep it.

I personally had hoped that an unlock would have come for the GPS via the community as had been done with others, and still believe that someone could with the right tools do it, but since Verizon has stated they will be doing it... it's not that big of a deal. I will use my external GPS when when I need the data until it is unlocked and continue to use the phone I bought for what I really bought the phone for.... a phone.

But until then, its still the best phone I've used so far. I've got patience...

[Guest dwallersv]

Nope.

As one gets older, one learns to never assume. Verizon never sold the i900 so why would they compare to it. I don't see this as a confusion issue at all. Its not the same phone (GSM vs CDMA) does not include the same software etc...

Its up to the consumer to do the comparison and then you have the 15 day trial where you can make up your mind. Nobody is twisting anyone's arms here, you had a choice and you made it. Once I got the phone in my hands, it only took a day or two to truly confirm what I already had already read that the GPS was locked. So I weighed that with the other functionality and made a choice. I chose to keep it.

I personally had hoped that an unlock would have come for the GPS via the community as had been done with others, and still believe that someone could with the right tools do it, but since Verizon has stated they will be doing it... it's not that big of a deal. I will use my external GPS when when I need the data until it is unlocked and continue to use the phone I bought for what I really bought the phone for.... a phone.

But until then, its still the best phone I've used so far. I've got patience...

I agree 100%.

Verizon does not have any obligation -- legal, or moral -- to provide anyone with a product according to their desires. Verizon does not force anyone to buy their products.

It is not a breach of ethics to tailor a product according to a company's business model. If that design process results in disabled or unused capabilities in a commodity platform, like cellphones, there's nothing ethically wrong with that. You are free to choose to do business with them or not. By the logic of some people here, we all should be filing lawsuits because there are features of components in our DVD players that are not made available.

Now, all that said, am I pissed off like everyone else that Verizon does this? Yes, you bet the hell I am! I think it a stupid business model, but understand why they do it. However, I "blame" the US carrier-provided hardware business model more than anything else, and us, the consumers, for putting up with it. In the good ol' days, 15 or so years ago, carriers and hardware providers were relatively independent, which is how it should be. You bought your phone from the manufacturer, subscribed for service and gave them your ISN and your phone was activated.

What capabilities your phone had, what software was on it, was up to you. Much as it is elsewhere in the world.

Finally, it is entirely ethical and legal to monkey with the phone as we do here hacking it, cooking ROMs, etc. It's our property, and Verizon has no legal basis to stop us. They try to defeat hackers, but like with media encryption schemes, it's a fool's errand. Anything that can be engineered can be reverse-engineered and defeated. Verizon and others, with their dev teams of a few dozen, do not stand a chance against the world community of thousands upon thousands.

The music industry is finally comign to understand this and, with direct sale of mp3s, changing their business model to work with their customers rather than against them. Eventually, so long as competition exists (Verizon, ATT at least), Verizon will have to come around.

The bottom line, though, is Verizon isn't doing anything wrong; rather, we just don't like parts of their business model, and for some of us, we are willing to tolerate it to get that which we do want. We can then try to, on our own, improve on that we are unhappy with through hacking.

[Guest paradizelost]

I agree 100%.

Verizon does not have any obligation -- legal, or moral -- to provide anyone with a product according to their desires. Verizon does not force anyone to buy their products.

It is not a breach of ethics to tailor a product according to a company's business model. If that design process results in disabled or unused capabilities in a commodity platform, like cellphones, there's nothing ethically wrong with that. You are free to choose to do business with them or not. By the logic of some people here, we all should be filing lawsuits because there are features of components in our DVD players that are not made available.

Now, all that said, am I pissed off like everyone else that Verizon does this? Yes, you bet the hell I am! I think it a stupid business model, but understand why they do it. However, I "blame" the US carrier-provided hardware business model more than anything else, and us, the consumers, for putting up with it. In the good ol' days, 15 or so years ago, carriers and hardware providers were relatively independent, which is how it should be. You bought your phone from the manufacturer, subscribed for service and gave them your ISN and your phone was activated.

What capabilities your phone had, what software was on it, was up to you. Much as it is elsewhere in the world.

Finally, it is entirely ethical and legal to monkey with the phone as we do here hacking it, cooking ROMs, etc. It's our property, and Verizon has no legal basis to stop us. They try to defeat hackers, but like with media encryption schemes, it's a fool's errand. Anything that can be engineered can be reverse-engineered and defeated. Verizon and others, with their dev teams of a few dozen, do not stand a chance against the world community of thousands upon thousands.

The music industry is finally comign to understand this and, with direct sale of mp3s, changing their business model to work with their customers rather than against them. Eventually, so long as competition exists (Verizon, ATT at least), Verizon will have to come around.

The bottom line, though, is Verizon isn't doing anything wrong; rather, we just don't like parts of their business model, and for some of us, we are willing to tolerate it to get that which we do want. We can then try to, on our own, improve on that we are unhappy with through hacking.

Here's the problem with this. Where i live, my choices are currently VZW or Alltel. No AT&T, no T-Mobile, nada. Alltel has s*** coverage, VZW has s*** customer service. and the 2 are merging. Where exactly is MY "Choice"? To not have cell service at all? It's a requirement for my position that i have it. Also, the phones that VZW gave many of the reviewers didn't have the GPS locked down, so there are lots of reviews out there that say that it has "unlocked GPS" or just plain "gps" which I believe that verizon did on purpose to build up the hype, and when people bought the phone, "oh yeahh, GPS is VZNavigator". As i've mentioned previousely on the boards here, My state has terrible cell coverage overall. When i drive to one of my branches, of a 3 hour drive, nearly 2 hours has NO coverage at all. As in i couldn't make a call if it was an emergency. VZNav doesn't work with no cell coverage, it requires it to download the maps section by section. as such, VZNav is worthless to me even if i was willing to pay the $10/mo for it. Where Google Maps will cache the maps. Yeah, i have to do that by hand, scroll over my entire route and pre-cache the maps before heading out, but at least i can use it while in an area without coverage.