4 ms·

I don't think this is actually true. Phone makers seem happy to have the platform locked down even further. They're putting even more roadblocks, as evidenced b

I don't think this is actually true. Phone makers seem happy to have the platform locked down even further. They're putting even more roadblocks, as evidenced by most of them making bootloaders unlockable.

ardacinar 14d ago
They're happy that it is locked down. They're not happy that they're not the ones doing the locking down.
- pjmlp 14d ago
  They can easily go back 30 years ago, when each one had their own proprietary in-house OS, using current Android as baseline, or something BSD like PlayStation.
  - alightsoul 13d ago
    This is what phone manufacturers do. Very few use vanilla AOSP with just Google mobile services and their own hardware drivers.
lenerdenator 14d ago
This is what lots of people forget. Android is not a Linux desktop or server distro. It is not about you getting to put what you want on the hardware you bought for free. Operating systems are hellaciously expensive to maintain and that only gets worse in markets with rapid hardware improvements, as the smartphone market was up until maybe the late 2010s. Google is not a charity. SV did not come into national prominence for making investors $0. There is no money in giving maybe one in one-hundred smartphone users (and that's being generous) a bunch of code, for free, so that they can put it on their gizmo and talk to their nerd friends at their hacker meetup. When they pitched Android as "open", they meant that carriers and device makers could load it up with all of the revenue-enhancing bloat that they wanted. In return, Google got a device that would let them hoover up all of the data they could ever want in order to build better ad service profiles for those using the devices. That is, after all, their business. For a while, this could coexist with us screwing around with a real-life tricorder. At some point, though, the free stuff turned into a revenue opportunity that had to be exploited. And so, it will be.
- TeMPOraL 14d ago
  > For a while, this could coexist with us screwing around with a real-life tricorder. Wish I could upvote you twice for that line alone. It perfectly sums up what I always wanted Android to be. Alas, the closer we are to this in hardware, the further away we are getting in software.
- mitxela 14d ago
  Especially Android, which is an ever-growing pile of spaghetti almost as bad as Windows.
  - sirjaz 14d ago
    I'd say Android is already worse. It uses more ram and resources to run smoothly than Windows does. Especially now that Microsoft is actively trying to speed up Windows 11 and make it use less resources.
    - mitxela 14d ago
      That's a different axis from spaghettiness.
    - free652 14d ago
      Haha and not true. You would need to provide objectively more than your experience. And for an example clicking on Android Contacts would be instant vs load time in Windows 11 (the one i have).
      - TeMPOraL 14d ago
        Did you try to scroll the list tho? (Did they fix that whole "store contacts in a linked list" problem in Android already?)
alightsoul 14d ago
Any discussion about this is shut down. I just read an article https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckqxvy98x578o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckqxvy98x578o In the UK according to the BBC, politicians are pressing Samsung and apple to make stolen phones bricks. Samsung in response said that they have implemented several security features for this purpose. I think Samsung considers removing OEM unlocking a security feature according to the bootloader unlock hall of shame. Intel used to do the same with their anti theft technology aka Intel theft deterrent on their classmate PCs, so students had to enter unlock codes from an IT admin every 3 months or every say 200 boots to prevent the computer from being locked at the bios level preventing it from booting an OS, and there was an update which disabled that functionality permanently. And you would be warned when you had around 50 boots left to get the unlock code.
- alightsoul 14d ago
  It could be disabled from the bios somehow if you knew the bios password or the bios could be reflashed with a programming Clip directly on the bios flash chip itself.
- mitxela 14d ago
  Normally you have to unlock the phone before unlocking the bootloader, and that is the protection.
  - alightsoul 14d ago
    I would think they are guessing most people's passwords are weak or something. Like a screen pattern is weak, can be broken in just 300k attempts or maybe less because people use the same patterns and people can't be bothered to use passphrases.
    - mitxela 14d ago
      A screen pattern is a different way to enter a PIN with no duplicate digits. Both PINs and patterns rely upon the security processor to resist bruteforces.
    - 13d ago
tosti 14d ago
Making the bootloaders unlockable is a good thing.
- 0x1ch 14d ago
  I think OP misspoke. He probably meant that they're not able to be unlocked by the consumers, usually.

ardacinar 14d ago

They're happy that it is locked down. They're not happy that they're not the ones doing the locking down.

pjmlp 14d ago
They can easily go back 30 years ago, when each one had their own proprietary in-house OS, using current Android as baseline, or something BSD like PlayStation.
- alightsoul 13d ago
  This is what phone manufacturers do. Very few use vanilla AOSP with just Google mobile services and their own hardware drivers.

lenerdenator 14d ago

This is what lots of people forget. Android is not a Linux desktop or server distro. It is not about you getting to put what you want on the hardware you bought for free. Operating systems are hellaciously expensive to maintain and that only gets worse in markets with rapid hardware improvements, as the smartphone market was up until maybe the late 2010s. Google is not a charity. SV did not come into national prominence for making investors $0. There is no money in giving maybe one in one-hundred smartphone users (and that's being generous) a bunch of code, for free, so that they can put it on their gizmo and talk to their nerd friends at their hacker meetup. When they pitched Android as "open", they meant that carriers and device makers could load it up with all of the revenue-enhancing bloat that they wanted. In return, Google got a device that would let them hoover up all of the data they could ever want in order to build better ad service profiles for those using the devices. That is, after all, their business. For a while, this could coexist with us screwing around with a real-life tricorder. At some point, though, the free stuff turned into a revenue opportunity that had to be exploited. And so, it will be.

TeMPOraL 14d ago
> For a while, this could coexist with us screwing around with a real-life tricorder. Wish I could upvote you twice for that line alone. It perfectly sums up what I always wanted Android to be. Alas, the closer we are to this in hardware, the further away we are getting in software.
mitxela 14d ago
Especially Android, which is an ever-growing pile of spaghetti almost as bad as Windows.
- sirjaz 14d ago
  I'd say Android is already worse. It uses more ram and resources to run smoothly than Windows does. Especially now that Microsoft is actively trying to speed up Windows 11 and make it use less resources.
  - mitxela 14d ago
    That's a different axis from spaghettiness.
  - free652 14d ago
    Haha and not true. You would need to provide objectively more than your experience. And for an example clicking on Android Contacts would be instant vs load time in Windows 11 (the one i have).
    - TeMPOraL 14d ago
      Did you try to scroll the list tho? (Did they fix that whole "store contacts in a linked list" problem in Android already?)

alightsoul 14d ago

Any discussion about this is shut down. I just read an article https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckqxvy98x578o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckqxvy98x578o In the UK according to the BBC, politicians are pressing Samsung and apple to make stolen phones bricks. Samsung in response said that they have implemented several security features for this purpose. I think Samsung considers removing OEM unlocking a security feature according to the bootloader unlock hall of shame. Intel used to do the same with their anti theft technology aka Intel theft deterrent on their classmate PCs, so students had to enter unlock codes from an IT admin every 3 months or every say 200 boots to prevent the computer from being locked at the bios level preventing it from booting an OS, and there was an update which disabled that functionality permanently. And you would be warned when you had around 50 boots left to get the unlock code.

alightsoul 14d ago
It could be disabled from the bios somehow if you knew the bios password or the bios could be reflashed with a programming Clip directly on the bios flash chip itself.
mitxela 14d ago
Normally you have to unlock the phone before unlocking the bootloader, and that is the protection.
- alightsoul 14d ago
  I would think they are guessing most people's passwords are weak or something. Like a screen pattern is weak, can be broken in just 300k attempts or maybe less because people use the same patterns and people can't be bothered to use passphrases.
  - mitxela 14d ago
    A screen pattern is a different way to enter a PIN with no duplicate digits. Both PINs and patterns rely upon the security processor to resist bruteforces.
  - 13d ago

tosti 14d ago

Making the bootloaders unlockable is a good thing.

0x1ch 14d ago
I think OP misspoke. He probably meant that they're not able to be unlocked by the consumers, usually.