I 'm a step closer to pulling the trigger and buying an HTC One

[G+_Mike Tsirigotis]

I'm a step closer to pulling the trigger and buying an HTC One. Just as soon as they have Cyanogenmod 10.1 (Android 4.2) working on it I'll be all in. 

 

"If it's not hackable, It's not worth buying..." -Unknown

http://www.talkandroid.com/158217-att-htc-one-bootloader-unlocked-via-htc-dev-rooted-cwm-recovery-installed/

[G+_Santos Cardona]

Good luck with everything working the camera won't 100% for one.

[G+_McKinley Tabor]

Santos Cardona If by 100% you mean that it will just be a regular 4MP camera (albeit with a better sensor and lens) rather than an upscaling done by HTC software, then I'm ok with that. But it also stands to reason that in a few months the Play store will have plenty of apps that recreate the "ultrapixel" tomfoolery should I wish to have it. 

[G+_Santos Cardona]

I don't see why CM should be the selling point. The One is capable without it. I had CM on my nook color because it made it into a totally different device.

[G+_McKinley Tabor]

Santos Cardona Well I'm sure you didn't intend this, but you actually just hit my hot button issue, and the sleeper has awoken. So please allow me to educate you on why these issues are important. Please don't take my responses personally, but perhaps by schooling you, others will also learn.

 

To understand why this issue is important (i.e. selling point), it is necessary first to break the issue down into it's three distinct components: manufacturer differentiation, the boot loader unlocking, and finally Cyanogenmod itself.

 

Manufacturer Differentiation.

 

There exists on both sides of the Pacific and in scattered colonies throughout Europe an army of hardware design engineers. Their task is to take massive amounts of computing power and condense it down into something that will fit in the palm of one's hand, run on a 2000 mA battery, and still be pleasing to the eye. Sadly while this Herculean task is accomplished with grace by these engineers, the end results due tend to all look alike. A BlackBerry Z10, an iPhone 5, a Samsung Galaxy S4, and an HTC One when held up facing forward are pretty much indistinguishable at 100 feet distance. Add to this the human need to individualize with cases/accessories, and you have a situation where one manufacturers product is simply not recognizable from another. 

 

Unfortunately most big companies also spend money on something called "marketing", which as best I can tell is the business practice designed to reach the lowest common denominator of human being: the people who will buy a product based on a commercial that does not actually show the product. The people working in this "marketing" often insist that the product delivered by the engineers be different and unique from other competing products. Since it's very difficult to alter the basic form factor of the touchscreen smartphone, engineers are left to devise gimmicks to appease their marketing cousins (eye tracking, finger hovering, and "ultrapixal" are just a few of the current fads. But history is littered with the grave sites of gimmicky phones).

 

When hardware gimmick's are not deliverable, the only other place that an engineer can turn to make the product unique and different is to modify the operating system.

 

Fortunately for the world Google has created an awesome operating system and gives it away for free to manufacturers who want to use it on their product. Manufacturers use Android because, let's face it, writing a feature filled operating system is hard. If you need verification of that statement simply read a review of a Motorola flip phone circa 2006. There is also this deep intrinsic understanding of the Microsoft truth: computing devices all running the same operating system have more value than computing devices running operating systems that is incompatible with each other.  Android gives to smart phones what Microsoft gave to PC, true software interoperability.  

 

Google also understands that a walled garden, no matter how pretty, is always a prison. So they have made android and open source project that anyone can tinker with. …And tinker with it, engineers do.

 

Currently there exists several major Android user interface forks. Chief among these are Touchwiz from Samsung, MotoBlur from Motorola (pre Google buy out), Timescape from Sony, and Sense from HTC. (An argument can be made that the Amazon user interface for Android is also in this category) While these user interface forks may claim to offer a better "experience", they are little more than software gimmicks that have little if any real wold utilitarian value.

 

In some cases such as Samsung's Touchwiz, critical Google operating system functions are disabled in favor of gimmicky software tricks that decrease the value of the phone. (i.e. lock screen security)

 

It's because of this that most serious Android folks view these user interface forks with great suspicion. Projects like AOSP and Cyanogenmod are an effort to keep these devices as close to the real vanilla Android as possible. We all know that the real vanilla android isn't perfect, but in many cases it's far more perfect then these user interface forks. In the rare chance that there happens to be some function from one of these forks that people actually use, it's always available as a APK.

 

 

The Boot Loader Unlocking

 

I own my phone, period. It is not some manner of joint custody agreement between me and a mega multinational corporation. When I buy a piece of technology I have the fundamental right to do with it as I please. If I want to use it as the manufacture intended, well fine. But if I want to do something with that hardware that the manufacturer did not intend, they have no right to prohibit me from doing it. Yes they can make some vague statements about "voiding the warranty", but in the end I don't buy products for the warranty, I by products to use.

 

Now on the flip side, companies go through great lengths to make sure that their products stay as they intended them too. This makes perfect sense from a tech-support point of view (but then again when was the last time you spoke with a competent tech-support representative?). But there is a much darker side to this. By going through these lengths to make products unalterable, they can in effect build in artificial obsolescence, and use that artificial obsolescence to drive the sales of new products. There are many, many phones on the market right now from manufacturers like Samsung and HTC which have the technical specifications to run the latest Android OS, Jelly bean, very well. Yet the manufacturers have not released the latest version of Android. They rightly claim that their engineers are working on the newer phones first, but the undercurrent is that they have no profit motive to keep older devices updated.

 

Now from my point of view that's fine, if Samsung and HTC want to neglect perfectly good hardware that's their prerogative. What's not fine is when these companies artificially build-in barriers that prevent others from taking their hardware and improving upon it with better software. Locking the boot loader is perhaps the most egregious form of building-in obsolescence. 

 

So to that end, one cannot truly claim to own the hardware they possess, if it has a locked boot loader. As a matter of principle, I unlock every device's boot loader I have, even if I do not intend to deviate from the manufacturers operating system. If I can't hack it, I don't own it. Warranties be damned.

 

 

Cyanogenmod Itself

 

There is much to be said about the features of Cyanogenmod. It is an excellent example of the power of communities to build something better. In many cases, Cyanogenmod dramatically improves the functionality of a device. In other cases Cyanogenmod is just a statement that users want something more open. But when you install Cyanogenmod you know that you're getting a uniform, near vanilla, Android experience. You also know that you're getting something that understands that the person who knows best what to do with your device is YOU (rooting and theming for examples). 

 

The open-source nature of Cyanogenmod also is not to be overlooked. While the average user will not be qualified to go over the code line by line looking for problems, the very fact that the the code is available for review by those who are qualified is a comfort for the rest of us. To date there are none of the major user interface forks that are open source.

 

It is also very true the Cyanogenmod runs faster and better on most devices than the native user interface fork version of Android. The reason for this comes down to software gimmicks. Manufacturers will often build elaborate and unnecessary user interface animations in an attempt to make the product more visually appealing. These animations of course take up resources, and while one such instance may not be much of a bother, dozens or even hundreds can really drag a device down. 

 

 

In the End

 

The "selling point" of Cyanogenmod on the HTC One is less about Cyanogenmod itself and more about WHAT the ability to put Cyanogenmod on the device represents. If I can put Cyanogenmod on a device it means that device is open enough not only to take Cyanogenmod but a whole host of other vanilla style Android adaptations. It means there is sufficient market penetration of the device that enough developers and early adopters have debugged both the hardware and the AOSP ROM images for it.

 

Finally, given HTC's current shaky financial position, if I can put Cyanogenmod on an HTC One, that means the device will be useful for years down the road. Even if HTC goes bankrupt and ceases to be an ongoing concern.

[G+_Ricky Cash]

Damn McKinley Tabor, that is why I love Google+. Tell it like it is brother. Tell it like it is.

[G+_Santos Cardona]

McKinley Tabor Thanks for the novel :D. I have been around the block and I respect your opinion. I am not a phone guy but a tablet guy. I am not in need of a phone with massive power as all I do on it is take pictures/videos, check my forums, watch an occasional video with my son, sms and the rare phone call. So for me a phone not being able to be unlocked doesn't matter. On the other hand I need this capability on a tablet. My selling point for a tablet is if it can be rooted etc if not I don't buy it. My other requirement is google support. I have owned tablets in the past that had the android operating system on it but no official google apps (play store etc). Right now I have a Toshiba Thrive and was considering another Toshiba tablet as I like them but will not buy another Toshiba tablet as their new models cannot be rooted/hacked. It pains me to say this as I swore not to do it again but I might just go back to a 7 inch or 8 inch tablet as they are the wave of the future and easily modded. Sorry for the rant. To each their own.