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You said it "I need to root my phone and thus void my warranty". If you void your warranty you are free to do whatever you like with your phone. If it was "truly open", you wouldn't have a warranty.

It's always a balance - do you want something you have complete control over, including the possibility to break it, or you want limited control but be sure that even if it breaks, you get a new one? The platform itself is "open enough", but manufacturers and carriers are making a business out of it.

And for the record, I think you can click "clear data", and also use some process monitor to kill your unwanted apps. My facebook app doesn't have these issues

4 comments

For a counter example: cars.

Adding an aftermarket radio doesn't void your warranty. Switching out the muffler for a Cherrybomb doesn't void the warranty. AFAIK the car warranty stays in place for all parts except the parts you change or that interact directly with the warrantied part. ie you lose the engine/transmission warranty if you switch out the ECU but not if you install install an intercooler.

I've rooted a few Android phones and I don't see anything in the software that could physically break the hardware. So I don't understand why the warranty is void. If they don't want to provide tech support to rooted phone, fine. Reinstall OEM Android and get on with it.

> I don't see anything in the software that could physically break the hardware

Cyanogenmod has some scary clock options. I think you can easily overheat your phone if you get too careless with the processor clock.

It also has thermal protection built-in. I've also tried to overclock my handset to the highest allowable speed under CM7. It rebooted and the only cost was 5 minutes of my time.

I think you're overanalyzing it. Why should Verizon have to deal with bricked phones because some user wanted to root it? How do they train their tech support to be familiar with every ROM variation to even provide support? The simple solution is to "void warranty" - or force the user to switch back to stock ROM before support will be provided.

> Why should Verizon have to deal with bricked phones because some user wanted to root it?

Because Verizon conspires with the manufacturers to sell you a phone capable of being 'bricked' in the first place. A proper bootloader doesn't have to be overwritten to install a new system image.

Another reason to root your phone as soon as you buy it, so that if it breaks during the process of using the best-available tools to exercise your GPL-given rights, it can go back as a lemon.

I disagree.

Warranty should be void if I am tempering with the hardware.Imagine laptop vendor doing the same if you install Linux on a Windows laptop.

They may refuse to support the software issues but saying warranty is void because you have changed OS is ludicrous.

Depending on the respective values of hardware, OS, and vendor support, you may very well find that this is the case.

I could regale you with stories of how a large server vendor, name rhymes with "Hell", refuses to support a class of its iSCSI storage devices on its own hardware if you're not running, say, a specific Linux distribution, rhymes with "R-HEL", and will give you rather nasty time if you try to, say, get support based on a near-identical community enterprise operating system based on the same sources.

The reasons probably boil down to marketing affiliations between "Hell Computers" and "Dead Rat", but (especially in light of prevarication on the part of Hell's salesforce regarding support) it doesn't make for a particularly rewarding support story.

The further truth is that Hell hath relatively little competence in OS-level support, and will simply hand you off to R-HEL's own techs if you go past a level1/2 script. But Hell won't actually come out and tell you this.

Point being: warranty / support is effectively voided based on OS choice. Despite vendor supporting the same OS on other products / in other contexts. And in fact using that OS for several of their own support services/products/offerings.

Sure, but this doesn't matter in practice. I have never heard of anyone with a physically broken device being refused service because they have rooted it.

I imagine they want to be able to cover their ass in case some popular ROM starts causing problems. Their actual actions, as opposed to the what they are theoretically able to do because of the terms you agree to, are pretty reasonable.

But are you confusing OS with firmware? When you root your phone, you basically have to overwrite the firmware, eg, the recovery bootloader, to be able to flash a ROM.

I'm pretty sure a laptop vendor would consider your warranty void if you decided to flash your BIOS with something other than an official update.

Your argument hold true if phone manufactures does not go out of the way preventing installation of custom ROM. Most of the manufactures design boot loader to specifically disallow installation of customs ROM.

I have an HTC Desire, and the Twitter and Facebook apps are always turning themselves on. I can kill them, but I can't prevent them from coming back on. And I don't even have a Twitter account!

Why is so unreasonable to want to free up some space on the phone by getting rid of (or at least disabling) an app I will never consider using?

I agree it is undesirable to force applications like that. There are some apps that monitor running processes and kill the undesired ones, but it will still be troublesome. But this does not change the openness of the platform - it is HTC that forces that upon you, not android per-se. If you have a factory, you can build android phones too.

You are confusing free OS with open device..yes Google's long term goal is an open device but comparing apples to oranges probably does not help

"yes Google's long term goal is an open device", er, I'd argue that Google's long term goal isn't even an open OS.

Open device? With them buying Motorola?