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Samsung kills the cameras on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 if you unlock the bootloader

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171–180 of 204 posts

Re: Samsung kills the cameras on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 if you unlock the bootloader

#171
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One has to already bend heaven and earth to bring people who don't care about Privacy from WhatsApp, Messenger to Signal. Only reason someone is able to do that now is because WhatsApp, Messenger gets into some legal trouble and the media advertises Signal. Preaching about significance of interoperable protocol and suggesting apps which use them is beyond the capacity of even those media.

The solution is always the same, focus on a stellar UX.

Stellar UX are always welcomed, But the network effects of a chat application are too high of a variable for to just rely on stellar UX to be successful.

Case in point: There was a chat app called Hike[1] in India run by the son of the leading Telecom Billionaire. It had more features(free SMS, Stickers) and arguably better UX than WhatsApp according to its users(100M). But it could never gain over WhatsApp's initial market size in India(Why change what works?).

Final nail on the coffin for Hike was when WhatsApp was made available on the 4G feature phone released by a competing Telecom operator and loads of people got to experience WhatsApp on their first ever Internet enabled compute device.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hike_Messenger

Re: Samsung kills the cameras on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 if you unlock the bootloader

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is that water proof phones ironically are more prone to water damage since they don't drain. Simple moist in a tent can kill it.

Can you give examples from your experience?

My current phone, Samsung S9, got ruined in a moist tent. It said "water in charging port" and refused to charge since that point. Samsung fixed on warranty.

My wifes prior phone got cracks on it and it seemed to let in moist and then not drain or get dry. Something fried in it.

Re: Samsung kills the cameras on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 if you unlock the bootloader

#173
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not, reportedly, the Librem 5 phone.

But it still contains a cellular modem and a wifi module, both of which run proprietary firmwares.

But, crucially, they both run externally to the CPU and main system, and can not affect it in any way. It’s just as if they had put the firmware on a ROM chip beside the modem and wifi chip.

Re: Samsung kills the cameras on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 if you unlock the bootloader

#174
post #118
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What. By that definition, the Google Pixel 5a is not a “smartphone” either, since its product page does not use that term, either: https://store.google.com/us/product/pixel_5a_5g?hl=en-US

Your leg is being pulled.

*plonk*

Re: Samsung kills the cameras on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 if you unlock the bootloader

#175
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That raises whole other legal questions.... One basic pillar of contract law basically everywhere is that one can not be bound by a contract that they didn't read, even if they signed it. Usually these cases involve coercion or not knowing the language. If nobody can read the EULA because it's 10 pages of densely written legalese, can they even be bound by it? Since BigCo deliberately made their EULA harder to read t…

It's printed quite clearly in the quick start guide that it'll break your phone if you do it. Maybe people should read the little booklet, but as you can see it's not hidden under a pile of text. > Approved firmware versions > This device will only operate with > firmware versions that have been > approved for use by your wireless > carrier and the device manufacturer. > If unauthorized firmware is placed on > the de…

Discussion question: If something is immoral and debatably illegal, does documenting it in the quick start guide make it somehow less immoral? Or does that just mean it was documented?

Re: Samsung kills the cameras on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 if you unlock the bootloader

#176
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's printed quite clearly in the quick start guide that it'll break your phone if you do it. Maybe people should read the little booklet, but as you can see it's not hidden under a pile of text. > Approved firmware versions > This device will only operate with > firmware versions that have been > approved for use by your wireless > carrier and the device manufacturer. > If unauthorized firmware is placed on > the de…

Discussion question: If something is immoral and debatably illegal, does documenting it in the quick start guide make it somehow less immoral? Or does that just mean it was documented?

You posed the following question:

> If nobody can read the EULA because it's 10 pages of densely written legalese, can they even be bound by it?

I explained to you that the premise of your question was flawed. I didn't comment on any other considerations beyond that.

Re: Samsung kills the cameras on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 if you unlock the bootloader

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give examples from your experience?

My current phone, Samsung S9, got ruined in a moist tent. It said "water in charging port" and refused to charge since that point. Samsung fixed on warranty. My wifes prior phone got cracks on it and it seemed to let in moist and then not drain or get dry. Something fried in it.

I had an S7 for years, and then upgraded to an S10e. I was just in a pool yesterday with the S10e taking video. The charging port message is to prevent damage. If the message never goes away or you have intrusion, that's a valid warranty claim.

Re: Samsung kills the cameras on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 if you unlock the bootloader

#178
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal team fought a long war against any forks or unauthorised builds of Signal. There are (or were) FDroid repositories with Signal compatible builds, but Moxie stated that any such build will be considered malware. Signal team was making such builds increasingly difficult to produce. Official F-Droid repo doesn't allow proprietary dependencies on which Signal depends for some messages (push?)

Signal is open-source in the "look at it, but don't even try to tun it" way. I'd rather support a protocol that supports federation and encourages alternative clients.

You mean something like XMPP protocol, which is a widely-deployed IETF standard with robust free-software implementations?

Re: Samsung kills the cameras on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 if you unlock the bootloader

#179
post #147
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal team fought a long war against any forks or unauthorised builds of Signal. There are (or were) FDroid repositories with Signal compatible builds, but Moxie stated that any such build will be considered malware. Signal team was making such builds increasingly difficult to produce. Official F-Droid repo doesn't allow proprietary dependencies on which Signal depends for some messages (push?)

Why doesn't Signal maintain an F-Droid compatible build? (if there's a dependency problem, then they should considering dropping it, release a Signal lite perhaps)

Making your own F-Droid repository was harder a few years back, and UX client-side was bad. Nowadays setting up a 3rd-party repo is as easy as scanning/approving a QRCode (for example for Newpipe repo).

Not that i approve Signal's attitude on this topic at all, but there are (were?) technical reasons for which they would do something else. Of course, F-Droid maintaining proper LibreSignal builds in their place alleviates the concern, and that's what Signal team famously opposed. For the uninformed, F-Droid has very serious review/build process for apps and i don't think malware was ever distributed on there (and antipatterns are listed in the UI client-side).

Re: Samsung kills the cameras on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 if you unlock the bootloader

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had run LineageOS for some time. It works, but FDroid is missing too many apps, even opensource like Signal. I have to update apks manually every few months.

Yes it's a shame that Signal is not on F-Droid, but there's a self updating apk available[1] for side-loading which doesn't use Google Push Notifications if not available and as for why it's not there on F-Droid here's their official response[1], Which IMO makes some reasonable (against forks using their servers) and unreasonable (against normalizing side-loading) justifications. [1] https://community.signalusers.org…

> some reasonable (against forks using their servers) (...) justifications

How is that reasonable in a centralized client-server model? That's precisely what we find unreasonable with Twitter and others shutting down or making life hard for 3rd party clients. Why would it be more acceptable from a free-software service?

The network effect says a centralized protocol like Signal has "zero" value without reusing the same servers. All this because Signal maintainers have an ideological argument against decentralization, which received many great responses including this one from a Jabber/XMPP client developer: https://gultsch.de/objection.html

In all cases, Signal servers control who has an account, what permissions and what can be posted. You can't just extend the protocol to enrich your client by abusing Signal's servers, but you can make your client compatible with Signal protocol (interoperability). Preventing that is rather user-hostile.

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