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Indian phones are weird

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Re: Indian phones are weird

#31

Post by thewisenerd »

voltagex_ wrote: post #13

Does anyone know if the Firefox phones are still around / in use in India? I actually had a friend import the Intex Firefox phone (don't remember the name, it's got 128mb of RAM and a dead-end FXOS version). It's utterly painful to use - I hope the situation has gotten better for users there.

I should point out that this was running FFOS upon Android ICS 4.0.(3?). Firefox OS uses much of Android's base for getting things working (last I checked).

But, the perhaps bigger issue with Indian phones is the locking down of firmware. Spreadtrum (the SoC in the phone that you're mentioning) has all sources (device + kernel + vendor trees included) for compiling FFOS for the "tarako" board (upon which 3 of the first $35 FFOS smartphones sold in India were based).

However, I'm not sure up to what extent you can modify their firmware. Github user abgoyal (forgot his HN username) had a fair amount of success acquiring the kernel sources for his $35 FFOS device from the vendor ( https://github.com/abgoyal/zen_u105_kernel ), but iirc he had issues with those sources too.

Now, if I want to buy that particular device (since its open) to have a cheap $35 _thing_ to break, unfortunately I can't, since they stopped production.

Re: Indian phones are weird

#32

Post by livus »

kranner wrote: post #24
swatkat wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I know which operator was that? I've used Airtel and Vodafone in India, and I didn't had any "services" enabled by default. By the way, there's a centralized DND registry in India called "Commercial Communications Customer Preference Portal" [0]. You just need to send an SMS to enable/disable unsolicited commercial calls/SMS. It has been very effective so far. [0] http://www.nccptrai.gov.in/

That thing is a joke. I'm registered as 'fully blocked' and I still get spam SMS. Last few offenders were EaseMyTrip, the Ministry of Tourism and some guy called Hemant.

Start reporting on those messages. If you are on Android, use India Against Spam. If iphone, you'll have to report manually on the operator's website. for example - airtel.in/dnd

It's a pain in the ass but I kept on reporting for a month after activating DND and the calls and messages dropped. I've even received calls from people begging me to take my complaints back or otherwise they'll loose their jobs. I agreed twice but holy hell those exact same companies spammed me again. I stopped being a good samaritan and just told them to sort it out with their companies since it's the companies fault. Now spam has reduced to a message or two a month.

From what I understand there are old mobile numbers list being passed around from before DND was available and that's why you need to start reporting the spam messages. Word quickly spreads between the companies to remove your number from the lists.

Re: Indian phones are weird

#33

Post by jeswin »

swatkat wrote: post #16
_Marak_ wrote: post #6

Slightly related, one of the worst things about the Indian phones and telcos are the spam advertisements that have subscription opt-ins by default. Essentially, you will get several sms messages a day which if you accidentally hit one of the keys on your phone ( which is actually very easy ), you get billed $1 every week ( think daily fortunes / love poems / etc ). It's very easy to accidentally opt-in to several of…

May I know which operator was that? I've used Airtel and Vodafone in India, and I didn't had any "services" enabled by default. By the way, there's a centralized DND registry in India called "Commercial Communications Customer Preference Portal" [0]. You just need to send an SMS to enable/disable unsolicited commercial calls/SMS. It has been very effective so far. [0] http://www.nccptrai.gov.in/

Parent isn't saying they're enabled by default. I can confirm that Airtel engages in the above mentioned behavior. I have spoken to them multiple times about this, and at least on one occasion (after escalating to the govt. mandated "Nodal Officer") they credited some money for "goodwill".

Re: Indian phones are weird

#34

Post by ghoul2 »

thewisenerd wrote: post #31
voltagex_ wrote: post #13

Does anyone know if the Firefox phones are still around / in use in India? I actually had a friend import the Intex Firefox phone (don't remember the name, it's got 128mb of RAM and a dead-end FXOS version). It's utterly painful to use - I hope the situation has gotten better for users there.

I should point out that this was running FFOS upon Android ICS 4.0.(3?). Firefox OS uses much of Android's base for getting things working (last I checked). But, the perhaps bigger issue with Indian phones is the locking down of firmware. Spreadtrum (the SoC in the phone that you're mentioning) has all sources (device + kernel + vendor trees included) for compiling FFOS for the "tarako" board (upon which 3 of the fir…

Hi,

Thats me. That repo has fully funtional source for the Zen variant of the phone. The Spreadtrum sources are enough to get started on other variants, but you will have to hack support for the dispay and possibly the touch panel.

It was a very interesting exercise getting stock debian onto these babies. I have been hoping to write it up for a while now, but never got around to it.

Re: Indian phones are weird

#35

Post by majewsky »

madeofpalk wrote: post #21
gopalv wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's utterly painful to use - I hope the situation has gotten better for users there. I bought the bright orange ZTE Open C fxos phone to try it out. Haven't done much more with it that travel around with it, mostly using it as a primary phone for calls. The battery life is insane on that one - I went about 4-5 days without charging it when I was traveling (barely any calls, mostly standby). The good part was the H…

> I went about 4-5 days without charging it when I was traveling (barely any calls, mostly standby). To be fair, most Android devices and iPhone would achieve similar battery life if you're not actually using the phone. Apple claims to get 10 days of standby out of an iPhone. I would imagine with 'barely any calls' or using the device you would get somewhere between 5 to 10 days. 5 days doesn't really sound that impr…

> Apple claims to get 10 days of standby out of an iPhone.

I have a work iPhone that I barely use (since I prefer Android personally), and it usually lasts 4-5 days.

Re: Indian phones are weird

#36

Post by notatoad »

maheart wrote: post #19

I know that Intex will soon be shipping (currently is shipping?) phones with SailfishOS (Jolla's OS). I've been using SailfishOS for almost two years, and I confidently say that underneath the GUI, it is just a regular GNU/Linux system[1]. Why do I bring this up? Jolla, and the community are developing a more inclusive mobile OS (that has Android app compatibility, and can be ported to Android devices relatively easi…

i don't see how a more open OS will reduce any of the silly hackery that OEMs do.

the problem is not that android is somehow not "inclusive", it's that android allows vendors to ship a modified browser for whatever silly reason they want to, and the vendor never releases any updates for the modifications they provide.

unless Jolla is going to take over control of the phone and ship software updates directly to consumers without involving the handset vendors, they aren't going to solve the problem.

Re: Indian phones are weird

#37

Post by prof_hobart »

ysh7 wrote: post #2

Not sure, what was the point of this post.

I think the problem is that out of the context of the blog, the title makes it sound like it's going to be more interesting to the average reader than it actually is.

If you're reading his blog anyway, you'll probably be aware that much of it is about compatibility questions in browsers and wouldn't be surprised that an article on Indian phones is likely to be related to that.

Just seeing the headline in isolation, I was (and I suspect you were) expecting much more "weirdness" - odd shapes, strange keyboard choices, obscure OS options etc.

That's not a fault of the blog, just a result of seeing a headline outside its context.

Re: Indian phones are weird

#38

Post by kranner »

livus wrote: post #32
kranner wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That thing is a joke. I'm registered as 'fully blocked' and I still get spam SMS. Last few offenders were EaseMyTrip, the Ministry of Tourism and some guy called Hemant.

Start reporting on those messages. If you are on Android, use India Against Spam. If iphone, you'll have to report manually on the operator's website. for example - airtel.in/dnd It's a pain in the ass but I kept on reporting for a month after activating DND and the calls and messages dropped. I've even received calls from people begging me to take my complaints back or otherwise they'll loose their jobs. I agreed tw…

I have reported them via India Against Spam but the responses from Airtel were, roughly, 'thanks but this is not spam' so I stopped reporting. Complaining on Twitter helped with some, but not all, spammers.

Re: Indian phones are weird

#39

Post by sundarurfriend »

Just to give people some context, Indians generally use the usual Samsung/HTC/Moto/Xiaomi/... fare, and the ones reviewed here are _~~made~~ marketed and sold by Indian companies_ but don't have a very high market share here. They're also lower end phones generally used by relatively poor folks - I haven't checked, but all of these are probably One reason I post this is because I was hoping the article was something about changes made in international brands for Indian context, which might reveal some aspect of Indian telco environment I wasn't aware of. No such luck, just the usual lack of attention to detail by not-paid-enough employees at the phone companies.

Re: Indian phones are weird

#40

Post by anilgulecha »

sundarurfriend wrote: post #39

Just to give people some context, Indians generally use the usual Samsung/HTC/Moto/Xiaomi/... fare, and the ones reviewed here are _~~made~~ marketed and sold by Indian companies_ but don't have a very high market share here. They're also lower end phones generally used by relatively poor folks - I haven't checked, but all of these are probably One reason I post this is because I was hoping the article was something…

Phones are not made by indian copanies. Intex and friends source and rebrand from china.
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