[Nottingham] Android update nefariousness?...

[Camilo Mesias]

Hi,

it's a bit of a bugbear that the software although open and free in
some sense, isn't really free at all... It's under control of the
device manufacturer and possibly the network. If you take it upon
yourself to install some truly 'free' software then you will find the
actual cost of the software is really high, possibly beyond your
budget.

In the past I have put CM on a phone but parts of it didn't work
properly. I understand it's device support is less patchy these days,
but if some feature isn't working it might be a struggle to get it
fixed (eg. what if the camera or GPS mostly works but has just a few
annoying bugs?) Battery life shrank to hours and I found the phone
(ie. calling) features became really buggy and that was a deal
breaker. It might be easier to buy a new phone than try to find out
how to fix something undocumented.

I rooted my phone to remove some shovelware, but went too far and
after removing something I thought wasn't important, the GPS just
stopped working. Was aGPS somehow tied in to the third party dross I
removed? I also tried to install tethering software but that was
buggy. The whole experience was a bit disappointing really. I have
settled for an official ROM plus an app killer. Although it is
outdated, at least the basics work!

-Cam