It's official (for me) ANDROID sucks

[lay6]

Before you bash me please read this.

I own an HTC hero. Yes it has great apps, is very functional, and has a wonderful feel in the hand but the most upsetting part about his phone and ALL android phones is how easy they can become bricks.

The phone was working great no problems. Then someone compromised my gmail account. They changed my password and password reset programs. The phone became useless. I was locked out of my phone because the GMAIL system sucks.

I spent 5 days seeking help. Sprint has no android support person inside google.

I finally spoke to 2 people at google 650 253 0000 and 310 460 4000. No one was able to help me. They are not "authorized to transfer people to other departments or give out contact phone numbers".

The google reset password program requires you to input the most email'd address into a form... not a good feature for a PHONE!

NONE OF THE INFORMATION IS STORED ON THE MEM CARD. Android does not do that???

So it's a great phone when it works. When someone hacks into your email account, your phone is worthless.

I should have got the palm pre.

 

[lekky]

So you can't reset it on a pc?

Your phone is a brick now? Talk to your carrier and explain. Certainly this isn't a common theme, and definitely not worth picking a poorer phone platform.

 

[Enygma]

Sorry but I've had the displeasure to use a palm pre. Do NOT subject yourself to that garbage phone. The thing barely works. 90% of the time it either didn't recognize my touch and if it did it was SLOW. I get the feeling you cane in here already hating android.

 

[PurpleSkyz]

Your phone is not a brick, dont use that word lightly!

You can just reset it.

A brick means you corrupted the bootloader, or other, but it means you cannot boot your phone and there is no way for you to flash it back to life, ever, i mean it has to be reflashed at factory, it means its dead.

Your phone isnt a brick.

You got your account hacked, and that whether it be a phone, a game, anything really, isnt androids fault (you didnt tell us how you got hacked...)

 

[Isthmus]

I love it when people talk about their accounts getting hacked and e-mail passwords reset. I've been around computers a LONG time (almost 30 years) and in my experience, most hackers couldn't give a rats ass about average users. Most of the time when someone claims that their account got hacked is because they did something stupid that caused their problem.

As others have said, don't blame the OS because you were careless. reset the device and change the Gmail account it is associated to, if your original one is compromised. If you can figure out how to do that, your carrier can help you do it.

 

[lay6]

So you can't reset it on a pc?

Your phone is a brick now? Talk to your carrier and explain. Certainly this isn't a common theme, and definitely not worth picking a poorer phone platform.

I have spent too much time as it is with sprint about this problem. No it's not common, but when it does happen it is a HUGE problem.

To see for yourself change your password in your EMAIL account that is tied to the phone and see what happens to the phone. It's a brick that says enter password. Then try to get in touch with someone at google to help you reset your password, because the mobile carrier does not support that feature.

The only option is to reset the phone to the factory settings. Even if you remove the memory card, ALL OF YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION IS GONE! It is on the google server that you cannot access, and is tied to the email address attached to the phone and not physically on the phone.

So when someone hacked my email account, and changed my password, and my password reset question I just lost 5 years of contact information, and several hours of my life.

 

[lay6]

I love it when people talk about their accounts getting hacked and e-mail passwords reset. I've been around computers a LONG time (almost 30 years) and in my experience, most hackers couldn't give a rats ass about average users. Most of the time when someone claims that their account got hacked is because they did something stupid that caused their problem.

As others have said, don't blame the OS because you were careless. reset the device and change the Gmail account it is associated to, if your original one is compromised. If you can figure out how to do that, your carrier can help you do it.

Should I be impressed with your hanging around time of 30 years with computers?

So are you saying I am an above average person, or can you draw off your 30 years of knowledge from working with computers that could point me in the direction that I went off course with?

It's the 5 years of contact information that was lost that they cannot help me with. And the carrier is not the issue here. Android has NO support from the company that makes the OS which would not be a big deal if they didn't hold the key to get in the door. So when there's a problem, yes that makes them the problem and suck.

 

[TheBrit]

So when someone hacked my email account, and changed my password, and my password reset question I just lost 5 years of contact information, and several hours of my life.

Man that sucks!

Did you have an easy to guess password - or were you careless with it?

 

[PurpleSkyz]

I have spent too much time as it is with sprint about this problem. No it's not common, but when it does happen it is a HUGE problem.

To see for yourself change your password in your EMAIL account that is tied to the phone and see what happens to the phone. It's a brick that says enter password. Then try to get in touch with someone at google to help you reset your password, because the mobile carrier does not support that feature.

The only option is to reset the phone to the factory settings. Even if you remove the memory card, ALL OF YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION IS GONE! It is on the google server that you cannot access, and is tied to the email address attached to the phone and not physically on the phone.

So when someone hacked my email account, and changed my password, and my password reset question I just lost 5 years of contact information, and several hours of my life.

EDIT: failed to read your post fully.

 

[lay6]

Sorry but I've had the displeasure to use a palm pre. Do NOT subject yourself to that garbage phone. The thing barely works. 90% of the time it either didn't recognize my touch and if it did it was SLOW. I get the feeling you cane in here already hating android.

Your feelings are wrong. I own the hero. I was excited about it and had great expectations for the phone until this past week.

I will never by a phone that requires an internet password on a server to allow me to access even the emergency phone number access. What happens if gmail shuts down?

Just throwing it out there. Companies do fail, even ones that look like they have great earnings (enron, worldcom, global crossings, tyco...)

 

[lay6]

Man that sucks!

Did you have an easy to guess password - or were you careless with it?

Password was not easy numbers and letters caps lowercase... I never had to reset a password before. On gmail they tell you what the question to answer is. For me it says "what is your place of birth?" I picked father's middle name. But I could not imagine they would give the question to ANYONE asking, not even a choice in the drop down. maybe not the best reset question for the password.... now it is changed to place of birth.

So if you guess the easier reset password, then you gain access to the entire account... pretty stupid in retrospect. Even more stupid to have an entire OS dependent on this feature.

 

[Isthmus]

Should I be impressed with your hanging around time of 30 years with computers?

So are you saying I am an above average person, or can you draw off your 30 years of knowledge from working with computers that could point me in the direction that I went off course with?

It's the 5 years of contact information that was lost that they cannot help me with. And the carrier is not the issue here. Android has NO support from the company that makes the OS which would not be a big deal if they didn't hold the key to get in the door. So when there's a problem, yes that makes them the problem and suck.

No, not above average at all. I'm saying that you're an idiot who should stay off the naughty sites if you're not going to practice proper computer security (which is probably what got you hacked in the first place). As a matter of practice, always keep a back up of your contact list (you can import it to another online mail provider or most PC based programs).

Password was not easy numbers and letters caps lowercase... I never had to reset a password before. On gmail they tell you what the question to answer is. For me it says "what is your place of birth?" I picked father's middle name. But I could not imagine they would give the question to ANYONE asking, not even a choice in the drop down. maybe not the best reset question for the password.... now it is changed to place of birth.

So if you guess the easier reset password, then you gain access to the entire account... pretty stupid in retrospect. Even more stupid to have an entire OS dependent on this feature.

and the Darwin award goes to...

 

[TheBrit]

Password was not easy numbers and letters caps lowercase... I never had to reset a password before. On gmail they tell you what the question to answer is. For me it says "what is your place of birth?" I picked father's middle name. But I could not imagine they would give the question to ANYONE asking, not even a choice in the drop down. maybe not the best reset question for the password.... now it is changed to place of birth.

So if you guess the easier reset password, then you gain access to the entire account... pretty stupid in retrospect. Even more stupid to have an entire OS dependent on this feature.

So...you had your Dad's middle name as place of birth? That sounds like you were indeed being careful. I would have expected that to throw people off the scent - unless you told someone about it.

I had my PayPal hacked once but managed to get it sorted. I must admit I had been a bit careless with the password by using the same one as I use in some forums. I'll not do that again.

 

[lay6]

EDIT: failed to read your post fully.

Or at all... any suggestions?

 

[lay6]

So...you had your Dad's middle name as place of birth? That sounds like you were indeed being careful. I would have expected that to throw people off the scent - unless you told someone about it.

I had my PayPal hacked once but managed to get it sorted. I must admit I had been a bit careless with the password by using the same one as I use in some forums. I'll not do that again.

No I had dad's middle name as my security password reset question.

Today it asks for city of birth. That's how I know it was hacked. There's no real city where I was born, so I know I would not have used that as a security question. I was born on a ship at sea.

I just had no idea that when doing the password reset feature in gmail, it would actually display the question that needs answering. There's only so many male names... hacked= phone no work.

 

[TheBrit]

New Google account - hard reset phone so as to attach it to new Google account and put all this down to experience.

I've learned a good idea from this - have an answer to a security question that bares no relation to the actual question - that just HAS to be unguessable.

 

[opticalshadow]

ive only known this to happen to one person (he was careless with password and notorious for the bad sites) all he had to do was contact his carrier with his IMEI number and sevral questions about his account (bi;lling addy, names, CC number he used, (which was asked for when he added the unlimited web and insurence) then transfered to google rep who reset his e-mail addy (since it was bound to his phone which was bound to his carrier account) after ten minutes on the phone with him his phone was useable again.

as for me, idk i have all my contact info saved to my SIM card so i dont worry about that stuff. and my phone wasnt even anal about the g-mail account. truth be told i didnt have one for the first few days i used my phone (nexus one) and i could use any aspect of it

 

[21gigs]

u should complain about google prob'ly gmail .

What makes u people belive that android sucks.

FYKI -u can use android phones w/o google a/c.

So u take google out of the equation and android does'nt sucks.

 

[Vihzel]

Sorry but I've had the displeasure to use a palm pre. Do NOT subject yourself to that garbage phone. The thing barely works. 90% of the time it either didn't recognize my touch and if it did it was SLOW. I get the feeling you cane in here already hating android.

You're not talking about the Palm Pre Plus on Verizon, right? That is my current phone and I must say that it works quite well. I am very impressed by webOS and the gesture area. The phone's build quality could be improved but overall, it is a really great device. I am switching over to the HTC Incredible though when it's released. I miss Android (I used to have a Motorola Droid)!

 

[IOWA]

sounds to me someone just wasn't careful with their information. If people knew how hard real hacking really is... well...

More than likely is was some sort of phishing attack. Which was either brought on by yourself, or someone who has access to one of your pcs.

Be careful.

 

[BORIStheBLADE]

I would say open a new Gmail account to be able to use the phone. Once you straighten out the old account use that.

 

[mjschmidt]

I will never by a phone that requires an internet password on a server to allow me to access even the emergency phone number access. What happens if gmail shuts down?

Sorry, I don't understand this. How is it you need a Gmail account to be able to use your phone to dial phone numbers? BY law a phone must be able to dial 911 even if you don't have am account with a cell phone provider (at least in Canada).

I have a Magic (which is fairly similar to the Hero). You don't have to have a Gmail account to use the phone. When you first set it up, it asks you for a Gmail account, but gives you the option to add it later (if you want to use that functionality). You don't have to have it to use the phone.

It would seem to me that requiring your Gmail password to use the phone would mean that the phone would have to be contacting the Gmail server to check the password on the phone against the password on the server. However, I routinely leave my WiFi _and_ my data turned off (to save battery power) which means my phone _can't_ connect to the Gmail servers. If I have read your post correctly, I should apparently not be able to use my phone because the phone can't check my account.

As for losing your contacts, I agree that sucks, but seriously you need to consider that the whole "cloud" thing is sort of a joke. yes, it's cool to be able to access your data from anywhere, but the fact that you might not have a connection to the internet means one should always want their data _offline_ as well.

Everyone using an Android phone... or an iPhone.... or a Pre... should be using a sync program, or backup app, or, wait for it... old fashioned pen and paper... to keep a copy of their contacts. If you are relying on _one_ online service to be the repository for your data, then i am afraid you have only yourself to blame.

Google may not be very helpful in the customer service department, but I fail to see how your Gmail password being changed would render your phone unusable.

 

[dzine2fit]

You should always back up ur contacts from google to ur pc desktop or another email account.Oh well its just one of those unfortunate events, take it as learning experiance.

 

[mixpix]

1. Hard reset.
2. Talk to google account support through the website to try and get that back.
3. Get a new account if step #2 doesn't work.
4. Use a better password. (https://www.microsoft.com/protect/fraud/passwords/checker.aspx)

 

[Adamx]

youtube vid of completely disabled phone due to wrong google password, or it didn't happen.