Riddle me this Sprint/htc

[chawski]

HTC is a giant company with thousands of people on the payroll, and between them and sprint, no one can figure out a way to get the hero working right. from lags with, well...everything, to bluetooth, to whatever, these companies just couldnt get it right. then they say the hero is not capable of running 2.2...

Then, I flash CM6 (froyo) onto my hero, and all of a sudden all my problems that i had with this phone are gone. everything works...

I would love to hear an explanation for why these 2 companies, with all their engineers, cant seem to figure these things out, yet some amazing developers that do this stuff as a hobby seem to have no problem with it...

 

[aceofspades626]

you answered your own question.
HTC is a giant company with thousands of people on the payroll. The Hero is obsolete (as far as their devs are concerned) and not worth any more of their time that could be spent on devices that can and will still make them money.
Why they got it so wrong from the beginning, I can't help you with. I can only thank (and yes that does include purchasing apps) the devs that have made it what it is today.

 

[chawski]

i suppose, but from a business standpoint, its significantly cheaper and easier to keep existing customers than to find new ones. Past experiences will speak louder than any amount of marketing you can throw at someone. it makes no sense to bail on the existing people when they have to realize that a large number of evo owners likely came from the hero. kinda makes you wonder whats gonna happen next year...will they bail on the evo development for the next new gadget just like the hero?

Its sad that some outside developers doing this for a hobby are who kept me in a hero, not htc themselves

 

[kassdog]

In a perfect world yes every company would take care of every customer but if that were the case wouldn't Nintendo still be releasing updates for the game cube. This is something that amuses me about some people they always want more.

 

[chawski]

the game cube is 10 years old, the hero is 1 year old....kinda apples to oranges there. and its not that i was looking for more, rather i was looking for what should have been there in the first place. I dont think asking for a smartphone that can connect to BT or actually make a call without waiting 30 seconds is asking for more. my last 2 phones did that no problem (had both for the full 2 years)...if they could do it 4 years ago, they should be able to do it atleast as good now

 

[aceofspades626]

a large number of evo owners likely came from the hero.

Part of me believes strongly that they were counting on this.
Another part of me recalls that they took forever getting the 2.1 update rolled out, and thinks they just wanted to do it as a token "here's your 2.1 we promised", having already moved on.

Both parts of me are very sad there will be no more phones like the Nexus One that don't need HTC or anyone to roll out anything. Just google. Just android.

 

[kassdog]

the game cube is 10 years old, the hero is 1 year old....kinda apples to oranges there. and its not that i was looking for more, rather i was looking for what should have been there in the first place. I dont think asking for a smartphone that can connect to BT or actually make a call without waiting 30 seconds is asking for more. my last 2 phones did that no problem (had both for the full 2 years)...if they could do it 4 years ago, they should be able to do it atleast as good now

If you downgrade to 1.5 then they will work perfectly. Is 2.1 better yes, but with it came with some bugs just like every smart phone has. The upgrade to 2.1 was good but it wasn't a guarente that when the phone came out that it would even get an update.

 

[alex51]

If you downgrade to 1.5 then they will work perfectly. Is 2.1 better yes, but with it came with some bugs just like every smart phone has. The upgrade to 2.1 was good but it wasn't a guarente that when the phone came out that it would even get an update.

While the manufacturers/carriers may not legally(which is debatable)obligated to make their product perform,then it is also every customers right to factor that in for their next purchase and from which carrier and I have a very good memory for not getting what I pay for.
When an advertisement states ph.features/services do certain things but don't then the customer has every right to demand it be made right and I will demand it every time until I get what I pay for as they claimed.In the real world the purchaser is not only buying a product they are legally buying the claim the manufacturer/seller makes for that product.

 

[Firehawk]

While the manufacturers/carriers may not legally(which is debatable)obligated to make their product perform,then it is also every customers right to factor that in for their next purchase and from which carrier and I have a very good memory for not getting what I pay for.
When an advertisement states ph.features/services do certain things but don't then the customer has every right to demand it be made right and I will demand it every time until I get what I pay for as they claimed.In the real world the purchaser is not only buying a product they are legally buying the claim the manufacturer/seller makes for that product.

gotta agree here

 

[aceofspades626]

I don't disagree with the principal at all.
But where did it say we were getting any software updates? We were never promised that when the Hero was released. They later stated that we would get it, so they put it out. It wasn't all it was cracked up to be, but that's what happens when you're an early adopter. You get into untested waters.
Now the Evo owners are benefiting from the failures the Hero and Moment owners suffered through, and I've certainly learned something too.
Android is awesome because you don't need the carrier to upgrade a damn thing. Buy good hardware. Root the phone. Install a custom ROM. They're better anyway. I don't think that will ever change.

 

[my menace]

it's called planned obsolence, they want you to buy the latest, greatest (and more expensive) phones, why would you do that if they continue to upgrade the old ones?

 

[alex51]

Update is one thing,putting out 2.1 with a dial lag and a unusable bluetooth feature which for many if not most, is unacceptable and a Hero owner shouldn't have to void their warranty by rooting for basic features to work.The bottom line is basics should work out of the box.

 

[chawski]

it's called planned obsolence, they want you to buy the latest, greatest (and more expensive) phones, why would you do that if they continue to upgrade the old ones?

Im gonna have to disagree and call it pushing away customers. theres a difference bw phasing out a product and just pure crap service. When you put out 2.1 with all the known problems it had, and then the only patch you put out is to try to prevent people from getting root access to fix the problems themselves, its tough for me to say that my next phone will come from htc. if they were the only company making phones with android, id say sure, do whatever you want, but when theres competition with the "new phone they want to get you in" (sammy epic), they really make the decision that much easier for the consumer.

 

[aceofspades626]

Im gonna have to disagree and call it pushing away customers. theres a difference bw phasing out a product and just pure crap service. When you put out 2.1 with all the known problems it had, and then the only patch you put out is to try to prevent people from getting root access to fix the problems themselves, its tough for me to say that my next phone will come from htc. if they were the only company making phones with android, id say sure, do whatever you want, but when theres competition with the "new phone they want to get you in" (sammy epic), they really make the decision that much easier for the consumer.

There's competition?
You're complaining about a patch to keep you from rooting.

AT&T will be fun for you if you want an iPhone since they don't have $h!t for Android phones. And Verizon is resorting to installing hardware dedicated to verifying that you haven't installed a custom ROM and bricking the phone if you do.

Good luck with that.

 

[chawski]

No I have no intentions of leaving sprint. I was referring to htc and samsung both making android phones on sprint that are finally comperable to each other

 

[andygu3]

There's competition?
You're complaining about a patch to keep you from rooting.

AT&T will be fun for you if you want an iPhone since they don't have $h!t for Android phones. And Verizon is resorting to installing hardware dedicated to verifying that you haven't installed a custom ROM and bricking the phone if you do.

Good luck with that.

It's funny how Sprint and HTC came out with that patch 2 days (4mb) after root was found, weird

 

[T 980]

It's funny how Sprint and HTC came out with that patch 2 days (4mb) after root was found, weird

I think 2.1 was just a way to mess up your phone just enough to make you say "might as well upgrade". That's also why they aren't releasing 2.2 for the Hero. If it wasn't for rooting, I would have sold this phone to try and cut my losses as fast as I possibly could. I'm not sure how anyone can continue to use this phone unrooted with 2.1.

I miss my physical keyboard though

 

[bcbutler20]

Does anyone know if the Euro version of hero has the same problems?

 

[Joehunni]

Don't think it does, Euro version is better in basically every way, especially looks.

 

[2horses]

This doesn't make me feel very good - a few months ago our company got Heroes from Sprint and they came with the 1.5. I've upgraded a few of them (including mine) to 2.1, and I think it's tons better! So, what am I missing? Have I taken these phones from bad to worse?

 

[MahaloCat]

Besides a few Glitches and Bugs You are Better Off -
Some people here have nothing better to do than complain.

Using LauncherPro - Eliminates half of the complaints alone.

 

[aceofspades626]

It's funny how Sprint and HTC came out with that patch 2 days (4mb) after root was found, weird

you expected them to do nothing?
unlikely.

But they still have great android based hardware coming out and we can still root them. Nothing Sprint issues will ever be as good as a custom ROM. Accept it now and stop complaining that the 2.1 that Sprint gave you sucked. Of course it did.
But it's Android and you aren't stuck with what you get. It's not an iPhone. Take advantage of your smart decision. Use the software versions that you want and be happy that it works now. That is what Android is meant to do!

 

[chawski]

ha ive been running CM6 and no complaints here anymore.

 

[andygu3]

you expected them to do nothing?
unlikely.

But they still have great android based hardware coming out and we can still root them. Nothing Sprint issues will ever be as good as a custom ROM. Accept it now and stop complaining that the 2.1 that Sprint gave you sucked. Of course it did.
But it's Android and you aren't stuck with what you get. It's not an iPhone. Take advantage of your smart decision. Use the software versions that you want and be happy that it works now. That is what Android is meant to do!

Never did complain much about 2.1. Having rooted now, the phone is that much better

 

[howiesf]

You know what, I finally installed Launcher Pro on my damn 4th hero and while it makes moving around a bit faster, and other cool features, it does not do much for the unacceptable dial lag and general lag of this damn phone. I spoke too soon when I wrote on the other thread that it solved my problem.

I went to the store in San Jose today and finally had them order me my 5th and FINAL Hero and told the guy straight up that if the new one exhibits the same shit, etc, I will NOT LEAVE THE STORE until i get a different Android phone. As a 14 yr subscriber of Sprint, 6 mon ths worth of billing errors - just this year, and a $279.00 so-called "smart phone" that gets 11 hrs of battery life with moderate usage. Im sorry, I would love to b on this board and say "Happy things" but it's impossible. You buy a 2yr contract and pay a lot when a phone first comes out. Now, 10 months later and we find out no more updates, "we know of the issues but can't do anything about them"and Sprint and HTC are both like, "sorry, buy another phone." This is just NOT RIGHT! If everyone who is having the same issues as me called in and demanded something be done, we have a better chance of geting something going.....