@mjschmidt: Thanks for all the work you are putting into this for us, it is really appreciated. I owe you a big bottle of rye!
Ya Mike, Where is your buy me a beer button on the site ;-)
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@mjschmidt: Thanks for all the work you are putting into this for us, it is really appreciated. I owe you a big bottle of rye!
Ya Mike, Where is your buy me a beer button on the site ;-)
HTC is committed to putting people at the center of everything we do, and we wanted to take this opportunity to clarify the current situation with the HTC Dream and HTC Magic at Rogers with you, the customer. While there has been a lot of confusion regarding software updates for these devices - we want to make sure that everyone knows that Rogers has been pushing hard to ensure the best possible outcome for all customers who have purchased an HTC Dream and Magic. Although we previously announced that we did not plan an upgrade to either device, we have reevaluated based on Rogers request and agreed to move forward.
First, we will be implementing an update for the 1.5 OS to both the HTC Dream and HTC Magic in the upcoming weeks. These will offer a number of benefits for these devices, including bringing the HTC Sense experience to the HTC Magic, although the OS version will remain 1.5.
By mid-year, HTC will issue an upgrade to Android 2.1, including the highly acclaimed HTC Sense experience for the HTC Magic.
However, due to certain limitations on the HTC Dream, the software path for the HTC Dream will be terminated after the next Android 1.5 update. While we regret not being able to offer the same updates to both devices, by bringing this upgrade to the HTC Magic, we are delivering the best solution possible given the situation at hand.
We also want to emphasize that the situation with HTC Dream and HTC Magic devices is true across markets, and is not limited to Canada. While
Ok, not going to give up the fight! I've got a new post on my blog, including my reply to the email I received from HTC's PR company (the same info they posted in the forums and on blogs).
Here is the email I sent to HTC & Rogers in reply to HTC.
------------------------
Dear Ms. Goldstein,
Thank you for the information regarding HTC's plans for the Android operating system on the Rogers HTC Magic and Dream phones. Obviously Magic owners are thrilled with this information, however if you have been watching the forums and blog you will know that Dream owners feel betrayed and insulted that they have been offered nothing. Minor updates to Android 1.5 are not enough for Dream owners, and we do not intend to give up our public shaming of HTC and Rogers until something more is done for them.
I don't know how familiar you are with the specifics of the issue, and I imagine anything I have to say in this letter will be passed by you on to those at HTC who will compose any actual answer, but I will try to summarize what we in the user community know to be true about the Rogers HTC Dream.
We know that Android 1.5 for the Rogers HTC Dream was customized for Rogers (at their request) both to include Rogers branding, to work with Microsoft Exchange, and (apparently) to work specifically on the Rogers network. We also know that in order to provide an update to Android 1.6 or above would require the same, or similar customization.
We have been told by you, by representatives of HTC, and by representatives of Rogers that the HTC Dream hardware is incapable of being upgraded to 2.1, however we know for a fact that the HTC Dream is capable of running Android 1.6, and potentially even Android 2.0. There are users who have already "rooted" (hacked) their Rogers HTC Dream phones to run Android 1.6, and there are reports that some users have managed to install Android 2.0 on the HTC G1, which is similar hardware to the HTC Dream.
Given that we know Android 1.6 will work on the Rogers HTC Dream, and given that HTC and Rogers have agreed to offer Android 2.1 for the Magic, but not 1.6 for the Dream, many people are speculating that this is a cost issue, and that the truth it that either Rogers or HTC is unwilling to commit the capital required to customize 1.6 to work for the Dream. It is speculated that instead the decision was made to pay for only one update, that being to 2.1 for the HTC Magic. As a community we would like HTC to officially clarify this issue. Specifically, would Rogers have to pay for any updates offered to Rogers Android phones, and would it be necessary to pay extra for an update to 1.6 for HTC Dream owners?
Again, to be clear, we know that Android 1.6 works on the Rogers HTC Dream, so please don't try to assuage us by telling us that it is a "hardware issue". We accept that it might be impossible to provide Android 2.1 for the Rogers HTC Dream, but Android 1.6 should not be a problem.
We believe strongly that this issue is a special case in Canada, because unlike in the United States, the Rogers HTC Dream and Magic debuted at the same time. As a result many buyers were under the impression (since the Android operating system on both phones looked and behaved almost identically) that the only real difference between the two was the hardware keyboard of the Dream. Furthermore, many Rogers customers were told at the time of purchase that they would be able to get the Android 1.6 update for both phones. This was happening as recently as Christmas Even to me, and I am looking into a report by one of the visitors to my blog that a customer was told only just the other day that the Rogers HTC Dream would be updated to 2.1! As a result of the misinformation, as well as the perception of similarity between the two phones because of their simultaneous debut, buyers had confidence they would get a phone that would be updated when they bought the Dream. If they had known the truth then (in fact, if Rogers employees had understood themselves and provided correct information) surely the majority of Dream buyers would have NOT purchased a Dream, but a Rogers HTC Magic instead.
As a result of this misleading debut, and the misinformation provided by Rogers employees (including as high as the office of the president) there are now Dream owners who will never be able to enjoy the benefits of Android 1.6, including increased functionality and access to applications in the Market that require Android 1.6 to run. In fact, as application developers create new versions of their applications to work with 1.6, if they are unable or unwilling to make the application backwards compatible to Android 1.5, the older version of their app will disappear from the store. This has already happened! There are now apps missing from the store that used to be available for owners of Android 1.5 devices.
I hope you will be able to pass along this letter to someone at HTC who will be able to accurately and truthfully answer the questions I have posed above. If HTC hopes for Rogers HTC Dream owners to accept this decision (something highly unlikely to happen) they will need to do a much better job of explaining their reasoning, because as a group we are a tech-savvy bunch, and we already know the truth about the capabilities of the HTC Dream hardware.
I am CCing this email to Rogers management, as well as Jason Mackenzie of HTC. I will be posting the content of this email on my blog at I Want My One Point Six - Demanding Android 1.6 for our Rogers HTC Magic & Dream, and LG Eve Phones and mentioning it on Twitter. As I've said, while we are very pleased that HTC and Rogers have done the right thing for Magic owners, they have miserably failed where Rogers HTC Dream owners are concerned and have, effectively, treated them as "second class citizens" which has created horrible repercussions for the HTC and Rogers brands in Canada.
Yours truly,
Michael J. Schmidt
I Want My One Point Six - Demanding Android 1.6 for our Rogers HTC Magic & Dream, and LG Eve Phones
Out of curiosity, how many people here would be willing to stage _legal_ public demonstrations in front of their local Rogers HQ? I know this might be difficult for people in BC and out east, but in Ontario and Montreal it would be theoretically possible.
If we could get enough people to meet in front of Rogers HQ in Toronto, and let the media know about it ahead of time, we might even get some actual TV attention.
It would, however, require real dedication on the part of those promising to come, and proper organization.
To be fair, this situation is more the fault of Google than it is Rogers.
To be fair, this situation is more the fault of Google than it is Rogers. I only hold Rogers accountable for misleading me (us) by stating that the phone would have regular updates, just like the iPhone.
Get source
For information about current problems and fixes, see Known issues.
This document describes how to set up your local work environment, how to use Repo to get the Android files, and how to build the files on your machine.
Related reading:
What's in the source?
- For an overview of the entire code-review and code-update process, see Workflow.
- For reference details about Repo, see Using Repo and Git.
For a description of all the projects that make up the Android source code, see Project layout. To see snapshots and histories of the files available in the public Android repositories, visit the GitWeb web interface.
The source is approximentely 2.1GB in size. You will need 6GB free to complete the build.
Setting up your machine
To build the Android source files, you will need to use Linux or Mac OS. Building under Windows is not currently supported.
Linux
The Android build is routinely tested on recent versions of Ubuntu (6.06 and later), but reports of successes or failures on other distributions are welcome.
Ubuntu Linux (32-bit x86)
To set up your Linux development environment, make sure you have the following:
- Required Packages:
- Git 1.5.4 or newer and the GNU Privacy Guard.
- JDK 5.0, update 12 or higher. Java 6 is not supported, because of incompatibilities with @Override.
- flex, bison, gperf, libsdl-dev, libesd0-dev, libwxgtk2.6-dev (optional), build-essential, zip, curl.
$ sudo apt-get install git-core gnupg sun-java5-jdk flex bison gperf libsdl-dev libesd0-dev libwxgtk2.6-dev build-essential zip curl libncurses5-dev zlib1g-dev
- You might also want Valgrind, a tool that will help you find memory leaks, stack corruption, array bounds overflows, etc.
$ sudo apt-get install valgrind
$ sudo apt-get install lib32readline5-dev
- Intrepid (8.10) users may need a newer version of libreadline:
Ubuntu Linux (64-bit x86)
This has not been as well tested. Please send success or failure reports to android-porting@googlegroups.com.
The Android build requires a 32-bit build environment as well as some other tools:
- Required Packages:
- Git, JDK, flex, and the other packages as listed above in the i386 instructions:
- JDK 5.0, update 12 or higher. Java 6 is not supported, because of incompatibilities with @Override.
- Pieces from the 32-bit cross-building environment
- X11 development
$ sudo apt-get install git-core gnupg flex bison gperf build-essential zip curl [FONT=courier new,monospace]sun-java5-jdk [/FONT]zlib1g-dev gcc-multilib g++-multilib libc6-dev-i386 lib32ncurses5-dev ia32-libs x11proto-core-dev libx11-dev lib32readline5-dev lib32z-dev
- Set the system to use the right version of java by default:[FONT=courier new,monospace]
$ sudo update-java-alternatives -s [/FONT]java-1.5.0-sun
Running Linux in a virtual machine
- X11: Ubuntu doesn't have packages for the X11 libraries, but that can be worked around with the following command:
$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib32/libX11.so.6 /usr/lib32/libX11.so
If you are running Linux in a virtual machine, you will need at least 1.5GB of RAM and 10GB or more of disk space in order to build the Android tree.
Other Linux
There's no reason why Android cannot be built on non-Ubuntu systems. Please send any success or failure reports to android-porting@googlegroups.com. In general you will need:
Anything missing from this list? Please let us know!
- Python 2.4, which you can download from python.org .
- JDK 5.0, update 12 or higher, which you can download from java.sun.com . Java 6 is not supported, because of incompatibilities with @Override.
- Git 1.5.4 or newer. You can find it at Git - Fast Version Control System .
Installing Repo
Repo is a tool that makes it easier to work with Git in the context of Android. For more information about Repo, see Using Repo and Git.
To install, initialize, and configure Repo, follow these steps:
- Make sure you have a ~/bin directory in your home directory, and check to be sure that this bin directory is in your path:
$ cd [FONT=courier new,monospace]~
[/FONT]
- $ mkdir bin
$ echo $PATH
- Download the repo script and make sure it is executable:[FONT=courier new,monospace]
$ curl http://android.git.kernel.org/repo >~/bin/repo[/FONT] [FONT=courier new,monospace]$ chmod a+x ~/bin/repo[/FONT]
Initializing a Repo client
A successful initialization will end with a message such as
- Create an empty directory to hold your working files:
$ mkdir mydroid
$ cd mydroid- Run repo init to bring down the latest version of Repo with all its most recent bug fixes. You must specify a URL for the manifest:
$ repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git
- If you would like to check out a branch other than "master", specify it with -b, like:
$ repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git -b cupcake- When prompted, configure Repo with your real name and email address. If you plan to submit code, use an email address that is associated with a Google account.
repo initialized in /mydroid
Your client directory should now contain a .repo directory where files such as the manifest will be kept.
What will my name and email be used for?
To use the Gerrit code-review tool, you will need an email address that is connected with a registered Google account (which does not have to be a Gmail address). Make sure this is a live address at which you can receive messages. The real name that you provide here will show up in attributions for your code submissions.
What is a manifest file?
The Android source files are divided among a number of different repositories. A manifest file contains a mapping of where the files from these repositories will be placed within your working directory when you synchronize your files.
Getting the files
To pull down files to your working directory from the repositories as specified in the default manifest, run
$ repo sync
For more about repo sync and other Repo commands, see Using Repo and Git.
The Android source files will be located in your working directory under their project names.
HTC is not currently planning any Android 1.6 upgrades for Rogers Dream. Android 1.6 was only made available for
Another post on I Want My One Point Six - Demanding Android 1.6 for our Rogers HTC Magic & Dream, and LG Eve Phones!
Jessika from HTC's marketing/PR firm replied to my email. More drivel from HTC. Below is her email, and my reply.
----------------------------
Hi Michael,
Thank you for your response and you can ensure that I have shared your note with the greater HTC team. Since we do not have HTC 1.6 software, we cannot speculate on software that has not been developed. Beyond the Android 1.5 OS, all of HTC’s development efforts have focused on bringing the HTC Sense experience to their software upgrade path. While this does deliver new features to the user experience, it is also more memory intensive than stock, non-HTC Android. As the first Android device on the market, the HTC Dream does not have the required on-board memory to properly deliver the HTC Sense experience – and as such, HTC is unable to bring further upgrades to the HTC Dream beyond the Android 1.5 OS.
Additionally, right now, we are focused on making this situation right and ensuring we work with our manufactures to make certain this doesn’t happen again in future.
Thanks again and please let me know if you have any questions.
All the Best,
Jessika
-
I had an interesting phone call last night from my contact in TooP (Emil). On Wednesday night I blew a gasket on him telling him over and over how the business practices of rogers and his/rogers attitude of "what the sales people tell you is beyond our control and we don't have to honour what they say" (yes that is a DIRECT QUOTE!) were bordering on criminal.
He called me back last night to offer me a HTC Magic in place of my HTC Dream. Now I am still not happy with the amount of work that not only me, but everyone else in this forum, had to put in to get this offer, but it makes me.....less angry.
I took his offer of a Magic but I also made him aware that if the update to 2.1 gets canned or otherwise delayed into oblivion, that I would be back and more angry than I am now. I also made it abundantly clear to him that I am pulling all my rogers accounts as soon as the various contract expire.
I am still not happy with rogers and I don't think that I ever can be happy with them. If this much work had to go into getting them to extend the olive branch then how much work will it take to get them to lower there rates so that Canada isn't the highest charged country in the world for cellphones.
I welcome comments and DMs on this post.
I don't know if the offer I received (rogers will ship me a new Magic and I in turn have to ship them my Dream), will be extended to all dream owners or if it will only be extended to those who complain.
I just checked the rogers site and I still see the Dream for sale so I assume they are still going to be selling it and misleading future customers. I really wonder what they are going to do with the Dream when the Magic is stilling at 2.1 and the Dream is still at 1.5.
Don't take that offer guys there trying to pawn off some other android phone on you that they are just tryying to clear out anyways. Those htc magics sell on kijiji for 250 now. The deal I got from rogers o of p seems like a much better deal. After argueing with with henri from the o of p for awhile I got them to offer me a blackberry 9700 for free. This is the newest blackberry on the market. Ya ya I can hear u all now" but I want an android phone not a shitty blackberry". That why as soon as you get it you do what I did and sell it for 500 to a friend. They are going for 550 on kijiji so you can sell it buy a magic and still have around $250 for yourself to pay some of your overpriced rogers bills. They also did not make me send back my dream which is what I'm typeing on now lol.
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