HTC Mogul Sprint ROM - GPS and REV. A New info!

[stroths]

Originally Posted by Yay 4 Juggs

so a follow up to the follow up

Dear XXXXXXXXXXXX,

Thank you for your prompt reply. I understand that at this moment, you do not want to purchase a new phone as you have already spent a good amount on Mogul handset.

So, considering the current scenario, I have found a good EVDO 'LG LX750 Muzic phone' handset for you. It has a cost of $249.99 but we will offering you this handset free of cost considering all the inconvenience caused in this regard.

So, please write back to us with the confirmation and I will issue this handset from here. We value your loyalty and look forward to serving you for years to come.

Thank you for contacting Sprint. We appreciate your business, and look forward to providing you first class service in the future. Have a great day!

Gloria S.
Business E-Care
Sprint
"Where our customers come first!"

What a deal! They must have been out of the Nokia 6100s

[shaun0207]

Originally Posted by stroths

What a deal! They must have been out of the Nokia 6100s

I paid $399 for my wife's Mogul and $600 for mine. I dont want a $249 phone. What about the balance of the money I paid? Did they answer that for you?

[Yay 4 Juggs]

no no they are issuing me a music without having to exchange my mogul...i keep the mogul on the shelf till a fix is in and use the music in the interim...so they are offering me a music as hush money

[shaun0207]

Originally Posted by Yay 4 Juggs

no no they are issuing me a music without having to exchange my mogul...i keep the mogul on the shelf till a fix is in and use the music in the interim...so they are offering me a music as hush money

Ohh ok. Are you sure though? Sometimes if you dont send the defective phone back to them, they charge your account for it.

[Yay 4 Juggs]

nope i keep the mogul...i have it in writing

[shaun0207]

Originally Posted by Yay 4 Juggs

nope i keep the mogul...i have it in writing

I dont mean to disagree with you, but that message doesnt read like that to me. But if they do it , great for you.

I think they need to do something liek for all Mogul customers.

In my above post, I asked if a Sprint ROM and a Alltell ROM could be crossed. is that possible?

[livejazz]

Originally Posted by dishe

Once again, the best thing HTC could do is release a phone with an available Developer's Kit for the community.
That's how these things are packaged to the OEM's... I played with an industrial PPC recently that my friend was working with for his job (the kind with a barcode scanner attached that they use in stores like Target for inventory and Point of Sale). Its so interesting how this stuff works...
The manufacturer sells the hardware to the client (for example, Target), and gives them an SDK to develop firmware for their own needs. The developers at the Target Coorperate HQ create a ROM and distribute the device to their stores and train the employees in their use.

In our case, HTC develops hardware and gives Sprint a development kit to install and create firmware for their customers.
Then, we as users determined to make it work properly, have to reverse-engineer the software, essentially ripping it apart to try and figure out how things work and then put it back together again in a fashion that suits the general user community. Sprint sort of knows about it, but they turn a blind eye because officially they don't want to support such efforts. Its sad that devices are often left to the development community to support.

Now, how amazing would it be if HTC just handed the SDK over to us and said "here, we saved you the trouble. Make the phone work how you want it to"???

Funny, I actually have two different generations of those on my desk, right now.

[Pibe38]

Originally Posted by livejazz

I think we see, pretty much, eye to eye. I agree with you, mostly and I, also, enjoy speaking with a mature poster. A lot of this, as I said, is my opinion, as well. My challenges with my Mogul are identicle to yours. Not really that major, in my opinion. If you look at a few posts back of mine you will see just how familiar I am with other's challenges. Beleive me, I am up to my neck with support calls. For what it's worth, I think Sprint should post all the updates on their site that HTC does, too, but as you know neither of our opinions carry a whole lot of weight (now if the purchasing director of one of my customer's were to call, that could make a difference).

I know I am a relatively new poster and nobody knows much about me, but beleive me, I am very hard to offend, so don't worry about sharing opinions that differ from mine in the future. I really like objective conversation. I think it can be very productive, sometimes.

Thanks for the answer. Good luck with the support calls by the way

Originally Posted by Yay 4 Juggs

so a follow up to the follow up

Dear XXXXXXXXXXXX,

Thank you for your prompt reply. I understand that at this moment, you do not want to purchase a new phone as you have already spent a good amount on Mogul handset.

So, considering the current scenario, I have found a good EVDO 'LG LX750 Muzic phone' handset for you. It has a cost of $249.99 but we will offering you this handset free of cost considering all the inconvenience caused in this regard.

So, please write back to us with the confirmation and I will issue this handset from here. We value your loyalty and look forward to serving you for years to come.

Thank you for contacting Sprint. We appreciate your business, and look forward to providing you first class service in the future. Have a great day!

Gloria S.
Business E-Care
Sprint
"Where our customers come first!"

I was trying to send e-care an e-mail just to notify them of the situation, as most of us should be doing so they know it is affecting us, but when I click Submit I'm getting a 'Page cannot be displayed' error.

Any ideas?

Also, even though they are offering you a free phone until the Mogul is fixed, I would tell them that you shouldn't have to step down a device until they fix these issues.

[shaun0207]

Originally Posted by Pibe38

Thanks for the answer. Good luck with the support calls by the way



I was trying to send e-care an e-mail just to notify them of the situation, as most of us should be doing so they know it is affecting us, but when I click Submit I'm getting a 'Page cannot be displayed' error.

Any ideas?

Also, even though they are offering you a free phone until the Mogul is fixed, I would tell them that you shouldn't have to step down a device until they fix these issues.

They are probably being flooded with emails right now. I doubt you will be albe to get that email to go until maybe Monday.

I agree. You shouldnt have to step down a device.

[TC1]

Originally Posted by dishe

Once again, the best thing HTC could do is release a phone with an available Developer's Kit for the community.
That's how these things are packaged to the OEM's... I played with an industrial PPC recently that my friend was working with for his job (the kind with a barcode scanner attached that they use in stores like Target for inventory and Point of Sale). Its so interesting how this stuff works...
The manufacturer sells the hardware to the client (for example, Target), and gives them an SDK to develop firmware for their own needs. The developers at the Target Coorperate HQ create a ROM and distribute the device to their stores and train the employees in their use.

In our case, HTC develops hardware and gives Sprint a development kit to install and create firmware for their customers.
Then, we as users determined to make it work properly, have to reverse-engineer the software, essentially ripping it apart to try and figure out how things work and then put it back together again in a fashion that suits the general user community. Sprint sort of knows about it, but they turn a blind eye because officially they don't want to support such efforts. Its sad that devices are often left to the development community to support.

Now, how amazing would it be if HTC just handed the SDK over to us and said "here, we saved you the trouble. Make the phone work how you want it to"???

While I agree with the ideas and intentions here, in reality this is not really practical. I'm speaking from experience, someone who has been an integrated circuit designer who use to design microchips for OEMS and manufacture OEM products.

In the first example you listed above, Target gets to customize the product and distribute it to their customers, ie, internal Target business units. When something goes wrong, who do the business units call? That's right, Target IT, not the manufacturer (like an HTC). The manufacturer has no idea what Target did to these devices and it's unfair to expect them to magically troubleshoot them (unless a secondary support contract was signed).

So I ask the question, how is the statement "Now, how amazing would it be if HTC just handed the SDK over to us and said "here, we saved you the trouble. Make the phone work how you want it to"" practical?

The phone in this case does not operate in a vacuum, it operates on Sprint's network and is sold by Sprint. Imagine all the folks that think they know what they are doing get a hold of the SDK and start modifying the phone on their own. Sure, Sprint might have something in their warranty that says "We are not responsible for 3rd party software, user modification, blah, blah" but do you really think that will stop all the folks who brick their phones from calling Sprint anyway? Their logic will be "Hey... if we weren't suppose to play around inside the phone, why did they release this SDK to us?" Sprint will get bombarded with calls, making their crappy customer support even crappier. It will be an unplanned for financial hit to Sprint's overhead costs.

I think the real solution to what you are getting at is that the CDMA carriers operate the same business/technology model as the GSM carriers: Here's a SIM card, bring your own phone to the party. That way there can be everyday folks who just want a phone that can buy it from the carriers, then there will the power users that can buy the phone directly from the manufacturer and pop in a SIM card to get the carrier of their choice network. Since you bought the phone on your own, the carrier doesn't have to stand behind it, they just have to make sure their network complies with certain standards for interoperability.

And to diverge a little here, the problems we are seeing with the Mogul are not really the fault of Sprint. Yes, Sprint is ultimately responsible since they sold you the product, that's a fact. But here is how the PDA phones are developed:

1. Microsoft makes an OEM version of their operating system available to the manufactures/OEMs, ie, HTC, Samsung, and others.
2. Various integrated circuit manufactures design cips that will support both operating system and the cell phone functions needed.
3. Manufacturers like HTC design a product using various sources of info, the two predominant ones being "reference designs" provided by Microsoft and the chip makers (Qualcomm, etc). It is up to the manufacturer to make the hardware and software work together, ie, specialized drivers. Who develops these drivers is variable, sometimes the chip makers make baseline ones available to be tweaked, sometimes the chip makers just make the hardware API spec sheet available and it's up to the manufacturer to write their own drivers.
4. The manufacturer will attempt to 'add value' by incorporating features in software, like the TouchFlo interface (developed in house by HTC) or incorporating a third-party innovations (like Samsung did with the Picsel browser). The idea here is to make a product that many of the carriers will want to carry in their product line.
5. The carrier will submit the OEM version of the product to the FCC for use acceptance on the U.S. airwaves.
6. The various carriers will buy the OEM version from the Manufacturer and then say "Ok, this what we want you to do to make it 'our' version." At a minimum this includes almost always the outer cosmetics, ie, the case, its colors and materials, silk screened logos, buttons, etc.
7. The final thing that is done is that the the carriers will develop some minor crapware of their own to generate additional revenue. One needs to keep in mind that this crapware just sits on top of the OS like any other 3rd party application, they are not redesigning the code of the OS or the drivers.

So as can be seen from the above process, a carrier like Sprint or VzW are only involved in two steps, and only the last step has any remote possibility of screwing up the functionality of the finished product (except for the wonderful folks at VzW who supposedly screwed up step #6 with their initial button design). Things like BT not working are more than likely the screw up of HTC, the chip maker (Qualcomm?) or Microsoft. Sprint simply does NOT do deep firmware development on these devices, it was decided years ago by the carriers to shift these types of costs onto the OEMs.

I'm not trying to make excuses for Sprint, they do indeed deserve the wrath of the consumer, I'm just trying to put things into perspective here.