Comments on: AT&T crippling GPS in BlackBerry 8820?

By: Karlos

Karlos — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 19:25:03 +0000

And You’d be *wrong* ATT *did* cripple the 8820. I’m one of the poor schmucks who bought it thinking it would do what the hardware says.

By: Phil Pavel

Phil Pavel — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 07:24:16 +0000

I have no problem being tied to Telenav so long as they make it work worldwide. I just came back from a Europe trip and Google maps/GPS was a lifesaver. I’m told that one can purchase a UK plan and it will work in USA as well, but it’s an old version of Telenav.

By: N

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 07:18:25 +0000

Please send AT&T chairman cat box contents, used condoms and other tokens of appreciation.

By: TJhood

TJhood — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 01:40:05 +0000

Jeff B.
I hope you are right.. but that goes against the thoughts of many discussions.. many things suggest that a blackberry data plan will be required.

If you have any hard facts please share them.

By: blah

blah — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 01:23:47 +0000

RIM may have gotten word from it’s biggest customers that GPS needs to be locked down.

If not, any kid could write a program that contains a trojan horse GPS app.

GPS while great, is also scary if used by the wrong people.

Since a majority of BB users are corporate types, security is of the utmost concern to them. So only allowing “blessed” apps to run on the device makes sense.

By: Who cares

Who cares — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 19:03:50 +0000

According to the business reps for AT&T that I deal with they do NOT even have the 8820 in stock and the last they were told is it will be there when they get there. Latest heard is September 15th, but I hear allot of people saying the 24 of this month.

By: anon

anon — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 07:48:22 +0000

wait a sec, doesn’t this whole thing make more sense if you replace “GPS” with “WIFI”? Then it makes sense b/c they don’t want the BB to compete with the iPhone.

By: Galvatron

Galvatron — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 04:29:41 +0000

it’s not restricted on tmo that much i can tell you
try loading voada phones os too

By: anon

anon — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 04:03:27 +0000

oops “I just wish carriers would let…” should have been omitted.

By: anon

anon — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 04:01:29 +0000

Jibi, I think the assumption is that they are going beyond what they did for the 8800.

For the 8800, BlackBerry Maps was not installed by default because ATT demanded for it to be removed. But people figured out a way around that stupidity. Also, the GPS functionality was still available for use by 3rd party applications.

For the 8830, Verizon appears to have forced RIM to disable GPS support in the OS. So BlackBerry Maps & third party apps cannot work at all. They tried to justify it with nonsense about needing to make the software quality to good enough to run on their network (I’m sure RIM and Google are have quality software).

So, the question is – with the 8820 is AT&T going to have RIM not include their BlackBerry Maps client but leave GPS open so that third party applications can still work or are they going to pull a Verizon and completely lock everyone out?

Carriers/ISPs always seem to be advocates of ‘letting the free market’ decide when folks bring up net neutrality. It’s a shame that they don’t play fair.

This situation angers me even more because Telenav is a fantastic product and BlackBerry Maps is a standard application with no voice directions. It’s like Microsoft saying they’ll no longer include notepad and wordpad in Windows so people will have to buy Office. Except Microsoft would never do that since they’re the sole company involved.

Put simply, carriers should just do their jobs – carry data. They’re welcome to create products too, but not by blocking others from competing. It’s stories like these that just enrages me and hopes for a company like Google to bid & win on the spectrum.

And to be honest, I expected Apple to be the one to take the charge. Instead what we got was a fantastic product with a 5 year exclusive.

Carriers are simply a cancer to mobile innovation. I hope everyone continues to speak out against practices like this.

I just wish carriers would let

By: hanstoppable

hanstoppable — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 01:11:42 +0000

Jibi- I saw your post at BBF. Thanks for taking the time to educate us. I had no idea ATT restricted GPS on the 8800 when it came out. I’m encouraged that your method could (in theory) work on the 8820. I’m going to back away from the ledge now.

By: Jibi

Jibi — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 05:11:35 +0000

FWIW, I just posted on BBF a few mins ago with my thoughts on this, but honestly, AT&T ‘cripples’ GPS – out of the box – to TeleNav only. There’s no hardware crippling. You can download Google Maps and use it just fine. BlackBerry Maps is usually installed out of the box with every other device, but it’s nowhere to be found on the 8800 from AT&T. Why? Because AT&T restricts the installation through the use of a carrier/vendor exclusion in the LBS.alx file. Modify that and remove the exclusions and you’re free to load and use BlackBerry Maps. I foresee the same thing with the 8820 device release. …regardless, it has little to nothing to do with Apple. If they can make $10/mo on subscriptions to TeleNav, assuming their relationship and contract with TeleNav is ripe enough of an award, then why not make a good percentage of extra earnings from people who have no clue otherwise?

By: Jeff B.

Jeff B. — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 04:29:50 +0000

@TJHood
Dude you don’t need a data plan to use Wi-fi all you need is a home router. Att doesn’t have a single hotspot, that’s all tmo.

By: Galvatron

Galvatron — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 01:54:52 +0000

LOL man M$ dosn’t even go that far on raping yur wallet> i somtimes wonder why att has not been bought out yet grantedit would be hard for seutche telcom to tke em away fomHSBCcomunications

By: TJhood

TJhood — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 00:23:14 +0000

Below are estimates..

$600.00 MSRP 8820
-$300.00 for signing over your soul for 2 years.

great I just saved $300.00 !!!!!

hmm I really would like to use that GPS..
that Wi-Fi would be cool too…

but i can’t without paying to route it threw servers that are not even required.. hmm this sucks…

whats that going to cost me over these 2 years..

$9.99 x 24 months.. = $239.76 holy crap i’m not saving that much..

I have to buy a data plan too or the Wi-Fi is just added weight.. probbly run me $50 or more a month for one that is even reasonable..

that’ll be $1,200 over two years.. I already have my data going over my internet connection why should I go threw there servers too..

ouch thats roughly $1,439.76 to use that stuff just for the two year contract…. I just shafted myself..

btw.. whats with the magic number of $9.99 a month on the GPS.. also 666 if you flip it.. I knew they were doing the devils work!

By: ppcmd

ppcmd — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 21:14:28 +0000

Its odd that AT&T would want to sell more devil phones since they pay the devil himself a piece of the action for each contract signed (in blood no doubt). Besides the devil phone is not a real business phone in the likes of crackberry’s.

By: Jeff B.

Jeff B. — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 19:11:48 +0000

I don’t see why this conversation would happen but put in more F**K YOU’s and it’ll be spot on. I really think at&t would do that since they want to sell more devil phones. But at least I talked a woman out of buying one, made the sales guy hella pissed cause he didn’t get his precious commission. BB’s are way better anyways.

By: Galvatron

Galvatron — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 08:00:43 +0000

ok the carriers need to realize verizons and att’s strategys ar not the acts to follow

By: ppcmd

ppcmd — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 01:18:51 +0000

Maybe RIM needs to show ALL of the carriers it has some balls and won’t play the cripple the device game anymore. After all crackberrrys are still quite hot and the goverment types won’t change so, maybe the carriers would crack after all.

By: Galvatron

Galvatron — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 01:00:46 +0000

this is aatth hiding th bb maps ixon
if you hack the phones os with th ehelp of a comouter an modify the blackberry.alx file you can unlock other carriers themes. whaick have the bbmaps icon unhidden and he ablity to use the onboard gps. on th 8800’s OS if you unlock all the leames an load the att theme youll notice the blackberry maps is hidden on that version as well. so my sugestion is goto pinstack and read the tutorial on how to unlock themes

By: jimbo_jones

jimbo_jones — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 23:55:11 +0000

Maybe I’m confused…

Isn’t this already the case with the 8800?

If so wouldn’t the 8820 be the same??

Can you use another GPS service with the 8800 other than TeleNav?

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 20:50:27 +0000

Maybe this is a silly question, but is there a consumer comments email or something where we can let AT&T know we’re actually lining up to buy a good GPS enabled bb but not interested in the iPhone?

It doesn’t always work, but the consumer voice does have a place when they are listening.

By: Terence

Terence — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 20:46:26 +0000

Well where is this 8820 we keep speaking of…!! Lets get it first then figure that mumbo jumbo later!

By: mikeyp

mikeyp — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 20:10:35 +0000

rumors and more rumors.

By: sdeetz

sdeetz — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 20:03:44 +0000

Unfortunately, this is nothing new. Verizon did something similar with their new Blackberry. They disabled the included BB Maps and you have to use their paid VZ Navigator service. Sprint has done the same thing with some of their tie ins. AT&T’s new Tilt (aka Kaiser) has had screen prints of it’s final ROM published on MoDaCo, and the home screen also shows the GPS tied to TeleNav. You could always use a bluetooth GPS and your own maps, but that defeats the purpose of built in GPS.

Bottom line is that GPS is another thing they can charge for, & as long as that is the case, they will try to lock devices to their paid services. Someone will have to buck the trend to try to get the others to open it up. Hopefully TMobile will do that when they release their Kaiser version and other GPS phones.

By: blake

blake — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 19:21:22 +0000

RIM selling to the general consumer makes sense if the general consumer is willing to pay an unsubsidized price for a handset. Sure, there are many people that would do it, but doing so without any carrier sales would alienate most of the consumers. It would have to be done as a compliment to carrier sales… Not an alternative.
Furthermore, I can see how a BB could be a threat to the iPhone. Put a Curve on the market with wifi, gps, and a better web browser and I say you have something. However, a bb 8820 customer and an iPhone customer have far less in common.
I’m going to stay skeptical about this rumor. If it were about verizon and bluetooth I may be inclined to believe, but for now I’ll just keep watching.

By: Billy

Billy — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 19:06:35 +0000

At&t blows anyway, T-Mobile respects it customers and they give us what we want and need.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 19:05:01 +0000

Nokia sells directly to the public.

By: luis martinez

luis martinez — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 19:01:26 +0000

Didn’t sprint sue Gmaps for doing free GPS instead of Sprints paid service? Seems like carriers will go this route. Just like sprint sparked the text message increase, we will probably see a shutout of free services forced to subscribe to some revenue increasing package.

By: Carmen

Carmen — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:25:28 +0000

Well .. It looks like it is time for me to switch the company over to Verizon. I am not going to pay any additional fees due to the useless iPhone.

The phone has this support built in and last i checked our taxes paid for those satellites. Further more we pay for unlimited data usage .. this is per postures. We would never nor are we looking to get into iPhones. They are for children, not cooperations.