Leaked Moto e790 iTunes phone firmware flashes to e398?

by Ryan Block posted Jul 11th 2005 at 9:05AM

If we had an e398 hanging around the office you know the first thing we'd be doing this morning is checking this one out for ya'll, but since we can't verify the validity of the claims made over on HowardForums about a leaked Moto e790 iTunes phone firmware release, you'll have to dig in yourself—may we suggest (very) cautious optimism? You'll definitely find a variety of responses on the forum ranging from "my phone is dead" to "the [iTunes] icon doesn't do anything" to "blank screen" to the one we know you want to hear: "it works". Of course, even if you do get it going, you'll still be missing the dedicated iTunes button and the 3.5mm stereo headphone jack on the e398, but if you're feeling particularly adventurous this could be a fun Monday project. As with any unauthorized firmware upgrade, however, caveat emptor, with an emphasis on caveat.

P.S. If you give it a go, let us know your results in the comments!

[Thanks, Mike D]

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Jon @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM

If I was on the design team for the ITUNES phone, it would definately have:

#1 Bluetooth wireless for a bluetooth headset

#2 Bluetooth wireless for bluetooth wireless music headphones

#3 synching with Microsoft Outlook

#4 Synching with Yahoo Synch

#5 3.5 mm headphone jack / Line out jack to stereo

#6 1 or 2 gigabytes of flash memory built in similar to Ipod shuffle.

I know that the compnay building this thing is gonna drop the ball so I won't even bother looking at this thing anymore. Just know that if I were in their design labs, I'd get this thing right straight out of the box.

Neutral

Digital Dave @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM

Man, I'm really hoping that my new Verizon Moto 815 has some sort of itunes firmware update coming its way. EVDO, Bluetooth and a headset jack.... Mmm, could be fun.

Neutral

Jeff @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM

Motorola has a notoriously bad Bluetooth implementation so #1 and 2 are right out.

It does sync with Outlook, as long as you have Mobile Phone Tools (extra charge, of course)

Doubt it will sync music with anything other than iTunes (automatically, at least) and I doubt it will do Windows Media at all.

I believe it's supposed to have a headphone jack built in

Motorola's been using Transflash modules but they only go up to 256mb. They SHOULD use Mini-SD which go up to 1 gig now or maybe just regular SD cards.

Neutral

Sam McConnell @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM

Reply to #1's #4: Why in the world would an iTunes phone have to sync with Yahoo Sync? Wouldn't it make more sense for it to sync with .mac?

Neutral

robotrock @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM

I've got an E398...I might try this when I get home.

Since the e398 is already considered Motorola's "MP3 music phone" it already has a 3.5mm headphone jack and T-flash storage expandability. The thing even came with a goofy rave video clip.

Neutral

Rev. Otto @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM

I live in the states and bought an imported E398, I'm hoping this is true and if any motohackers want to help me try this for posterities sake I'm ready to make the sacrifice. It's the best phone I've ever owned; solid, dependible, great rf, stereo speakers, lots of features.

Neutral

hsk @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM

Yep! it's true, you can flash your 398 with the 790's firmware,altho,the flash is in it's initial stages but expect a fully fledged s/w upgrade really soon........::fingers crossed::

Neutral

Arsham @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM

Whooo!
It works. I tried the firmware update on my e398. I'm just about to put some music on it. It okay but it can a bit unresponsive.

Neutral

Shoey @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM

Wahey we made the front page!!!

Thanks to everyone at HoFo.

I have a fully functional E398 - E790 (i398 as it is being called), and I'm loving it!

Read the guide here:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alan.schumacker/Moto/E790.mht

Neutral

alex @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM

I just posted some information on to http://www.macncell.com

From information gathered from the message boards...because the software is made for a different phone, there are bugs when installed on the E398: 1. to use the iTunes software, you have to set the phone�s date to before May 5, 2005 (likely done because the software is beta software); 2. the backlight tends to stay on too long; 3. incompatibility can cause the phone to become an expensive paper weight (do people even use paper-weights anymore?!).

The E398 cannot be sync�d with iTunes over bluetooth, only via USB. This makes sense because the files are rather large and would take a long time to add to the phone. It�s unknown whether this is a limitation of the E398 or the iTunes software itself.

I'm currently "test-driving" the E398 as it's reported to be the closest to the iTunes phone. You can see my first review of it, and how to set it up with your mac here: http://www.macncell.com/index_html/archive/2005/07/11/motorola-e398-day-one

Neutral

MACALEX @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM

you can get firmware language pack and etc.
Don't wait for Motorola to release E790, upgrade your E398 today for free :D
ftp://e790:e790@62.105.2.26/

Neutral

jedinite @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM

I bought this phone for my gf a few months ago. It's marketed as the MTV phone in Hong Kong and parts of Asia. It comes with a 64MB transflash card. It has stereo speakers and lights up with internal LEDs where the speakers are and the phone vibes while it plays music, not like your ordinary phone however, it feels like the entire thing shakes (opposed to just a unbalanced gyro).

Neutral