Motorola Backflip doesn't allow non-Market apps, proves AT&T doesn't get Android
By Chris Ziegler 
posted March 8th 2010 3:06PM
posted March 8th 2010 3:06PM
A year later, enter the Motorola Backflip -- AT&T's very first Android device. Does it hold true to de la Vega's principles? Well, it depends on whose glasses you read the statements through. Yes, true, it definitely doesn't have "primarily Google apps on it" thanks to the carrier's questionable decision to remove Google search and replace it with Yahoo -- but as for giving "customers the choice of other applications," that's another matter altogether. It seems that Backflips are being shipped without the ability to turn on non-Market installations, meaning that AT&T has effectively locked you into getting all of your content through the walled garden. Add in the Yahoo debacle and the egregious amount of unremovable crapware they've left in ROM, and we start to wonder: why did AT&T bother partnering up with Android if they weren't going to take it seriously? Certainly doesn't bode well for the Mini 3 and the rest of the pack, now, does it?Chris: Okay, and expanding on that a little bit, I heard you speak at CTIA last year and you mentioned that... you mentioned basically the same comments about Android at that time. You said that you thought that it was promising, you liked what you saw, but that was at a time when there were a lot of questions about why AT&T wasn't in the OHA. I'm wondering if your thoughts, your opinions have changed since then. Has AT&T's direction with Android changed at all?
Ralph: No, actually, I think that they have been somewhat validated in that... we like the Android as an operating system on its own, but we want to make sure that we have, and customers have the option, to put applications on that device that are not just Google applications, so when the G1 came out and T-Mobile launched it, it's primarily a Google phone. And we want to give customers the choice of other applications on that device, not just the same Google applications.
Chris: So you're basically waiting for Android to be de-branded, so to speak?
Ralph: Well, to be open. (Laughter.) Right? I mean, the whole idea behind Android is that it's gonna be an open OS, and so I don't wanna roll an open OS to market that has primarily Google apps on it, and I think that's gonna happen. I mean, I see a lot of activity, I think it's got a good future, and I think it makes a lot of sense that the OS is open-source, separate from Google apps that are also very good.
Wow, they're REALLY doinitWRONG.
Didn't think it was possible to ef things up this bad with an android device but AT&T never ceases to disgust me.
EPIC FAIL!
@DoctarPeppar
My sentiments exactly! There really is nothing else they could have done to neuter this phone. What the fuck is ATT doing right now...all these amazing phones and they skip over them because of the iPhone. Avoiding Android like this can only hurt them. Reminds me why I left Verizon 3 years ago...they crippled all of their phones. Well, I guess when my 2 years are up with ATT Ill be heading back to Verizon...maybe.
@forg0tmypen
Your avatar is made of win.
@DoctarPeppar I really don't think what AT&T was thinking. This phone would of been 10x better if it would have been left with Motoblur.
AT&T, don't be gay. Seriously.
What's next, ATT Navigator instead of Googles Navigator when it updates to 2.1? If it updates to 2.1..
@DoctarPeppar
EXPLETIVE!! If AT&T keeps this course, and I'm sure they will, my November upgrade will be to a different carrier. My girlfriend can stay with them for her iPhone, but I will be going to VZW.
@DoctarPeppar
"Doing it wrong" depends on your qualification of that statement. "Doing it wrong", as far as being successful in the market? Absolutely. "Doing it wrong" as far as being a corporate whore for Apple? Nope, they're doing it perfectly.
AT&T might as well just re-brand itself "the iPhone company". Apple won't let them take any other phone seriously. Even their HTC selection, which they used to be far and above the best option for, is dwindling.
@AlexSanchez
"This phone would of been 10x better"
Would of? WTF is that supposed to mean?
@Hexydes
Doing it wrong refers to the what the company is doing to the consumer -- in almost all of my posts. It's US who need protection from these f-up companies like AT&T -- we give them our hard earned money that we worked for and they use it to stick broken broomsticks in our orifices and then proceed to plunge harder and harder until...well, you get the idea :)
@DoctarPeppar There's always T-Mo or Verizon. Verizon may have done stuff like this in the past but they don't anymore. If enough people switch to them then stuff like this won't matter.
@MarcusMaximus
Yep, I switch to VZW in december and have been lovin it ever since.
@DoctarPeppar Just another example of how fat AT&T has climbed up Apple's ass. They finally bow to pressure to have a competing platform on their service, but the cripple it to the point that nobody would want it. It appears they WANT the backflip to fail so they can use that failure to promote the iphone.
@smib My thoughts exactly! I was planning on moving from iPhone to Android once I could get a Nexus One or a similar phone on a decent network. AT&T has been great for me here, so I was thinking of holding on for the Desire, but if the Desire or Nexus One come out and have the same restrictions on them, I'll be switching to Verizon.
You just can't learn how to not piss off your customers can you AT&T?
@DoctarPeppar
So much for an "open source" OS... thankfully we can always root it...
@HerbieDerb Most definitely an epic fail. That's why I don't have an iPhone. The worst part of an iPhone is AT&T.
http://www.baduku.com/topics/motorola-backflip_240
Since there are several apk installers in the Marketplace, wouldn't it be easy to use one of those to install a non-Market app?
@cherryboom +1 for making irrelevancy, normalcy.
@cherryboom Pressing the Windows button leads you into the Start Menu, not a walled garden.
Irrelevancy.
@Hexydes
or maybe apple should buy att for service for their iphone... then they wont have to worry about other phones competing with it...
@zakany I don't think the phone will allow that if the "Unknown Sources" option isn't activated.
@DoctarPeppar
Did we really think, with the iPhone on AT&T, that Android can just swoop in and take Jobs' glory? I don't think so.
VZW FTW. 'Nuff said.
@DoctarPeppar
well ok drama queen, go to verizon, sprint, or t-mobile and quit whining. Seriously, competition drives innovation, not whining. If you keep paying them, they probably won't change their ways, now will they.
How to handicap Android. This is one of Android's biggest advantages... and they take it away... Those inglorious basterds ...
@DoctarPeppar IMO, this one still looks...well... I actually thought that backward folding was a stupid idea...but Motorola's design team is killer.
On the other hand, it’ll be wise to sleep over it before buying this one. Early concepts of backflip: http://bit.ly/motorola-backflip-core-function
@MarcusMaximus Or Sprint. Switched from T-Mo two years ago and loving the phones and the Simply Everything plan. Sprint also doesn't cripple the phones and allows the apps.
@Chip Yeah, but when AT&T bows to the pressure, does Apple bow as well? You know, given how far up Apple's ass AT&T is.
@Information Central
Don't you know we're dealing with a bunch of illiterate morons?
@beckhams777 rooting will be a pain though thanks to no non-market apps. Goldcard anyone?...
@AJerman nexus is google sold not at&t so no worries there
@Information Central
yep, still trying to understand how people come to use
would of
instead of would have
besides the possibility of them learning English verbally, and never read any book, or grammar, then transcribing what they heard. in which case, if not already pretty bad, they are doubled with hearing / comprehension issues.
it's horripilating!
Do you mean "how people have come to use?"
And those two sentences after? Seriously?
If you're going to correct someones grammar, try using some yourself.
This is American free market capitalism at work, guys. This is what we get.
Other countries, especially the "socialist" ones, have government regulations on things like exclusivity, bundling and such, and look what they've got to show for it... better phones and the inability to lock a phone model to one carrier.
Also, other countries' Coca-Cola contains real sugar, not HFCS. Another victim of the US free market capitalism (the corn market dictates that HFCS is cheaper than cane sugar).
So tell me, how is our system of "laissez faire" non-intervention better for the consumer again?
@HerbieDerb
If you have AT&T, you failed!
Idiots.
Honestly, I don't think AT&T knows that not all people want an iPhone...
@rock99rock
Motorola is also acting perfectly stupid as well. Case in point: signed bootloader for the European Droid (=Milestone). I'm not sure who all is to blame here.
@CaptainPlanet Maybe one reason a lot of people buy the iPhone is that it is the ONLY phone that AT&T sells that doesnt have AT&T crapware on it. Thats one reason I switched from Sony to Dell for my laptop a couple of months ago cause my last Sony had 32 preinstalled programs and the Dell only had 7. People want to buy a Motorola Backflip not a AT&T Backflip!
@rock99rock
Because you never owned an iPhone in the first place? LOL. Where are these plants spouting up from? VZW?
@Mikeserena You are aware that Sony has this thing called "Fresh Start" which means no-crapware ?
@NuShrike
Too bad Fresh Start is a $50 option that's only available with the W7 Pro upgrade. I don't feel like paying $200 to not have crap on my computer.
@CaptainPlanet This is a true story. My phone broke for like the 5th time the other day, and while all the previous times I'd managed to fix it, this time I thought it was really dead. So, being that I'm on an AT&T family plan with my wife, and that the only "upgrade" I was in line for was an early iPhone upgrade, I went and got an iPhone.
I returned it 36 hours later. I was frankly disgusted with it and wanted it out of my house as soon as possible. It literally has no redeeming qualities as far as what I'm looking for in a phone.
(When I decided I wanted to return the iPhone, I started trying to fix my old phone again, and I finally did.)
The guy at the store was like "oh my god i don't even!" when I brought it back in. He was like "you... you didn't like the phone??" He literally was stammering.
So no, they really don't know that not everybody wants an iPhone. They think it's God's gift to the world and we all should be thankful that they offer it to us.
On the other hand, his reaction suggests to me that not many people return them. Of course, that could have something to do with the fact that they lied to me about being able to return it - they told me I could only do it to upgrade to more MB. I noticed the receipt didn't say anything about that, though, so I contacted them online and they told me to bring it back. I wonder how many people keep these things because they think they have no choice.
@CaptainPlanet AT&T? I thought it was Apple. ;)
Backflop
Backtrack.
@SoulinEther backhand, to the customers.
@Meekermoloko
i blame AT&T: Apple Telephone & Telegraph
@Meekermoloko Back once again for the retrograde master.
@SoulinEther
Backslide.
Back to the lab again.
@Meekermoloko
Backwards