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Comment by shooper | Hacker News Reader

There is plenty of such software on the Play Store.

E.g. Rom managers such as this one. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.koushikdut...

> I don't know WTF the cyanogenmod team was thinking, non-technical people messing with CM will just lead to negative press.

I know atleast three people who tried to install Linux and formatted their Windows partition in the process. So you mean Linux CDs and DVDs should never have been bundled with magazines?

I don't think there's any danger of grandma seeking out CM and going through the process to install it. CM has over 8M installs, having a handful of bricking incidents is nothing at that scale.

Hopefully this has nothing to do with CM making its own handsets http://www.rethink-wireless.com/2013/09/20/cyanogen-aims-cre...

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That's a terrible analogy.

Firstly, a PC != mobile phone.

This isn't a bloody OpenMoko phone - this is a working consumer device that's sold to you as a "dumb" device. It's like buying a television or DVD player, flashing some weird third-party firmware, then taking it back and saying, gee, it just stopped working...

Or flashing your car's ECU chip.

The manufacturer is certainly not expected to fix your mistake. They might for goodwill, but they have no obligation to.

Yes, there is certainly a danger in the proverbial grandma flashing her phone (why do we always pick on grandma's? I mean, geez, Hopper Grace was a grandma wasn't she? Lol).

I've seen countless phones soft-bricked by bad flashes. It's like upgrading your BIOS - if you get unlucky, or the power goes, you're SOL.

Google's just being responsible. The whole point of Android is that you can sideload ADB's easily.

Think of it as a entry test - if you can't load a non-PlayStore ADB onto your handset, you have absolutely no business installing a custom ROM.

Put it this way - you ask me how to flash your car's ECU.

I say, well, firstly, you need to pop open the bonnet and read me some numbers. And then you said to me, "Gee, how do I do that? I've never popped a bonnet open".

My next thought would probably be, "Err, are you really sure you want to flash your car's ECU?".

Cheers, Victor

Actually, it's quite a good analogy. I have installed Linux on half a dozen newly purchased PCs and was just recently flummoxed by UEFI and trying to retain a Windows partition. I had to make an informed decision to do without Windows entirely on this latest machine. The effort to install an aftermarket ROM is similar.

No it's not a good comparison because you cannot brick a PC installing Linux. At most you lose any data that wasn't backed up, but you can then just use the normal recovery discs to get your machine back (which is a process the average user is expected to do every few years anyway - if just to fix the natural decay of Windows)

> E.g. Rom managers such as this one.

That particular ROM Manager requires having root and an unlocked bootloader prior to use while the CM installer does not. That alone is a big difference, since it implies someone should be aware slightly of what they're doing if they have gotten past the unlocking/rooting stage.

The only thing that matters is who pays when someone bricks his device with that software.

And those users are surely not expecting that they are going to pay themselves, since they installed the software from the official Google Play store.

What CM does (doesn't matter if intentionally or not) is externalizing the cost for support to Google and the device manufacturers, since they themselves are not willing to replace or repair devices that have been bricked by their own software.

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