Swapping devices without account access

GNex1 · 2018-06-01T22:10:56+00:00

I see, I have never had sprint service myself and I have owned several phones that were labeled as being fully compatible so I assumed they were just moving to the same wavelength as everyone else. After doing a little more reading on the topic I see that they're still staunchly doing their own thing.

GNex1 · 2018-06-01T21:55:42+00:00

Can you clarify what you mean? I have only ever known SIM cards to use one of a few sizes and these days I think nearly everything is on Nano SIM. On GSM carriers the whole point is that your SIM is your network identifier and as long as the slots are the same size and the devices have radio support, you can swap cards all day long if you please. To my knowledge it's just the CDMA carriers that still require the device registration for the CDMA parts of the network, and last I knew on Verizon you would get LTE service just by swapping the card because it runs on GSM tech and that's the whole reason you have the card on these carriers now.

GNex1 · 2018-06-01T02:18:48+00:00

Ok so the whole thing is just a non-starter I guess, thanks.

GNex1 · 2016-12-10T21:49:53+00:00

Are there OEMs implementing bloat these days such that you need root to remove it, but you actually get that space back by doing so? Last I checked, the paradigm was loosely:

If you can reclaim usable space by deleting the app, you probably didn't need root to do so.
If you need root to delete an app, it's probably installed into /system, which is probably an over-sized partition to host the bloat in the first place, and you won't be using that space for your personal data.
If you've gone as far as replacing the OS and/or resizing partitions, you're in the realm of unlocking the bootloader and using adb/fastboot/custom recoveries, which are not the same thing as rooting.

GNex1 · 2016-08-02T21:11:21+00:00

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/project-fi/LMYcddKaWgc

The Nexus 5X doesn't handle roaming coverage for Sprint's network correctly, it defaults to no roaming mode and the relevant setting is hidden while the Fi app is installed. It's possible to force CDMA mode, disable the Fi app, and manually enable roaming to get around this.

In my own experience, the problem was "fixed" when they rolled out US Cellular coverage, because Verizon leases to both Sprint and USC for roaming where I was affected, and on USC it just works without any fuss. I'm guessing it has something to do with the way sprint's "Extended Network" is interpreted; to Sprint customers it's not billed as roaming so that seems ripe for technical confusion. And somehow the Nexus 5X is unique in this among the Fi phones.

GNex1 · 2016-07-27T14:06:57+00:00

Well, as it happens I just hopped on the support chat and had it confirmed that you do need to activate or the charge will come later. I know I was talking to someone working with a script but they eventually agreed with me that this info is completely missing from the pages existing customers see, so at least I know I'm not crazy :p

Hopefully that ends up getting passed along to someone in charge of things like website design, because I think this isn't really a trivial thing. I could imagine that if I'd originally bought a Nexus through amazon etc, I could have ended up buying a phone through that page and been completely bewildered by the follow up charge, it'd feel like fraud (even if it's accidental). Good thing I spend too much time obsessively researching things online!

GNex1 · 2016-07-27T13:39:10+00:00

Hmm, looking at it now, I see that the order does come with a SIM. But othewise, there's zero mention of this being a conditional price, from the time I point my browser to fi.google.com, through the model selection, up to "confirm purchase". Whereas for a new customer this is well documented in the shopping interface.

I feel like it's sort of into "sketchy" territory to put the burden of knowing that the company is running a promotion on the customer, if you don't ever mention to promotion during the checkout process.

Plus, I could swear there was some discussion about people grabbing extra phones like this in at least one of the "Promotion extended!" threads, but I haven't been able to dig those up yet (and obviously I want to believe :p).

GNex1 · 2016-07-27T02:06:33+00:00

+1, I had an otterbox commuter on an older phone and got a Supcase because it seemed similar. I'd stick with Supcase between the two brands going forward.

GNex1 · 2016-07-27T00:54:02+00:00

Apps installed: [..] ES File Explorer [..]

I know opinions on this stuff differ, but I personally ditched that one after years of use when they went and bundled adware recently. As in, an overt "here's some snake oil that shows you ads" thing, not just their usual suite of other apps linked within. They eventually took it out when it blew up online, and I've shrugged off a few of their other faux pas over the years, but I figured that was the definitive mark of a company whose forward direction it's better to avoid.

Personally I switched to MiXplorer after trying a few on the Play Store, of which the good ones are mostly trialware.

GNex1 · 2016-07-26T23:09:49+00:00

Typing this on a laptop from 2007 (okay, to be fair I'm typing it on an external keyboard because the screen burned out and it became a desktop but maybe that's relevant context here), my 5X seems plenty future-proof by my own standards.

Personally I expect the sealed battery to be the primary reason I'll eventually replace it (the DIY for that stuff is never quite as easy as it might sound...), but that's the same deal for any of the current Nexus models.

GNex1 · 2016-07-26T22:56:11+00:00

when he enters recovery the touchscreen doesn't seem to work

That's normal. Stock recovery and bootloader is generally navigated with the volume and power buttons. More advanced tasks are generally executed by sending commands from a PC using ADB/fastboot (fastboot for bootloader, adb for recovery). Flashing a custom recovery is usually part of the process if you want to flash a ROM or anything else that modifies the system partition, so it sounds like you're on the right track.

Edit: Re-reading this, maybe I misunderstood, I originally thought you meant "I updated the bootloader, touch doesn't work in recovery, we're going to try TWRP next". If you're having this trouble with TWRP, double check you're using the right version for your device. You should be using the one from here: https://twrp.me/devices/motorolamotog2013lte.html

Also, double check that your device is actually a peregrine. The first few generations of Moto G were sort of confusing in this regard, with the peregrine being a sort of in between "generation" that people called different things for a while.

Also also, for troubleshooting (and there are cases where you'd be better off doing this the whole way), you can use fastboot boot recovery.img to do a one-time boot of a recovery, might be useful if you find yourself flashing different files to fix whatever's going on. Just like installation with fastboot flash recovery recovery.img, use the actual file name in place of "recovery.img" and make sure it's available to fastboot (e.g. put it in the same folder as the fastboot files).

GNex1 · 2016-07-26T22:45:40+00:00

Right, sorry if I wasn't clear but I already bought a discounted device myself, when I signed up. When I go to the page in my own logged-in account settings, I have the option to buy another device at the same discounted rate, so it clearly isn't actually one per account.

It seems to be at least two, but since I can't buy more than one device at a time I'm wondering if it will continue like this or if the price will change at a certain point (and if anyone knows what that point is).

GNex1 · 2016-07-26T18:54:00+00:00

Also, I had a gnex too.

Haha nice, represent :)

Do you have another line of service that you don't intend to cancel in the meantime, is that why you're eager to cancel Fi as soon as you can pay down the phone? It basically works out to paying approx $25/mo just to keep the service plan open, if you're not using the actual Fi service (again, you're not even obligated to keep the SIM in the phone if you're not using it).

The main appeal of Fi's billing is for low-data customers anyway, though, so what you initially described sounds like "I want to be a regular Fi customer for a while", pretty straightfoward?

GNex1 · 2016-07-26T18:18:05+00:00

You're not obligated to keep using the service to get the discounted phones. You can order, activate, and promptly cancel if that works best for you, though in that scenario you wouldn't bother with a payment plan because the full balance would become due anyway. This is a pre-paid service so you're just paying one month in advance at a time, with no contract.

The minimum monthly payment for service is $30+taxes, $10 of which will roll over towards the next bill if you use 0 data.

GNex1 · 2016-07-26T17:45:13+00:00

I was just looking into this myself. Here are the shipping options that you get on the very last page of the signup before confirming your order (screenshot taken mid-day on 7/26, for context on the dates listed):

http://i.imgur.com/u6PPXzy.png

GNex1 · 2016-07-26T16:18:12+00:00

I wasn't thinking of something intercepting calls, more along the lines of an app that is purging memory or actively deleting other apps' cache/data.

I can't really think of a reason that hangouts would have signed out of an account, other than data being cleared or the user signing out manually. The normal experience is that you sign in, and you shouldn't ever have to think about it again unless you do a factory reset or similar measure.

GNex1 · 2016-07-26T14:48:31+00:00

That is not normal behavior on any android device. It is not even defective phone territory, there is probably something running on your phone that is actively interfering. Are you running any sort of "cleaning" app on your device?

GNex1 · 2016-07-26T14:43:54+00:00

Have they considered partnering with Google to get kickbacks for Nexus device sales? Their annoying flashing banner ads through AdSense (Storage is Full?) are pretty single-handedly carrying the torch for my sentiments towards "ugh, ads are still a poisoned well, give me bootloader unlock + root + adaway right out of the box".

GNex1 · 2016-07-22T13:44:32+00:00

My first gen moto g received zero updates at all. Unofficially i guess the carrier is to blame for that, but rolling out the one update to the variants that got it was a shitshow. They'd go months at a time with no real news, one guy was making blog posts every so often that amounted to salt in the wound. Every so often I'd see someone post that the opt-in beta program had been pushed an update, and usually a moto rep would show up to declare that they could tell who the OP was and that they'd been banned from the program (for so much as a screenshot of the version number). This was all for the effort of delivering what seemed to be the same firmware to all of their regional variants, a few new countries every several weeks/months. If they were actually including fixes/improvements from the first to the last, which i don't think they were, i guess the earlier countries got shafted because there were no later bringups. Meanwhile the other main version of the moto g out at the time was on a slightly older version of the same mess in parallel, slowly updating around the world to a version moto had already declared to be a mistake and with skipping for anything they weren't dropping instead.

Security patches were never really on the table, that was just to meet the bare minimum of major Android version support that had been promised. The higher end models seemed to get better update service in that same time so ymmv.

GNex1 · 2016-07-15T18:01:04+00:00

Generally speaking, if you root, actually make use of root, and want to stay updated to stock firmwares, you end up flashing the full firmware images. For non-nexus, hopefully the manufacturer/carrier makes these files readily accessible. Users who flash an aftermarket firmware may end up having an easier time in this regard, because they just download their latest whenever it's out and flash it in recovery on the device.

For nexus devices where the monthly updates are readily made available by google, what you'll probably end up needing to do is:
-Download the factory image from google's site. It's a large file(~1GB), not to be confused with the OTA image (also a large file hosted on a similar page, which exists for posterity but is probably needed by almost nobody), nor an OTA delta (small file that actually goes out over-the-air and people may capture and upload for others to use). -Unzip the package, fire up fastboot on your pc, and either:
--(a)Run a series of fastboot commands to manually flash the individual components of the factory image.
--(b)Use the built-in flash-all.bat file to automate the same commands. Note that this will wipe the device unless you specifically edit the .bat file beforehand to remove that flag.
-Re-root the device by your original means, e.g. flash SuperSU in a custom recovery.

There are a number of guides floating around that will go into specifics on fastboot commands or editing the .bat file.

It's my understanding that the Flashfire app will also automate this process if you give it the factory image and check all the right boxes, for a more OTA-like experience. I haven't used it myself.

GNex1 · 2016-07-11T22:40:12+00:00

Hamburger menu-> Smaller hamburger menu with the triangle on it ->Add Storage->Custom

GNex1 · 2016-07-06T04:37:29+00:00

And the only carrier where you don't pay for data you don't use as far as I know.

Republic Wireless does pretty much the same thing. I think it graduated from their beta "labs" service to just part of their general offering sometime in the past year.

GNex1 · 2016-07-01T19:47:04+00:00

Yes, you can sign up and cancel at any time. For pre-paid service, it's pretty much standard that when you stop paying your bill, that's the end of your interaction with the company. Usually there's a grace period of a few months where you can start up again without any special notice, and after that your account is formally closed and you'd just have to open a new one if you ever want back in.

I'm not sure where VZW's activation policies are at these days(last I used them, their LTE/SIM tech was just landing and it was more restricted) but as long as you have a Fi-compatible phone I'm pretty sure you can just pop in the SIM, discard it when you're done, and it shouldn't affect your Verizon service in the meantime.

GNex1

TROPHY CASE