[T-Mobile Sidekick 4G] Falkner09:
so, i'm done &%$#ing around with the crapware Samsung hacks onto their phones. I appreciate the work some of you guys have done with roms on this device, but the facts is its all just reskinned and modded versions of an android that's been made innately flawed. the Titanic's deck chairs have been beautifully rearranged, but it's still going down. case in point: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1286443

as such, i've decided to offer a bounty (that hopefully others can add a little here and there to) to he who first gets true stock android (minimum 2.2 or higher) running on this phone. i'm starting the bidding at $75, to be paid over paypal, or check in the mail or whatever. if you can make it 2.3, I'll throw in another $25.

terms: as stated, minimum 2.2, REAL stock, root, with the stock apps and nothing else. it must be fully functional and stable (and not just "well it's stable compared to X piece of crap" I mean nearly nexus stable.) I'll need to test it of course, I'm thinking for a week a week and a half or so. at that point, if I can determine that you've reasonably satisfied the terms, you win. the offer's up until/unless a comparable phone (min. 1ghz, real keyboard and all 4 real face buttons) is hacked to run true stock, or is officially released with stock, but it doesn't look like OEMs will get their heads far enough out for that very soon. also you have to be the first, although if someone beats you, but then you get a newer stock version on it under the above terms, you can still have the bonus, which I may increase. note there's also the issue of the Sidekick's Jump button. I imagine some will want it to be a search button, but I find that the trackball click works better for that, and I kind of like the Jump menu coming up with a list of all recently used apps. so I would like it if you could keep that function if possible, or something like it. EDIT I previously stated that my bounty was up to $200 if you can get ICS on the Sidekick with the Jump button launching the app switcher menu. However, the news just broke that ICS on the Galaxy Nexus has no USB mass storage support. I don't know if it's because ICS in general can't do it, will eventually be able to do it with an update, or because of a particular issue with that one phone. But I'm not going to tolerate a downgrade to iPhone level functionality, so the ICS bounty is only valid if it has USB storage working.

as stated above, I'd love to encourage the community to add to the pot as well, do that and we can really get this thing jump started. most recent bounty amount as of October 23, the community's pledges plus mine has increased the bounty to at least $155 (plus an unspecified amount from vicmora) for 2.2, and $255 for 2.3., and $380 for ICS (4.0) (with USB mass storage). also, an extra $25 in addition to all that from the86d if you give us the option of the dialer he wants (check post 12) *edit* btw guys, if you do want to add to the pot, please say how much, just so we can keep track for the devs.

*NOTE* to those who will say it can't be done, we don't have firmware leaks, blah blah blah: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yO2KQHkt4A in addition, some have even managed to install Android on the iPhone. if we can install Android on an iPhone, we can install Android on an Android phone. also, yesterday the Cyanogen team released 7.1, which works on a ridiculous amount of phones, including the laughably craptastic motorola backflip, which has a 528 MHz processor and was only upgraded officially to Android 2.1. now, if you scroll to the bottom of the page, you'll notice an icon, just below the message list, saying "Next Thread>>" please use this button to lead, follow, or get out of the way.