[Fascinate Android Development] SirGatez:
***Short version of rant, I am not developing for Thunderbolt for at least 3 months***

Yes HTC does have a track record of being a more developer friendly device. I think in fact I will be seeing CM7 for it before 3 whole months pass, all without any work of mine. I have at this moment no reason to develop for the Thunderbolt, everyone else is doing that already, there are at least 7 kernels out right now, and yes most of those instrumental in helping to push work on the Fascinate forward now indeed have switched those efforts over to work on a device who will see greater leaps and bounds in accomplishments than the Fascinate ever saw during their work on it. All because a company like HTC is able and willing to embrace the true spirit of open source more openly. The only thing truly holding back a full AOSP on the Thunderbolt at the moment is the non-opensource code used in the HTC RIL driver, but thebirdman is working on it and I think he will resolve that issue in short order.

No I do not intend to do any development on the Thunderbolt right now or in the next few months, I have way too much going on in my life right now. I will continue to invest my spare time in working on the Fascinate, and by making the Thunderbolt my everyday device I no longer have to be concerned with accidentally soft-bricking it during testing, or worry about missed calls or texts that I need to respond too quickly as the Fascinate will not be my communications lifeline. It means if I screw up the kernel and can't boot my device that I don't have to hustle to fix it and drop everything on my way to work hoping I can reflash my phone before I get to the office so I can at least catch my calls and texts.

I have too much work invested on this phone to simply quit as soon as the next thing comes out. I do not consider the Thunderbolt to even be the next big thing either, so why did I get it?

***End of rant***

***Warning this is a long rant about 4G and unlimited data***

Rumor has it and even big red's talking heads have been quoted saying that VZW will be capping the 4G plans later this year. So no more will VZW have an unlimited 4G smartphone plan, heck they may not have an unlimited 3G smartphone plan either, but I have 3G smartphones that I latch onto an unlimited 3G plan before such a change, but with everything going 4G I did not have a 4G phone to get grandfathered in. Well I do not want to be without unlimited 4G because I find it all too often that I exceed 5GB a month on my data plan, this device just does so much it is hard not to put it down. I download several hundred megabytes of compressed files, even a few torrents, mp3s, I sync data on my amazon cloud (already several gigs of music on it). I will not be without unlimited 4G if I can control it because 5GB isn't going to cut it, one month I exceeded 20GB (on 3G, imagine once I get 4G service/speeds!!!) and was just floored I could be capable of that on a smartphone. When cell carriers have 20GB or more a month for $29.99 I'll be less concerned with unlimited, but right now it is important I plan ahead or I will be leaving smartphones all together, because I will not pay $29.99 for 5GB just for the smartphone, I will revert to dumb phones and just use wifi on my old smartphones for internet.

***End of rant***

***New rant about Thunderbolt vs Fascinate***

Was it worth it to upgrade to the Thunderbolt? Depending on what you need yes or no. If the Thunderbolt had no 4G would I have purchased one? No, the specs are just too close to the Fascinate, and the Fascinate can do so much more than what we do with it right now. The Fascinate is a viable competitor to the Thunderbolt as far as speed and specs go, the only real advantage to the Thunderbolt in regards to specs is the increased ram, more internal space, and larger SD card. The Thunderbolt also has a front facing camera for video conferencing if you need one, then there is the 4G if you get 4G service. Other than that the devices are fully capable of being in the same weight class, plus the Fascinate has a slimer, smoother, and lighter figure than the Thunderbolt.

***End of rant***

The upgrade is almost a bit of a sidegrade to be honest because so much is the same, heck in a few months all the new devices will probably have dual cores, qHD displays, 1080P video recording, and likely 10 megapixel pics. Dwarfing both of these devices. In actuality both devices are fully capable of handling most of what we will deal with over the next year or two still. I have Gingerbread CM7RC on my old Moto Droid and you would be surprised how it runs when compared to back when it ran Eclair. I almost got a Galaxy Tab or a Moto Xoom, I picked up the Thunderbolt as an upgrade for about $150 (nice discount eh?), could have got the Tab for $99, or the Xoom for about $450, but the Xoom was still way to much to me, and the Tab doesn't have 4G so I miss my grandfathered boat if prices do go up as I fear.

If I could get a Tab I could be working on it with the Fascinate though, as the codebase is nearly identical, if anyone has a decent offer I am interested :-) You can PM me any offers and if accepted we'll close it up using official channels, I'm also on the prowl for a previously owned AT&T iPhone4G/iPad to play with who's owner has grown to have lack of desire for the device. Keep in mind I only want legal, working, and accurately described, clean devices, not something you claimed insurance on because you lost it for a week because that illegal and I may want to activate it later down the road.

This ended up being a lot longer than I originally intended it to be. My point is that I am going to continue Fascinate development and have no plans to stop. I know progress sucks but it's not just mine everyone who has taken on this device has learned that feeling. I hate that Samsung doesn't go ahead and offer us full source instead of snippets. Have you heard btw? Gingerbread is already announced for GalaxyS European users....joy of joy :-P Any luck they pulled a page from the Nexus S and dropped all the BS FSR/FSR_STL/BML/RFS crap and maybe if the US Cellular sees source we will get a true opensource AOSP version. In the meantime however I'll do the best I can to remove this crap from Froyo and push towards a more AOSP style. I may even join the Gingerbread bandwagon and help Kaos, the sensors issue seems like it is one of those trivial I can't believe I didn't see it earlier moments like I have had before where I spent 2 weeks solving a 30 second problem ;-) I Gotta tell you I hate those problems LOL.

I also want to thank everyone that still believes in those like myself trying to push the Fascinate further, rmtobler, Gizmodroid, s44, nemisis2all, and many others who are still with us, and *lowers his head* those who have left us. A moment of silence for them.........

Hmmm...I guess this is what happens when I don't post for a little bit eh?...Oh well, a page in a novel, that is all :-)