The G’zOne Boulder is Verizon’s first phone to receive Firmware Over The Air (FOTA) updates. Verizon began testing FOTA earlier this year, making it the last national carrier to adopt some form of over-the-air updating.
The idea of FOTA is simple, to work like the software update function on a computer. When an update is available, the user is prompted, and told that they should install the update. While PhoneNews.com has pushed the industry for FOTA support for nearly five years; there are key things that FOTA must be able to do, in order to be successful. Primarily, it should check for updates automatically, prompting the user when an update is available. Many phones have FOTA, but the user needs to know how to check for updates in order for it to work.
However, Verizon Wireless appears to have broken that rule, in a new way. It appears that Verizon Wireless phones will now initiate FOTA updates without the user’s consent. We confirmed tonight that our G’zOne Boulder initiated a firmware update, without our consent. We had no way of stopping the update until after it was completed.
This is anti-consumer on several levels. One, a firmware update can damage a phone, rendering it useless. Having an update happen during a businesss-critical situation could cause serious financial… and possibly, personal harm. Someone could die, and that’s not a joke… if a phone were to update, and the update were to damage the phone. We don’t want to wait for the first time someone wants to call 911, only to find their phone is updating, or was damaged in an update.
Second, an update can erase user content. We have seen this countless times, with Verizon Wireless updates in particular. This includes purchased content from Verizon’s Media Center (Get-it-Now aka BREW).
Third, an update can have unwanted behavior. A user may not want some feature added, removed, or change in the manner that Verizon updated a device. We have seen this on several phones.
We cannot urge users enough to complain, both to Verizon, and to the FCC, as well as to spread the word with a Digg, about this legally dubious behavior. As Microsoft learned with the Xbox, a device runs into legal issues when it updates itself without user consent. After class action suits, Microsoft was forced to prompt users before updating their Xbox consoles, due to unwanted behavioral changes added by Microsoft to the Xbox console in later software versions.
To be clear, our editorial review of this method of updating, finds it to be illegal. We cannot insist enough that it is dangerous, and must be halted. A phone is not a cable box, it is a lifeline that someone paid in full to own.
What is the solution? Simple. Verizon phones should check for updates automatically. But, they should prompt the user, and ask them if they want to install the update. That way, someone on a mountain expedition, or someone half way around the world on a business trip, doesn’t have to worry about their phone being bricked or altered in any way, by a software update.
that’s a great post! first great post i ever read on here. even though i don’t have vzw. i hope they fix this. god forbid anyone is killed due to this.
Verizon = Skynet
It is actually a legal issue. The device must prompt the user before entering a state when 911 calls cannot be made and must warn the user of such.
If the device is not capable of making 911 calls during the upgrade and the user was not warned, users can sue, and the FCC can issue fines.
Nice catch.
Very informative post Chris. Not sure what VZW sees in an auto update which the end user can not only chose when to install but if they want to install. My guess would be this is the first, last, and only update of its kind. I doubt they want to get their legal team involved.
First of all Chris… please…. This site is so anti-Verizon its hilarious. You are so far into Sprint that you can’t understand anything other than how to screw or belittle the other guy. Which is really the only way of defending a carrier whom is in the throes of death. Verizon’s FOTA system, if you would have inquired(oh wait, no one at VZW would have commented because A. you’re not a real journalist and B. you’ve burnt every bridge within the major carriers except SN; does not JUST auto-update. The system gives you TWO chances to postpone the update. It will prompt once and if you don’t reply, begin the update. If you postpone the first one, the second notification comes 24-48 hours later, and if you postpone again, it will auto-update on the third attempt without option to delay. This is more than fair warning for a consumer. The other option is to go to the menu and select the autoupdate after the first notification to avoid any interruption during that important life saving call to report a bicyclist on the sidewalk.
Brandon…. your comment is just BS. I ran this past our technical guys this morning to see if there is even a spec of truth… sorry buddy, that was pulled straight from your arse. Otherwise any Palm phone, HTC device, or other phone that contains Music Only or Airplane Mode would have to notify you when you turn the radio off.
I just love it when someone posts that we’re pro-Sprint. And then two articles later someone posts how we’re anti-Sprint. Same thing with Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, yadda, yadda.
Our only bias is to the consumer.
When you enable Music Only or Airplane Mode, that is an expressed consent from the user to turn the phone’s radio off. That has nothing to do with this situation.
Finally, Verizon’s system absolutely, positively, does indeed auto-update without the user’s consent. I can’t make that any more clear. We witnessed this ourselves, with our own Boulder last night. Over a dozen Boulder owners have confirmed that with us today, none of them agreed to have the update put on their phones.
Plus, your assertion that it “auto updates on the third prompt” is rubbish. Every day prior to the update (including 2 PM yesterday), I ran the Check for Updates feature on my G’zOne Boulder, and it said that no updates were available.
I’ve never seen someone post so much false info in a single comment on PhoneNews.com. Every single thing you wrote was completely incorrect.
I am so glad chose AT&T over Verizon (even though I get a fat discount on service and devices from Verizon).
COmbine this with Verizon crippling devices (GPS on the 6800, anyone?) and I have to wonder why anyone would ever choose Verizon.
If coverage is the same in your area, why on earth would anyone ever choose Verizon over AT&T?
great article chris. this has class action lawsuit written all over it. the only time i ever updated anything while on verizon was going into the store to add speaker capabilities to the original launch lg chocolate. in my opinion, firmware updates does more harm than good. while fixing or adding features others get damaged mostly battery life. at least for my last 2 phones. hopefully fota doesnt end up messing up peoples phones.
Keep living in a dream world Chris. I am sure that a couple hundred product managers are wrong and you’re right. I own a boulder as well; and the prompts happened just as I said. This was a mass critical update that was required to improve functionality of the phone as the ODM did not have this phone ready for primetime as I understand it. Look for a lot more of these, but next time “report” what happens, not what you conceptualize.
Competitor Guy,
I just bought the phone myself and was subjected to the same autoupdate, with no prompting from myself. The fact that the phone forces the update because as you state, “it wasn’t ready for primetime” speaks to the incompetence and potentially dangerous train of thought within the product development team.
I hope the next auto-update doesn’t leave me with a dead phone…
[…] Posts Just a head’s up on Verizon and FOTA. We are working with Verizon to deliver a complete update to you. There are still a few things that […]
There are a variety of FOTA updating methods out in the market now. People are getting extremely positive FOTA experiences with Nokia’s N78 3G smartphone. Read below:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/mobile-gadgeteer/?p=1222
June 25, 2008: “The update downloaded, something like 1.7MB, and installed flawlessly with all of my settings, applications, and personalizations in place and working like a champ. This is the way I would like to see all mobile phone updates and am very happy to see Nokia making over-the-air updates available.â€
http://symbianworld.wordpress.com/2008/06/25/nokia-n78-over-the-air-update-available/
June 25, 2008: “I think this new way of getting a firmware for your Nokia-device via wireless-lan is great and should be added to more devices. What do you think about getting new firmwares directly over the air?â€
June 29, 2008: “I think firmware over the air (WiFi) is a great idea. I wish I could do it with my N95 (I think I can’t, am I right?).
Thanks for the info.â€
So eventually Verizon will do something like cripple GPS, everyone will flash a custom ROM to enable GPS, and Verizon will “update” the firmware over the air- crippling GPS again.
The FCC needs to step in and do something about these “automatic” updates.
We don’t have an update just yet… but I would agree that people should file an FCC complaint against this. When enough people file them, they are quite effective.
And, despite mob wisdom, it’s actually pretty simple to do… just go to fcc.gov and take 15 of your minutes to help make the wireless industry better.
If everyone is saying it just updates before prompting you, you just might have a defective phone. I have a Boulder along with many coworkers at my company, and none out of the 39 devices we purchased from Verizon gave us any problems with not prompting twice first. But go ahead and take the 1-2 examples you have and keep feeding the fire; deterring other people from getting what we all here at our company as a well put together device. The very few people whom are actually experiencing a problem not prompting first: Get off your lazy ___ and get a warranty replacement! Gies. All the time you spent complaining on this blog, you could have already exchanged the device, and had your problem fixed already.
[…] you’re in a natural disaster, or in a dangerous situation… it’s just as bad as a derelict cell phone that decides to update brick itself. So, give users a little bit of leeway, but set requirements […]
[…] Our original reporting on Verizon Wireless’s issues surrounding forced firmware updates have sparked controversy. […]
[…] update also echos our previous coverage of Verizon’s FOTA implementation, which can be used to update devices without the […]
All I want to do is hack my boulder and get modify veriozons horrifically terrible firmware. How can this be done?
Billy, there is no generic firmware available… so, you can’t. It would take PCD or Casio Hitachi to leak both the service tools, and the generic firmware to enable this.
There actually may not be a generic firmware in existence. The phone originated on KDDI in Japan, and the Verizon firmware is suspected to be modified from that.
Just to add some info, the fimware is in fact directly taken from Casio’s KDDI build and modified for Verizon so there is no generic firmware at all for flashing.
I know this is an older thread but it is now June of 2010 & My Gzone Boulder has the same issue with Auto updating. Also it seems any firmware above 14 or 15 seems to have alot of issues & there does not seem to be a way to Downgrade the firmware =(
[…] type of automatic forced update is the first one to be found on an Android device and is dangerous, as a broken download or bad update risks damaging the phone to the point where it will not […]