inportb

The day my G1 arrived in the mail, I discovered that it was useless without activation and that I needed a data plan to activate it. Now I’m fulfilling all my mobile networking needs over WiFi, as well as using the G1 as a phone. Though this has been confirmed many times, the issue is complicated by contradicting claims by T-Mobile.

This Should Not Be Possible

According to T-Mobile, the G1 would not be functional without their G1 data plan. Even if you have an activated phone, it would stop working the moment you disable the data service. But who would want to use a phone that becomes a dead brick the moment one enters the subway system or goes on a plane trip? As implausible this sounds, many people still believe the claims of the company that’s trying really hard to sell their value-added services.

(continue reading…)

Most embedded mobile devices have an option to automatically lock the interface when idle to prevent accidental access, and the Android-powered G1 is no exception. Interestingly, some people actually want to disable this feature. There’s no direct interface to this setting, however. While tinkering with the Setup Wizard applet, I may have stumbled upon a hack.

1. using AnyCut, create a shortcut to the activity “Setup Wizard”
2. launch “Setup Wizard”
3. unplug+replug the battery and power on the device

The applet apparently disables the lock and re-enables it when it finishes. I wanted the screen lock back so I simply ran “Setup Wizard” again, this time completing the procedure.

Note that this method also disables the manual lock triggered by pressing the End button.

December 29th, 2008: Incidentally, other people have noticed strange effects after a botched Setup Wizard. The folks at xda-developers have experienced similar effects, but their connection to Setup Wizard is at the moment unconfirmed.