Related
Please see the full thread here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=735830
But this sums up where this project is at:
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ok guys.. some bad news.. Talked with Matt2 on a business level and after i went over some figures with him, my calculations were so far off.. i should be on mars..
The break even point for this project is 275+/- 10/12 extras.
I have been saying 150 and I am not sure where I got that unless I was not calculating the shipping since I did free shipping.
We are at 129 at the time of writing this.
So here is my question, I have always said, I will refund if we stop this without it being made. We had over 350+ that wanted this.
My initial thought was to spend the several hours tonight to just cancel/refund.. but then I figured we came this far. I also go on vacation Sept 10-18.
So what I propose, today is the 11th of August. Lets give it till the 25th of August. 2 Weeks... If we are not even close, then I will spend the next 2 days refunding..
So listen.. if anyone out there wants this.. buy it now.. or it will not get made.. To all of those that did buy.. sorry its taking so long, your money is safe. I am not out to steal anything, I just want the door to be made.
Thanks
Joe
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Thats crazy man but just like your saying, i actually am one of the dudes who said he was going to order one and i havent been on XDA in awhile, sorry i didnt see the thread but ill put an order in for one now. Best of luck, i hope we make it.
I'm sure though that if you made 275 you wouldn't have any problem at all selling them, both on here and on ebay. I'm surprised you have as many preorders as you do, considering you don't have a product to ship.
I just ordered mine. Can't wait to see it!
sketchy sketchy
yea dont forget about all the people not on xda or the other forums your doing this on. if you get close enough where you can afford to invest a little, do it and sell the rest after they are made.
DomSim said:
sketchy sketchy
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STFU! GET OFF THE BOARDS!
go back in the hairy little hole you crawled out of.
Joey has been upfront with all of us following this project from the start. He is human like the rest of us. first time he has done something like this and im sure he now knows to "measure twice cut once" always check the numbers and check them again to be sure... so we will wait it out and see what happens not a big deal!
We didnt even know if it was going to make production after the first couple days because so many VOTED YES TO THE PROJECT AND THEN DISAPPEARED when it came time to pony up for the pre-order. If people would have kept their word about ordering they would be in production already!
Joey....how many people actually place an order of the 359 that originally voted yes?
Would raising the price of each one by a couple of bucks per door get them to the target without needing more preorders?
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
sprink0281 said:
STFU! GET OFF THE BOARDS!
go back in the hairy little hole you crawled out of.
Joey has been upfront with all of us following this project from the start. He is human like the rest of us. first time he has done something like this and im sure he now knows to "measure twice cut once" always check the numbers and check them again to be sure... so we will wait it out and see what happens not a big deal!
We didnt even know if it was going to make production after the first couple days because so many VOTED YES TO THE PROJECT AND THEN DISAPPEARED when it came time to pony up for the pre-order. If people would have kept their word about ordering they would be in production already!
Joey....how many people actually place an order of the 359 that originally voted yes?
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I am not sure of the numbers. I dont mind investing my own $ into it.. But I am just trying to get alot closer to that break even point.. If I sell more after, thats great but tbh, I am doing this as a community buy... not trying to get rich (not that I think that is even possible)
backdown said:
Would raising the price of each one by a couple of bucks per door get them to the target without needing more preorders?
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
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Or not giving us the multiple discount id give the 2$ back if need be...
sprink0281 said:
Or not giving us the multiple discount id give the 2$ back if need be...
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no, either of those would help but still not enough. thanks for the offer though
sprink0281 said:
Or not giving us the multiple discount id give the 2$ back if need be...
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Yeah, I would love to have these, even if it does mean I sacrifice 2$
Joey, if you don't mind disclosing, how much money down you need to get these produced?
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA Appw
backdown said:
Yeah, I would love to have these, even if it does mean I sacrifice 2$
Joey, if you don't mind disclosing, how much money down you need to get these produced?
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA Appw
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Click to collapse
14.99 * 275 = X
115 sold * 14.99 = Y
X-Y = what is left
joey3002 said:
14.99 * 275 = X
115 sold * 14.99 = Y
X-Y = what is left
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Click to collapse
So is "X" literally "Breaking Even" for you guys?
sprink0281 said:
STFU! GET OFF THE BOARDS!
go back in the hairy little hole you crawled out of.
Joey has been upfront with all of us following this project from the start. He is human like the rest of us. first time he has done something like this and im sure he now knows to "measure twice cut once" always check the numbers and check them again to be sure... so we will wait it out and see what happens not a big deal!
We didnt even know if it was going to make production after the first couple days because so many VOTED YES TO THE PROJECT AND THEN DISAPPEARED when it came time to pony up for the pre-order. If people would have kept their word about ordering they would be in production already!
Joey....how many people actually place an order of the 359 that originally voted yes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
whoa there man, little crazy of a response dont you think. i am entitled to my opinion that this is sketchy. if you dont agree fine, but personal unprovoked attack is a bit much dont you think?
If you would have followed for the past month + you would see this is not sketchy.. I have kept everyone updated the entire time... And how can a complete refund be sketchy?
Sent from evo using xda app
DomSim said:
whoa there man, little crazy of a response dont you think. i am entitled to my opinion that this is sketchy. if you dont agree fine, but personal unprovoked attack is a bit much dont you think?
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Calling someone sketchy is a personal attack.... joey has been upfront with us every step of the way...I only gave you some of your own medicine. That's all nothing more..
It aggravating when you watch someone work their ass off for the community on a project and have half of the people disappear who were supposed to order, then have you call this guy sketchy when hes done nothing but try to make us happy by seeing this project through any way he can... nobody else even came close to a comment like yours.
I followed the thread, saw all the updates, saw members commit money with delay after delay. I understand **** takes time but every post was "here is a final prototype but yours wont look like this" point is, promising something, taking peoples money, then GOING ON VACATION to wait it out IS sketchy whether you can admit it on not. You seem to have a serious personal stake in this or with the op but from an outside perspective it IS sketchy. If the op falls through and refunds everyones money then fine, that doesn't mean the situation was any less sketchy.
You say it wasn't sketchy because he kept everyone up to date, guess what, so do Nigerien scammers. Him keeping everyone updated is not a fool proof reassurance.
Sorry bro. Been holding out until I could see the finished product. Went ahead and ordered because I really want one. Thanks for the time an effort. Will tell my buddies with evos.
If you don't want one, don't send him money and leave the thread. I don't see how hard that is. And it's not that hard to get money back through paypal.
Sent from my Evo, using the xda app
DomSim said:
I followed the thread, saw all the updates, saw members commit money with delay after delay. I understand **** takes time but every post was "here is a final prototype but yours wont look like this" point is, promising something, taking peoples money, then GOING ON VACATION to wait it out IS sketchy whether you can admit it on not. You seem to have a serious personal stake in this or with the op but from an outside perspective it IS sketchy. If the op falls through and refunds everyones money then fine, that doesn't mean the situation was any less sketchy.
You say it wasn't sketchy because he kept everyone up to date, guess what, so do Nigerien scammers. Him keeping everyone updated is not a fool proof reassurance.
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This will be my last reply to you...
This was not a person that had one post and decided to start asking for peoples money..before this went to pre-order he told us of his VACATION and possible delivery dates. I have been involved with community generated projects in the past and they all involved a pre-order because these types of projects are not cheap to get started and not done to make an initial profit, they are to help get something made the community wants and doesn't exist, once the community is taken care of then you try to make money from the project by exploring different ways to market said item at a significantly higher price. He is not a prince from Nigeria sending unsolicited emails trying to get my bank info so that comparison was completely stupid AND HE IS USING PAYPAL! Wait did I mention PAYPAL! Nobody had to western union him cash or transfer cash into his account, so we feel very confident because at the end of the day if this doesn't get to production we WILL ALL GET OUR MONEY BACK BECAUSE HE USED PAYPAL! Easy for him to refund our money and has buyer protection. My personal stake in this -- I want a unique clear and colored battery door for my evo, made in the USA sold in the USA by someone in the community who actually followed thru! Joey took a poll to see how many people would buy one and it was more than enough for this project to move forward! It is not his fault that some people are not doing their part of the project and pre-ordering to get these to production.
Like I said this is my last response to you regarding this thread...you are officially on my ignore list.
I think Rovio needs to be punished for taking so long to come to WP7. Pandas vs Ninjas is as good as Angry Birds so show support for Devs who support WP7!
Plus the fact that it's so cheap, will force Rovio/MS to reduce the price of Angry Birds. Otherwise they're toast.
I like Chicks 'n' Vixens.
digger1985 said:
Plus the fact that it's so cheap, will force Rovio/MS to reduce the price of Angry Birds. Otherwise they're toast.
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You guys are funny. They could price it $8 (which would be ridiculous) it would still be the best selling game on WP7, that's what you call the power of the brand. There are alternatives we know that but they're not Live enabled and again there's the power of the name "Angry Birds". Believe me Rovio and Microsoft won't feel no pressure at all.
^ Agreed. And for all the bs that Angry Birds takes.. I have yet to see a game come out as complete as it, and as addicting as it. Yes, Chicks n Vixens is cute, we understand that. And this Panda thing looks pretty nice too. But Angry Birds is on an entirely different level to be honest. They just have it down packed... And the fact that they've released so many updates, and have so many variations is ridiculous. I hope all of those come packaged for us...
FiyaFleye said:
^ Agreed. And for all the bs that Angry Birds takes.. I have yet to see a game come out as complete as it, and as addicting as it. Yes, Chicks n Vixens is cute, we understand that. And this Panda thing looks pretty nice too. But Angry Birds is on an entirely different level to be honest. They just have it down packed... And the fact that they've released so many updates, and have so many variations is ridiculous. I hope all of those come packaged for us...
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I think you mean down pat?
phoenixnr said:
I think you mean down pat?
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^ that - lol
FiyaFleye said:
And the fact that they've released so many updates, and have so many variations is ridiculous. I hope all of those come packaged for us...
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Click to collapse
They won't. We are getting Poached Eggs, The Mighty Hoax, Danger Above, and The Big Setup. It was already announced that we're getting 195 levels, which is what those episodes contain.
We won't be getting Hang 'em High (45 levels), Rio (30 levels and counting) or Seasons (not sure how many levels), at least not now. They may come later, but they will unquestionably cost extra.
My guess is that the price we will see in the Marketplace when it hits next month will be $4.99, compared with $0.99 on iOS and $0 on Android.
RoboDad said:
They won't. We are getting Poached Eggs, The Mighty Hoax, Danger Above, and The Big Setup. It was already announced that we're getting 195 levels, which is what those episodes contain.
We won't be getting Hang 'em High (45 levels), Rio (30 levels and counting) or Seasons (not sure how many levels), at least not now. They may come later, but they will unquestionably cost extra.
My guess is that the price we will see in the Marketplace when it hits next month will be $4.99, compared with $0.99 on iOS and $0 on Android.
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Click to collapse
Eh...I love Angry Birds, but I don't believe I would pay that much to play it on any platform. I'm already playing several versions of AB on my iPhone and Inspire. Playing it on WP7 just wouldn't be enough incentive to dish out the dough.
I know. I don't think it is worth that either, but it's being released as an Xbox Live title, and all of those are grossly overpriced. If they prove me wrong and release it at 99 cents, I'll happily eat some crow , but I seriously doubt that will happen.
I did find the enthusiasm to go ahead and install Pandas v Ninjas. Glad I did. It's a really nice controlling game. With some graphic and audio refinement...the ninja grunts are annoying...lol...it would be as good as AB.
I would totally pay 5 bucks for Angry Birds even though it's free on Android and $0.99 on iPhone... I just don't care too much about 5 dollars and the more money a developer can make on WP7, the more interest they'll have in developing for WP7. I spend $5 on one trip to Starbucks. For the hours of gameplay I get for $5, it's totally worth it.
Are people serious about not buying the game because it's a few dollars more on WP7 than on other platforms? Why would you pass up a great game because it's cheaper elsewhere? That's like choosing to not buy an XBox game at Gamestop because Wal-Mart has it cheaper... even though there's no Wal-Mart close to you.
thesecondsfade said:
Are people serious about not buying the game because it's a few dollars more on WP7 than on other platforms?
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Yes, I am serious about it. Multiply that "few dollars" by a few dozen apps, and you've just spent about A HUNDRED dollars more than someone who bought the same (or functionally similar) apps for an Android. Maybe you have enough disposable income to flush a casual hundred bucks down the Marketplace toilet, but I (and most other people) don't.
If the price of Angry Birds ends up being more than $2, I won't be buying it. Period.
RoboDad said:
Yes, I am serious about it. Multiply that "few dollars" by a few dozen apps, and you've just spent about A HUNDRED dollars more than someone who bought the same (or functionally similar) apps for an Android. Maybe you have enough disposable income to flush a casual hundred bucks down the Marketplace toilet, but I (and most other people) don't.
If the price of Angry Birds ends up being more than $2, I won't be buying it. Period.
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Let's be real here, you're being a little bit of an exaggerator here. How often do you honestly buy a $4 app? I can say I've only bought about 4, since November. The majority of them are 0.99 or free. Also, if $100 throughout a period of a year is going to harm you, maybe you shouldn't be owning a $600 device, just my opinion... Considering the hours I spent playing Angry Birds when I used Android, and how much I still play it on my girlfriend's phone, I rather spend $5 on that, which I can take anywhere, than the $60 I consistently spend on Xbox games, but that's just me.
I mean, to each their own, but these guys put in hundreds of hours to develop these apps, and deserve to profit from them, this IS their life. I have zero problems paying $5 for a game I'll probably play a couple of hours A DAY for a good time to come... Criticize it if you like, I just think you're going a little overboard with your explanation...
thesecondsfade said:
I would totally pay 5 bucks for Angry Birds even though it's free on Android and $0.99 on iPhone... I just don't care too much about 5 dollars and the more money a developer can make on WP7, the more interest they'll have in developing for WP7. I spend $5 on one trip to Starbucks. For the hours of gameplay I get for $5, it's totally worth it.
Are people serious about not buying the game because it's a few dollars more on WP7 than on other platforms? Why would you pass up a great game because it's cheaper elsewhere? That's like choosing to not buy an XBox game at Gamestop because Wal-Mart has it cheaper... even though there's no Wal-Mart close to you.
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Well...in my case, as tried to elude to, I already play several versions of AB on 2 different systems. If I was new to AB, I would gladly give the $5...probably...if I could.
But one thing MS needs to take into account is the fact that people find it much easier to impulsively drop a dollar on a game a lot where a $3, $4 or $5 game, they might want to, but will hesitate.
FiyaFleye said:
Let's be real here, you're being a little bit of an exaggerator here. How often do you honestly buy a $4 app? I can say I've only bought about 4, since November. The majority of them are 0.99 or free. Also, if $100 throughout a period of a year is going to harm you, maybe you shouldn't be owning a $600 device, just my opinion... Considering the hours I spent playing Angry Birds when I used Android, and how much I still play it on my girlfriend's phone, I rather spend $5 on that, which I can take anywhere, than the $60 I consistently spend on Xbox games, but that's just me.
I mean, to each their own, but these guys put in hundreds of hours to develop these apps, and deserve to profit from them, this IS their life. I have zero problems paying $5 for a game I'll probably play a couple of hours A DAY for a good time to come... Criticize it if you like, I just think you're going a little overboard with your explanation...
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They deserve to profit because they put a lot of effort into it? What world do you live in? If everyone profited off hard work there would be no poverty and bankrupt businesses. It's about what you give the customer in terms of value and service; I could care less how much effort they put into it.
The fact is not everyone is the same. You can't say someone is ridiculous because they won't spend $5 on a game. People have different priorities. $5 might be low to some and a lot to others.
I wouldn't pay more than $1.99 for Angry Birds. Yes it would be nice for devs to make more money on this platform, but at the same time why buy a windows phone if it were to become known that you are always going to pay more for apps.
I'm not saying it will definitely be like that, but down the road if I know buying an iphone or android phone means that apps and games will cheaper for the most part I'd go for that.
cgibsong002 said:
They deserve to profit because they put a lot of effort into it? What world do you live in? If everyone profited off hard work there would be no poverty and bankrupt businesses. It's about what you give the customer in terms of value and service; I could care less how much effort they put into it.
The fact is not everyone is the same. You can't say someone is ridiculous because they won't spend $5 on a game. People have different priorities. $5 might be low to some and a lot to others.
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Obviously your priorities wouldn't be aligned properly if you were paying for one of the most expensive smartphones, with a smartphone plan, and then complained about $5 -_-
The put effort, and make an incredibly valuable game. Angry Birds is one of the few games ever created with unlimited lasting value. You trying to dig deep and overanalyze my comments doesn't take away from it being worth every penny of $4.99
cgibsong002 said:
They deserve to profit because they put a lot of effort into it? What world do you live in? If everyone profited off hard work there would be no poverty and bankrupt businesses. It's about what you give the customer in terms of value and service; I could care less how much effort they put into it.
The fact is not everyone is the same. You can't say someone is ridiculous because they won't spend $5 on a game. People have different priorities. $5 might be low to some and a lot to others.
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Please get off your soap box... we're talking about Angry Birds, a stupid video game on a mobile phone. Microsoft Marketplace apps generally do not have to compete with piracy on a large scale. That's what those other platforms have to compete with which is why they price their apps lower... not by choice, but by necessity. The more money a developer can charge the better in my opinion. $4.99 brings in enough revenue for 5 customers paying $0.99. I'd presume a $0.99 price point would not create 5 times as many customers. It's all about economics dude. If $5 is too much for someone paying $30/month for data plus another $30 for a voice plan, I don't know what to say to that person other than maybe don't buy the app.
And don't you mean couldn't care less?
To the other dude talking about $100 for 12 apps... What formula are you using to calculate that figure? Be realistic. Even paying $4 more for every app would land you at $48 total, not $100. Stop with the hyperbole.
thesecondsfade said:
To the other dude talking about $100 for 12 apps... What formula are you using to calculate that figure? Be realistic. Even paying $4 more for every app would land you at $48 total, not $100. Stop with the hyperbole.
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Wow. The only response I can offer to this comment is, learn to read.
As many of you may know, unlocking the One X with the tools on the HTCDev website doesn't give you full freedom on your own phone. You can flash new roms, but other things like radio's and hboots can't be flashed because the phone doesn't have S-Off. Also there is the issue of warranty, users with a HTCDev unlocked phone are having problems with getting warranty from HTC, also with issues that are not caused by unlocking or other software. There are a lot of devices where S-Off has been achieved, but sometimes it took a great amount of work and time. My last phone, the HTC Desire was the one of the first HTC's to ship with S-On and it took almost a year to find an exploit to gain S-Off. I don't know anything about what it takes to reach such a milestone but I did appreciate it very much. It finally allowed me to flash a different hboot so I could install a lot more applications on it. (see topic)
Long story short:
To speed up development it may be a good idea to give something back to the developers who spend a great amount of time in getting to that ultimate goal: S-Off.
The idea was proposed in the S-Off Discussion Topic and there some people, including myself, have already promised to donate an amount of money to
the first group or person who develops a safe, simple to use method to get S-Off.
Of course we don't want people keeping all their secrets for themselves, but that is a risk when you set a bounty on something. My hope is that people will be fair and if someone made a great contribution, they will be acknowledged by the group or person who made the final solution and maybe can share in the prize money. But something like that is difficult to catch in words beforehand, let's first wait what the results are. Then when the solution is found, I think we are all reasonable enough to find a satisfying solution if the situation calls for it.
Like stated, we are searching for a safe, simple to use solution. Safe and simple are words that are up to interpretation. What is simple for some maybe witchcraft to others. Again to compare it to my previous phone, the HTC Desire, what the Alpharev team (now Revolutionairy) has achieved is what I call a safe and simple solution. Then there is the issue of different bootloaders/radio's, there are a lot of different combinations and the One X is only a month old, so there will be a lot more combinations by the time we get S-Off. I think it is fair to only count solutions that work with the latest WWE OTA/RUU available at the time the solution is proposed, or the method must provide some way to downgrade to the needed software to let the method work.
I hope everyone who promises money will also pay if the solution is found, so only fill in the spreadsheet if you are really willing to donate to the developer who finds the solution. How we exactly are going to collect that money is debatable, but I think Paypal is the easiest solution. Collecting the money beforehand is impossible, because we don't know if the solution is ever found. I myself will pay $ 20 to the developer who finds the solution.
If you want to donate, fill in this spreadsheet
The minimum amount that you can donate is $ 5
Obviously there is no maximum, but for now the maximum via the spreadsheet is 50 dollars/euro's/pounds. If you want to donate more that's very nice, but then please send a PM to abc27. There were some fake entries with high amounts, so to prevent this, just send a PM so we know it's a genuine donation.
It is fine to post in this topic that you have donated, to keep this topic on top. But please do not post without filling in the spreadsheet, because I'm not going to check the entire topic for people who have posted that they'll donate but didn't fill in the spreadsheet.
If you want to see the people who've donated and see the total amount, click here
And I need to thank abc27 for creating the spreadsheet, which was a way better idea than counting the donations in this topic by hand
Donation The Hall of Fame:
Drefsab 20 British Pound
Evil-Dragon 20 British Pound
Johncore 20 British Pound
jmpmjmpm 20 British Pound
jonas2295 30 US Dollar
Orca74 25 Euro
nsane 50 US Dollar
preacher65 20 British Pound
dortok 20 British Pound
birkoffsjunk 20 British Pound
nikorette 30 US Dollar
doublecheese 100 US Dollar
Lainen73 25 Euro
bleary 20 British Pound
angusc 20 British Pound
salada2k 30 US Dollar
Frank G. 25 Euro
skylinegtrvspec 50 US Dollar
Jezzy11 20 British Pound
(minimal amount for getting in the Hall of Fame: 20 GBP / 25 Euro / 30 US Dollars, will try to update once a day)
US$ 20 from me
- reserved 2 -
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHBheXJMMjZsQ2RWNmo3NEVwTUIxdlE6MQ#gid=0
Use this. It's a much more elegant method.
Edit: Fixed a small error in the spreadsheet. Should be working now.
Put me in for £20 for now, I may add more later if the exploit is still not found but this next month i've got a lot more outgoings than usual.
abc27 said:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHBheXJMMjZsQ2RWNmo3NEVwTUIxdlE6MQ#gid=0
Use this. It's a much more elegant method.
Edit: Fixed a small error in the spreadsheet. Should be working now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is indeed quite a bit easier. I will update the first post with the spreadsheet.
edit: can you implement a feature that the minimum amount is 5 dollar/euro/pound?
wph said:
I hope everyone who promises money will also pay if the solution is found, so only post when you are really willing to donate to the developer who finds the solution. How we exactly are going to collect that money is debatable, but I think Paypal is the easiest solution. I will pay $ 20 to the developer who finds the solution.
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Click to collapse
I had posts like this several times on HD2 forums, so I will say it again. I will be very happy to donate for s-off about 20 euros, but my only problem is that I cant use Paypal from Serbia. So to do that I would need some other solution.
Already over €100 / $100 adjusted for exchange rates.
do you have a link to see the spreadsheet directly so we can see the totals?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArpcAQiUWv5XdHBheXJMMjZsQ2RWNmo3NEVwTUIxdlE#gid=0
There you go. It's at the confirmation page of the form too.
Thanks for start that thread mates.
20€ here.
P.D: I think that topic can be improved a little, lot of people here aren't native english speakers (like me) and the word "bounty" can be unknown for them so I propose a topic like:
"[S-OFF BOUNTY] Donate here to archive S-OFF"
Include "Donate", that is a more common word onto the topic, will improve the visibility of the thread.
Unfortunately the student budget limits me but I am happy donating £10
Put me down, for £10. Would do more but things pretty tight for a few months.
Sent from my HTC One X
$30 from me to the developer who achieves a safe way to get safety off
Sent from my HTC One X running LeeDroid eXtreme 5.0.0
clyder said:
I had posts like this several times on HD2 forums, so I will say it again. I will be very happy to donate for s-off about 20 euros, but my only problem is that I cant use Paypal from Serbia. So to do that I would need some other solution.
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Any ideas on solutions that do work for people without access to PayPal?
wph said:
Any ideas on solutions that do work for people without access to PayPal?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Direct Debit wire?
Postal Cheque?
Cheque?
I'm sure it can all be sorted.
I'm assuming that whoever posted as Mike1986 with €600 was a troll? It was flagged and deleted anyway.
I can do $10, maybe more but I'll pledge $10 for now.
20 USD
Just wondering, sorry if this questions has been asked, but i couldn't find an answer.
I see all these posts about people saying only about 10% of the people pay out on their BOUNTY pledges, why doesn't XDA create a holding that pays out when bounty is met? if there is a timed deadline.. (something reasonable like 6 months). that will at least give the developer confidence he will get some reward for working on it. Also it will set a realistic dollar figure.
frankly, rep is one thing, but getting pay for hard work is whole different animal. If i worked hard for days on delivering a solution, you can bet I want to get paid.
I think this will help with growth of XDA too...
sorry just ranting..
Agreed but I'm assuming liability issues.
Android300ZX said:
Agreed but I'm assuming liability issues.
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Click to collapse
Bingo!
XDA is not a bank, and that would be a horrendously complicated thing to administer (especially if refunds have to be given at some point).
If I were XDA, I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole.
This is a community, not a bank. It's not the responsibility of XDA to take care of monies and I doubt this would -ever- happen. If this was a device specific forum, it might, but not here.
I'm not going to make a pledge for root. I'll just pay the person who succeeds when they succeed. The whole idea of a bounty is a joke. I've contributed to lots of devs (Chainfire has earned a nice chunk off me) in the past and don't intend to stop now....But I don't need a pledge to be a nice person.
ExtremeRyno said:
This is a community, not a bank. It's not the responsibility of XDA to take care of monies and I doubt this would -ever- happen. If this was a device specific forum, it might, but not here.
I'm not going to make a pledge for root. I'll just pay the person who succeeds when they succeed. The whole idea of a bounty is a joke. I've contributed to lots of devs (Chainfire has earned a nice chunk off me) in the past and don't intend to stop now....But I don't need a pledge to be a nice person.
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That's what I always say. I donate if/when it happens and donate/support the dev of the ROM that I use the most.
ExtremeRyno said:
This is a community, not a bank. It's not the responsibility of XDA to take care of monies and I doubt this would -ever- happen. If this was a device specific forum, it might, but not here.
I'm not going to make a pledge for root. I'll just pay the person who succeeds when they succeed. The whole idea of a bounty is a joke. I've contributed to lots of devs (Chainfire has earned a nice chunk off me) in the past and don't intend to stop now....But I don't need a pledge to be a nice person.
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What you say makes perfect sense to me, and most of others here. however not everyone thinks the say way.
insang-droid said:
Just wondering, sorry if this questions has been asked, but i couldn't find an answer.
I see all these posts about people saying only about 10% of the people pay out on their BOUNTY pledges, why doesn't XDA create a holding that pays out when bounty is met? if there is a timed deadline.. (something reasonable like 6 months). that will at least give the developer confidence he will get some reward for working on it. Also it will set a realistic dollar figure.
frankly, rep is one thing, but getting pay for hard work is whole different animal. If i worked hard for days on delivering a solution, you can bet I want to get paid.
I think this will help with growth of XDA too...
sorry just ranting..
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Because of all of these:
Android300ZX said:
Agreed but I'm assuming liability issues.
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JasonJoel said:
XDA is not a bank, and that would be a horrendously complicated thing to administer (especially if refunds have to be given at some point).
If I were XDA, I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole.
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ExtremeRyno said:
This is a community, not a bank. It's not the responsibility of XDA to take care of monies and I doubt this would -ever- happen. If this was a device specific forum, it might, but not here.
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AND because XDA BARELY tolerates Bounty threads and only under very specific conditions. Have you seen how many devices XDA has forums for? Do you know how many bounties are still unclaimed and threads open? How many people would be patient and wait after giving up their money? Then what about time limits? What if it never happens? What about individuals deciding they waited too long and want their money back? What if all money is refunded and it happens right after? There are sites made just for these kinds of things, XDA is not one of them.
So its been a while since i had an htc.
The last one i had was so easy to root s-off super cid.
when it wasnt, i always loved the challenge.
If i recall you had to extract a file called mmcblk0p4 and modify it. Or just modify it with a hex editor right on your phone and place it back with a root explorer. actually i still have it in an old folder.
What is the problem here? How did htc fix that exploit? Why cant we figure it out?
Not that i dont appreciate an awesome app that does it for you. But i always loved doing it myself.
Not trying to bash or start a debate over moralities. Just an interesting and informative convo.
where there is a will there is a way!
Well actually I guess because the people who were discovering the exploits actually created sunshine and are distributing methods via this app only.
There's nobody that can use the app to figure out how the actual app does it?
Maybe I am thinking its more simple than it is. I know i sure as hell cant.
myphonesbetter said:
There's nobody that can use the app to figure out how the actual app does it?
Maybe I am thinking its more simple than it is. I know i sure as hell cant.
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It's an old discussion, but if you look up the Sunshine app thread you'll come across the explanation of why they decided to charge and what went into achieving S-OFF. Short answer: it's really hard.
Been about a year since i logged in apparently.
computerslayer said:
It's an old discussion, but if you look up the Sunshine app thread you'll come across the explanation of why they decided to charge and what went into achieving S-OFF. Short answer: it's really hard.
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That is the perfect answer. it really hard.
its because some people are lazy and others are greedy thats why.
Honestly paying for an app to just do everything takes the fun out of it. Im not a coder or anything but most of what i have learned is from flashing phones and modding video games lol. Just dont have quite enough of an obsessive personality to be a full on mr robot.
I can see making a payed version that does the work for you and takes away the risk of bricking your phone. for the people who just want want want.
This im sure would make more than enough to cover costs. especially if the dev was in india or something.
Used phones with cracked screens or broken headphone jacks are a dime a dozen.
Or how about someone just reverse engineer the sunshine app. Or FIND AN EXPLOIT. and release it to the forums.
FAIR GAME right?
This team spent 100s of dollars and 100s accumulative hours to exploit something that costs 100's of millions of dollars and who knows how many hours to create and distribute.
The development thread seems so commercial now. Wouldn't be surprised if most of them were making money data mining selling info to advertisers.
Isnt that where the real money is these days.
I cant pay for it for the same reason i cant pay money for the better gun in a video game. Just pay to win. doesn't feel the same.
Also android is open source and free.
It blows my mind that only this one group of people can figure out how to do this.
Seems like the fact that there is money to be made would encourage more guy fawkes' to create some friendly compotish.
Plus if more "exploiters" could start from there then eventually it could end up so much more refined. Just like everything else on these forums.
Anyways sunshine is free and along with water gives life to the entire planet. I think they got the name wrong.
walmart mod group. buy out all other "developers" (hackers) and charge the people that keep this whole thing going.
I can appreciate and even envy the business sense and intelligence it takes to do what they do. cant say if i was in their shoes i wouldnt do everything i could to monetize it. But its just sad to the the community go down the toilet. This forum used to be so much more exciting. it seems like it used to create developers now you just pick a rom and move on. mother ****ing sad face.
You do realize, if it was trivial and cheap to do, the dozens of people who come complain would have done it sometime in the last three years.
We even publish detailed write ups, and source code snippets to parts of sunshine, including vulnerabilities and exploits. We get people 90% of the way there.
Even with use giving away critical parts of the project, people still don't release free versions. Why? because it isn't easy, and it isn't cheap. You are going to ruin a lot of phones along the way, and your work on the "cheap ones" doesn't apply to the new expensive ones, you are starting over from scratch with each generation, often with each firmware release.
We don't sell data to anyone, no ads on our sites or apps, even the numerous free apps like weaksauce and depixel8 have no ads, nor do their associated websites (not counting the thieves that rehost them with ads, thats not us).
We bought out no one, we pay no one to develop for us. We reinvest funds into more phone and equipment, sometimes some booze, and often into charity. Even google called us out for our charity work on their VRP blog.
Good luck on your endeavors, I encourage you to make a free alternative, to invest the money and time we did out of your own pocket. Neither of us are educated in security or computer scienece, we picked it up along the way when trying to hack on phones. No excuses! Anyone complaining should be working on an alternative. Don't expect much donations, or if you put a price on it don't expect much money from it, it isn't there.
myphonesbetter said:
Been about a year since i logged in apparently.
That is the perfect answer. it really hard.
its because some people are lazy and others are greedy thats why.
Honestly paying for an app to just do everything takes the fun out of it. Im not a coder or anything but most of what i have learned is from flashing phones and modding video games lol. Just dont have quite enough of an obsessive personality to be a full on mr robot.
I can see making a payed version that does the work for you and takes away the risk of bricking your phone. for the people who just want want want.
This im sure would make more than enough to cover costs. especially if the dev was in india or something.
Used phones with cracked screens or broken headphone jacks are a dime a dozen.
Or how about someone just reverse engineer the sunshine app. Or FIND AN EXPLOIT. and release it to the forums.
FAIR GAME right?
This team spent 100s of dollars and 100s accumulative hours to exploit something that costs 100's of millions of dollars and who knows how many hours to create and distribute.
The development thread seems so commercial now. Wouldn't be surprised if most of them were making money data mining selling info to advertisers.
Isnt that where the real money is these days.
I cant pay for it for the same reason i cant pay money for the better gun in a video game. Just pay to win. doesn't feel the same.
Also android is open source and free.
It blows my mind that only this one group of people can figure out how to do this.
Seems like the fact that there is money to be made would encourage more guy fawkes' to create some friendly compotish.
Plus if more "exploiters" could start from there then eventually it could end up so much more refined. Just like everything else on these forums.
Anyways sunshine is free and along with water gives life to the entire planet. I think they got the name wrong.
walmart mod group. buy out all other "developers" (hackers) and charge the people that keep this whole thing going.
I can appreciate and even envy the business sense and intelligence it takes to do what they do. cant say if i was in their shoes i wouldnt do everything i could to monetize it. But its just sad to the the community go down the toilet. This forum used to be so much more exciting. it seems like it used to create developers now you just pick a rom and move on. mother ****ing sad face.
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Sunshine has been about since the HTC One M7 days, I paid and used it on my M7 and M8 and about to use it on 2 x M9's, me personally, I really dont have a problem paying the $25 for it to do what it does, personally I think its dead cheap for what these guys did to get around HTCs so called fixes.
Now on to why it even costs in the first place, imagine whilst developing an app to this level, how many phones you had to buy and destroy along the way, this app isnt just for pretty much every HTC made since the M7, of course you are going to want some of it back, if you didnt, you'd be bankrupt in 2 days, with every release of firmware or every new phone release, the app needs to be modified and updated, Hell, you pay $200 for Microsoft Windows for the same reasons.
jcase said:
You do realize, if it was trivial and cheap to do, the dozens of people who come complain would have done it sometime in the last three years.
We even publish detailed write ups, and source code snippets to parts of sunshine, including vulnerabilities and exploits. We get people 90% of the way there.
Even with use giving away critical parts of the project, people still don't release free versions. Why? because it isn't easy, and it isn't cheap. You are going to ruin a lot of phones along the way, and your work on the "cheap ones" doesn't apply to the new expensive ones, you are starting over from scratch with each generation, often with each firmware release.
We don't sell data to anyone, no ads on our sites or apps, even the numerous free apps like weaksauce and depixel8 have no ads, nor do their associated websites (not counting the thieves that rehost them with ads, thats not us).
We bought out no one, we pay no one to develop for us. We reinvest funds into more phone and equipment, sometimes some booze, and often into charity. Even google called us out for our charity work on their VRP blog.
Good luck on your endeavors, I encourage you to make a free alternative, to invest the money and time we did out of your own pocket. Neither of us are educated in security or computer scienece, we picked it up along the way when trying to hack on phones. No excuses! Anyone complaining should be working on an alternative. Don't expect much donations, or if you put a price on it don't expect much money from it, it isn't there.
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thanks for the response. It would be nice to get a response on the actual q i posted lol. (different thread)
I guess its easier when its trivial.
Its good to hear you guys donate some of it. and that youve release the majority of the code. i guess people are just lazy.
Honestly you dont need s-off. The main reason i would want it is incase i need to go back to stock for warranty reasons. In which case the money would be worth it. still more fun do follow a write and learn about what i am doing in the process.
As far as data mining im talking about some of the more popular roms and apps out there. not just in the htc forum. Just a thought. why wouldn't they.
And the question isn't why its $25. I get that. It is totally worth it. Its so easy to use. I used to spend hours troubleshooting to get my phones s-off'd and running smooth on all the roms. now you can do it in seconds. these days i just pick one that works better than stock and stick with it. seems like stock updates kill the phones now.
Its why hasn't anybody exploited sunshine or made a completely different app that does the same thing. Or even better a write up on how to do it yourself.
To say its expensive on the older phones is a stretch and to say its too hard is eh.
I couldn't do it but you guys did (very quickly). so that means there is some 8 year old that could do it in his sleep.
And to say its out of pocket is a stretch when its a payed service. Most business endeavors or charities require some sort of investment.
And you can make a large chunk of the money back selling a bricked phone for parts. especially if its the latest model.
Why don't you guys release the code for free when you once you pay yourselves back. If more people started out where you left off (much like how you guys started) then the next generation would take no effort. If there were a thousand people testing and communicating and working together then the cost and time would be nothing.
There is nowhere to start anymore. there used to be all kinds of write ups that forced you to learn more about how everything works. then naturally some people figure out what they are actually doing are inspired to improve on it (sunshine for example). but now its just seems so overwhelming. Like nobody is there to help out when you get stuck.
I guess it dragged a little deeper than i wanted. But every time someone asks these questions it turns into insult matches or just the copy pasted comment of i don't think $25 is too much. if you cant afford that then blah blah . then all credibility is lost and people are persuaded to think as the majority of commenters think. Mouthbreathers will be mouthbreathers. But they are the ones that make this consumer based economy function properly.
Again, not trying to bash the people that put their time into this. More so trying to spark thoughts in people's minds who would normally just follow suit. Highlight different perspectives.
myphonesbetter said:
Its why hasn't anybody exploited sunshine or made a completely different app that does the same thing. Or even better a write up on how to do it yourself.
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Many people have tried to crack sunshine, I'm unaware of anyone being successful. It is actually pretty funny seeing how many hours people put into cracking SunShine, it is an worthless endeavor considering that most of the calculations are done server side, cracking the app doesn't get you anything as it is done server side. They would need to hack our WAN facing server, proxy through it and then hack the "offline" box we do the work on. This would be a felony on many levels. I like to think most people are honest, and don't go committing felony violations of CFAA over the fact that an app isn't free.
As far as a different app, it is hard, it is expensive, and most people with the skillset or drive, are tackling bigger problems.
Far as a writeup, we make plenty of them, where are your technical write ups?
myphonesbetter said:
To say its expensive on the older phones is a stretch and to say its too hard is eh.
I couldn't do it but you guys did (very quickly). so that means there is some 8 year old that could do it in his sleep.
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None of this is "very fast", it all has years of research behind it. Research we did, we put the time and money into. Yes even on old phones it is expensive, the software we use (IDA Pro and Jeb) alone are $1000s a year in licensing fees. Considering each person needs a license, its very costly. And yes, we are not thieves, we actually have licenses in our names. Many models we have spent money on, never sell more than a couple licenses. So the more popular models also fund the work done on models that don't make any sales. Sure we could just not add support for oddball models sold in only one country, but what fun is that.
myphonesbetter said:
And to say its out of pocket is a stretch when its a payed service. Most business endeavors or charities require some sort of investment.
And you can make a large chunk of the money back selling a bricked phone for parts. especially if its the latest model.
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The investment would be the out of pocket part, money to start projects doesnt just magically show up. New HTC u11 is what $600 bucks? One we fried the soc and mmc on? What $50 if we are selling it honestly (cause that thing wont EVER be repaired, and screen is about the only part re-usable)? Plus we run the risk of our debug builds leaking if someone is able to extract memory from the device, no thanks, not reselling a burned phone for $50(or even $300) and risk losing everything we have worked on for the last few years.
myphonesbetter said:
Why don't you guys release the code for free when you once you pay yourselves back. If more people started out where you left off (much like how you guys started) then the next generation would take no effort. If there were a thousand people testing and communicating and working together then the cost and time would be nothing.
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We have released plenty of free training material, white papers and example source code for people to start off of. Those resources would be much better than starting off with SunShine source code. As we have said, when SunShine is done, we will open source it. Considering no one does anything with what we do release, I have doubts anyone would do anything with everything we don't release. We were sure we would get 0 sales on Droid Turbo after publishing that write up, we thought someone would have a free exploit written that day. It has been years, nothing so far.
myphonesbetter said:
If there were a thousand people testing and communicating and working together then the cost and time would be nothing.
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LOL. People don't contribute to most mobile OSS projects, go look at copperhead, look at their commit history. I'm even guilty of it, my contributions besides projects I helped started are minimal (even my commits to AOSP are few).
myphonesbetter said:
There is nowhere to start anymore. there used to be all kinds of write ups that forced you to learn more about how everything works. then naturally some people figure out what they are actually doing are inspired to improve on it (sunshine for example). but now its just seems so overwhelming. Like nobody is there to help out when you get stuck.
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All of our write ups are still up, and we still publish more each year, I don't know what the heck you are going on about here. Please take the time to look rather than just make such claims.
myphonesbetter said:
Again, not trying to bash the people that put their time into this. More so trying to spark thoughts in people's minds who would normally just follow suit. Highlight different perspectives.
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Again, feel free to use the free resources we have and continue to provide to the community for free to build your own. We DO NOT discourage people from doing so, we actively encourage it by publishing a fair bit of our work for free. I even traveled on my own dime (not sunshine money, not someone else's money, but from my paycheck) without reimbursement to Las Vegas with Tim Strazzere and Caleb Fenton to provide trading FOR FREE. We over filled the maximum occupancy for the room. We were not allowed to take any more people.
In reality, and not to be insulting, it is pretty obvious you didn't properly research all of this.