what does it mean to 'brick' a phone?

[jdm-civic]

i was having a convo with a co-worker and he was all mad and stuff saying he was downloading a app. and his phone "bricked". what does that mean, it must be something bad because it was a new iphone he just bought and he was in a really pissy mood?

[SlowEG9]

He fucked up something probably trying to crack the software...I personally think its funny that people screw this up and cant fix it when most iphone software issues can be fixed in 20 minutes or less...

[ATL86]

Did he have an error message saying that he needed a new sim or had an invalid/incorrect sim? Probably a bad hack that Apple will not fix for him. Their solution is to buy a new one, lol.

There isn't a legit hack for the 3.1.3 software, anyways.

[1CleanEg]

basically, like others have said, his phone most likely will not boot up, i bricked my old tmobile shadow b4 after installing a different themes and overclocking it 2 much, and had to reinstall the software to fix it,

[oneSLOWex]

when you brick a phone....long story short its fucked and about as useful as a brick. When you are installing software that isn't supposed to be on the phone or you get a shitty version of it this can happen. When its bricked there is no installing new software or anything like that....its completely screwed.

[Nerdsrock22]

I'm not trying to be an asshat here, I promise, but what software could possibly be worth messing up your new iPhone? I hear about this stuff happening alot, do people really need/want that much more than the iPhone has to offer?

[1CleanEg]

i dont know about with the iphone, but i know for us android users, alot of people who dont know what there doing, brick there phones tryin to get Hero or other roms installed.

[oneSLOWex]

I'm not trying to be an asshat here, I promise, but what software could possibly be worth messing up your new iPhone? I hear about this stuff happening alot, do people really need/want that much more than the iPhone has to offer?
its small things that you cant do unless you change the OS....which to me is FAR from worth it...but whatever.

i dont know about with the iphone, but i know for us android users, alot of people who dont know what there doing, brick there phones tryin to get Hero or other roms installed.
I mean really....what else can you do by messing with the phones OS that you couldn't do w/o it? WiFi tethering? Extra screens? Its not worth the risk or the trouble for me. I have one of those mini laptops that I can carry around with me if I need something that bad.

[1CleanEg]

its small things that you cant do unless you change the OS....which to me is FAR from worth it...but whatever.

I mean really....what else can you do by messing with the phones OS that you couldn't do w/o it? WiFi tethering? Extra screens? Its not worth the risk or the trouble for me. I have one of those mini laptops that I can carry around with me if I need something that bad.

Well its a lot different for android, Most of these roms, are designed to free up alot of memory on the phone, and offer alot of extra features from the new OS that arent possible on the regular phone. Also allow more customization and allow u to get certain apps only available for that rom, different themes, etc. But im with u on this, i havent done it b/c i dont even want to chance bricking my g1 even with its older OS

[oneSLOWex]

Well its a lot different for android, Most of these roms, are designed to free up alot of memory on the phone, and offer alot of extra features from the new OS that arent possible on the regular phone. Also allow more customization and allow u to get certain apps only available for that rom, different themes, etc. But im with u on this, i havent done it b/c i dont even want to chance bricking my g1 even with its older OS

Im using a Droid...16gb factory SD card FTW. Dont have to worry about memory and the phone is fast enough.

[1CleanEg]

^^ yea ur good, in my case, i cant wait to upgrade to another phone. I will probably never use anything other than android so i just gotta wait until something good comes out for tmobile.

[oneSLOWex]

^^ yea ur good, in my case, i cant wait to upgrade to another phone. I will probably never use anything other than android so i just gotta wait until something good comes out for tmobile.

I LOVE the android OS. Did you guys get updated lately? We just got pinch to zoom which makes me happy in the pants

[1CleanEg]

yea android is great. so simple yet so effective. Last update we got was months ago and it didnt include that. Hopefully they havent forgotten about the G1's when the 2.0 updates go out.

[oneSLOWex]

yea android is great. so simple yet so effective. Last update we got was months ago and it didnt include that. Hopefully they havent forgotten about the G1's when the 2.0 updates go out.

damn either the G1s were good enough or they are leaving them behind. We just got 2.1 last week or so...

[1CleanEg]

damn, lucky u man. if the Motorola Cliq gets the 2.0 update and better battery life, i'll definitely be switching to that phone for now. Droids arent GSM phones are they? would be nice if they could be unlocked

[ilovemyhonda.]

I love my Blackberry <3

[1CleanEg]

^^ Who cares, im a blackberry hater.

[oneSLOWex]

damn, lucky u man. if the Motorola Cliq gets the 2.0 update and better battery life, i'll definitely be switching to that phone for now. Droids arent GSM phones are they? would be nice if they could be unlocked

I think the Droid is CDMA only which unless Verizon has a contract like ATT did with the Ifail is stupid because it seems like having it on all markets would be smart and make more money.

[oneSLOWex]

DOWN WITH CRACKBERRY!

[1CleanEg]

I think the Droid is CDMA only which unless Verizon has a contract like ATT did with the Ifail is stupid because it seems like having it on all markets would be smart and make more money.

yea unfortunately ur right, if its cdma, it doesnt use a sim card, atleast the blackberry storm was gsm, and could be unlocked. ah well. If the HD2 was running android i would be all over it

[ISAtlanta300]

I'm not trying to be an asshat here, I promise, but what software could possibly be worth messing up your new iPhone? I hear about this stuff happening alot, do people really need/want that much more than the iPhone has to offer?

The freedom to switch carriers at will, The freedom to use prepaid sims when traveling abroad (instead of being a slave to AT&T's fees), the freedom to install third party apps make it worth it for a lot of people......

[91LudeSiT]

damn, lucky u man. if the Motorola Cliq gets the 2.0 update and better battery life, i'll definitely be switching to that phone for now. Droids arent GSM phones are they? would be nice if they could be unlocked

The droid isn't GSM, but the milestone is, but you would want a nexus one anyway.

[Ed]

http://www.bose.com/images/promotions/newsletter/10_06/brick_phone.gif

And the droid is the best phone I've ever owned. 2.1 is pretty sweet. I regret going to 2.1 though, I should've overclocked my phone before i did that.

[ilovemyhonda.]

Ya'll haters can go somewhere. I will stick with my blackberry fo lyfe!

[oneSLOWex]

http://www.bose.com/images/promotions/newsletter/10_06/brick_phone.gif

And the droid is the best phone I've ever owned. 2.1 is pretty sweet. I regret going to 2.1 though, I should've overclocked my phone before i did that.

this will probably help.... http://www.droid-life.com/2010/04/05/how-to-root-android-2-1/

[Elbow]

i was having a convo with a co-worker and he was all mad and stuff saying he was downloading a app. and his phone "bricked". what does that mean, it must be something bad because it was a new iphone he just bought and he was in a really pissy mood?

I've done it, it's when you throw a brick at a phone that doesn't work right.

[1CleanEg]

The droid isn't GSM, but the milestone is, but you would want a nexus one anyway.

Yea, im really thinking about getting a Nexus one. I would just need to get use to a full touch screen phone.