AT&T crippling BlackBerry 8820's GPS, too?

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TJhood @ Sep 10th 2007 10:46AM

I think you mean CAN'T, dang those key words

at the time of this reply this is exactly what I was saying, I think it was pretty clear but you are just in shock like everyone else.

Rumors have developed since this time nearly a month later. The Blackberry 8820 is now available for pre-order on amazon.com and we will soon find out the brutal truth to this when the reviews inevitably start rolling in all over the internet.

GPS has been said by a very educated blog that the GPS on the 8820 is simply hidden by an exclusion note in a alx file on the blackberry, a simple edit removing the exclusion would show the blackberry maps icon which is pre-installed for you to use in conjunction with your GPS antenna built in the device. This does confirm however that AT&T along with many other carriers codes which are listed as exclusions in the ALX file are trying to get you to buy into there GPS services by hiding the built in one. So yes it was crippled but it's a rather easy go around for those who care enough to fix it.. many will just pay i'm sure.

The Wi-Fi well I can't say for sure.. so I won't, but I sure hope it is left open, I really don't think this is going to keep people from buying into data plans especially for all of the people addicted to there push email availability. But it would sure help sell some devices to those who can't afford or don't need a data plan but would still like data now and then.

On a side note from the check out processes i've seen it looks like to get a discount on the device you are required to select a data plan. So if you don't want a data plan it looks like at best you might have to pay full price for the phone. And thats completly fair business.

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