New FIG Kosher Phone

actually I went digging around a bit and came across those same phones on alibaba and struck up a chat with the manufacturer, Shenzhen Qimei Electronic co ltd, and I got into a chat with an employee named Jianfeng Li("Jeff Li"), and asked a few questions.

One of those were of I can receive a sample of the Alibaba 70$ phone with a higher resolution. He says sure and sends me this picture . I notice that his thumb and index fingers are covering something, namely the fig logo. But he gave it away by not covering the app that says FIG messenger. I tell him that this looked like a product ordered by FIG. He replys yes and quickly deletes the picture,but I already got a screenshot in. He asked my how I knew and I told him from the FIG messenger app. He then says that they (the company) are developing the 2nd gen of fig devices.

I proned for more details, asked if I could buy a sample, and he said that the "shape mold and pcba are all customized by FIG so they cannot sell them to other customers", even though he told me before that they designed alot of shapes and FIG chose one of them. Anyway, I digress.

He then posted a few images of a few colors that I could order.Some of them have some sort of blur applied in certain parts, probably to cover the FIG logo, lol. Although none of the prototypes have a back camera, they all resemble the fig phone, even the middle button under the center button (unlike the photo he shared which actually was prototype, or final,not sure).

I got a little friendly with him, and he asked if I was Jewish, and I said yes, and he shared some more info. He told me that the Hebrew keyboard input was difficult to implement, and he also told me that their company developed the custom android os on the phone and disabled app installation, and fig supplied the apk which I'm assuming he meant the fig messaging app, and they integrated it into the system.

lgexalter1 I'll ask the manufacturer tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure it's removed. If i'm not mistaken usually when you factory reset a phone, it loads the "backup" of the os stored on a partition of the storage, and this "backup factory os" contains the default apps and configurations which in stock android usually includes a browser app. So the manufacturer probably removed it from the os and the "backup factory os". Same thing regarding app installation. Again, I'll ask the manufacturer tmrw.

Helix_X_Dome Congratulations, u found the factory FIG is working with. The new edition of the fig flip has been built and molded in a custom way, as I know from seeing the many different samples they received, officially the terms in which this design would be offered and sold to other people would be illegal on the manufacturers part.

The definition of "born kosher" should not be the investigation, as it is a simple slogan that FIG chose, although I'm sure they didn't realize at first that it sounds like something its not, making ppl think its some sort of new OS. If it makes anyone feel better, the newer models will not have that slogan on it anymore as they understand that it is misleading to the investigators lol.

But the fact is, the idea that until you build your own OS independent of android, you cannot be called "Born Kosher" is foolish. The phone has the security of a OS that they would have created themselves, thanks to the hard work of the android developers that are involved. And there's a future for this company, so if they make it big, maybe they can embark on the journey of coding a totally custom OS, but lets be honest that is a very far fetched dream, I cannot begin to imagine the money and recourses this would require. But for now the product is a custom built phone with a secure modified android OS, no browser, no email, no entertainment, no package installer.

I mentioned this before on this thread, that I'm not advertising for this company at all, I don't make a penny from them either, I just am affiliated to the people that created it and I am a beta tester for them. So I'm just here to give the info that keeps the oilam informed.

The newer phones will be much better than previous models, and the problems they had earlier are being dealt with now in a more easier fashion. I was told they might roll out a customer service by phone system, which would be great for customers. And also heard the new models have been submitted to Google for verification, which is a long process and will definitely be hard to keep to all their demand as to which their phones need to comply with. But if it could be verified, as we will see in the coming months, the phone should support android auto and the whole experience will be allot easier with google play services.

Thank for reading till the end lol.

Helix_X_Dome he told me that Google Play Services are not supported and it won't be verified by Google since verification is pricey

Pricey means that if you can pay, then u get what u need, if you cannot pay, then you don't. In the event that the verification goes through, we can safely assume that the price they paid was worthy of their verification. Something that's pricey doesn't stop you from getting there, you just need to pay the price. The guy ur talking to is prob Chinese and as I know from experience they can say things from very ungrounded standpoints, this being the perfect example, that they wont get verified cuz its pricey, well what if pricey doesn't matter? Anyway the verification is in the works, that is what I am being told.

Helix_X_Dome I'm not sure Google Play Services would matter for anything besides Android Auto

Well yes, this is the goal essentially to be able to continue to develop this phone with features that can be used being that it has been verified. I'm sure there are many backend things that will run much better if this can go through.

Flippy Just out of curiosity: Does anyone on this forum actually use this phone?

are you referring to the new version which is not publicly out yet (FIG FLIP II)?

Biden2020prez

LOL. Nice, great investigating. Cool Stuff you did. I honestly would have given up then and there, I wouldn't have had that creativity. I approve of it.

You can thank my boredom.

@EVERYONE In terms of born kosher, it seems like people aren't arguing on "kosher", but they are arguing on "born"

To quote what I said earlier:

but like I said before, it's kicking a dead horse by now, nobody really cares about defining it, or at least I don't.

But apparently I was wrong, people do care, so whatever. Anyway...

When the FIG company first receives the phone, I don't know what it looks like (well, I know a bit, but not sure I can share it here).

It looks like the images on the FIG website. They don't really do anything to the phone. All the fig branding and the mold, color , etc. is obviously done by the manufacturer, as stated previously.

Whether they get it with a browser or not, they aren't using that rom. They are building AOSP in a safe and kosher way (custom rom).

See, here is where I differ based off the conversation I had with Mr Jeff Li (who speaks a near perfect English, mind you). Mr. Li told me that the fig company asked them (the manufacturer, Shenzhen Qimei) to remove the browser and app installer from the device, like I said in a previous post. If so, the "aosp" isn't really built or made by them, rather the aosp made by the manufacturer is customized to not include a browser, app installer, or whatever fig wanted them to remove (or install). Regardless, there's not that much of a difference between the two.

Not including partitions that allow device flashing (at least not without some sort of verification - i.e. firehose)
Not including a developer options activity in the settings app
Not including a usb deugging popup in the phone systemui app
Not including a functioning package installer
Very Likely, not including certain hardware parts which allow flashing.
have a Very safe and limited recovery
Don't support GSI Flashing or DSU Sideloading
Doesn't include apps with in-app browsers,etc.

I would call this a custom OS (building LineagoOS is already called custom Rom, this is even more).

In regards to the recovery mode and ADB commands, Mr. Li told me they were "disabled"(whatever that means), and that they were removed in software.

There are apps on there (e.g. waze) which by default have issues, and need to be filtered. There are many tools to do this in a strong manner., especially when building AOSP from scratch. They probably have many protections, so even if someone managed to get around some things, there would be other ways to block that. They probably also have some remote access to patch things if needed (does this phone get system updates by the way?)

I'm not sure what you mean by the end, if there is remote access to patch "issues", isn't that essentially a system update? Also I'm not even sure "remote access patching" is possible (or plausible). But you sound more knowledgeable about this than me, so I'll trust you.

So, I guess this get into a very complicated Sugya of abortion. When is the phone considered born? Is it murdering the phone to put a custom build of AOSP if the chinese sent it with a browser ? Do we say their phone their choice? What about by vaccines, do we say their phone their choice? But, point is, many politics involved.

Ask your L.O.R. about this, or your local T.A.G., whichever one you want, lol.

In terms of making a phone based off a fully new operating system, I agree with

[Login to see the link] lets be honest that is a very far fetched dream, I cannot begin to imagine the money and recourses this would require.

That would be like building windows, building android, etc. And even Android is based off Linux. And KaiOS, which is custom for flips, is based off linux.

Agree with this too.

And finally...

Anyways, to quote:

[Login to see the link] Thank for reading till the end lol.

MXRJR are you referring to the new version which is not publicly out yet (FIG FLIP II)?

Helix_X_Dome Sorry talking about the fig flip 1 which for some reason they marketed as the fig flip 2 but is actually just the fig flip one with the number 2 afterwards. Now they are coming out with a new model which they are calling the fig flip II. You can thank them for the confusion.