Just downgraded to 17.28 - Wow, I got my old watch back!

Tisztul_A_Visztula said:

Yes, I had done it before I had the idea to use 530 as an intermediary. But even he was helpful and provided me some prebuilt PRG files of older versions of his app he said that he was “currently not longer able to build for CIQ 5.0.0 on the Enduro 2, as the Garmin SDK now assumes it was updated to version 5.1.0 or higher.”

Wellllll, yes and no.

The SDK does assume that, but there are ways to write/build an application so it can still run on Enduro 2 with an older CIQ version via sideload. (But ofc I wouldn't expect any dev to feel obligated to do so.)

I guess every Garmin seminar starts with soreading misinformations of there is no way to do something. :-)  But even if Garnin is not fast, they are finally closing the doors of the houses the rebels have built.

Tisztul_A_Visztula said:

misinformations of there is no way to do something. :-)  

Don't worry, CIQ is very complex and even CIQ developers misunderstand some of this stuff.

Even Garmin itself has broken things by not coordinating changes between the product team and the CIQ team. (For a few months, nobody could download Enduro 2 apps from the store).

Tisztul_A_Visztula said:

But even if Garnin is not fast, they are finally closing the doors of the houses the rebels have built.

Haha so true. It all started with the first music app (Spotify), when Garmin starting "hiding" music apps and only music apps. Eventually, all app types were hidden, and I don't think it's coincidence that this happened a few months before built-in monetization was added to the CIQ store.

A while ago, DCR even talked about how "encryption is coming to CIQ apps" (paraphrased), and I think this is the form it eventually took (preventing the end user from accessing any PRGs at all).

flowstate said:

A while ago, DCR even talked about how "encryption is coming to CIQ apps" (paraphrased), and I think this is the form it eventually took (preventing the end user from accessing any PRGs at all).

The best decision is to encrypt and/or hide software elements that are (almost) perfect in order to make it harder for enthuastic people to ruin them.

And the worst decision is to encrypt and/or hide software elements that are buggy, because it makes harder for enthuastic people to fix them.

As a sidenote I do not think that the measures Garmin did or is planning to do can succesfullly block industrial spying, so the losers of these steps are always the above average users.

flowstate said:

For a few months, nobody could download Enduro 2 apps from the store

Wow, I did not realize it, maybe because I bought my Enduro 2 after the launch of E3.

Tisztul_A_Visztula said:

The best decision is to encrypt and/or hide software elements that are (almost) perfect in order to make it harder for enthuastic people to ruin them.

And the worst decision is to encrypt and/or hide software elements that are buggy, because it makes harder for enthuastic people to fix them.

Let's be real, nobody is decompiling PRGs to fix bugs, and if they were, Garmin doesn't want that. Nobody creates custom Garmin firmware either, afaik.

If app devs want ppl to help fix their apps, the best thing they could do is open source their app (ofc then they will never make any money off their app, not that there's much money to be made in the CIQ store in the first place).

I'm almost 100% sure that Garmin initially hid music app PRGs because Spotify demanded it. And I'm fairly sure (as per DCR / common sense) that the point of hiding other app types is to attract the bigger players to the CIQ store.

I saw many complaints over the years that the CIQ store is full of hobbyist junk when users want polished apps from big corporations (I don't see that happening yet, outside of the music apps - and the music apps have so many issues as it is.)

Tisztul_A_Visztula said:

As a sidenote I do not think that the measures Garmin did or is planning to do can succesfullly block industrial spying, so the losers of these steps are always the above average users.

Normal end users have no way of accessing the PRGs at all. If an industrial spy physically removes the memory chips, hopefully the "hidden" area of the file system is truly encrypted. If not, I guess I see your point.

It's still an improvement over the wild west situation of yesteryear.

I mainly meant flagship/main sw of the devices when I wrote about hiding/encrypting and 3rd party apps. Because I feel that in some time you will be not asked at all whether you allow a sw update or not. Everything will be inforced and the update files will be not accessible.

Yeah I get it but the hiding of 3rd party apps is a completely separate issue from the hackability of Garmin firmware. Garmin firmware is not intended to be hackable and nor has anyone ever created custom firmware for Garmin devices, as far as I know.

Most other vendors are the same. The closest we get with mainstream devices is custom ROMs for Android.

flowstate said:

nor has anyone ever created custom firmware for Garmin devices, as far as I know.

There was at least some for 60csx which have different aims like changing the 10000 points track limit to 28000. And there were even some patching tool to modify the firnware so the “welcome screen” could be your photo.