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Comment by hanbura | Hacker News Reader

I'm glad to see they left a door open for users of custom ROMs. While inconvenient, it will end up as just another item on the already complicated guides for installing custom ROMs. Let's just hope this option doesn't disappear one day

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Note that it appears there is a 100 registration limit per Google account. And each factory reset changes the ID the phone is registered under. For a lot of ROM folks, this is probably not going to last very long.

Is it possible to deactivate old IDs?

No – it’s 100 times of installing ROMs per lifetime, then you’re EOL.

Wow, if that's true, that changes the whole tone of this. Hopefully this is just a temporary oversight, and Google allows the opportunity to delete and reuse these 100 slots.

I suspect if they were intended to be "reusable slots", it would be a drastically smaller number, like... five.

Which is actually fine. 5 is restrictive but 15 is just fine.

Previously they expired after 18-24 months, I am not sure if that is still true

It was annoying to have old dead devices still on my account with no way to remove them

It is possible to set the ID manually. Titanium Backup does this, for example.

Do people really install new ROMs on Android every 19 days for five years? Must be awesome to have that kind of free time.

What is your reason for "five years"? And yes, Android ROM folks kinda shock me with how often they fiddle with their phones, and I also don't have time for that kind of business.

I suspect there'd be bursts of burning multiple in a single day, for what it's worth. People flashing a phone, realizing something isn't working after they set up their registration again, and having to flash again.

Five years because there was a link recently on HN that indicated that was the average length of time that the top-end Android phones get updates. It's the only metric I have seen regarding the useful life of an Android device.

I’ve gone through 60 in one day when trying to work on a ROM, rebuilding, reflashing, and setting it back up again and again.

So, yes, people absolutely do.

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