HTC To Unlock Smartphones' Bootloader

An anonymous reader writes "From information taken from a facebook post from HTC's page, it looks like future [HTC] Android devices will have an unlocked bootloader. An email sent by HTC's co-founder also confirms that the Evo 3D will be unlocked. This is great news for the Android modding community."

Comments

Re:Benefits

[mlts]

There are three benefits hardware vendors get:

1: Lusers who mod their phones, "brick" [1] them, then return it. Locking bootloaders means that they don't get returns or support calls on these types.

2: It cozies hardware makers with the DRM culprits who want digital restrictions in every device out there.

3: It makes cellular carriers happy in four ways:

A: If a security hole in Android comes out, and a phone can't be patches, people are likely to upgrade or buy a new phone.

B: Phones won't run the latest apps, due to the inability to be upgraded to the latest Android rev, so consumers will trash the devices for a new one.

C: Carriers can lock out features, add non-removable "branding", etc.

D: Carriers can create their own locked-down app/music stores.

[1]: A lot of people don't understand that for some phones, it takes some effort to truly brick them (as in make them impossible to reflash and get working.) For example, people with iPhones who claim their phone is bricked, but never have bothered to do a DFU restore, people with Motorola devices who have never bothered downloading RSD Lite and flashing a factory .SHX back, or people with HTC phones who can't be bothered with copying a ROM to the SD card and holding down a button when turning the phone on.

Re:Hello Moto?

[Lifyre]

He may not be, I've run into some Android users who are decidedly not tech savvy who have rooted their HTC devices and they tell their friends building a wave of support for rooting phones. This is almost exclusively for HTC Android phones and most frequently I field questions about how to do it and can I "fix" their phones since I'm the tech savvy guy in the office. Typically the rooted phones are faster, more stable, and have more features, some of which can be killer.

That said I think HTC is doing this in large part because they HAVE seen people run from Motorola's locked down phones at the rapid rate (and this is backed up by motorola starting to make noise about unlocking theirs too). Not to mention if HTC can partner with the community they can use that work as a resource for releasing stronger offerings for their phones that will really put them ahead of the competition.