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HTC Unlocks Its Own Phones
itwbennett writes "Having just announced that it would continue to run Android on its best phones, HTC is now 'needling' Google by making good on 'promises it made earlier in the year to deliver bootloader unlock tools for many of its most popular Android phones,' writes blogger Kevin Fogarty. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, HTC CEO Peter Chou said that HTC views unlocked OSes as a way to encourage both ISVs and owners to get more involved developing apps and mods for the phones. Google, which has been trying to lock Android down more, probably doesn't see it that way."
Can we get a citation on "Google, which has been trying to lock Android down more,". Google has released two phones ever, both of which are easily rootable. Or does Google somehow take the heat for Motorola's actions prior to the buyout? Or is this just more FUD?
HTC is now 'needling' Google by making good on 'promises it made earlier in the year to deliver bootloader unlock tools for many of its most popular Android phones,'
I have a strong suspicion that Google will not care one single bit.
"Google, which has been trying to lock Android down more, probably doesn't see it that way."
The only phones that Google "produces" are the Nexus line. These have unlockable bootloaders already. Don't get me wrong, I am happy HTC is doing this, but that statement about Google is just silly and wrong.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
Other than Honeycomb and GoogleTV being not open sourced (which Google admits is a one off which will be fixed in Ice Cream Sandwich), what other evidence of them locking Android down is there? It really felt like a throw away line.
Meanwhile, HTC makes rather awesome phones and this makes it much easier to suggest phones to other developers.
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
Google has to be seen as providing Android as a walled garden OS in order to attract phone makers and telecoms. They would love for hackers to add to the capabilities of Android, but ultimately they need vendors to be happy first.
HTC unlocking lets Google continue to provide a single, common platform that vendors can do with as they please, i.e. locking it down. Meanwhile, hackers can unofficially push the limits of the same platform. Popular and useful improvements can be brought back into the trunk. Google gets free R&D.
Win - Win
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
I mean, really??? I know this crap is coming from Kevin Fogarty, but where does it come from?
In what way has Google been trying to lock Android down more? Up to this point, the only Google phone has been the one that allows you to install any software.
Only an idiot would question their commitment to Android. What did you expect them to do? Double down on WP7, develop their own O/S or try to acquire WebOS? Yes, that would have been the end of HTC had they dropped Android. HTC is where it's at because of Android.
I wonder what other people are experiancing with using it. The one person I know who has used this still has a mostly locked down phone. So far the most he has gotten out of it is a message on the phone saying "unlocked"
I often have trouble remembering which way is out of bed in the morning.
I will definitely keep this in mind when shopping for my next phone. I wonder if this HTC news, the Google/Moto deal and Samsung's dealings with Cyanogen will lead to a more open phone environment in the near future. I'm crossing my fingers :)
I'm not sure what the hell is going on over at HTC but not only has Google made every one of their phones easily unlockable, nor do I think they care to, but, HTC also made the very first Nexus (NexusOne). "Fastboot oem unlock" is a mantra among the Android hacking/modding community for that very reason.
Color me confused.
Really, Google's only lockdown being applied is making sure you can't used security exploits of the OS or kernel to root the phone. That has absolutely nothing to do with an unlockable bootloader. With an unlocked bootloader and the devices kernel source, you can still compile Android with root access that doesn't exploit security flaws in the OS or kernel.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
This story means that I'm going to recommend HTC phones over others to everyone I know, and buy them myself when I upgrade. Even if my friends/family don't unlock theirs, this news just gives me that much more trust in HTC hardware.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
no longer under warranty?!!!
... I'm sure glad I can set up my own AppStore for iOS devices ...
Does this only affect new phones, or will this work on older phones? I made the mistake of upgrading my HTC Evo to a firmware that isn't supported by any unlocking tools I've found. It would be nice to have a tool from a manufacturer that accomplishes this. Mainly I want to dump all the extra crap Sprint shoves on the phone.
but I have to give you only 7/10 for being so obvious.
Samsung phones were never locked. That HTC has to do this doesn't make them my 'favorite' company, especially as the unlock method is supposed to be complicated, with a per-device unlock key. A bit like Sony-Ericsson does it, to register voiding the warranty etc.
A Samsung Galaxy S for example will just (try to) boot anything you put on it. And Google never asked them to stop doing this. That said HTC makes decent phones too.
I really don't understand this mentality, there's not even suitable smartphone options for enterprise any more. I had a project to deploy 500 smartphones with special internal software but trying to find a platform was near impossible because the application required low level access to operating system internals in most use-cases. Windows Phone 7 doesn't even allow enterprise app deployment, you can't get legitimate root on an Android hardware platform with QWERTY-hardware keyboards without hacking the thing and Symbian is not a long term option. I think it's ridiculous that it's easier to actually get your own platform made from scratch (which is what we did) then it is to have a wide variety of unlocked manufacturer supported phones with root.
What does this dude have against Google? Does he know something nobody else does? From the bottom of his article:
Where's this "needling Google" Kevin alludes to?
This is great! I'm using a MyTouch 4g (HTC Glacier) flashed with Cyanogenmod 7, but it was a bit of a fuss to root it in order to flash. If they'll make the job easier, I'll look first to HTC for the next phone 'cause this current one w/CM7 is super!
Let's assume Google was trying to lock down Android (I assume the FUD comes partly from the delayed 3.0 source code releases), it still doesn't change the fact that bootloaders differ from device to device. Google virtually has no power over what kind of protection if any HTC should choose to use.
TFA is misleading at best.
Agreed. More of the endless flood of trollish, completely dishonest reporting which is constantly being pushed on /. these days.
And same goes, in my opinion, for their comment about security:
Unlocked phones and user-installed software pose much higher risk of infection by malware or corruption of system software.
Uh... no... sorry. An unlocked phone isn't suddenly more susceptible to malware, just because it's unlocked. That might have been true in some case with iPhones due to 2 separate reasons (A. a blunder which left all phones with the same default password for SSH, making it easy to remotely log into iphone of user not savvy enough to change the password after installing SSH. B. due to the closed nature of iPhones, some hole might have to be left open so after each reboot the iPhone can still be forced to run homebrew apps). But in practice, unlocked phones tend to be more secure, simply for the fact that they can still get updates (like the cyanogenmods) which are likely to contain the latest security patch, even long after the manufacturer and/or the carrier have dropped support. Not to mention that some 3rd party ROMs might contain additional security features.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I was under the impression that this unlock was only for devices sold direct from HTC, which excludes pretty much every HTC device in the US. Has this changed?
And it's still s-on after the "unlock".