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."

Comments

What

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:What

[GooberToo]

Agreed. More of the endless flood of trollish, completely dishonest reporting which is constantly being pushed on /. these days.

Google is pushing for an ever more open Android. They are, of course, balanced by carriers who want a more closed ecosystem - the status quo.

Bluntly, HTC's desire for openness is only SURPASSED by Google's.

This perhaps hint at an article for hire by Microsoft or Apple - both of whom have been caught doing this type of unethical FUDing before. Both Microsoft and Apple have a strong desire to unseat Android, seemingly no matter how low they need to go.

Perhaps the courts and patent battles are not going nearly as well as Microsoft and Apple had originally hoped?

Re:What

[Reapman]

Force a standardized UI? I didn't realize they were removing ADW Launcher or GO Launcher or Launcher Pro from the Market. Or do you mean after listening to the ENDLESS Complaints about MotoBlur and other 3rd party crap handset makers throwing on their phone and actually wanting to do something about it then yes, yes they are.

If you want an "open" phone (Aka do whatever you want) you buy a Nexus Phone made by Google. And that is probably the most accurate definition of Open in this conversation.

Wait...what? Huh??

[GweeDo]

"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.

Re:Wait...what? Huh??

[gad_zuki!]

Since Google decided to delay releasing Honeycomb's source because they didnt want more half-cooked tablets on the market, suddenly the loud-mouth brigade is trying to paint them in a bad light. Google exerting a little control on the wild-west world of tablets and its own phoneOS is a good thing. Heaven forbid AOpen or some other shit shop wait a few weeks for google to iron out the bugs, have them verify their hardware can run Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich and make them sign a contract that they will updates the OS to the newest versions for a period of 18 months. The de facto world of release garbage and buggy phones, never supplying updates and hurting Android's reputation is no longer welcome, and I'm glad.

Same regarding security

[DrYak]

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.