HTC officially states "no more locked bootloaders"

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On their official Facebook page, HTC CEO Peter Chou has laid down the gauntlet, so to speak:

"There has been overwhelmingly customer feedback that people want access to open bootloaders on HTC phones. I want you to know that we've listened. Today, I'm confirming we will no longer be locking the bootloaders on our devices. Thanks for your passion, support and patience."
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Should make things much easier from here on out. No word just yet if they might provide updates that unlock some of the more recent phones that do have a locked bootloader (Thunderbolt, Incredible S, Sensation and EVO 3D) but they probably will. Let's hope this is a step in the right direction for other cellphone makers too.

Motorola... pay attention. :)
 
I have been thinking about buying an Incredible 2 at VZW but dont like the crapware it comes with and the forced use of Sense. Beyond an unlocked bootloader would anything else need to be done to root the Incredible 2? i'm pretty ignorant to these things. Would developers like Cyanogen and the like have to develop special versions of their ROMs to run on specific phones? I really like the Incredible 2 but dont want that crapware and would like to be able to run stock Android if I want.
 
Wheresatom said:
I have been thinking about buying an Incredible 2 at VZW but dont like the crapware it comes with and the forced use of Sense. Beyond an unlocked bootloader would anything else need to be done to root the Incredible 2? i'm pretty ignorant to these things. Would developers like Cyanogen and the like have to develop special versions of their ROMs to run on specific phones? I really like the Incredible 2 but dont want that crapware and would like to be able to run stock Android if I want.
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I'm in the same boat. I'm really wanting to replace my Droid ASAP. It's between the Inc 2 or the Xperia Play right now. They're basically the same hardware and both are reported to get phenomenal battery life (like 2 days with moderate use), but the Xperia is already extremely root friendly and comes with stock/AOSP 2.3.2 stock (soon to be 2.3.4), so I think I'm leaning towards it. I do like the blacked out look and smaller size of the Inc 2 better though.

I don't think the Inc 2 is rooted yet, but I'm sure it will be really soon though. It just has a signed bootloader like the Thunderbolt does and it was cracked in just a week or two after launch.

Damn, why does Verizon have to make it so hard.. every phone out now has huge trade-offs for what you want:

Droid X2: Dual Core and qHD display, but no 4G and encrypted bootloader
Charge: Super AMOLED+ display and 4G, but $300, only single core and has performance issues (w/ flash at least)
Thunderbolt: 4G, great form factor and build quality, but forced to root/tweak for battery life and fix other inherent issues (3G switching)
Xperia Play: Awesome gamepad, battery life and Sony support (so far), but has no 4G or dual core.
Incredible 2: Stellar battery life, hardware/form factor design and 768 MBs RAM, but no 4G and single core.

I believe dual cores are useless right now, but you can't deny that it will do wonders to extend the longevity of the phone throughout future Android updates that will take advantage of it. If the Samsung Function (Galaxy S2) was out right now, it would have everything I wanted, except maybe minus the Plays' niche gamepad. Grrrr..
 
Great news. Hopefully other manufacturers follow suit...or I will be getting an HTC.
 
BGK said:
Great news. Hopefully other manufacturers follow suit...or I will be getting an HTC.
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Who is left? Only one I know of for sure is Motorola, but I'm not sure about Samsung or LG. I haven't read any backlash about them in the news, so I assumed they were relatively open, maybe signed bootloaders at worst.
 
well its working for sony ericsson so i reckon everyone will be at it soon
 
Fucking awesome. Glad I have me a TBolt and glad the wife is on a Droid Incredible. HTC will continue to get my business in the future! I'm glad they realized the people that are causing them to have such great revenue are the ones they were pissing off and decided to correct the issue.

Motorola you need to follow HTC and stop the locked bootloader bullshit!
 
Good for HTC it's good to know somebody listens to their customers that's why they're the best. Now Motorola needs to pull their heads out of their asses and follow suit and I might just keep my Atrix. The Atrix has great hardware but lousy software and very poor support from Motorola. A totall failure imo
 
I got the Incredible 2, love it. It blows the Samsung Galaxy S out of the water too IMO, just for the simple fact the GPS works. Galaxy S GPS blows.

The battery performance is pretty good too and I usually get to about 50% battery life over a full day with heavy use.
 
Bravo, HTC! You just made my next phone decision even more difficult. It's down to the Sensation, Evo 3D or Galaxy S 2.
 
This is incredible news!!! No more HSPLing... (though, surely my HD2 won't get any update haha)
 
True, but maybe if HTC starts releasing unlocked bootloaders some talented coder extraordinaire over at XDA might be able to backport one to the HD2 and get it over with. Can't wait till I can get another HD2, I truly miss the one I had last year. ;)

Stopped by Best Buy last week to look at some tablets and met a guy from Poland and we struck up a conversation over the Acer Iconia and Asus Transformer tablets, for a full on hour or so, then he got a call and whipped out his tricked out customized HD2 and I was like "RIGHT ON!" :)
 
T4rd said:
I believe dual cores are useless right now, but you can't deny that it will do wonders to extend the longevity of the phone throughout future Android updates that will take advantage of it. If the Samsung Function (Galaxy S2) was out right now, it would have everything I wanted, except maybe minus the Plays' niche gamepad. Grrrr..
Click to expand...

The Function will be missing 4G...
 
Vermillion said:
Fucking awesome. Glad I have me a TBolt and glad the wife is on a Droid Incredible. HTC will continue to get my business in the future! I'm glad they realized the people that are causing them to have such great revenue are the ones they were pissing off and decided to correct the issue.

Motorola you need to follow HTC and stop the locked bootloader bullshit!
Click to expand...
That's on thing I've never understood about Motorola; they're actually worse than Samsung on the issue of support. I used to be pissed at Samsung, but after seeing what people that own Moto's Android phones, I really feel sorry for them.
 
JMccovery said:
That's on thing I've never understood about Motorola; they're actually worse than Samsung on the issue of support. I used to be pissed at Samsung, but after seeing what people that own Moto's Android phones, I really feel sorry for them.
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Droid X is a badass phone. I'm happy that Gingerbread is finally rolling out to DX owners as well. However, the true potential of that phone has been lost due to the locked bootloader. Even my TBolt would be a shell of what it is now if it wasn't for the AndIRC team rooting and changing out the bootloader.

Motorola had a gem in the original Droid. Damn good phone. I loved it. Motorola could have easily kept going with that mentality and really made bank off of it. However, Motorola proved how inept they really are and that will be their undoing yet again.
 
Pretty cool. I don't think they'll see a huge boost in sales over this but go HTC!
 
Erasmus354 said:
The Function will be missing 4G...
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Oh yeah..?

It might be wrong, but there's no way you can say in certainty right now if it will have LTE or not. I would really like to think that Verizon/Samsung wouldn't be retarded enough to launch it without it though. But even if it didn't have 4G, it wouldn't be a deal breaker for me.
 
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