HTC fans, geeks, nerds and hackers across the world, rejoice! If you’re the owner of an HTC phone from Setpember 2011 onwards, you are now being offered an official unlocked bootloader from HTC. Why the change of heart? Here’s the scoop …
Over on HTC’s official developer site, the company has announced that from this day forward, HTC will be offering the ability to unlock your phone and reap the benefits therein. This officially sanctioned unlocking has come about after HTC “heard your voice,” and…
… starting now, we will allow our bootloader to be unlocked for 2011 models going forward. We plan on releasing the updates that will allow you to unlock your bootloader in the coming months…We are extremely pleased to see the energy and enthusiasm from our fans and loyal customers, and we are excited to see what you are capable of. HTC eagerly anticipates your innovations.
The rest of the site is an extremely long disclaimer about how you could potentially ruin your phone by mucking about with the underlying operating system. There’s also a nice disclaimer where HTC says it can keep a phone locked if it’s in a specific carrier agreement. But realistically, for most users, it’s one less convoluted step which makes enthusiasts and developers very happy when running custom phone ROMs. Having the latest and greatest version of Android up and running is often a mark of pride in the Android community. (Plus, hacking skills carry with them their own bragging rights.)
If your phone isn’t on the unlockable list, don’t fret. HTC plans on adding more older devices when it gets around to it, but it’s good to know that this is the tone going forward. Maybe it’ll even set the tone for other phone manufactures, too. Here’s looking at you, Motorola.
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Android is the only embedded platform ever where vendors have gone against their traditional tendency to lock everything down. It is only market competition that has pushed them to this, and it is only the open-source nature of Android that has been able to encourage such competition.