Motorola Eases Up on Locked Bootloader Stance, Plans to Unlock Portfolio in 2011?

[jr313]

What the hell is "illegal tethering"?

Illegal tethering is y a lot of ppl root their phones and one of the many reasons why companies and carriers want the phones locked dwn...using ur data connection to supply internet to other devices without paying the premiums companies have set for that priviledge..(taking advantage)

 

[patmw123]

With how promising the new gingerbread leaks with blur have been I'm extremely excited for motorolas new devices to come out.

 

[EgooEspada]

@jr313 Even HTC's unlocked devices are locked down. So yes, HTC is doing this on their own terms. SE and Motorola are going to have their unlocked phones' boot loader unlocked and it'd up to carriers of the carrier dependent phones are unlocked as well. The reality is manufacturers have to play by carriers' rules. Carriers usually say what phones have what and how they look and so on. I Only manufacturer immune to that is Apple.

Sent from my ADR6400L

 

[52brandon]

I was told manufactures covered warranties, and I know VRZ doesn't have anything to do with insurance, thats Asurion's scam - and a very profitable one at that.

If moto wants to help its customers and unlock the bootloader, they should just leak the unlocker a few months after the phones come out. "Sure VRZ bean counters, our new DX3 is locked up tight!"
dancedroid

How about they at least give you the choice, like offer a one-time unlock fee of $20 or something? I would be willing to pay for it if it wasn't too expensive, that way they would know you paid for the option of having an unlocked phone, and if you brick it, too bad. That would work for me. Kinda like signing a disclosure before you attempt bungie-jumping or something...lol

Yeah this would probably be the best option, but the problem i think is if a company allows something like that, people who brick are still going to call in and whine about it...i doubt everyone will just pony up $700 when/if they brick their phone even if they told verizon they promise they wont complain...

Isn't that what insurance is for?

I would love to MOTO unlock their devices again. I've got plenty of time left with my thunderbolt to see if it happens. Until then, I'm perfectly happy with my unlocked HTC

 

[funwheeldrive]

I want my Targa!

 

[kodiak799]

Illegal tethering is y a lot of ppl root their phones

As has been pointed out before, you don't need root to tether with PDA net, and I would guess that has been downloaded multiple times more than the wireless tether apps (which require root).

I see now where PDA net has a beta feature to hide tether usage. Not sure how it impacts speeds, though. Regardless, 3G speeds are SLLLLOOOWWWW and I only tether when no other option is available.

 

[g_what]

I really hope Moto follows through on this.

dancedroid

 

[52brandon]

Illegal tethering is y a lot of ppl root their phones

As has been pointed out before, you don't need root to tether with PDA net, and I would guess that has been downloaded multiple times more than the wireless tether apps (which require root).

I see now where PDA net has a beta feature to hide tether usage. Not sure how it impacts speeds, though. Regardless, 3G speeds are SLLLLOOOWWWW and I only tether when no other option is available.

Also Bluetooth tether is free and doesn't require root either

 

[sb1831]

Dear world, we will now be taking you over.
Sincerely,
Motorola


Now if only they could actually get their hardware out the door, there may be no reason to buy from any other manufacturer

Lol! Moto has already shot themselves in the foot, if HTC can get this battery life issue improved, there won't be much of a reason to go back to Moto. The Thunderbolt in my case is the best phone I've ever owned period. What's my motivation to go back to Moto.......nothing. When they decided to put their foot down, they lost a lot of customers, particularly rooters. Now they realize that their strategy isn't paying off because HTC is giving us users what we want and because Moto phone sales are dropping like flies. It's funny how they blame it on carriers as the reason why the bootloaders are locked and encrypted. You don't see HTC encrypting bootloaders, nope just Moto.

It could very well be too late for Moto to regain the grip it had on the Android community.

I know a lot of people that were up for their one year upgrades because they purchased the original Droid by Motorola. Outside of a couple of people that were into the development community, most people i know went with the Droid Pro, Droid 2 or recently got an iPhone. Q4 was profitable for Motorola. Heck it was their first profitable year in quite some time.

People have known about the locked bootloaders for sometime(june before the X dropped), and they're still buying them. Can we PLEASE stop with the whole, "motorola is going to go out of business if they don't do (insert half brained idea here)?" The 38+million handsets they sold last year clearly say otherwise.

Obviously people are choosing a phone with a locked bootloader over those with a 6hour battery life.

 

[eagle1967]

Dear world, we will now be taking you over.
Sincerely,
Motorola


Now if only they could actually get their hardware out the door, there may be no reason to buy from any other manufacturer

Lol! Moto has already shot themselves in the foot, if HTC can get this battery life issue improved, there won't be much of a reason to go back to Moto. The Thunderbolt in my case is the best phone I've ever owned period. What's my motivation to go back to Moto.......nothing. When they decided to put their foot down, they lost a lot of customers, particularly rooters. Now they realize that their strategy isn't paying off because HTC is giving us users what we want and because Moto phone sales are dropping like flies. It's funny how they blame it on carriers as the reason why the bootloaders are locked and encrypted. You don't see HTC encrypting bootloaders, nope just Moto.

It could very well be too late for Moto to regain the grip it had on the Android community.

I know a lot of people that were up for their one year upgrades because they purchased the original Droid by Motorola. Outside of a couple of people that were into the development community, most people i know went with the Droid Pro, Droid 2 or recently got an iPhone. Q4 was profitable for Motorola. Heck it was their first profitable year in quite some time.

People have known about the locked bootloaders for sometime(june before the X dropped), and they're still buying them. Can we PLEASE stop with the whole, "motorola is going to go out of business if they don't do (insert half brained idea here)?" The 38+million handsets they sold last year clearly say otherwise.

Obviously people are choosing a phone with a locked bootloader over those with a 6hour battery life.

funny little hit on thunderbolt there . and motorola makes alot more than phones they arent going anywhere. but they do have some concern or they wouldnt even put out these obvious please keep our stocks up statements. But its quite obvious they are not being truthful about the bionic so hard to trust anything they say. but i loved my droid. But they lost me to LG for this round. well see if they can win be back next round.

 

[kodiak799]

funny little hit on thunderbolt there . and motorola makes alot more than phones they arent going anywhere. but they do have some concern or they wouldnt even put out these obvious please keep our stocks up statements. But its quite obvious they are not being truthful about the bionic so hard to trust anything they say. but i loved my droid. But they lost me to LG for this round. well see if they can win be back next round.

I don't put much stock in the comments, either, and I don't much care about the locked bootloader (root is enough for me).

Not sure it's been mentioned, but Google has also made some rumblings and this could just as easily be Motorola trying to appease the Android gods. Would also explain the finger being pointed at VZW, and reading between the lines we all know VZW is likely behind more than just the locked bootloader (updates, anyone?).

 

[Amagine]

what i find funny is, if they do allow a locked/unlocked version of each phone, and it is then locked by the carrier (IE verizon/att) then how long do you REALLY think it would be before someone on here would have a work around. Really?
Unless, you provide two different hardcoded versions, which to moto would be expensive, the locking would still require something of a firmware update/change from the telco or from software. But on either level you still have to interface with the bootloader to do so. Which means that its still unlockable in an unofficial fashion.

I would love it if they did something like Intel did with their chips. one is locked and the other is marked with a K, meaning you can overclock the **** out of it. But at the same time intel isn't going to backstop it.
But at the same time, we saw with the nexus the first go around that most people aren't going to shell out for an unlocked phone. Although, I honestly think the problem with the nexus was that they offered it with T-mobile. Really... T-mobile. Exclusivity with TM is like signing a death warrant for a phone, and to a point, it did.

 

[MoeDaddy]

Personally I hope they do let us unlock our phones. I love Moto quality and style. I have had the Droid, the Droid X and now the HTC Thunderbolt. IMO both moto phones were built better than the HTC phone, the motos feel more substantial and durable, the motos fit and finish and design flow is more thought out and apealing than the HTC. Then there is the many moto accessories that just work and work well. That is all opinion based so really it's a "to ea his/her own thing"... However, both motos get better signal in bad areas than the HTC and the battery life was much better and those are not so subjective.

So why did I go HTC if I love moto so much? Well, the HTC can be completely hacked, I can run CM7 on it now and that is what I missed the most after I upgraded from my original Droid. That is also why I only kept my DX for a few months. I literally could not stand the limitations put on me by the locked down DX. Sure maybe I'm just a control freak but I like taking things to the extreme and making a device my own is part of that extreme. The DX fought me every step of the way. It is not the most hacker friendly device. As an example, on the DX I ran various roms and I would get reboots daily. I have not had a single reboot on the TB and I am now running the pre-alpha of CM7... OMG what a wonderful thing. Now if the DX was open like the Droid I could be running AOSP builds for it too and they would most likely be just as stable as those for the TB but I can't. SO I was stuck with hacked together roms that invariably have issues and that is not because the devs making it were not good or didn't work as hard it's just the nature of the beast. I've found that aosp built roms generally run better and smoother than pieced together roms.

Anyway, I'd love to go back to moto and I hope they do what they say and don't hide behind VZW.

 

[billybites]

This is some GREAT news! We don't want anything locked

 

[sb1831]

This is some GREAT news! We don't want anything locked

You say this now until we're all paying 14.99/MO for insurance because of the amount of phones being sent back because new users that have no idea what they're doing. I could see possible repercussions to completely unlocking bootloaders for all handsets.