The Samsung Galaxy S4 On AT&T Will Ship With A Locked Bootloader!

[DroidModderX]

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It has been confirmed that AT&T will be the first US carrier to sell a Samsung Galaxy S4 with a locked bootloader. We would have expected this from Verizon, but AT&T devices have been pretty open in the past. Samsung has been developer friendly with the exception of Verizon devices. This could signify that other carriers are forcing the hand of OEMs to lock up devices. AT&T will be authenticating recovery and boot images before executing them like Verizon. Not only will this make things more difficult for consumers who wish to tinker with there phones, but it could cause updates to come at a much slower pace as we have already seen on Verizon.

Steve Kondik of Cyanogen gave the confirmation yesterday. He had this to say.

Yep, it's confirmed. The AT&T S4 authenticates the recovery and boot images before executing them.

I can't see what AT&T has to possibly gain from this. GSM and LTE aren't magical, tethering is controllable on the server side, and theft-of-services is not possible from the application processor side (or even from the modem side as far as I know). The same device is available on every carrier, so it's not an exclusivity issue either. The modem processor has always been locked, and the casual user doesn't want to mess with that part anyway. Samsung has always been developer-friendly, so I am guessing their hand was forced.

The only outcome I see here is stacks of bricked devices being sent back for warranty replacement due to the ease of causing a permanent boot failure, especially since the device is trivially rootable.

The arms race continues. News flash: MILLIONS of people run custom firmware (and I have the STATS to prove it). This is just a stupid move that will cost you customers and money.

I would not recommend buying this device on AT&T if you want to run CyanogenMod or another custom ROM, or if you are a developer and need to work with or debug the lower layers.

The only way to combat this sort of behavior by the carriers is to vote with your wallet. It is a good thing that the option to buy an international unlocked variant is available for AT&T customers. Verizon users have had options to purchase developer variants from Motorola and HTC. Hopefully OEMs will continue to give us these kinds of options in the future.

Via Google+

 

[johnomaz]

My S3 having an unlocked bootloader vs Verizon's locked bootloader was the reason I switched to AT&T. I buy a phone for the hardware and the ability to put a custom firmware on it. I ran my S3 with touchwiz on it for barely a month because very few reliable roms were out. If this trend continues, I'll be leaving AT&T next July and going to TMobile or Sprint. They seem to be a little more accepting to people who want to tweak (though we'll have to wait to see how the S4 comes out on their network as well as future devices). At the very least, I'll buy a Sony device. They have been looking amazing and Sony has been uncharacteristically supportive of the dev community.

 

[KZIWarrior]

As much as I love custom ROMs and the ability to customize my phone how I want you have to remember we are the minority , and a small one at that (companies sell millions of android phones every day and most sites like this barely have a few hundred thousand members). Of the dozens, if not hundreds of people I know with other Android devices I'm the only one I know that bothers to unlock/root/flash. Fact is that the vast majority of people don't care, they are perfectly fine just accepting updates when they are pushed by the carriers. Besides I can think of very few examples where the developer community does not find a way to unlock/crack such issues in a timely manner.

/begin rant:
Of course if it really matters that much to you than DON'T BUY A SUBSIDIZED PHONE. If you are paying less than the actual price of the phone you have no room to bi#$@, you want an unlocked phone, pay for it yourself, as long as the company is paying the majority of the cost they can do whatever they want with it. Now if companies like T-Mobile don't offer an unlocked device on their new no-subsidized type plan by all means complain, but if you're wanting the carrier to pay for your phone than deal (or wait the whole week or so it will take the developer community to crack the loader (end rant).

 

[pc747]

My S3 having an unlocked bootloader vs Verizon's locked bootloader was the reason I switched to AT&T. I buy a phone for the hardware and the ability to put a custom firmware on it. I ran my S3 with touchwiz on it for barely a month because very few reliable roms were out. If this trend continues, I'll be leaving AT&T next July and going to TMobile or Sprint. They seem to be a little more accepting to people who want to tweak (though we'll have to wait to see how the S4 comes out on their network as well as future devices). At the very least, I'll buy a Sony device. They have been looking amazing and Sony has been uncharacteristically supportive of the dev community.

I personally am not concerned and here is why. Say at&t do make that the deal. I can just buy it unlocked or buy an unlocked nexus and pop a sim in it. With carriers like att and t-mobile you at least have a choice where verizon you are stuck with the phone they buy.

 

[DroidModderX]

I personally am not concerned and here is why. Say at&t do make that the deal. I can just buy it unlocked or buy an unlocked nexus and pop a sim in it. With carriers like att and t-mobile you at least have a choice where verizon you are stuck with the phone they buy.

That is exactly right if you are on Verizon you essentially have no choice unless the OEM happens to put out a developer edition.

 

[skennelly]

As much as I love custom ROMs and the ability to customize my phone how I want you have to remember we are the minority , and a small one at that (companies sell millions of android phones every day and most sites like this barely have a few hundred thousand members). Of the dozens, if not hundreds of people I know with other Android devices I'm the only one I know that bothers to unlock/root/flash. Fact is that the vast majority of people don't care, they are perfectly fine just accepting updates when they are pushed by the carriers. Besides I can think of very few examples where the developer community does not find a way to unlock/crack such issues in a timely manner.

/begin rant:
Of course if it really matters that much to you than DON'T BUY A SUBSIDIZED PHONE. If you are paying less than the actual price of the phone you have no room to bi#$@, you want an unlocked phone, pay for it yourself, as long as the company is paying the majority of the cost they can do whatever they want with it. Now if companies like T-Mobile don't offer an unlocked device on their new no-subsidized type plan by all means complain, but if you're wanting the carrier to pay for your phone than deal (or wait the whole week or so it will take the developer community to crack the loader (end rant).

This is wrong on so many levels. First if we are truly the "minority"(which I don't disagree with), then why make such an effort and financial investment locking down the device.

Second, just because you buy a subsidized phone doesn't mean that you don't own the phone. Part of the monthly fee pays the difference. No offense, but your crazy to think any mobile carrier is just going to give you $500 just for the honor of providing you cell service.

 

[kodiak799]

Is it possible that what is really driving this is the enterprise market? I don't think most paranoid IT departments want to approve phones with unlocked bootloaders.