
HTC sides with consumers: No more locked bootloaders in Android phones - drivebyacct2
https://www.facebook.com/HTC/posts/10150307320018084
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bad_user
This is exactly what I've been talking about -- customers want unlocked
phones, and because with Android competition is tough, sooner or later
unlocked phones will be the norm. Maybe not just yet, as I don't believe HTC
or Motorola until I see it, but soon.

I just bought a Galaxy because SG phones can be easily unlocked. That's a lost
sale for Motorola - as my first option was a Defy (those phones are cheap and
solid and I tend to mistreat my phones, so Defy seemed like a good option,
until I found out that unlocking them is a bitch)

~~~
abh1nav
+1 for unlocked phones being the norm. This has been the case in asia for
years now. It's about time we catch up.

~~~
sliverstorm
Carrier lockdown only happens when you buy a phone under contract. You can buy
unlocked phones, easy.

 _But they are so expensive!!!!_

Well, yeah, that's because you're paying the real price, not a subsidized
price. When you're paying the subsidized price, IMHO you have less leeway to
complain about carrier lockdown.

~~~
bad_user
Well, just for the record, I bought a heavily subsidized Galaxy S sim-unlocked
with a 2 year contract (the cost was something like $30). Gave it to my wife,
then bought myself a SG II. And I'm happily paying for my contract btw.

The carrier I'm talking about is a smaller one from Europe. It's unthinkable
to ask this of Vodafone or Orange (the 2 big ones) since their heads are
really up their buts. And the unlocking prices they charge are freakin`
insane! It's not as if carriers can't do this, they just don't want to.

I really don't understand what's their problem. If I'm terminating my contract
I have to pay the phone's subsidized price for the months remaining, their
only loss is me as their customer, so WTF is the deal with sim-locked phones?
I hate it when companies, instead of pleasing customers, are innovating in
better lock-in methods.

But yes, I was talking about bootloader-unlock in my previous message. Really,
Nexus S is the best Android sold right now, unfortunately it was only
available from Vodafone and I'll never make a contract with Vodafone again.

~~~
rythie
I suspect part of the subsidy is the expectation that you'll make some
calls/data/texts which they miss out on if you switch networks.

~~~
bad_user
I know that's what they say, but that's bullshit and you know it. If they
don't want me to leave, then they should keep me happy.

~~~
rythie
It's a company they are going to do what helps their bottom line the most, if
keeping people happy helps they will do that, if not they won't.

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Luyt
_"There are four major stakeholders in the Android smartphone market: the cell
carriers, the consumers, the handset makers, and Google. The carriers want
smartphones to be locked-down carrier-controlled devices through which
customers obediently buy services on carrier terms. All the other
stakeholders, by contrast, gain from unlocked devices. Consumers win because
they’re not limited to what the carriers choose to provide them; handset
makers win because an unlocked phone is more valuable to a consumer than a
locked one (and a little less expensive to ship, too); Google wins because its
long-term strategy requires it to commoditize the carriers into a passive
channel between the customers and Google."_

More at <http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3285>

~~~
gonzo
where is the f __king downvote button? ESR-hole knows nearly nothing about the
smartphone market.

And until last week, he didn't know that the iPod Touch would run apps.

~~~
eru
We value polite conversation here.

------
kragen
I'm glad they're doing this, but it's sad that it's news. We ought to be able
to take for granted the freedom to run whatever software we want on the
computers we buy. (Don't tell me a cellphone running Android isn't a computer.
You know better.)

~~~
nitrogen
You know it's a computer, and I know it's a computer, but to the "average
person," it's an appliance. It's kind of like the electric motor. Someone
(sorry, I don't recall who) recently posted an analogy here on HN between
electric motors and any other technology.

At first, factories would install a single giant motor with belts running
everywhere, and Sears sold a general-purpose home motor. Eventually, motors
were miniaturized and specialized into all kinds of devices. Now nobody thinks
about using a motor; they think about using a lathe, blender, or sewing
machine.

The same trend is happening with computers. Initially, people had generic
computers (ignoring the anomaly of the standalone word processor).
Increasingly powerful computers are gradually getting built into everything.
You and I see computers everywhere, but everyone else just sees smarter
devices.

~~~
chopsueyar
Motors cannot control computers. Computers can control motors.

Motors do not require an operating system.

There is something else that bothers me with this analogy...

The computer (as the 'average person' uses them) is a synergistic experience
between both the hardware AND the software.

Without the software, it would be useless. Without the hardware, the software
would be useless.

For the motor analogy, I assume the motor is the hardware, and the belts are
the OS?

Motive power and computer power are 2 different things.

~~~
nitrogen
Yes, I wanted to point out the critical difference that software makes, but my
post was already getting long enough. The average person doesn't (yet) seem to
understand that difference though.

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rbranson
More reasons HTC is my favorite phone manufacturer right now. After a bike
accident left my Nexus One screen broken, $100 and a 4-day turnaround got me
back on my feet. Thrilled. Maybe they'll drop the Sense UI from the stock
phones. One can dream.

~~~
nl
I doubt they'll drop Sense. Many people like it (as you can see by looking at
the demand for custom ROMs with it).

~~~
w1ntermute
As long as the bootloaders are unlocked, who cares what the default software
on there is? Just load up CM7 and you're good to go.

------
daimyoyo
Now that HTC has committed to removing locked bootloaders, it's only a matter
if time before all other android handset makers have to follow suit. This is a
very good thing for the cellphone industry, and tech in general.

------
tytso
One of the things that I find really cool about this is this happened without
using a copyright license (i.e. GPLv3) as a bludgeon to force HTC to do the
right thing. This was done using simple market forces, and not the anti-Tivo
clause of the GPLv3. Which has been the Linux kernel developers' objection all
along to the GPLv3....

------
runjake
This is great news. The HTC CEO made a pretty quick and sudden decision.

Meanwhile, Motorola vaguely semi-committed months ago and nothing has
happened.

I don't really buy that carriers are demanding this as Samsung currently
doesn't do this.

~~~
rodh257
I remember Paul Obrien tweeting that the GSII was really open, seemed to
actively encourage modding. Twitter search is horibble so I can't find the
tweet now though.

~~~
nfriedly
Just so you know, twitter's search only goes back a limited amount of time
because its targeted at real-time results, not historical. Google with
site:twitter.com might get better results.

------
bane
Well, now I know who I'm buying my next phone from.

~~~
jeffool
A million times this. But really, I probably wouldn't even consider it if the
phones didn't have extra programs on them that ran pointlessly and/or I
couldn't uninstall.

~~~
minalecs
well the whole point of having an unlocked bootloader is so it makes it easier
to run custom roms. Most roms are aosp or stock that remove all the crap.

~~~
jeffool
Oh I get it. I just mean that, if it didn't have that stuff, I wouldn't be too
concerned with running a custom rom, and the bootloader wouldn't be as big an
issue.

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akent
Why was this announced via a post on Facebook? Don't they have a corporate
blog or something?

~~~
blakerobinson
HTC is a Chinese company, so even if there is a corporate blog, it's not
directly hitting English speaking users. HTC probably saw this as its most
direct path to that audience.

~~~
bmunro
Taiwanese, to be precise.

------
Splines
I once had an HTC HD2, and while WM6.5 wasn't very good, the xda-developers
community _loves_ this device. I was able to try out all sorts of Android
builds on this device, as well as getting WP7 sort-of working on it. Truly
amazing.

My only gripe was that it was built with TMO in mind, and didn't have the
right radio to talk 3G on AT&T. The battery didn't last too long either, but
it was user-replaceable, so not that big of a deal.

~~~
ableal
The HD2 came out 18 months ago, and is still near par to current hardware
(1GHz, WVGA, etc.). I've been testing these XDA Android releases:
<http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=957652> ; I get standby
battery drain of 1% / hour, which is about the same as the original WM6.5.

------
blakerobinson
Unlocked bootloader is awesome. I would have settled for just being able to
turn off Sense at this point.

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gst
The unlocked and unbranded HTC Android phones that I bought so far did not
have any locked bootloader. E.g., on my HTC Wildfire there was some kind of
engineering bootloader preinstalled.

Carrier-branded HTC phones are locked down, but IMO that's OK and I have no
problem with that as long as I have the choice to buy and use an unbranded
phone.

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forkqueue
Too late for me - I bought a Samsung Galaxy S2 instead of an HTC Sensation
precisely because of the locked bootloader.

------
martythemaniak
That's great. HTC is going to be shipping unlocked bootloaders, SE has
committed to allowing users to request an unlock code for all new/current
devices and the Samsung Galaxy S 2 comes unlocked. Motorola probably won't be
able to resist the pressure.

Seems this will be standard for android devices very soon.

------
dochtman
I just hope they will allow the Sensation to be unlocked -- or release a SKU
that comes with the ability to unlock it.

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silon
Perhaps it's time to upgrade my HTC Hero (rooted, of course)

~~~
darklajid
Hero user here: You mean that particular phone that they threw on the market
and neglected ever since, right?

I do like these steps in the right direction, but HTC won't win me back for a
long while after receiving my (pre-ordered, one of the first in DE) Hero and
waiting ages to receive any updates/support on it afterwards. It was more or
less dead on arrival and really only usable because of the fine folks over at
VillainRom.

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grantjgordon
Wow, it's about time!!

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drivebyacct2
After much consumer push back against locked bootloaders in new devices, HTC
has (apparently) decided to discontinue the policy. This arrives just after
Motorola makes some unsubstantiated comment about reconsidering the policy.

For some history, the Droid 1 was very open and easy to flash with custom
ROMs. It's European brother, the Milestone, featured on-chip security that
verified the signature of the bootloader which in turn verified the signature
of various boot files including the linux kernel at the heart of Android.
Subsequent Motorola devices in the US featured similar security and thus do
not have official CM7 builds.

HTC recently adopted a similar strategy with respect to some of their more
recent phones. The Thunderbolt had a buggy implementation though, and was
still hacked quite quickly. The Evo 3d (And another? maybe?) featured a fixed
version that more closely represented the impenetrable Motorola style
bootloader.

Anyway, it appears now, that they maybe embracing the community more, which
makes me happy. My mom won't stop talking about how fast her Droid OG is. I
put CM7 on it which includes Gingerbread... a treat her phone would have never
otherwise seen. Meaning it also includes a fix for an awful race condition
that can make it impossible to answer phone calls. Good stuff all around.

Also, for context, this is the statement Motorola made a month ago:
[http://ausdroid.net/2011/04/27/confirmation-motorola-to-
unlo...](http://ausdroid.net/2011/04/27/confirmation-motorola-to-unlock-
bootloaders-for-future-android-devices/) They make very specific caveats for
"where carriers allow it".

~~~
ZoFreX
I'm a Milestone user and long-term customer of Motorola... I can't recommend
against them enough. Their problems extend far beyond locked bootloaders, far
more than following HTC on this issue would be required for Motorola to be
worth dealing with.

