Confirmed: No unlocked bootloader

[Phil Nickinson]

Sorry, folks.

http://www.androidcentral.com/motorola-backtracks-says-photon-4g-does-not-have-unlocked-bootloader

 

[Flawson]

Grrr this should have a vzw cousin

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

[clindner]

So, what you are saying is that you have confirmed that it was not confirmed that it did actually not have a non-unlocked bootloader, right?

 

[Castor Troy]

^^^My head is spinning they got verification that the bootloader was in fact locked.

Sent from my Droid

 

[Loogie]

Oh well, it WAS going to be my next phone. Hopefully they'll get it worked out before release, but if it is indeed a locked bootloader with no way to unlock/root it, then that's a show-stopper for me.

 

[coolqf]

Nevermind....

 

[Beach_Head]

Phil, any chance you can verify if its tri-band GSM or quad-band GSM?

Thanks!

 

[Dark_Blu]

Whether the boot loader is locked or unlocked doesn't affect me as long as the world GSM slot works in Europe. This is the phone I have been waiting for. Unless the next Google phone with ICS also has the same specs and is a world phone, this is going to be my next phone if it's available in December or thereafter.

 

[VDub2174]

Can someone please explain this to me. I'm still not sure about all aspects of Android so the bootloader talk sometimes confuses me.

I know HTC said that they'll be releasing their phones with unlocked bootloaders. Moto confirmed saying the Photon will have a locked bootloader. When I rooted my EVO, that unlocked the bootloader for me? If yes, then can't we just root the Photon to unlock the bootloader?

I apologize if this is in the wrong spot.

 

[Djblue]

Can someone please explain this to me. I'm still not sure about all aspects of Android so the bootloader talk sometimes confuses me.

I know HTC said that they'll be releasing their phones with unlocked bootloaders. Moto confirmed saying the Photon will have a locked bootloader. When I rooted my EVO, that unlocked the bootloader for me? If yes, then can't we just root the Photon to unlock the bootloader?

I apologize if this is in the wrong spot.

No it's not that simple, that's why all other moto phones are still locked now. Motorola locks and encrypts the bootloaders on their phones. Encrypting it makes the phone almost impossible to unlock(which is why there was such a fuss with HTC over the Evo 3D's apparent encrypted bootloader.) Your Evo's bootloader was just locked.....but if it were encrypted also task such as custom roms, kernels, and recoveries would be almost impossible. If this phone will have the same encryption as the atrix and droid x( it should be) then you should still be able to root and apply custom themes,and also custom roms, though they will be very limited. There may be more you can do that i'm not aware of since i'm not an Moto user, but I think I mentioned pretty much everything,

 

[Beach_Head]

Same here, but for my country...

As per Moto, here are the bands that the Photon uses:

WiMAX 2.5, WCDMA 850/1900/2100, CDMA 800/1900, GSM 850/900/1900, CDMA EV-DO Release A, EDGE Class 12, GPRS Class 12

I don't know if the GSM part is a typo because I don't see why they would make it support only 3 GSM bands instead of the standard 4 bands for world coverage...

Motorola XPRT - Dual-band CDMA EVDO Rev A (800/1900) + Tri-band UMTS/HSDPA, 850/900/1800/1900MHz GSM, GPRS Class 12, EDGE Class 12; 850/1900/2100 WCDMA (category 9/10); HSDPA 10.2mbps, HSUPA 1.8 mbps

Droid Pro - CDMA 800/1900 EVDO-Rev.A, Dual-band Rx Diversity, GSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 850/1900/2100, HSDPA 10.2 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps (Category 9), EDGE Class 12, GPRS Class 12

Droid Global - Global - CDMA 800/1900, CDMA EV-DO Rev. A 800/1900 , WCDMA 850/1900/2100, GSM 850/900/1800/1900

I really hope that the tri-band GSM frequency was just a typo. I e-mailed Sprint to confirm. Let's see what they say...

Whether the boot loader is locked or unlocked doesn't affect me as long as the world GSM slot works in Europe. This is the phone I have been waiting for. Unless the next Google phone with ICS also has the same specs and is a world phone, this is going to be my next phone if it's available in December or thereafter.

 

[wirelessness#AC]

Motorola seems intent on unlocking 'all' of their devices bootloaders if the specific carriers will allow it. The problem is the Photon is not going to be shipped unlocked and it could be awhile before it gets an update that would unlock the bootloader.

Moto article

 

[Loogie]

Motorola seems intent on unlocking 'all' of their devices bootloaders if the specific carriers will allow it. The problem is the Photon is not going to be shipped unlocked and it could be awhile before it gets an update that would unlock the bootloader.

Moto article

Yes, the question for me is two-fold 1) When will Moto deliver an unlocked bootloader for the Photon 2) Will Sprint allow vendors to deliver phones with unlocked bootloaders? I haven't seen any official word from Sprint yet as to their official stance on unlocked bootloaders. Since Sprint seems to be courting the phone geeks then maybe they'll be on board with it, but I haven't seen the word yet. Did I miss it somewhere?

 

[wirelessness#AC]

The Nexus S 4G is s 'Developer' phone with an unencrypted bootloader. In fact until the revelation that the Evo 3D was going to have an encrypted bootloader Sprint's Android handsets were not totally locked down. Signed but not encrypted bootloaders are easy to get around (as we all know), so it would appear Sprint does not have a very hardline stance on this issue historically. Moto seems to have pioneered this trend (after Apple of course) on VZW I am hoping this is just a carry over from that network and that Sprint will be amenable to Moto's desire to unlock bootloaders....time will tell.

 

[wirelessness#AC]

If anyone cares I just posted the question to Sprint on their facebook page asking for an official position on locked bootloaders. I linked the HTC CEO's Facebook post stating they would no longer lock bootloaders and commented on Motorola's plans to provide unlockable bootloaders in future.

Maybe we can encourage them to cooperate with these efforts from device manufacturers....

 

[sniffs]

Can someone please explain this to me. I'm still not sure about all aspects of Android so the bootloader talk sometimes confuses me.

I know HTC said that they'll be releasing their phones with unlocked bootloaders. Moto confirmed saying the Photon will have a locked bootloader. When I rooted my EVO, that unlocked the bootloader for me? If yes, then can't we just root the Photon to unlock the bootloader?

I apologize if this is in the wrong spot.

When you buy an Android phone out of the box, you're not given access to the hidden file system.

Basically, it's as if you turned on your computer and logged in as a regular "user" account and c:\windows is completely hidden. "Root" as it's called with *nix based OS', is giving your account superuser access to the file system, to modify it as you please. Like logging into your Vista/Windows 7 machine using the administrator account. Same principal.

Having an unencrypted/unlocked bootloader means you can install unsigned kernels. This means that you can install the very latest Android release without having to wait for Motorola to tweak it.

Imagine buying a Dell and ONLY being able to install a Windows version that Dell themselves digitally signed? The world would revolt.. yet we're letting them get away with doing it to our phones.

As with all our devices now, we cannot install any newer kernals other than what Motorola wants us to have on them. As of right now, the DroidX is stuck on 2.3.3, we cannot install 2.3.4 or anything newer unless Motorola has digitally signed the package.

 

[clarkkent434]

Confirmed unlocked encrypted bootloader

Still locked boot-loader but a member on xda in the Evo3D forums ask motorola about an encrypted boot-loader and here is there reply. This is a very good sign.

 

[coolqf]

Re: Confirmed unlocked encrypted bootloader

Still locked boot-loader but a member on xda in the Evo3D forums ask motorola about an encrypted boot-loader and here is there reply. This is a very good sign.

I too believe this phone will come unencrypted. Motorola recently unlocked a bootloader to an Android phone of theirs on the AT&T network, and I suspect moving forward they will unlock recently released phones and will bring to market unlocked phones.