HTC: Unlocked Bootloaders from here on out

[Dovahkiin]

http://www.androidcentral.com/htc-vivid-bootloader-unlock-now-available-htc-developer-site

I trash-talked HTC in a post like a week ago. Clearly they saw my post and were like "whoa, this guy means business."
Or more likely, they grew a pair and simply decided to unlock them despite Verizon not wanting this.
Or the Verizon excuse was a lie, and Motorola is rolling around in the crapper in the bathroom of the court of public opinion.
Theories or thoughts, anyone?

 

[VickMackey#AC]

Declining sales and loosing the OEM battle to Samsung. Plus they already promised they would so not a really a surprise.

 

[JeffDenver]

This was a part (granted a small part) of my decision to jump to HTC. And one reason I dont like Motorola anymore. The Droid 1 was the only Moto product I would have owned.

 

[splatoid]

http://www.androidcentral.com/htc-vivid-bootloader-unlock-now-available-htc-developer-site

I trash-talked HTC in a post like a week ago. Clearly they saw my post and were like "whoa, this guy means business."
Or more likely, they grew a pair and simply decided to unlock them despite Verizon not wanting this.
Or the Verizon excuse was a lie, and Motorola is rolling around in the crapper in the bathroom of the court of public opinion.
Theories or thoughts, anyone?

Well I think you probably scared the living hell out of them and they had a big board meeting and discussed what would be the best option on how to handle this Dovahkiin fellow and after much debate decided to grant you your wish to thwart any repercussions in future posts.
Pretty good huh?

 

[Dovahkiin]

Well I think you probably scared the living hell out of them and they had a big board meeting and discussed what would be the best option on how to handle this Dovahkiin fellow and after much debate decided to grant you your wish to thwart any repercussions in future posts.
Pretty good huh?

Not bad, but only if you conveniently ignore their guarantee to unlock bootloaders by the end of the year.
If you do that, then, well, it was mighty frightening for them to see me rallying the troops.

 

[xxfallacyxx]

Dunno about the rest of you, but I don't want some guy with a voice strong enough to throw me off a cliff angry with me.

 

[jbh00jh]

They will let you unlock it now but they get your ESN when you use the htc/dev unlock and use it to void your warranty. :-\

 

[JeffDenver]

On the actual site they spell out the restrictions. The voided parts of the warranty only apply if your phone is broken because the bootloader is unlocked. In other words...only if the phone would NOT have been broken with a default bootloader.

Yeah, this leaves the interpretation up to them. But I doubt they will be dicks about it. Its likely to blow up in their faces if they did. And frankly, if they were dicks, they would not offer the option to unlock in the first place. They'd do what Motorola is doing.

 

[Dovahkiin]

Dunno about the rest of you, but I don't want some guy with a voice strong enough to throw me off a cliff angry with me.

I was ready to walk in front of Verizon HQ and let out a FUS just to let them know who's boss.

 

[Droid800]

Your title (and understanding) isn't quite accurate. Unlocked is very different than unlockable. HTC will not be shipping unlocked devices. They've made that crystal clear.

What they will be doing from here on out is making the HTCDev unlock tool available for all devices, which is exactly what they promised.

 

[splatoid]

I don't really care about the warranty. I still have my trusty incredible and Its still like new.I don't even pay for insurance. Never have and never will.But That is because I'm so smart and can fix my own stuff. Yeah right.....

 

[majorpayne]

What I would like to see is ways to tweak the current sense theme too allow things like numbers in the battery indicator and five across instead of only four for the most part I'm enjoying the sense 3.5 theme

 

[VidJunky]

OK, I think I'm following, but it's not that clear to me. Are you all saying that, like Apple did when they lost the case against its users, HTC is allowing, offering, a tool to unlock your own phone with warranty in tack as long as whatever you do doesn't directly harm the device? Basically "Root for all?" I've never rooted a phone. I considered it once then decided against it, more out of fear and lack of understanding what I was doing than anything else. The only thing I would change on my device would be to do away with the bloatware, and save app data that current backups don't offer. I even tried the temp root thing when I got the Rezound and failed to successfully figure it out.

 

[Droid800]

OK, I think I'm following, but it's not that clear to me. Are you all saying that, like Apple did when they lost the case against its users, HTC is allowing, offering, a tool to unlock your own phone with warranty in tack as long as whatever you do doesn't directly harm the device? Basically "Root for all?" I've never rooted a phone. I considered it once then decided against it, more out of fear and lack of understanding what I was doing than anything else. The only thing I would change on my device would be to do away with the bloatware, and save app data that current backups don't offer. I even tried the temp root thing when I got the Rezound and failed to successfully figure it out.

Sort of. There are things HTC will not cover under any circumstances if you unlock your device, like, say, overclocking it and ending up bricking it. Anything that happens as a result of unlocking it they will not cover. If you unlock it and, say, your screen starts freaking out, or headphone jack quits on you, they'll cover that, because its a defect.

BTW; I'm not sure what you're referring to with Apple, because jailbreaking has never been legal. Its a violation of the EULA and software license, but Apple hasn't gone after them unless they were using copyrighted code improperly. They've also never sanctioned any form of jailbreaking.

 

[Jet300]

BTW; I'm not sure what you're referring to with Apple, because jailbreaking has never been legal. Its a violation of the EULA and software license, but Apple hasn't gone after them unless they were using copyrighted code improperly. They've also never sanctioned any form of jailbreaking.

The U.S. Government disagrees....

iPhone jailbreaking not illegal, says US government

 

[Droid800]

The U.S. Government disagrees....

iPhone jailbreaking not illegal, says US government

Legal in terms of how Apple approaches it, not legal in the sense of the law. Should have made that clear.

 

[dpham00]

Legal in terms of how Apple approaches it, not legal in the sense of the law. Should have made that clear.

It is probably more accurate to say that jailbreaking is a violation of TOS, but not illegal (unless the jailbreak used a copyrighted method).

 

[VidJunky]

Legal in terms of how Apple approaches it, not legal in the sense of the law. Should have made that clear.

What? (Not pick on you it's just that this is similar to other posts and it was close enough to grab.) Anyway this is what I'm talking about with the whole losing thing. Apple loses bid to criminalize jailbreaking And while I cannot find it now I swear one of my tech YouTube channels said Apple had released a tool to jailbreak. At the time it sounded like if people are going to do this let's have some control. Although what may have been actually referenced was this group calling themselves iPhone Dev Team.
When I get to a pc I'll look deeper into the actual story I watched.