It’s a sad state of affairs when the largest mobile network in the USA is locking down bootloaders on its phones. It’s not exactly surprising either but, that’s not the point. Thanks to Android and it’s open ways the hacker community has never had it so good. However, the hacker community isn’t just the hacker community anymore, regular people are starting to turn to Custom ROMs and Kernels because they want a faster and lighter phone. For instance, a Nexus S user I upgraded to a One X – why did I not go G.Nex you ask? Well, I wanted a prettier phone with a quad-core CPU (partly for bragging rites). However, I also refuse to use anything but stock Android and so the One X was a perfect choice with an unlockable bootloader. That along, sealed the deal for me. If I couldn’t get stock Android on the thing, I didn’t want the thing.
Those on Verizon have had a hard time this past year of having to live with a giant controlling hand above them, the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon isn’t really a Nexus. It took the phone a hell of a long time to get Jelly Bean compared to its GSM brother. Of course, Big Red aren’t the only one to do this sort of thing but, they’r certainly the worst.
We’ve just brought you Samsung’s plans for the Galaxy Note II across multiple carriers and we already knew that it was coming to Verizon but now we know that it’s coming to Verizon with a locked bootloader, making it a lesser device if you were to ask us. The fact that Verizon keep pulling this sort of shit is becoming troubling – Google have made it clear that they want their phones open and so Verizon could well see less and less Android phones headed their way. I also doubt Samsung had any problem locking down the bootloader for them and to Samsung I say shame on you, shame on you. Android is open and anything running it should be as well. At the end of the day, I’m paying for the phone, I should get a set of keys with that.
[Source: BriefMobile]