Motorola promised to make at least some of the device bootloaders on their new flagship smartphone unlockable. They are making good on that promise. The bootloaders for the Sprint, U.S. Cellular, and some Latin American Moto X smartphones can now be unlocked using the Motorola My Moto Care website. If you have a Moto X on Rogers in Canada, you can already get in on the unlocking action. Having an unlocked bootloader is necessary in order for users to easily gain root access, install custom recoveries, and run their favorite custom ROM. In order to use the My Moto Care site to unlock a Moto X, you will need to first create an account, and make sure you have your device ID at hand.
Unlocking your Moto X bootloader will void your device’s warranty. This is something that we are used to. However, in addition to the normal warnings about that, Motorola also makes users agree to some extremely strict terms before moving forward. If you use My Moto Care to unlock your device, you first have to agree to never sell your device. Ever. You also have to agree to arbitration instead of going to court in the situation that some kind of civil claim arises. Motorola certainly cannot enforce the first rule. There’s no way for them the police every single Moto X resale to see if the phone being sold was ever unlocked using My Moto Care. Motorola’s goal is that if you ever damage your device because you can tinker after you unlock the bootloader, you can’t hold them, or any carrier selling the Moto X, responsible.
Moto X users on Verizon and AT&T won’t have any issues with this because those carriers are keeping their devices locked up tight. If you want a bootloader-unlocked Moto X on AT&T or Verizon, you will have to wait for the upcoming Developer Edition. There is currently a placeholder on the Moto X website stating that the Moto X Dev Edition is coming soon. There’s no way to get one through the Moto Maker website, and no carriers are selling them at this point in time. Motorola’s Punit Soni has promised that we’ll have one, but we don’t know when it’s coming. For now, Moto X users on some carriers can unlock their smartphones. The rest of us will just have to wait.