Some of you may be reading the headline and wondering what S-OFF actually is, and if you’re unfamiliar you may not have been using Android for any extensive length of time. Perhaps you’re a long-time Android user but have only now just started to dabble in the ways of modifying your device with root and custom firmware. S-OFF is basically just an unlock tool for the bootloader of Android smartphones, making it quite a bit simpler to customize your device and unlock the bootloader with minimal effort. With that being said, some crafty developers over at XDA have put in some hard work and long hours and have gotten S-OFF to work for the upcoming HTC One M9.
What that means for existing (if you were lucky enough to get a hold of a device by this point) or new users that have yet to put hands on their device, whether already ordered or not, is that soon you’ll be able to use S-OFF to unlock your bootloader. Once the bootloader is unlocked, the sky’s the limit when it comes to tinkering and customizing your device. Custom ROM’s, Xposed framework, Xposed mods, new kernels, new boot animations, all of that comes after the unlocked bootloader and it’s quite amazing that enterprising developers were able to get things up and running before the official launch of the device, which is scheduled for April 10th.
The unfortunate thing is that there was no mention of which model of the HTC One M9 was used to achieve this accomplishment, so it could have been any one of the carrier models here in the U.S. as well as the unlocked model. At the moment XDA devs jcase and beaups have only mentioned that they have gotten S-OFF to work, and have stated that there is currently no ETA or time frame for when to expect this to get a public release. Seeing as how there aren’t many people with the device as of now, it shouldn’t be much of an issue to wait for things to roll along at their own pace, and before long, S-OFF will be a tool available to most HTC One M9 owners.