Android Phones
Motorola unsure of its own bootloader policy
January 19, 2011 | by Michael Heller
Motorola
Recently, in the YouTube comments on the awesome video for the upcoming Motorola Atrix, the subject was broached that a user was considering avoiding the superphone because Motorola phones have been known to be very tough on the developer community through limiting root access methods using things like eFuse. A response came from Motorola saying:
@tdcrooks if you want to do custom roms, then? buy elsewhere, we’ll continue with our strategy that is working thanks. – motorola
This response has since been removed from the comment stream on the video, but of course it made its way around the interwebs stirring up some unrest among those who found the response too harsh. The case being that root users are not always doing it to get around handset restrictions or slow upgrades, but many do it because they are developers and want to make interesting things for the hardware.
Motorola has heard the outcry from the dev community and others and has issued an apology on their Facebook page saying:
We apologize for the feedback we provided regarding our bootloader policy. The response does not reflect the views of Motorola.
We are working closely with our partners to offer a bootloader solution that will enable developers to use our devices as a development platform while still protecting our users’ interests. More detailed information will follow as we get closer to availability.
As well as a response on the YouTube page:
So we attempt to answer nearly all comments raised on this channel across over 130 videos and in a timely fashion. Sometimes we? make a mistake, and the remark we agree could have been better phrased and more polite. So we do apologise, and that we will continue to monitor feedback on the wider discussion and pass that along. Thank you.
It still needs to be seen whether these comments are a way to save face, or if Motorola is really taking the public response to heart and will be offering more root friendly phones in the future.
Why do they care if we hack, root, or even break a phone that we're on the hook for financially? They should just make it clear that if someone roots a phone and sticks another rom on it, it's out of the scope of their warranty.
I would guess it has something to do with why they load unremovable trials, etc. An agreement/contract with another entity that requires them to keep those apps on there for financial consideration. Rooted devices = being able to remove the apps
Exactly, it's all about $ and screw what the consumers want. Abhorrent. Slick backpedal, however.