Wednesday, May 25, 2011

HTC Re-evaluating Their Locked Bootloader Policy

Customers have complained and apparently HTC is listening, or so it seems. Tuesday the company posted an update via Facebook concerning the input of Android users that have voiced their opinion about the company's locked bootloader policy. The Android community wants openness and wants HTC to make some changes.

Update on Bootloaders

Thanks so much for providing feedback, we hear your concerns. Your satisfaction is a top priority for us and we’re working hard to ensure you have great experiences with our phones. We’re reviewing the issue and our policy around bootloaders and will provide more information soon. Thank you for your interest, support and willingness to share your feedback.

Several companies have taken to locking their bootloaders which effectively prevents users from using custom UIs and personally updating their software to newer version. This wouldn't be such a bad thing if the companies were pushing out incremental updates as new versions of Android were coming out. However HTC hasn't nor has the company supported some of its older devices.

Since posting the update yesterday HTC's Facebook page has been inundated with hundreds of thousands of customer complaints and requests to change their policy. Customers have even gone as far as creating a petition, which currently stands at 5800+ signatures. I've also noticed several Android community sites as well as HTC forums where as members were calling for HTC to do more than just review the policy but actually act on it.

Will they, I can honestly say I don't know that they will. HTC's, and well any other company's for that matter, big marketing point and biggest selling point is their UI. For them to open their phones to custom UI's would mean loosing that as a point of sales. Now on the flip side many users out there love HTC Sense so it might not be that big an issue and the openness might actually grab the attention of more users looking for that open alternative.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

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