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Root Future rooting of the Photon 4G

twospirits

AF's janitor
So, with last nights tweet about Motorola changing their bootloader policy,
see info here, the chances of me jumping ship from my loyal HTC EVO to the Photon 4G has increased a bit more.
Even though I take whatever a manufacturer says with a grain of salt until I actually see it happening, its refreshing to see that the community has this much influence. If true to their word, I wonder how long before the Photon can be unlocked.

TS
 
Doubtful it ever will have an unlocked bootloader. Motorola just cant't friggin' take a hint from the community speaking out against the crap they do, unlike HTC which quickly adopted an open idea based on feedback.

Don't get me wrong, they make good phone hardware wise, but they continue to chain them up with jacked bootloaders. Why can't companies open their ears and listen...
 
I don't think it makes sense for Motorola to unlock all devices if they are pushing security and enterprise use.

Perhaps an optional update that takes some leg work and an admin password to install and unlock is the way to go for people that want to go that route.
 
From what I can tell, it will be up to Sprint to decide later in 2011 whether to let Motorola to unlock the bootloader. So the decision is in the hands of Sprint.

That said, Motorola could have decided unilaterally to unlock the bootloader (like HTC and Samsung have) but they have decided to defer that decision to the carriers instead.
 
From what I can tell, it will be up to Sprint to decide later in 2011 whether to let Motorola to unlock the bootloader. So the decision is in the hands of Sprint.

That said, Motorola could have decided unilaterally to unlock the bootloader (like HTC and Samsung have) but they have decided to defer that decision to the carriers instead.

Quite honestly, I can see Sprint making the decision to unlock the bootloader, going with their "truly unlimited" campaign, while other providers I could see their keeping the bootloaders locked.

Regardless, I still have yet to root my current EVO and still unsure if I'll need to do with for the Photon. For me, it will all depend on how the phone performs with the bloatware, combined with the downloaded apps that can't be moved to the SD. If the phone performs well, for my needs, without my having to root, then I'm less likely to go that route.
 
I agree. Sprint should say okay to unlock the bootloader, and keep things as unlimited as possible and no teir plans and it just may get a influx of verizon deserters.

TS

Yup. That's the only way I can see them realistically starting to compete with AT&T and Verizon or at least lessen the gap.
 
Well its common knowledge that Dan Hesse does reads some of the email sent his way as well as on his twitter account so maybe we should start a writing campaign formally requesting these ideas. Whether that is financially sound for Sprint I don't know since i am no accountant. :D

TS
 
Question about a locked bootloader. Does that just mean that you can't put a custom ROM on the device? In other words, would you still be able to root the Photon 4G and remove bloatware?
 
hmmm Okay I am starting to scare my self. I said lets start writing to Dan to present our ideas and today Sprint is going to make pre-installed apps removable standard on future apps. :eek:

Yea for Sprint.

TS
 
hmmm Okay I am starting to scare my self. I said lets start writing to Dan to present our ideas and today Sprint is going to make pre-installed apps removable standard on future apps. :eek:

Yea for Sprint.

TS

Yeah, that is kinda scary. I saw that article earlier.

Was it confirmed that would be for all phones, not just the EVO 3D?

-EDIT- According to mobileburn, Sprint confirmed it would be for all future devices http://www.everythingandroid.org/sprint-to-allow-removal-of-pre-installed-apps/2011/06/24/

Why not make that an OTA update for all the current Android Smartphones too?...LOL.
 
I read in one of the comments from one of the articles about this that said due to the hardware/partition table, that it can't be applied to current phones. Don't know how true that is but, if so, its a bummer.

TS
 
I read in one of the comments from one of the articles about this that said due to the hardware/partition table, that it can't be applied to current phones. Don't know how true that is but, if so, its a bummer.

TS

Lol..damn. Oh well. I'll have the photon soon enuff.
 
I read in one of the comments from one of the articles about this that said due to the hardware/partition table, that it can't be applied to current phones. Don't know how true that is but, if so, its a bummer.

TS

So does this mean that the phone can't be rooted? This might potentially be my first Android phone and I was really looking forward to rooting in general, so when the phone is "locked" does that mean that ANY kind of rooting is impossible? Thanks in advance.
 
So does this mean that the phone can't be rooted? This might potentially be my first Android phone and I was really looking forward to rooting in general, so when the phone is "locked" does that mean that ANY kind of rooting is impossible? Thanks in advance.

I've never rooted my EVO, but from what I understand from other people's explanation to me, the locked bootloader only prevents custom ROM's from being loaded, but apparently does not prevent rooting. In essence, it'll allow rooting to be able to remove bloatware, but nothing beyond that.

Someone correct me if my understanding is wrong.
 
Forget the EVO, with Motorola like the Droid, Droid X you can unroot and load roms that are basically closer to the motorola one. You can remove bloatware and over clock, but to install custom roms no can do unless they crack that locked bootloader.

TS
 
Forget the EVO, with Motorola like the Droid, Droid X you can unroot and load roms that are basically closer to the motorola one. You can remove bloatware and over clock, but to install custom roms no can do unless they crack that locked bootloader.

TS

Thanks for clarifying, ts. Well, if that's the case...i guess I may start rooting! I don't need a custom rom to be happy with android, especially the photon. I've been happy with the evo, but photon seems like it'll make me even happier.
 
When I turn the phone on while holding power and up I get a prompt that says "Starting RSD protocol support" but nothing happens. BUT if I boot it up while pressing down and power I can scroll through many prompts, they say : Fastboot, NvFlash, BP HW Bypass RSD, BP HW Bypass QC DLOAD, BP HW Diag & Boot AP, BP HW Bypass BP Only, BP SW Bypass RSD, Android Recovery, Boot Android (No BP), Device UID, console=ttyS0,115200n8, Early USB Enumeration, BP Tools, RSD. That's a hell of a lot of options for a locked device so I think its free as a bird.
 
When I turn the phone on while holding power and up I get a prompt that says "Starting RSD protocol support" but nothing happens. BUT if I boot it up while pressing down and power I can scroll through many prompts, they say : Fastboot, NvFlash, BP HW Bypass RSD, BP HW Bypass QC DLOAD, BP HW Diag & Boot AP, BP HW Bypass BP Only, BP SW Bypass RSD, Android Recovery, Boot Android (No BP), Device UID, console=ttyS0,115200n8, Early USB Enumeration, BP Tools, RSD. That's a hell of a lot of options for a locked device so I think its free as a bird.

When using method #2, powering up with the volume down you get to many boot/test modes. Volume down allows you to scroll through them and volume up allows you to choose. And unlocking a bootloader is not too tuff, I suggest to anyone interested grab Androids SDK and do some reading :)
 
When using method #2, powering up with the volume down you get to many boot/test modes. Volume down allows you to scroll through them and volume up allows you to choose. And unlocking a bootloader is not too tuff, I suggest to anyone interested grab Androids SDK and do some reading :)


You are 3 days late. The phone should be back in Motorola's hands today. And I know how the volume keys work for boot modes. I'm not new to rooting, just never had to deal with bootloaders or a locked phone, not to mention this was a development unit I had.
 
And unlocking a bootloader is not too tuff, I suggest to anyone interested grab Androids SDK and do some reading :)

Yeah.

No.

The bootloader here is not only locked it's got a nice encrypted signature. As no one's been able to crack it yet, it's quite possibly much harder than thought.

Nothing in the SDK will assist with the task.
 
Check XDA as well!
The part that gets to me is in all of this is that Shawn also posted over in xda (the so called definitive resource for rom development site ) and no one over there bothered to assist him in dumping this rom. Maybe it was because he was mentioning this site over and over again in his posts, and they don't like that sort of thing, but the way I see it, the needs of the community come first. If they would have stepped forward and assisted, we would by now have something. :mad:

But now we sit and wait for someone else to get root. Motorola themselves may take their sweet time in doing it.

Speaking of xda, its odd that this phone is being praised left and right and yet xda hasn't made a forum for it. I'm glad we have a section for it, but I'm not too keen on seeing anything bypassing this encrypted bootloader any time soon.

TS
 
Except that shawheim had a dev/prototype phone, that was probably sporting an unlocked boot loader.

So I'm not sure what could be gathered about the boot loader. Of course it's a moot point now.
 
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