T-Mobile Responds to G2 Rooting Issue

Earlier in the week, we picked up on a trending topic over at the XDA forums that caused quite a stir in the Android community – the G2 was unrootable. According to the New America Foundation, the G2 has an embedded chip that resets the G2’s software back to “stock” once the device has been rebooted.

T-Mobile has responded to the situation with the following statement:

As pioneers in Android-powered mobile devices, T-Mobile and HTC strive to support innovation. The T-Mobile G2 is a powerful and highly customizable Android-powered smartphone, which customers can personalize and make their own, from the look of their home screen to adding their favorite applications and more.

The HTC software implementation on the G2 stores some components in read-only memory as a security measure to prevent key operating system software from becoming corrupted and rendering the device inoperable. There is a small subset of highly technical users who may want to modify and re-engineer their devices at the code level, known as “rooting,” but a side effect of HTC’s security measure is that these modifications are temporary and cannot be saved to permanent memory. As a result the original code is restored.

[via Androinica]

http://trinidadnomad.wordpress.com trinidadnomad

haha wow i knew the G2 was terrible now this just confirms it for me….wow they really need to test better. not to mention that Z-hinge looks terrible and give like 6 months wear and tear is going to destroy the phone. should of kept the original sturdy and neat design!
http://twitter.com/thepeterha Peter Ha

Actually, I have the G2 and it’s rather nice. Battery life is strong and it’s fast.
cameronrm

I don’t know if anyone from T-Mobile or HTC ever reads these blogs, but if they do then they should know that the “small subset of highly technical users” that seek to root their phones won’t be buying a G2. I don’t know how many phone purchases that may effect, but I know I won’t buy one – and I was planning on doing that around December of this year. If the Android system is open, and if those who root phones are a “highly technical subset”, and we do realize the risk we take – I’ve rooted my G1 and love it – then what is it that T-Mobile and HTC are fearful of – oh, wait, it’s because we can then use features that they don’t want us to use, like tethering and WiFi hotspot. No one thought of charging for these features until those of us who root phones proved it could be done successfully. So, T-Mobile, an unlimited data plan really isn’t unlimited if it’s possible to make a buck from it – would that be right? And how much more data do I use if I’m online using my G1 (or G2) or online using my tethered laptop or my iPod Touch? Or is the tethering and hotspot charge a ‘convenience’ charge because someone was smart enough to figure out how to do it? T-Mobile is in third place amongst carriers, maybe their pushing for fourth. Wouldn’t it serve their purposes better to be more customer oriented instead of chasing the dollar – bad PR only drives customers away. You can still attract more flies with honey than with fly paper, and you’d think that this sort of plan stacking to make money would really look ugly to the customer who has already bought an unlimited data plan.