You certainly remember that this spring HTC took a rapid U-turn in their smartphone policy and decided to start locking their bootloaders to prevent unauthorized hacking and modding of the preinstalled software. The Taiwanese company was then quickly made to regret its decision as users from all over the world went online and made their discontent public. In the end, HTC CEO was quick to respond with a promise that they will revert to their old policy.
Except that no action has been taken about bringing the old ways back ever since and everyone is understandably getting impatient. Well, today the company stepped on stage to give us some more details about the when's and how's of the unlocking of the bootloaders.
As it turns out, HTC will still be releasing all its devices with locked bootloaders (booo!), but soon they will be providing a web tool that will let you unlock them if you want to (yay!). However, you will need to create an account in order to use it and "accept legal disclaimers that unlocking may void all or parts of your warranty".
The web tool should be released this month with the international version of the Sensation becoming the first supported smartphone. The EVO 3D and the T-Mobile Sensation 4G should follow right after that. And while this is certainly a wait we can live with, we can't help but notice that this is not what Peter Chou promised in May.
Here’s the exact quote: "Today, I'm confirming we will no longer be locking the bootloaders on our devices.". Are we the only ones to suspect that this is not the end of the saga just yet?
