Motorola on Locked Bootloaders: “Buy Elsewhere,” Then Apologizes

by Michael Murphy
tagged Locked bootloaders, motorla, PR missteps

Motorola had a bit of a slip-up yesterday in PR department, but they were quick to try to make it better with their customers. On the comments to their YouTube channel, the following comment and response pair appeared yesterday — and have since been removed:

Even though this phone seems to have the best hardware specs yet, no sale if the bootloader is locked like the Motorola Milestone I have. It’s really upsetting to not be able to put custom roms on MY device…
Please Moto, do the right thing. [For your customers, that is]

@tdcrooks if you want to do custom roms, then buy elsewhere, we’ll continue with our strategy that is working thanks.

There’s something to be said for shooting straight, but to me, this seems like a little bit over the line. Apparently, someone else at Motorola thought so, too, because last night on Facebook, and today in Youtube comments, was the following message:

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.

So it’ll be good to see how things develop on this. Motorola seems to be looking for the happy medium between “protecting” customers, and locking them out of development completely. A worthwhile goal, and we wish them luck.

[via Facebook and YouTube, by way of Phandroid]

» See more articles by Michael Murphy

Categorized as Android Development, Android Hacks, Android Manufacturers, Android News, Android Phones

Comments

anon

Speaking of happy mediums, how about giving users the option of using a Vanilla version of Android provided through Motorola. This way users interested in the latest version of Android can always get it and those interested in the Motorola customizations are free to wait for them to be brought up to date and tested? They could satisfy everyone.
Nick

I personally think that every phone should be allowed to be skinned by a company (HTC with sense and Motorola for example) but, I feel Google should enact a policy that states if this is to be done, the user can opt to change to a pure Vanilla android experience and have the option to choose between the two. In all honesty though a part of me feels as though the original comment of “buy elsewhere”, although retorted by Motorola later, is actually a pretty good summary of what they truly believe. With that, my Droid X will be my last Motorola android device unless they change their habits. And if it weren’t for LauncherPro Plus, I would definitely be using an HTC device instead of it in the first place. As of now, it’s what I am going to be using in the future if this keeps up. Sense is better in the first place and at the least, HTC is comfortable with customization that Motorola isn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I love my X, but this business stance on customization is one I do not approve of, especially not for a platform whose main existence is one of customization and modding.