14 DAY TRIAL // One of the major downsides of purchasing the Galaxy S 4 on AT&T’s network is that you might not be able to install custom ROMs on it, the latest reports on the matter unveil.
To be more precise, the info comes from Steve Kondik, the father of CyanogenMod, who confirmed in a recent post on Google+ that the AT&T flavor of Galaxy S 4 packs a locked bootloader.
According to him, the smartphone authenticates the recovery and boot images before executing them, which doesn’t sound like good news for users interested in tweaking their device.
“I would not recommend buying this device on AT&T if you want to run CyanogenMod or another custom ROM, or if you are a developer and need to work with or debug the lower layers,” Steve Kondik notes.
Carriers have been long known to have something against the rooting and tweaking of smartphones, with handsets at Verizon and AT&T seen before to feature an extra layer of protection, yet Samsung has been open to allowing users to enjoy more of their devices, as droid-life notes.
The fact that Galaxy S 4 arrives at AT&T with a locked bootloader might result in many handsets being sent to repairs, Kondik also notes.
However, it seems that the wireless carrier would actually have little to gain from this, at least from Kondik’s perspective.
“The only outcome I see here is stacks of bricked devices being sent back for warranty replacement due to the ease of causing a permanent boot failure, especially since the device is trivially rootable,” he notes.
“The arms race continues. News flash: MILLIONS of people run custom firmware (and I have the STATS to prove it). This is just a stupid move that will cost you customers and money.”
It remains to be seen whether things will be different with the Galaxy S 4 models at other wireless carriers in the United States, so stay tuned to learn more on the matter.