Motorola Droid X And Droid 2 To Sport Digitally Signed Bootloaders To Prevent Custom ROMs

on 07/13/2010 21:19 PDT

Folks who like to install custom ROMs on their mobile phones are in for a spot of bad news, as Motorola has posted a blog post confirming that the upcoming Droid X and Droid 2 will sport a digitally signed bootloader, like the Motorola Milestone, which will go some way to preventing users from flashing in custom ROMs. The original Motorola Droid sported an unlocked bootloader, which became rather popular amongst the Android open source community, and you can be sure that the hacking community will be looking to get root access to the Droid X and Droid 2 when they’re released, though the encrypted bootloader will be an interesting hurdle to overcome. Will such a move cause die-hard Android fans to pick up an Android phone from HTC instead?

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Android Android is mobile operating system from Google. The software was originally built by a company called Android Inc, that was purchased by Google in 2005. From its modest debuts, Android has become a powerhouse that powers not only smartphones and tablet, but a host of other less high-profile devices and gadgets. Although Android is not a community-driven project, Google does release the source code as open-source under the Apache license.

Bootloader A bootloader is a simple program that works by calling up or launching more complex programs than itself (i.e. the BIOS system that starts up your computer and runs your operating system). Using alternative bootloaders to the one that comes with a device allows users to run unauthorized code such as other operating systems (Android on an iPad etc) and custom ROMs.

rooting Rooting is essentially a process that allows users of smartphones, tablets or other devices running on Android to gain “superuser” access to the software. This will allow the user to perform administrative tasks such as writing to locations normally restricted by the system which in turn will allow for deeper customization. For iOS users, rooting on Android devices could be thought of as a close equivalent to jailbreaking your device. More info in Rooting for Android: What, why and how?

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