Verizon locks down Galaxy S III

Verizon reportedly shipped the Samsung Galaxy S III with an encrypted bootloader to prevent anyone from messing around with it. Naturally, it was cracked in hours. The models released by other carriers have unlocked bootloaders. [The Verge]

• [mdf]

  They haven’t cracked the bootloader, sadly – while they can root the phone they can’t flash custom kernels, and the bootloader will only boot an official signed kernel.

  This puts it in the same camp as my Motorola Milestone, you’re completely reliant on the company releasing timely updates – which they don’t – and then you’re screwed when they decide it’s end of life for your handset. I’m stuck with a rapidly aging and buggy kernel, but hardware that’s more than capable of running newer Android versions.

• [Teirhan]

  Speaking as a dissatisfied Verizon customer, what else is there?  I’m (un)lucky enough to be grandfathered in as an unlimited data plan, and they have the best service in about 99% of the places I travel to regularly (my girlfriend has cingular AT&T so I get ample chance to compare).  I definitely don’t like it when they pull shit like this, but my choices are:
  1) stick with the assholes at verizon and keep my unlimited data plan until they find a way to take it away from me, and enjoy what is generally the best data and voice service around
  2) move to at&t, and enjoy more expensive plans, less service in my locality, and worse call quality in crowded areas
  3)move to t-mobile…  I’m sorry, we use t-mobile for my work service, and i can’t even seriously consider this one.  I actually snickered while I was typing that.
  4) ???

  (I’ve got a Droid Bionic, BTW – love the phone, but jesus – it’s been over a year and I still don’t have ICS yet?  hell, the RAZR and RAZR MAXX both got it before me!?  I bought this phone thinking it was their flagship, and immediately got screwed over.  Nice going, Verizon / Motorola.) 

• [Paul Cooke]

  so can you guys buy an unlocked sim free phone and just stick a verizon sim in it?

  • [Halloween_Jack]

     Verizon is still, by and large, a CDMA network, so no. (And, as the comments in the linked The Verge article above note, in many places outside major metropolitan areas in the US, Verizon effectively has no competition.)

• [Halloween_Jack]

   Looks like the asterisks on the end of “Android is an open operating system” are growing.