A tradition that just about every Android device follows is that a root method is found shortly after release. The G2 was no exception, but the problem is that its root was only temporary, getting removed upon a phone reboot. T-Mobile has chimed in on the situation, explaining that the G2 has a built-in piece of software to prevent the software from being corrupted. The patch also prevents a root from sticking. Fortunately, the Android community is a persistent bunch, and developer Chris Soyers has said that they're "very close" to cracking the G2. You can check out T-Mobile's brief release down below.
With Motorola's new locked bootloader and now HTC (who has generally been more hacker-friendly) and the G2's software tweak, it seems that manufacturers are not as excited about the rooting and tweaking of their handsets as the users are. I'm not sure that HTC put that software in specifically to block rooters, but it's still a side effect of their tweak. There are a lot of owners out there getting upset that they aren't able to do whatever they want with their handsets, and if phone makers keep attempting to block users from rooting, we may soon have a mutiny on our hands. As I said before, though, Android hackers are determined and have made quite a bit of progress in breaking Moto's protection on the DROID X. I'd say it's only a matter of time before the G2 gets a more permanent rooting solution.
Code Level Modifications to the G2
Bellevue, Wash. — Oct. 7, 2010 As pioneers in Android-powered mobile devices, T-Mobile and HTC strive to support innovation. The T-Mobile G2 is a powerful and highly customizable Android-powered smartphone, which customers can personalize and make their own, from the look of their home screen to adding their favorite applications and more.
The HTC software implementation on the G2 stores some components in read-only memory as a security measure to prevent key operating system software from becoming corrupted and rendering the device inoperable. There is a small subset of highly technical users who may want to modify and re-engineer their devices at the code level, known as “rooting,” but a side effect of HTC’s security measure is that these modifications are temporary and cannot be saved to permanent memory. As a result the original code is restored.
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