At the moment, the Samsung Galaxy S IV is slowly hitting the shelves not only in US shores but on a global scale and similar to its predecessor, the current flagship device of the Korean electronics giant is expected to make a killing (yet again) in the smartphone market. This is already a foregone conclusion because just like the Samsung Galaxy S III before it, the Samsung Galaxy S IV packs a gorgeous exterior housing an impeccable resume of fire-breathing components under the hood.
In the case of the US smartphone market, the Samsung Galaxy S IV will be released not only by all major carriers in our side of the world but by other minor and regional ones as well. This means that the smartphone-buying population will get a pick of carrier where they will be getting the Samsung flagship from. But if you have AT&T for your wireless provider and are planning to make the carrier’s variant of the Samsung Galaxy S IV your next mobile weapon of choice, there could be a chance that you will be stuck with the stock TouchWIZ-laden Android experience that came with the handset.
Apparently, the AT&T variant of the Samsung Galaxy S IV is shipping with a locked bootloader which simply means that it will be more difficult for power users and hackers to get access to the numerous personalization and customization options offered by the Android ecosystem on the handset. The confirmation came from CyanogenMod founder Steve Kondik via a Google+ post and we quote, “Yep, it’s confirmed. The AT&T S4 authenticates the recovery and boot images before executing them.”
The move to ship the AT&T Samsung Galaxy S IV with a locked bootloader is surprising given the fact that Samsung has always been supportive of the developer community and Kondik further muses, “The same device is available on every carrier, so it’s not an exclusivity issue either. The modem processor has always been locked, and the casual user doesn’t want to mess with that part anyway. Samsung has always been developer-friendly, so I am guessing their hand was forced.”
Kondik cautioned those who want to tinker with their handsets to stay away from the AT&T variant of the Samsung Galaxy S IV by concluding, “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.”
Though this might be the case, there is no changing the fact that the Samsung Galaxy S IV is still one of the most desirable handsets in the market and people will still get their hands on this handset, locked bootloader and all. After all, we are pretty sure that the hardworking fellows of the developer communities are now hard at work in trying to unshackle the handset and sooner or later, we will see the bootloader of the Samsung Galaxy S IV get cracked open just like what happened to the Verizon version of the Samsung Galaxy S III last year.
