HTC Aria Gets Updated With Mobile Hotspot, Third Party App Installation

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Android powered devices are certainly in no drought with a new device getting announced seemingly every day. HTC, a popular handset manufacturer, has been the front runner in pushing out these Android powered devices with some of their devices such as the Droid Incredible, and EVO 4G becoming some of the most popular smart phones on the market today.

Unfortunately, due to carrier policies, the open-source portion of Google’s Android mobile operating system has frequently been stripped with these carriers stating security concerns and the like. Lucky for us, hackers have stepped in and rooted these device, unlocking a whole slew of new functionality including not so official ways to tether and install third party applications not downloaded from the Android Marketplace.

You may be wondering why carriers don’t just allow these things out of the box, why do they make it so tough for consumers to do what they want to do with their devices? Only God knows, but AT&T has seemingly thrown us a bone with their latest announcement.

That announcement focuses around the HTC Aria which AT&T says is now able to act as a mobile hotspot thanks to an application from the Android Marketplace in addition to being able to receive some third party low from side loaded applications.

Of course, if you’re going to opt for the mobile hotspot functionality, you’re going to be forced to upgrade your data plan and grab the expensive tethering add-on but if you must have it, it’s certainly worth it.

If you’re not familiar with the Aria, it is an Android 2.1 powered device with Sense UI from HTC that features a 3.2-inch touchscreen, a 600MHz Qualcomm processor, 256MB of DDR RAM, a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and a microSD slot with support for up to 32GB of additional storage.