T-Mobile G2 Root May Be Difficult

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The T-Mobile G2 is self-aware. It knows what you’re trying to do. No, this isn’t the storyline to some Verizon Droid commercial (“DROOIIIIIIIDD”) it’s actually what is going on with modders and the T-Mobile G2. It’s being reported that if the phone will attempt to un-root itself, if rooted. This is just the latest in the long line of anti-rooting attempts that we’ve seen on Android phones recently.

I’m sure many readers remember the “eFuse” controversy on the Motorola Droid X. Several Motorola phones have held the eFuse technology, and from a purely technological prospect, it’s crazy. When something is trigged in the software, it can change the physical circuits in the hardware (layman’s terms). It’s really remarkable.

But, back to the T-Mobile G2. The geniuses at the XDA developer’s forum are finding that there is a built-in “lock” system that will restore the phone, if rooted. As New America wrote, this is like selling a Windows PC with a BIOS lock that restricted the installation of Ubuntu (which I’m sure Microsoft would actually really be into).

There are a few good reasons for not letting users root their phone. You could do something malicious to a rooted phone. But, you can do a lot of fun stuff to a rooted phone, too. This sort of anti-root maneuvering by T-Mobile is absurd.

Why do we know it’s T-Mobile behind it? Well, Google certainly wouldn’t want this. Android is open-source, and as we’ve seen with Google’s stance carrier-locked UIs and search engine, they’d rather the user be allowed to change anything. As for HTC (the manufacturer of the T-Mobile G2), they’re serving T-Mobile. When people questioned why the Android-based Motorola Backflip on AT&T had Bing as a locked search engine, not Google, Motorola said it was a carrier restriction and to take it up with AT&T.

Previously, T-Mobile had been a pretty Android-friendly carrier. Does this anti-rooting technology change your opinion of T-Mobile?