Motorola Xoom Bootloader Customizable

Tweet

Motorola is known to be strict with its Android device bootloaders. For one, you can root Moto smartphones like the Atrix 4G, but custom firmware can be difficult to install. However, Motorola has announced that the Xoom tablet will come with customizable bootloader.

Motorola’s official stance is that the Xoom bootloader can be unlocked and relocked, to let developers add in their own customizations

[T]he XOOM will have an unlockable/relockable bootloader that will enable developers to access hardware for development.

While officially, this means that developers can get first dibs on the first ever Android 3.0 tablet and get deep into the settings, this also means that proponents of custom and homebrew firmware can easily make modifications themselves. This can spawn various modifications, or even alternative OSes (like Windows, perhaps?).

Kernel-level access has been difficult to achieve in Motorola’s Droid series Android phones, although developers have tried to work around this issue. Looks like hackers and modders will have a grand time playing around with the Xoom, with Motorola’s blessing.