Android: Fine, Then Gimme the Features Without Root

With the Droid X coming out tomorrow, there’s quite a bit of attention being drawn to the fact that the fancy new Android phone is using the same encrypted bootloader as the Motorola Milestone, rendering it very difficult to crack. According to this post at androidpolice.com, the bootloader is using a “proprietary encrypted private key scheme” which pretty much requires any ROM you’re going to install has been blessed by Motorola.

This is totally lame.

I bought into the Android platform because it stands for openness and freedom. And really, they do a pretty darned good job at it still. But the fact is that there are some things that I’ve come to take for granted on my Droid because some hacker has enabled them.

My reasons for rooting are:

• I can theme my phone UI
• I can uninstall apps I don’t want (like Amazon MP3. WTF!)
• I can turn off the LEDs behind the 4 main buttons under the screen (Seriously? I need root for this?)
• I can overclock (even though I don’t really do it since FroYo)
• I can tether (I basically never do this — no need.)

Why won’t the phone makers let me do these things?? The only one that could damage anyone on their end is tethering since the carriers actually want extra money for the feature. So restrict it!

I suppose one could cause damage by overclocking and stressing the phone too much… So add some kind of hardware indicator so it would be known if the phone was ever overclocked, and void the warranty if it was! They already do this for water damage!

I was happy not rooting for a long time, so (stock) Android does a good job of not making me feel restricted. I wholeheartedly agree with those who say the phones should all be unlocked and capable of installing custom ROMs like the developer-oriented Nexus One, but the realistic side of me is just asking for a little more flexibility in the stock offering. Why the heck not allow me to do some of these things to my phone??

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