The Moto Atrix joins the ranks of the rooted

[Bateluer]

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/19/motorola-atrix-4g-already-rooted-and-its-not-even-out-yet/

If you thought the lack of root on the Atrix 4G was going to save you a couple hundred bucks next week... well, we hate to break the bad news, but you're going to need to find another excuse not to buy it (more on that in a second). Long story short, the phone's already been rooted by a gentleman over on the ever-resourceful xda-developers forums, which means you can do all the normal things that require root access like enabling the standard Froyo mobile hotspot feature, using root apps like Titanium Backup (pictured above), and generally looking 1337 compared to your friends locked up in their walled gardens. Now, the bad news: the bootloader remains firmly locked and presumably encrypted given Moto's track record, so custom kernels are still just a dream -- but hey, where there's a will, there's a way. Keep the faith!

Good news. I'm assuming that AT&T will block the Unknown Sources for apps from the Settings like they do on their other Android phones? Still crappy that the bootloader will be encrypted, so ROM development will be stunted for the Atrix's life span.

 

[s44]

The encrypted bootloader bit is shoddy journalism: based on a single joke post on XDA that's since been deleted.

No one knows yet.

 

[s44]

Hm, even later info is that it may be encrypted for sure after all. No surprise.

 

[sciwizam]

Wasn't the encrypted bootloader a security "feature" of TI OMAP SoCs? Does Tegra 2 also include this "feature"?

 

[destrekor]

Wasn't the encrypted bootloader a security "feature" of TI OMAP SoCs? Does Tegra 2 also include this "feature"?

It's not necessarily a feature only of the OMAP series, nor necessarily even a feature of the series itself. My Droid 1 and nookColor both have the OMAP SoCs and are completely open in terms of bootloader.

In fact, there are a ton of open bootloaders with OMAP SoCs.

If the Atrix indeed has a locked bootloader, I am definitely not expecting any different for the Droid Bionic. And that was the phone I had in my sights, but that is only if the bootloader is unlocked. I'll wait for a non-encrypted bootloader.

 

[Judgement]

This isn't going to make my decision between the Atrix and Galaxy S2 any easier