Kellen
Motorola is trying its best to win you over, “you” being the tinkerer that you are. Having deployed a Developer Edition program for many of their devices recently, there were a couple of items that owners of participating devices requested to see changed; one being a way to keep warranties intact, and another would be to see factory software images to help return phones back to their out-of-the-box state. Motorola is addressing both of these issues starting today.
You see, part of the point of owning a Developer Edition phone is the for its openness and unlockable bootloader. These are a tinkerer’s dream, especially with carrier versions typically being sold completely locked and secured. But in its previous state, the Developer Edition program forced you into requesting an unlock code to unlock the bootloader of your device, but would then void your warranty. As you can imagine, that’s a terrible practice, especially if something completely unrelated to the bootloader being unlocked were to break and you need to make a warranty claim.
So going forward, Motorola will no longer void warranties after requesting an unlock code, but will also reinstate previously voided warranties from Developer Edition phones purchased in 2012 and 2013. Some of that list of devices includes the Moto X (both CDMA and GSM Developer Editions) and the DROID MAXX DE.
To sweeten the deal further, Motorola has also committed to releasing factory software images for their Developer Edition phones. With these images, a user can “restore their device to run with its original factory software.” It’s similar in a way to what Google does with Nexus device factory images. It’s huge.
Pretty big moves, wouldn’t you say?
Via: Motorola [Factory Images]
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