In recent news, hackers have unlocked the Motorola Droid, which was deemed to be the closest competitor to the ever-powerful iPhone. This has unlocked features such as multi-touch support, more apps, and even processor overclocking.
Some of you may be asking: Why is this important? It’s important because it shows the rift between cell phone carriers and their customers. The carriers want to limit the phone to a certain set of features that they think define the phone, and are within it’s capabilities. However, as we all know, people don’t like to be boxed in (unless you’re an agoraphobe).
That’s why, when the hack for the iPhone was released way back when, people jumped at the chance to customize their device. Since then, Apple and its carriers have waged a vicious war against the hackers, by sometimes “bricking” the user’s phone, rendering it useless, and launching many new firmware releases, each designed to nullify the earlier hack.
Even with all this opposition, hackers push on. And for you and I, this is good news: hackers often find exploits or bugs in the device’s firmware that the device’s own testers may not have found. This leads to a more stable, reliable firmware for all.
Now that you know the latest in the world of hacking, why not give it a whirl yourself? If you have an old MP3 player lying around, you can probably customize it with a (legal) custom firmware called RockBox. It allows you to change how the graphics user interface (GUI) looks, add games, and even play file formats that you player couldn’t previously play.
Have fun hacking!