T-Mobile Galaxy S7/S7E Bootloader Unlock Petition/Discussion

bajasurxda

Dear T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S7/S7E users,

 

I have created this discussion to make a central location for us to discuss unlocking the bootloader on the G-930T/G-935T.

 

For those who do not know what I am referring to, please read the following email to John Legere from myself:

 

Good Evening,

I am writing this email to you in hopes that at the executive level, T-Mobile will do right by their customers.

For the past several years, Samsung Galaxy devices on Tmobile have shipped with an unlocked bootloader, allowing T-Mobile users and Android enthusiasts to run (and test)  custom software which helps better the Android community as a whole. For me, this was the one and only reason I left Verizon Wireless years ago, so that I could continue to enjoy my device and test applications freely on  T-Mobile.

This brought thousands of other Verizon and AT&T customers over as well, as we had all believed in John Legere and his "Uncarrier" mission. Sadly, with the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, Tmobile users have lost the ability to OEM unlock their device and have joined the ranks of Verizon and AT&T.

 

I am writing to you urging you to do right by your customers and unlock the Galaxy S7/Edge. However small the root user community may be, we tend to be the loudest and most passionate Android users in the world. If we cannot unlock our devices through T-Mobile, we will be forced to go elsewhere. This would be a sad day for tmobile considering many of your own employees belong to this community.

I know this cannot be high on the list of action items your team has on their plate, however I urge you to do right by us and do what needs to be done to put this to rest.  Please do not join the ranks of Verizon and AT&T by allowing these devices to be locked down like fort Knox.

Respectfully,

Mike D.
T Mobile user
Android Enthusiast

74 replies

theartiszan
Rank
Userlevel 3

Yes.  Samsung still does not want to unlock the bootloader.

T

And this will be the last Samsung for me.  This whole thing has been absurd.

I

Where do i sign.. i just switched to t-mobile and this was the only reason i did..

theartiszan
Rank
Userlevel 3

To sign a petition?

Honestly I'm not sure if even Tmobile can change Samsung's mind. All of their variants sold in the USA are bootloader locked with no unlock available. Samsung needs to take a stance like HTC.

tidbits
Rank
Userlevel 5
Badge +12

I think all manufacturers need to do what HTC does. Especially if they drop support for their products.

theartiszan
Rank
Userlevel 3

Amen

M

signed for bootloader unlock

M

Signing petition. Come on T-Mobile get your act together!!! You are going to lose customers!!

stevetjr
Rank
Userlevel 3
Badge +7 
magenta2271541 wrote:
Signing petition. Come on T-Mobile get your act together!!! You are going to lose customers!!

And where are or would you go??  It is locked by Samsung not T-Mobile and Samsung has locked it on all US variants so no matter what carrier you bought it from it would be locked. So how is T-Mobile going to lose customers over this?  This petition should be going to Samsung.

M

steve. thank you but i am aware of that already.

however, none of us are Samsung customers. We are T-mobile customers. You bought your phone from T-mobile not Samsung I presume same as most others. We can only complain to Tmobile with hopes that they would put pressure on Samsung. Tmobile is at fault here not Samsung. If they cared about customers they would do something about it.

Also I doubt that tmobile didn't have a hand in this. Samsung has no reason whatsoever to lock it as they have nothing to lose. Tmobile has something to lose as that means all the bloatware is subject to easy removal.

stevetjr
Rank
Userlevel 3
Badge +7

T-Mobile doesn't have a say in it, I got a chance to beta the Z3 before it launched at TMO and on a conference call with Sony and T-Mobile one of the other testers asked about getting the bootloader unlocked and T-Mobile deferred the question to Sony who said they would think about it but for now they were opting to keep it locked. So it was the manufacturer not the carrier.

You buy a Chevy from an independent dealer, if you have an issue with something Chevy opted to lock down you don't complain to the dealer you complain to Chevy.   T-Mobile is a reseller when it comes to hardware and the manufacturers agree to load their specific software to help and give them incentive to sell their product.  If they won't unlock it for Verizon or AT&T both of which are still probably twice as large as TMO, why do you think they would do it for TMO?  The manufacturers know the carriers need them more than the other way around, the carriers especially when it comes to Samsung and Apple need them so they have no leverage.

M

well that is just an assumption. I would say tmobile has more of an incentive to have the bootloader locked than samsung does.

technically samsung has more of an incentive to unlock it as more people can brick their phones. that means more sales for samsung phones.

tidbits
Rank
Userlevel 5
Badge +12

Actually no.  Samsung has more incentive to protect their devices. You can never really hard brick a unlocked bootloader phone.  About 10% of those that "mod" their software only about 1% ever hard brick their devices.  Hardly a drop in the bucket when everyone is into security and protecting their information(this crowd is gigantic in the US with NSA, FBI, and CIA wanting devices with back doors).  If your devices are known to be tough as Fort Knox(see what I did there), vs one that can be easily compromised which do you think will buy? 

Here's a nifty thing to look at.  The Chinese version (Qualcomm) can be unlocked.  Samsung could have used said too and with the T-Mobile version.  Now here's the kicker.  Legere said it was Samsung, and Samsung front office never said against it.  A lot of low level reps who would NOT know anything Front Office is thinking or stance on something.  They'll say whatever to get you off the phone.  Why would Legere who has been upfront with everything he plans to do, but then lie about an unlocked bootloader.  He even offered for a short time for people to return their S7/E's and get another device that does have an unlocked bootloader...  Of course people heard blah blah it has to be T-Mobile...

Here's some more food for thought.  T-Mobile since the HTC Amaze said it will ALWAYS be up to the Manufacturers to lock bootloaders.  They will not request the bootloaders to be locked.  This stemmed from HTC starting to lock their bootloaders on their own.  SO far every HTC device sold on T-Mobile since the Amaze had locked bootloaders, but HTC made a tool to unlock ALL of them which T-Mobile has never stopped.  LG locked all bootloaders since the G2(except for T-Mobile devices), and almost all of them had encrypted locked bootloaders.  So does it seem like a Trend that T-Mobile locks bootloaders?  FYI manufacturers DO have their code to protect.  Sony if you unlock their devices they remove code, and drivers.  Samsung has some of their features stop working as well. 

M

where did you get this statistic exactly ??
"About 10% of those that "mod" their software only about 1% ever hard brick their devices."

Sorry but not really convinced. You can brick your device much more easily if you mess with it and if it's unlocked bootloader you can mess with it a lot. Based on my experience frequenting forums people with unlocked bootloaders brick their devices and although most are recoverable (most often is the case I agree) most people are not that capable of doing it alone and getting others to do that for them is expensive. So no i disagree on that front. Unlocked bootloaders by and large lead to bricked devices much more often. And samsung benefits from that.

That being said they may have an incentive to lock it for "security" reasons. What you brought up is a good point. The NSA may very well have forced them into doing that.

stevetjr
Rank
Userlevel 3
Badge +7 
magenta2271541 wrote:
well that is just an assumption. I would say tmobile has more of an incentive to have the bootloader locked than samsung does.....

I would disagree since things like Samsung Pay and other things that use the secure element are disabled and won't work on rooted devices because of security issues.  Samsung has a lot invested in Samsung Pay alone not to mention they probably have more "bloatware" on their devices than TMO does.

I know in the case of Sony because I was on the call with them and TMO and they specifically said it was their decision and they would look at it but for now they were not going to unlock it and they never did even after bailing out of the US and leaving everyone stranded on an outdated OS that they had upgraded everyone of except the 2 US versions. 

tidbits
Rank
Userlevel 5
Badge +12 
magenta2271541 wrote:
where did you get this statistic exactly ?? 
"About 10% of those that "mod" their software only about 1% ever hard brick their devices."
Sorry but not really convinced. You can brick your device much more easily if you mess with it and if it's unlocked bootloader you can mess with it a lot. Based on my experience frequenting forums people with unlocked bootloaders brick their devices and although most are recoverable (most often is the case I agree) most people are not that capable of doing it alone and getting others to do that for them is expensive. So no i disagree on that front. Unlocked bootloaders by and large lead to bricked devices much more often. And samsung benefits from that.
That being said they may have an incentive to lock it for "security" reasons. What you brought up is a good point. The NSA may very well have forced them into doing that.

That community is smaller than you think they are large.  I have been a modder and developer for all devices on XDA.  It's been hard to hard brick devices.  There are actual protections  especially for Samsung devices to prevent hard bricking.  A lot of people who have soft bricked think their devices are hard bricked when they are not.  Often they get suckered into selling it to someone for "parts" and then that person unbricks it and uses/sell it for profit.

S

Well, I guess it is hopeless for my s7 edge to get a best root then.

M

You can root the phone, You can flash a Samsung engineering file and get root, you cant flash a custom recovery but there is a root method its on XDA, but for some reason after flashing the engineering the file the phone gets laggy the camera messes up...the lag can be solved with changing clock speeds but camera remains a problem. There is a solution a rom can be flashed without a recovery called "stange5litre" its NOT on xda the dev left xda he has his own site...and the rom works okay but the battery life is terrible...in other words...what im saying is you can get root and even flash a rom but the device ends up acting worse because the root file seems to have been messed with and somehow makes the device act up...almost seems to be done on purpose...anyway I'm not linking anything all the info is out there on xda and google just know it is possible to root...the boot-loader however remains locked with root.

S

I think it safe to say that rooting is not worth it to me. I actually tried and worked but like you said, it has bugs, and I did not like that and did not want to have a different rom installed. Wanted to install a different equalizer that needed root to install. It was too buggy, so I reinstalled stock firmware. I rather have updates from TMO, and even if it seems like a slimmed down version of the OS that they offer. I still get to use Samsung Pay, which is awesome to use. Rooting breaks the Samsung Pay app. So I am just going to patiently wait for Oreo.

M

Here it is April 2018 and nothing has come of it.

I successfully flash other Nougat??? from other carriers like Verizon and it works up until the carrier.

My initial foray into this venture was because my wife's Galaxy 7 Edge's wifi broke.

No matter what I did I can't fix it until I flashed other roms.

Then I reinstalled the stock and disabled everything that was bloatware and it was working great until Samsung decided to update it and broke it again.

I hate automation I really do.  And you are forced into this crap.

I seriously care less about GearVR and the stupid nonsense.  I just want my $800 computer that makes phone calls to work.

Now it's out of warranty, I have a locked boot loader and unless I find a fully working rom I am out money all because of socialist control freaks of South Korea!

The S5 was great and I just updated my daughters to Nougat 7 with lineage and twrp.

It runs excellent and there is no reason other than Samsung can't sell newer phones if you can get the latest OS on the older ones.

So, this is most likely a move to block you from extending the life of your phones.

BTW, you can odin a new OS as long as someone makes one compatible, it's the boot loader that is locked.

And it seems to be only T-Mobile so if this is the way it's going to be I just won't buy Samsung products anymore, change carriers or get a windows phone.

I hate Android anyway and there is no way I am buying an S8, S9, S10, SX, S anything.

If I am ever forced into another Android device it will be a cheapo Chinese 1/3rd the price unlocked phone that they could care less with what I do with it.

Samsung and T-Mobile just turned me off into supporting them when they refuse to support me.

G

I just went to root my S7 to hand down to my son (wanted to remove a lot of the stock apps so he doesn't accidentally start sharing pictures, etc)  and found out it can no longer be Rooted. Oh well, I'll send it back and stick with my old S5. For an upgrade can anyone suggest a good non-tmobile phone that is not locked? Blu? OnePlus, etc?

B

I have always had Samsung phones, and through T-Mobile and used to watch comedy videos, I have always had root on those devices. Now, I am unable to conduct my work for my business. I use many Apps, and programs on my phone that require root access. Without this access, and I am now carrying two phones with me.

D

what im saying is you can get root and even flash a rom but the device ends up acting worse because the root file seems to have been messed with and somehow makes the device act up...almost seems to be done on purpose...anyway I'm not linking anything all the info is out there on xda and google just know it is possible to root...the boot-loader however remains locked with root.

M

thanks this topic is very helpful for me.

Reply


New badge winners

Show all badges
Terms & ConditionsCookie settings