The Galaxy S4 had a rough start in the sense of ROM and kernel development. First, the head of CyanogenMod declared publicly that there would be no official support for the Galaxy S4 because it was only a minor step-up from the S3. Then later, Dan Rosenberg said that the Galaxy S4 bootloaders would not be able to be unlocked unless they were able to be unlocked without hacking. On top of all this, AT&T announced that their variant of the Galaxy S4 would ship with a locked bootloader. It goes without saying that Verizon's variant would also be bootloader locked, as Verizon has never been known to carry such a device. So far, the Galaxy S4's development future wasn't looking too bright...until yesterday.
If you don't know who Dan Rosenberg is, then you must not have rooted your Motorola device in the past 2 years. Dan Rosenberg has rooted almost every recent Motorola device on every software version. He even unlocked the bootloaders on the RAZR HD, M, and Atrix HD. This guy is a legend. He has come to the rescue again by "hacking" the Galaxy S4 bootloaders on Verizon and AT&T. He has confirmed that this allows a user to flash custom ROMS and kernels. Sounds good right?
It does, but if you are able to get your hands on an S4 before the Verizon version of the device starts shipping, don't count on hacking it. Rosenberg is waiting until the Verizon variant of the S4 is released, and for good reason. A month gives Verizon plenty of time to get an update together to patch the exploit before the device is even released. Although you may have to wait a month before you can hack your bootloader, it is for a very good reason.
Patience, people, patience...
via @djrbliss and
