Sure Samsung's TouchWiz interface on the Galaxy S4 is nice, but one of the main perks of Android smartphones is the number of custom ROMS available. Within a month of the smartphone's release here in the United States, Galaxy S4 owners on the four major national carriers can nab tools to unlock their bootloaders.
It wasn't too long ago that well-known security researcher Dan Rosenberg, a.k.a djrbliss, stated he had unlocked the Verizon Galaxy S4 bootloader but would hold off on posting instructions until the phone actually released. Now that May 23 has come and gone, Rosenberg has posted tools for both the AT&T and Verizon Galaxy S4 over at XDA. Rosenberg does state that a simple patch from the carrier would easily fix the exploit used and that the tools are mainly intended for developers.
Sprint and T-Mobile both reported their Galaxy S4s would ship with unlocked bootloaders.
Wondering what unlocking your Android phone's bootloader does? Unlocking bootloaders allows for Android users to go ahead and root their device properly and load up a custom ROM. Custom ROMS allow for greater customization, both visually and under the hood.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 ships with a 5-inch 1080p Super AMOLED display, 2GB RAM, 16GB-64GB internal memory, and Android 4.2.2. The phone can be found in eight-core and quad-core variants, and supports NFC.
Let us know if you had a chance to unlock your Galaxy S4's bootloader and easy the process was in the comments below.
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