SOFF - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Feb

S-Off Now Available For The HTC One X/L, And Droid DNA–Here's How To Do It

Posted by Cameron Summerson in DROID DNA, One X (Endeavor), One XL (Evita)

So, you want S-Off on your One X/L, or Droid DNA? Done and done. Thanks to a crafty new "hack" by jcase and beaups, S-Off can easily be yours. As always, however there are a few pre-requisites, as well as some caveats to be aware of.

Firstly, you must have working adb and fastboot. If you don't know what that is, a quick Google search can answer it, and tell you how to get it. Your device must also be rooted and have SuperCID, no exceptions. This is requisite.

Devs work hard on exploits like this, and they risk bricking their own devices (or those of testers) in order to make it happen.

Apr

S-Off Now Possible On The HTC Amaze 4G, Rezound, Sensation/XE, Vivid/Raider/Velocity, And MyTouch 4G Slide Thanks To 'JuopunutBear'

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Amaze 4G (Ruby), myTouch 4G Slide (Doubleshot), News, Rezound, Sensation / Sensation 4G (Pyramid), Sensation XE, Vivid

Over the past year or so, HTC devices have become notoriously more difficult to root/mod/S-Off than the devices of yesteryear. When one series of devices gets cracked, the next generation released by HTC has historically been drastically more difficult to crack.

This has been the case for some of the more recent HTC devices; namely the Amaze, Rezound, Sensation/XE, Vivid/Raider/Velocity, And MyTouch 4G Slide. Up until now, a few of those devices have never even received S-Off status. Now, though, thanks to a new method called JuopunutBear by the Unlimited Team, all of the aforementioned phones can become S-Off.

Before attempting to use JuopunutBear, you must unlock your device with HTC's official bootloader unlock tool.

Aug

Revolutionary 0.4 Released, Adds Support For More Devices - Including The HTC EVO 4G And Incredible 2 With Gingerbread

Posted by Cameron Summerson in EVO 3D (Shooter), EVO 4G (Supersonic), Incredible 2 (Vivow), myTouch 4G Slide (Doubleshot), News, Thunderbolt (Mecha)

A little more than two weeks ago a revolutionary (pun intended) new unlock and root solution was released by AlphaRev and Unrevoked that provided S-Off and NAND write access to a number of HTC devices. That tool received an update today that adds a number of previously unsupported device to the mix:

HTC EVO 3D GSM
HTC Thunderbolt
HTC EVO 4G running Gingbebread
HTC myTouch 4G Slide
HTC Droid Incredible 2 running Gingerbread

0.4pre3
- Fixed support for HTC myTouch 4G Slide (doubleshot) 1.44.0007

0.4pre2
- Fixed support for HTC Incredible 2 (vivo_w) 0.97.0000, only works on Gingerbread now!

0.4pre1
- Added support for more devices and expanded/improved support for existing devices

Prior to this release, neither the EVO 4G nor Incredible 2 with Gingerbread had received S-Off and root, so these new additions to the Revolution family are welcome ones, to say the least.

Jul

Revolutionary From Unrevoked And AlphaRev Offers S-Off And NAND Write Access To Most Modern HTC Phones Including EVO 3D And Sensation

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Aria (Liberty), Desire (Bravo/BravoC), Desire 2 (Saga), EVO 3D (Shooter), Flyer, Incredible S (Vivo), News, Sensation / Sensation 4G (Pyramid), Wildfire (Buzz)

We've been waiting all day for a new project called Revolutionary from AlphaRev and Unrevoked to go live, and that moment is now upon is. This new tool allows S-Off and NAND write access to a whole slew of modern HTC phones, including some devices that have yet to receive a permanent unlock solution:

HTC Desire (bravo) 0.93.0001
HTC Desire CDMA (bravoc) 1.06.0000
HTC Wildfire (buzz) 1.01.0001
HTC Aria (liberty) 1.02.0000
HTC Incredible S (vivo) 1.09.0000 and 1.13.0000
HTC Droid Incredible 2 (vivow) 0.97.0000
HTC Desire S (saga) 0.98.0000 and 0.98.0002
HTC View (express) 1.09.0000 and 1.13.0000
HTC Flyer (flyer) 1.10.0000
HTC Sensation (pyramid) 1.17.0006, .0008, .0011 and .0012
HTC Evo 3D (shooter) 1.30.0000 and 1.40.0000

The most notable of the bunch is the EVO 3D and the Sensation -- two devices that were previously without a permanent root solution (only perma-temp).

Jul

[Video] AlphaRevX Beats HTC At Its Own Game, Unlocks The Bootloader On The Sensation - EVO 3D To Follow

Posted by Cameron Summerson in News, Sensation / Sensation 4G (Pyramid)

AlphaRevX, the same team that unlocked and provided full S-OFF for the Incredible S, Desire (GSM and CDMA), Wildfire, Aria, Incredible 2, and Desire S, are back again in a big way: with a full unlock, S-OFF and permanent root for the Sensation. Have a look:

AlphaRevX have already stated that they have full root and S-OFF for the EVO 3D as well, although we're not sure if it uses the same method, as the download has yet to be released.

AlphaRevX is a software HBOOT mod, which is completely reversible and provides a software S-OFF. It lets you root, flash custom recoveries, nandroid back up/restore, and flash custom ROMs - basically, anything your heart and soul desire.

Jul

HTC: EVO 3D, Sensation 4G (And Global) Bootloader Unlock Will Roll Out In August - Sort Of

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Development, EVO 3D (Shooter), HTC, News, Sensation / Sensation 4G (Pyramid)

HTC has finally laid out a timetable for the release of software updates on phones that will allow the unlocking of device bootloaders. It sounds like HTC will be utilizing a system similar to Sony - which uses a web-based tool as part of the unlock process. Why? HTC states that while the OTA software update allowing unlocking will start rolling out in August, the actually ability to unlock phones won't be ready until early September. So, at the earliest, your EVO 3D or Sensation 4G will be unlockable in about 2 months.

Unfortunately, there's another caveat: HTC hasn't exactly made it 100% clear that August is the date for the release of said software update for the EVO 3D and Sensation 4G.

Jun

HTC Is "Diligently Working" On That EVO 3D Bootloader Unlock, In Case You Were Wondering

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, EVO 3D (Shooter), HTC, News

EVO 3D owners across the US have been patiently waiting a whole 3 days (I know, it's an eternity) for HTC to make good on its promise to unlock the phone's bootloader. HTC has now issued a statement on the matter in response to a wall post on its Facebook page, which is overrun with complaints from EVO 3D owners (or people who just like to whine) criticizing what they perceive to be the slowness of the company's efforts to issue a bootloader unlock solution.

While HTC never made promises about a time frame, there's still no shortage of angry EVO 3D customers to be found on the company's Facebook wall.

Jun

Breaking: AlphaRevX Full Unlock (S-OFF, Root, Recovery, Custom ROMs) Out Now For HTC Incredible S, Desire (CDMA/GSM), Wildfire, Aria

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Aria (Liberty), Desire (Bravo/BravoC), Development, HTC, Incredible S (Vivo), News, Wildfire (Buzz)

Ever since the beginning of June, we've been teased by and patiently waiting for the mysterious AlphaRevX unlocker page that promised to completely unlock (S-OFF) the latest HTC Wildfire and even Incredible S, making root, custom ROMs, ClockworkMod recovery all possible.

After a period of private beta testing, the wraps have come off an hour ago, and the first public release of AlphaRevX is now available for download (see instructions below) for the following devices:

HTC Incredible S (Vivo), which remained completely undefeated until now
HTC Desire CDMA (BravoC)
HTC Desire GSM (Bravo)
HTC Wildfire (Buzz)
HTC Aria (Liberty)

Incredible 2 and Desire S are not supported at the moment, though I suspect they use a similar protection scheme and will also be cracked shortly.

Mar

It Wasn't Just Verizon - The HTC Incredible S' Bootloader And Recovery Are Signed As Well

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Development, HTC, Incredible S (Vivo), News

Conspiracy theorists would have you believe that the ThunderBolt's signed (and locked) bootloader was all Verizon's doing, but it appears that isn't quite the case - the Incredible S, one of HTC's unlocked GSM phones, is shipping with a similar failsafe system. That basically means no custom ROMs for you (at least until a viable workaround is discovered).

Proof? Look no further than the contents of this Incredible S RUU:

From what our friends at AndIRC can tell (note that they don't have a device in hand), the Incredible S includes a signature check much like the one on the ThunderBolt.

Mar

First One-Click Root + S-OFF For HTC Thunderbolt Out Now

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, HTC, News, Thunderbolt (Mecha)

If you've been looking to unlock your HTC Thunderbolt but have been putting it off until a one-click solution springs up, you may start rolling up your sleeves - you've got some downloading to do. dbzfanatic from xda released the first one-click easyroot + S-OFF, which uses AndIRC's lengthy, yet effective, instructions, but wraps them up in one easy to use package. The program runs on Windows and weighs in at over 800MB, so fire up your PCs and get ready for some heavy downloading.

This article deals with a couple of advanced topics. If you’re unfamiliar with some of the terms, hit up our primers here:

Rooting Explained + Top 5 Benefits Of Rooting
Top Android Apps Every Rooted User Should Know About: Part 1 (Apps 1-8), Part 2 (Apps 9-16)
Custom ROMs Explained And Why You Want Them
How To Fully Back Up And Restore Your Android Phone Using Nandroid Backup
How To Flash A Custom ROM To Your Android Phone With ROM Manager + Full Backup & Restore

Disclaimer: As always, Android Police, team AndIRC, and dbzfanatic accept no responsibility for any damage to your device, including potential bricking.