Not a Blessing, But Motorola Will Give Rooted Xooms LTE Upgrade

There's been some concern that rooted Xooms would not be eligible for the free LTE upgrade that will come later this year. Motorola has taken to its support forums to clear up the matter. Xooms that hve been rooted will be eligible for the upgrade, with caveats.

It's not a blessing by any means, and we know that Motorola is famous for its locked bootloaders. Those prevent custom ROMs, but not rooting. One of the caveats is that Motorola asks that the Xoom be returned to its factory installed ROM state, before shipping it for the upgrade. After all, they say, they can't guarantee that the software upgrade they have to install at the time of the LTE upgrade will take. Motorola says:

Hey hey! Check it out.

All Motorola XOOM tablets on the Verizon Wireless network are eligible to receive an upgrade to support 4G LTE. This includes those that have been unlocked; however, those units must be submitted for upgrade with the original factory software reinstalled and the device relocked in order to receive the upgrade. For devices that are returned unlocked, Motorola will attempt to complete the upgrade, but may be unable to update the software. In these cases, the device will be returned to the consumer with just the 4G LTE modem installed.

More details on the process will be available closer to the upgrade availability.

Of course, even just having the LTE modem installed is great, as surely XDA Developers can work around any issues Motorola could not.

That's pretty nice. Now if Motorola would just stop locking its bootloaders, all would be well with the world.