It’s a sad day for those wanting a Nexus-like experience on their second-gen Moto X for Verizon. According to Punit Soni, Motorola Mobility’s VP of Product Management, the company will not be offering a Moto X Developer Edition for Verizon customers this year.
For those unaware, Developer Editions are phones sold without a contract and with an unlockable bootloader. These special editions of the phone are made specifically for those customers that don’t want a phone with a locked bootloader to prevent them from flashing custom recoveries, kernels and ROMs. The original Moto X Developer Edition was offered to both Verizon and GSM customers. Motorola has had a history of selling Developer Editions of their phones, including last year’s Droid MAXX, the Droid RAZR M and the Droid RAZR HD. Samsung and HTC have also been know to sell some of their phones as Developer Editions, including the One M8 and the Galaxy S5.
Customers on AT&T and Verizon who want to have a phone with an unlockable bootloader are a small crowd, but many OEMs hear their concerns and offer their top-shelf phones in a Developer Edition. One downside to buying a Developer Edition phone is that the carriers only offer the phones off-contract, meaning those customers will have to pay full retail to get the phone they want dearly. Also, in the case for the original Moto X, they lost the customization that Moto Maker offers. Though that particular compromise is no longer necessary for this year’s Moto X Developer Edition, Verizon customers are once again left on the outside looking in.
Motorola’s reasoning to not offering a second-gen Moto X Developer Edition for Verizon is unclear, but the reasoning may be that the company didn’t sell many units of its predecessor. With the new line of DROIDs expected later this year, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them was offered in a Developer Edition.
Source: Android Police
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