14 DAY TRIAL // Google announced its latest smartphones, the Pixel and Pixel XL, last week and pre-orders are already live at Google Store and Verizon. The two phones will be released on October 20 and Google has just announced that phones purchased from its stores will be rootable.
Google stated for WonderHowTo that Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones bought from the company store will be rootable. A Google spokesperson has stated that the smartphones will ship with an unlockable bootloader.
This means that the floodgates for custom recoveries and auto rooting tools will be available on day one and developers will most likely start working on them soon.
Users will be able to run a few ADB commands in order to install a custom recovery to their Pixel phones.
The report also mentions that the seamless updates feature found in Android Nougat won’t help with updates on a rooted device. This basically means that users won’t be able to apply regular OTA updates to rooted smartphones.
"Rooting involves modifying partitions on the phone. If the partitions are modified the OTA will fail to apply,” the spokesperson said.
Pixel smartphones purchased from Verizon will not have unlockable bootloaders. These units will receive OS updates and security patches at the same time as Pixel units sold through Google’s Store, which is good news nevertheless.
The Pixel devices will arrive on October 20 and customers who pre-order them from Verizon will also get a free Daydream View VR headset to pair with their new phones. The Pixel and Pixel XL come in three color variants, white, black and blue.