If you know anything about modding your Sony Xperia phone, you’ll know that unlocking the bootloader means you won’t be getting the full camera experience, due to the loss of DRM keys when you unlock the bootloader. But there’s hope on the horizon, with modders posting a new hack on XDA-Developers which works around the restriction.
According to the forum post, the hack allows you to restore features like BionZ, Noise Cancelling and X-Reality which are lost after unlocking. Sony uses DRM keys stored on the TA partition, but unlocking the bootloader removes these keys, this new hack simply removes the check in Sony software which looks for them. It’s technically rather inelegant, it doesn’t actually restore the DRM keys, but in this case, inelegant works.
It’s a lightweight patch, clocking in at less than 2MB in size, but it will need to be applied with each update you receive on the phone. The process is apparently fairly volatile, so it’s a case of modder beware, and ensure you follow the step-by-step instructions on the forum thread.
If you’re willing to be a guinea pig on your Xperia Z series phone, head on over to the forum thread on XDA-Developers and start reading.
