Last week the ChevronWP7 labs released the Windows Phone unlock tool. We have discussed the ChevronWP7 unlock tool a few times now as they have released various press releases leading up to the release of the tool. They are now offering to officially unlock your Windows Phone device for $9 which lets you install non Marketplace apps. Which means you can install screenshot apps, app folders, battery stats live tiles and many more.
It is an interesting move by Microsoft who support this and who have worked with the ChevronWP7 team. When Windows Phone came out it was locked down and various people including the ChevronWP7 team created a tool to unlock their devices, Microsoft then shut this down and now they are officially allowing it. The original Windows Mobile was unlocked and users could install whatever they wanted so I guess they are just trying to attract back some people from back in the day. The other factor is Android. On Android again you can install whatever you want, which has lead to a huge community app development thing. With iOS users have to jailbreak their phones to install apps from anywhere apart the app store. I wonder if Apple will ever release a tool similar to this?
So if you have already installed this tool let us know how you got on and what you have installed already. I will be installing this in the next few weeks. I might even post details of some homebrew apps.