It’s now possible to create custom ROMs for Windows Phone

Windows Phone has always been more of an iOS competitor than an Android competitor, but things might be a little different with Windows 10 Mobile. To be fair, nothing Microsoft has done would really indicate that, but a hacker by the name of Heathcliff has spent the last several months developing a software suite that opens the door to custom ROM development for Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 Mobile.

Windows Phone has a very ironic history. Back in the mid-2000s it was the operating system for hackers, tinkerers and those looking to push the boundaries of mobile computing. Even I got my start making custom ROMs on Windows Mobile Treos. Fast forward by a decade and now it is Android that serves that role with Windows Phone taking a place closer to the iPhone as opposed to an ‘open sourced’ OS. Tonight, some of that may change. XDA hacker and all around mobile guru Heathcliff has announced the availability of his new suite of tools dubbed Windows Phone Internals 1.0. The new software has been under development for many months now and lets higher-end hobbyists “unlock the bootloader of selected Lumia Windows Phone models. After unlocking the bootloader, you can enable Root Access on the phone or create and flash Custom ROM’s.” The software supports “most versions of Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 10 Mobile”, which is very interesting.