SunShine is a popular tool used primarily on HTC devices for enabling S-OFF. The tool was updated to support the HTC U11 earlier this year, and now it supports the HTC U12+. Without being able to S-OFF, modding HTC devices becomes a great difficulty. This release should open the door to the true modding capability of the device.

SunShine costs $25, but it's the only tool which currently allows you to S-OFF your HTC U12+. Note that while it does come at a price, you have unlimited uses of the tool on your chosen device. That's actually where the main problem lies - modern HTC devices can only be temporarily S-OFF'd. That means after a reboot you'll be forced to run SunShine again. You don't need to worry about making any changes that S-ON may block though, as any changes made in S-OFF mode will stick after a reboot. Simply run the tool again and continue tinkering!

What is S-ON/S-OFF?

The "S" stands for security and enabling it protects certain partitions from being written to. Unlocking the HTC U12+ via its bootloader gives you write access to /system, /boot, and /recovery. That's sometimes not enough though, as users may wish to downgrade their devices or change their region. That requires access to the extra partitions that can be granted by S-OFF. On some devices with S-OFF, you can even reset the tampered flag to give the illusion that your device hasn't been bootloader unlocked. On the HTC One M8, it was possible to convert your smartphone to a Google Play Edition version with S-OFF and receive AOSP updates.

If you're interested in giving SunShine a try, you can check out the official website down below. It's a very simple tool to use. While it may be a steep fee, to some it is more than worth it.


Download SunShine for the HTC U12+