It’s the end of an era, folks. See that block of text up there? That’s AT&T’s promise not to keep you from installing whatever Android apps you choose. Starting with the Samsung Infuse 4G, you can expect the carrier’s new Google-powered phones to have that all-important “Unknown sources” box available to toggle at will. As we heard in March, the measure was designed to let third-party markets like the Amazon Appstore function properly, but don’t let that keep you from having a little fun — we’re sure your own repurposed creations are just as good. Of course, none of this helps your existing AT&T droid one bit… unless it’s also true that the Aria, Captivate and Inspire 4G will also have sideloading enabled ASAP. We can hope.

Update: Wired spoke to AT&T and confirmed that existing Android devices will be updated to support third-party apps: “Over the next few weeks, we will also roll out this capability to existing devices in our base for which an upgrade is possible,” a spokesman reportedly said.

AT&T sideloading officially a go, designed to allow Amazon Appstore downloads (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 May 2011 19:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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