This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
ASUS is apparently killing the posibility of me being a potential customer of their smartphones.
Rooting users are only a small percentage of all users so they probably won't even notice unfortunately.
sent from rooted phone
People who just want a vanilla experience likely all buy Samsung.
Oh, fuck off. I'm not one to root my phone, but you own the damn thing. Once it's in your hands, the maker should have no right to tell you what to do with it.
Yeah, I'm really tired of this.
We should be able to root and install any OS on our phones like we can do on PC.
I don't use root or custom ROMs on my phone anymore but this is something that should always be possible.
Consumers seem to be too dumb for their own good.
Regulators seem to be too captured for consumers' good.
Well there goes any compelling reason to buy their phones lol
I was genuinely thinking about going with an ASUS phone next because of the unlockable bootloader, this really sucks to see.
Why do so many phone manufacturers hate letting you unlock their bootloaders? Every Google phone lets you do this, and they probably have the most secure Androids of them all.
Google shouldn't be our shining light on phone rules lol
pixels are by far the best to degoogled your phone and to have privacy/security/freedom actually
they go above and beyond letting you unlock your bootloader
Probably because they know their OS is a duct-taped piece of garbage which could fall to pieces if you look at it wrong while unlocked.
Very easy way to remove an almost perfect phone from my list of upgrade considerations.
This is such an anti-consumer move, by refusing to unlock the bootloader Asus hinders the ability of users to extend their devices' life beyond Asus's original support window by flashing alternative ROMs...
I'd like to see right to repair laws expanded to right to unlock. I think you could make a reasonable argument that a working device that's not receiving security updates is just as broken as a device that's experienced a hardware failure.
As much as I agree, I don't think our legislators are knowledgable enough to be able to handle the issue, and majority of the users don't care enough to push for something like this. This isn't like USB-C vs Lightning where users are sick of buying cables and chargers, so the issue is much more visible.
A typical example of planned obsolescence what an effective way of killing my plans to get an Asus phone as my next daily driver assuming this is true
Some important context from the article:
A Reddit user claims that the company’s developer liaison on its Telegram channel has no knowledge of any such development. “According to them, the unlock tool server is in maintenance and will resume in Q3,” the person writes; We’ve written to ASUS to clarify the situation and will update this article when and if we hear more.
But here is the thing why do I need to use a tool to connect to a server just to be allowed to unlock the bootloader? I don't and didn't need such a thing to unlock the bootloader of my Samsung Galaxy phone (planned obsolescence ladies and gentlemen)
Considering their crappy major release and security update support, rooting and flashing custom images is basically a requirement.
asus has killed the possibility of me being a potential customer then lol
I still don't buy Sony over the rootkit escapade and that was nearly 30 years ago.
... aaaand another brand I'll be avoiding when looking for a new phone. In my eyes a phone that can't be rooted is kind of like a computer without access to an administrator account - you can do stuff with it, but at one point your hands are tied.
Boo you whore. Asus really is just kicking itself in the dick the last 5 years or so.
No kidding, especially with their recent motherboards-catching-on-fire fiasco.
They used to be such a good company; what happened?
Oh come on. I wanted a zenfone, I wanted the compact phone with a headphone jack and actual components. But if they're being cocky about it, there's no point. I guess I'll have to find another brand
Which means, legally, you can no longer own even the hardware of a Zenfone you bought, you now only license it. Since their OEM software is proprietary and in nearly every software's TOS they can revoke your license to it at any time for any reason, which would effectively brick the phone if bootloader unlocking is not possible.
It's funny that looking around almost every single piece of ASUS hardward I bought over the years, I chose them because I could do more with their kit than I could do with the cheaper stuff and a lot of that had to do with access to the hardware (overclockeability of things like motherboards and graphics boards, much more configurable and better hardware for routers and media players and so on).
So I'm wandering what exactly is their unique value proposition on smartphones versus brands which are much more well known and well established in the regular consumer segment if they're ditching being the superior choice for the more technical users: what exactly is the point of "same shit as everybody else" hardware for premium prices?!
The end of an era. Companies also locked the bootloader back then and you'll need to find a vulnerability to exploit in order to unlock it. When custom roms starting to become popular, companies relaxed their stance and allowing their customers to unlock the bootloader using an official channel instead of utilizing a security exploits, perhaps as a competitive advantage so power users would recommend them to their friends and family.
Now with declining popularity of rooting and custom roms, companies are starting to stop allowing their customers to unlock the bootloader again. From their perspective, allowing bootloader unlocking is nothing but trouble (support-wise) and might even cannibalize sales (why upgrade your phone every two years when you can install a custom ROM with the latest version of Android), so declining popularity of custom ROMs is a perfect excuse for them to stop allowing bootloader unlocking.
It's my device. I will do with it whatever the fuck I desire
The problem with companies trying to stop this is the fact that there will be at least one person/team who will find a way to bypass this.
No amount of corporate software devs/engineers can stop the might of a determined team on the internet from achieving their goals when it comes to this kinda stuff.
This is just simply not the case. There are multiple phones that have no known bootloader bypass to this day. Sk17i springs immediately to mind.
Do consumer friendly phones exist at this point?
Pixel phones are the few ones that you can unlock the bootloader and lock again.
This is exactly why I sent my Zenphone 9 back. Shame because it was such a good little phone and one of the few flagships with a headphone jack.
In a while ASUS won't be able to sell its phones in the EU. I guarantee it.
I really hope the EU requires manufacturers to allow a bootloader unlock. Apple would shit themselves.
I can't believe this shit... I was planning on getting the Zenfone 10. with it's headphone jack, small size, and Android feel.
So they will just be bricks in a few years
Don't these phones only have 2 years of security updates? I believe samsung S23 is a better choice as a small phone as it has 5 years of security updates.
I dropped OnePlus for this reason last year, after having 5 models starting the OnePlus 1, and ending with the 8T. Apart from OxygenOS being a buggy mess, I should be able to do what I want with my phone's software
I used to own a ZenFone, and Asus's technical support was awful. I guess I'm glad I don't use one now
I have been thinking about getting the ZenFone 10 as well. I have seen a lot of similar posts here and on various google searches. In the XDA forum for the phone there also a topic about not being able to unlock the bootloader/root, but there is a bit more info on the reasoning.
"A moderator in the Asus ZenTalk forum posted that they are working on a new release of the unlock tool and that it should be available in Q3 2023."
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/unlocking-the-bootloader.4607595/
welp, no chance I'm ever considering their phones in future
Buy motorola edge 30 Put lineage on it ??? Profit
