ASUS is apparently killing the ability to root present and future Zenfone, Updated

SeaJ@lemm.ee to Technology@lemmy.world – 584 points –
ASUS is apparently killing the ability to root present and future Zenfones
androidauthority.com

Update from Asus

The service team reply misunderstood the situation. Unlock tool is unavailable at this moment but we are allowing the possibility to unlock, please stay tuned.

**TL;DR

  • ASUS has apparently withdrawn the ability to unlock the bootloader on its phones.
  • As per the company’s technical support team, Zenfone 10 and Zenfone 9 users won’t be able to root their phones.
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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.

Samsung goes so hard with their proprietary apps and intrusive ads. The closest to vanilla I've gotten is a pixel phone.

Samsung unlocked is free to root, and they even provide the tools to do so. Most models supported in the free distros as well.

Yeah, but then you break Knox, and can't EVER fix it. The phone becomes instantly worthless for resale.

By vanilla I mean the most basic for consumers, not debloated factory default, which is what someone who roots their phone might want. The average customer is definitely not bothering with that,

Doesn't matter if I ever want to root my phone or not.

It's mine.

ASUS annihilated the possibility I'd ever buy any ASUS product after the way they handled the 7800X3D/AM5 VoC issue. I had never really noticed, but a pretty big swathe of my tech came from them (laptop, monitor, and motherboard among others) but no more.

It's a big company. Lots of people in lots of departments doing lots of different things. Do you swear off Samsung memory or flash because of their practices around their TV's or refrigerators?

If the refrigerant on my fridge leaked and they refused to fix it, I'd sure swear off their ACs too, yeah.