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- ASUS has apparently withdrawn the ability to unlock the bootloader on its phones.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
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)
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
It’s been this way since I first flashed a custom ROM on my 2011 Xperia and I’ve never gotten it. It seems so useless. Either Huawei or Xiaomi wanted me to provide a REASON for unlocking.
I think Nexus phones were unlockable without making a request to a server. I might be wrong though. But I do miss the Nexus line.
I suspect it’s to keep a record which can be used to defend themselves from lawsuits. “You caught that virus after you removed our protections, so it’s your own fault. Here’s the receipt.”
