ASUS is apparently killing the posibility of me being a potential customer of their smartphones.

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.

Well there goes any compelling reason to buy their phones lol

Considering their crappy major release and security update support, rooting and flashing custom images is basically a requirement.

And there I was seriously considering getting one. Greed is ruining good things again.

Locked bootloader and only 2 years of upgrades? Is not like Zenfones are cheap either. Hard pass!

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...

Simple fix: stop buying Asus phones. Once their profit drops they will let you unlock bootloader

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.

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)

Very easy way to remove an almost perfect phone from my list of upgrade considerations.

Boo you whore. Asus really is just kicking itself in the dick the last 5 years or so.

... 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.

asus has killed the possibility of me being a potential customer then lol

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.

Do consumer friendly phones exist at this point?

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

Looks like my current Zenfone running LineageOS is my last Zenfone.

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

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

In a while ASUS won't be able to sell its phones in the EU. I guarantee it.

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.

Asus is really going down the drain...

My biggest problem with unlocking the bootloader is that many apps look for an unlocked bootloader as "Its rooted" according to that app but unlocking the bootloader and being rooted is 2 different things. I only want to run a custom rom I dont want to root. But you end up having to do the whole thing and running Magisk to hide the root and unlocked bootloader.

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.

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?!

I feel eventually every company would do the same.

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