A big blow to all rooting enthusiasts

Today is the last day to request a bootloader unlock code for Huawei/Honor devices

"Unfortunately, the company had a sudden change of heart. Two months ago, the company announced that they will stop providing bootloader unlock codes. If you want to unlock the bootloader of your Huawei or Honor device, today is the last day to request a code."

Even though I no longer root my phones but I used to like it when I had lots of free time few years ago. Customization is a big advantage of android over iOS & there are many people who don't like the custom UIs like EMUI & MIUI.

Not a good idea for Huawei for sure. I don't know how it would improve user experience as rooted phones void warranty already & the blame is on the user if something goes wrong.

They want more dumb users who would just buy a new phone if their current phone has stopped getting updates or gets bricked because of official OTA. Repair charges would become a secondary revenue stream for Huawei/Honor.

B

Bad idea Honor. Just when your sales were rising, you had to do this. Bad move.

Seriously guys... it is not an issue for the majority of the consumers

For a majority of smartphone buyers in India, after buying a smartphone, they cannot install an application on Android, because they do not have an email Id!

B

Anorion said:
Seriously guys... it is not an issue for the majority of the consumers

For a majority of smartphone buyers in India, after buying a smartphone, they cannot install an application on Android, because they do not have an email Id!

You are 100% correct. I too have stopped rooting my devices since the past few years as Samsung Experience is smooth like a butter and the used to be bloatware has improved a lot. But for the devs, enthusiasts it is a big blow.

M

I am no more interested in custom ROMs because no author releases a stable version of custom ROMs previously CM was releasing stable versions but they stopped doing that now using a custom ROM means we are beta tester another issue with custom ROM is camera quality.
lastly most custom ROM looks same with same features.

Anorion said:
Seriously guys... it is not an issue for the majority of the consumers

For a majority of smartphone buyers in India, after buying a smartphone, they cannot install an application on Android, because they do not have an email Id!

True, it doesn't matter for the majority, but still, there are many users who do it.

W

I thought entering an email id is mandatory to begin 1st time setup of any android mobile,is this changed now?

^you can skip that step, but you are prompted to create one
The complexity of the process hinders users. This is why IndusOS installs the OS on the factory floor.

whitestar_999 said:
I thought entering an email id is mandatory to begin 1st time setup of any android mobile,is this changed now?

I don't remember it being mandatory. You always had the option to skip but you won't be able to access Play Store & install apps.

I do root some of my devices which have no updates now .
Nexus 7 2012
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2
Le Eco Le 2
Although I am of the general opinion that if the phone runs fine then there is no need to root it .
Then safety net and magisk issues arise for secure apps .
Also since most phone camera drivers are proprietary , there's bugs with custom ROMs .
Eg Running lineage os official on my le Eco le2 . But camera is buggy . Auto brightness problems .... And so on .
Cheers !
Ankush .

Sent from my MI MAX 2 using Tapatalk

Is there any manufacturer left now, which can provide us an opportunity to root and do make changes to our devices with our heart's content?

Not good Honor..

Btw, Honor, if you have time, read this article on my experience of using my first Android LG P500 (Optimus One): The LG Optimus One Thread

It perfectly encapsulates the happiness we get in rooting and installing new ROMs. Please don't take that happiness away from us!

If you don't have time Honor, I am quoting some paras:

Vyom said:
Every once in a while a piece of technology sets it's foot from inception to reality, that is perceived ahead of its time. It features tech which makes people awe in wonder. People dream of owning such a piece of technology that catapults them into the future.

One such device was my Optimus One P500 (O1 in short), an Android device manufactured by LG which featured specs which were uncommon at its price point.
...
O1 came with Froyo (Android ver 2.2) when it was launched in October 2010.
...
The stock Android "Froyo" was very fast and responsive. And I could have upgraded to "Gingerbread" easily. Yet their was something about being stock that didn't appeal to me.
...
The phone was among the best in hardware but was filled with bloatware apps. Apps such as "Bollywoodji" were not only unnecessary but also made the phone a bit slow. So one fine day I decided that I must root my phone.

It was the start of new year, 2012. After a lot of research on XDA forums and (Think)digit forum I sat down to unleash true powers of my phone. I took a deep breath and installed an app which was supposed to root the device.
...
Phone was the same. Hardware was the same. And it was not supposed to run "ICS". But it was running it quite fluidly. A generation passed and then came "Jellybean". We thought we might not be able to enjoy the advantages of "Project Butter". But we were simply wrong. Due to efforts of developers at XDA we got a brand new ROM that was based on Jellybean. Our happiness knew no bound back then.

In the spring of 2014, "Kitkat" arrived. I remember how I started to eat Kitkat chocolates since I thought we can't have the flavor of Kitkat on our legendary P500. But destiny had something else in mind. Mukulsoni, a teenage developer had done the seemingly impossible thing. He ported Kitkat on our age old but smartest smartphone. Our devices had unofficially started to take advantage of "Project Svelte"! We were on ninth cloud.

Kudos to developers like Mukulsoni and hephappy and lupohirp and franciscofranco and fserve and more! Thanks to them we could enjoy things never in our life we had imagined. In total Optimus One saw five generations of Android development (and still counting).
...
...
Whatever phone we use in future, one thing is for sure, I can never forget the importance that it had in my life. The immersion it gave to me. I would never forget the thrill of trying out new ROM's and the risk that came along with it. LG's P500 was my first smartphone and it gave me a chance to see how software can have no boundaries.

Vyom said:
Is there any manufacturer left now, which can provide us an opportunity to root and do make changes to our devices with our heart's content?

Oneplus and Xiaomi although the latter is always hesitant on releasing kernel sources.

Minion said:
I am no more interested in custom ROMs because no author releases a stable version of custom ROMs previously CM was releasing stable versions but they stopped doing that now using a custom ROM means we are beta tester another issue with custom ROM is camera quality.
lastly most custom ROM looks same with same features.

Not True..
there are many authors who are still releasing Stable ROM updates and OTAs.
bug will always be there and if it is in source then it will reflect in all versions of ROM (no matter the ROM releasing group)

Last week I installed AEX ROM in my Mi A1 and its a smooth experience.

Anorion said:
Seriously guys... it is not an issue for the majority of the consumers

For a majority of smartphone buyers in India, after buying a smartphone, they cannot install an application on Android, because they do not have an email Id!

They can, but just not from playstore directly. For indirect verified apps, there is apkmirror and 'Galaxy' is a Material Design fork of Yalp Store for those who want to ditch Google Play

billubakra said:
Bad idea Honor. Just when your sales were rising, you had to do this. Bad move.

It was all over xda months ago. Nobody is happy with the kind of BS Huawei did.

billubakra said:
But for the devs, enthusiasts it is a big blow.

Also for those who want to extend the life of their phones beyond OEM's "support" period.

Minion said:
I am no more interested in custom ROMs because no author releases a stable version of custom ROMs previously CM was releasing stable versions but they stopped doing that now using a custom ROM means we are beta tester another issue with custom ROM is camera quality.

Camera quality on custom roms vary from device to device. Some have it even better than stock roms.
There are issues with stock roms and OTA updates too (iOS as well).

B

SaiyanGoku said:
It was all over xda months ago. Nobody is happy with the kind of BS Huawei did.

I know, commented there as well. Hope Honor reverses this decision.

W

I don't think that's going to happen.In fact many banking apps refuse to install or run on rooted android devices.You can bypass by using some apps but then again how many can do it successfully & also expect all their banking apps to also run correctly without any issue. If banks themselves are not trusting rooted devices then it makes little sense for device manufacturers to provide warranty support to rooted devices either.

whitestar_999 said:
I don't think that's going to happen.In fact many banking apps refuse to install or run on rooted android devices.You can bypass by using some apps but then again how many can do it successfully & also expect all their banking apps to also run correctly without any issue. If banks themselves are not trusting rooted devices then it makes little sense for device manufacturers to provide warranty support to rooted devices either.

The issue here is about not allowing users to unlock bootloader of their phones, which is different than rooting. You can flash GSIs on treble enabled, bl unlocked phones to get rid of however crappy stock rom was. Google made treble support mandatory for all phones launching with oreo or above.

Almost every OEM supports bootloader unlocking (google "Bootloader unlock <oem name>"). Only Oneplus and Xiaomi give warranty support to rooted and BL unlocked phones.

PS: You still can flash custom rom without enabling root access.

Even if you don't root your phone/use custom ROMs, you should still protest this change because this sets a bad precedence for all OEMs. Not everybody appreciates telemetry and not everyone appreciates OEM ROMs. Taking away this option means that you no longer have any control on your own experience with the device, which is a design failure in smartphones IMO.

I don't really care about the majority, I am a power user and I will always support rooting and custom ROMs. There are no technical hurdles for the OEM to disable bootloader unlocking, only business decisions. If I buy your device, I don't give a f*** about anything else.

Make features, not anti-features.

SaiyanGoku said:
They can, but just not from playstore directly. For indirect verified apps, there is apkmirror and 'Galaxy' is a Material Design fork of Yalp Store for those who want to ditch Google Play

I do not know but does it provides paid apps?

SaiyanGoku said:
Also for those who want to extend the life of their phones beyond OEM's "support" period.

Not to forget, Honor was never good at updates. At least Xiaomi provides MIUI updates for few years, if not android version upgrade.