Yet another company makes flashing custom ROMs more restrictive

Years ago, if you had an Android phone, you could unlock its bootloader. You could do this on virtually any device and do it as much as you liked. Over the years, though, some companies have tried to prevent users from doing this, whether through hardware/software on the device itself or through company-owned systems that “license” an unlock to the user.

It appears that Xiaomi recently changed its policy for unlocking device bootloaders. As first spotted by XiaomiTime, the company’s new policy is that users may unlock up to one device each year. Xiaomi is able to enforce this through an unlock licensing system.

As one would expect, Xiaomi fans are not happy with this. Over on r/Android, the comments surrounding this news are resoundingly negative.

Unfortunately, this development wasn’t unexpected. HUAWEI blocked bootloader unlocks across its entire portfolio and ASUS has made it increasingly difficult to unlock its devices. Additionally, about a year ago, Xiaomi had instituted a similar policy that limited a user to unlocking three devices per year. So this new policy is a drastic reduction of that already restrictive policy.

It wouldn’t be surprising if the next step is to remove bootloader unlocking support entirely. This will no doubt be disappointing for Xiaomi fans, especially when you consider the company’s official software support for some of its phones is astoundingly weak. Bootloader unlocking allowed people to continue to use those phones safely through flashing custom ROMs, but that will be much more difficult with this new policy.

We have reached out to Xiaomi for a statement on this matter. We will update this article should we hear back.