Unlocking the Pixel 9 bootloader breaks some Pixel AI apps

This isn't unprecedented, Sony used to encrypt most of their phones image processing stack with a key which was deleted forever if you unlocked the bootloader, making the camera permanently perform much worse even if you re-locked the bootloader later. Likewise with Winevine DRM, unlocking the bootloader will break L1 playback, either forever or until you re-lock depending on the device.

I'm guessing this is Google similarly trying to stop people extracting their local models by not letting unlocked devices access them. I wonder if they'll also crack down on porting the Pixel Camera app to non-Pixel devices, people have been doing that forever because the processing is better than many devices native camera apps.

Unlocking the bootloader has long broken a lot of functionality. Play Integrity (formerly known as SafetyNet) provides three levels of checks, and increasingly apps are requiring the phone to pass the second level in order to use the app.

Until last year, it was possible to spoof the second level (though not the third), with an unlocked bootloader, but Google started cracking down on that hard and it's essentially a game of whack-a-mole. Because the spoofing requires finding the fingerprint for a supported device that hasn't yet been banned (of which there are a finite number), it's a losing battle.

That said, unlocking the bootloader on Pixel devices is less useful than it used to be, because of an expansion between what the base device already does and a degradation of what an unlocked and/or rooted device can do. There are fewer custom ROMs than there were a decade ago, and (unlocked) Pixel devices get rapid updates with long official support.

Rooting the device used to give you the ability to install custom adblockers and bypass screenshot restrictions, but Android now has better support for DNS-based adblocking built in, and they've now cut off the main loopholes that allowed people to screenshot apps that block access. I think it's now impossible to screenshot an app if the app has blocked screenshots[0]. Ironically, it's easier to screenshot or get videos of apps on iOS than of those same apps on Android - I don't know if that's because developers don't bother to implement the blocking APIs on iOS or some other reason, but more than once I've ended up having to pull out a backup iPhone in order to screenshot/record something I couldn't on a Pixel device.

Pixel phones already don't include most of the bloatware that comes with other devices, and the remaining stuff is built in and can't really be removed without impacting the core functionality of the device. So root access gets you a lot less than it used to, for Pixel devices.

[0] In the spirit of classic bash, I am asserting that it's impossible, half hoping that someone will take that as an opportunity to correct me: https://web.archive.org/web/20230711000352/bash.org/?152037

> Pixel Screenshots [...] which lets you capture screenshots that are analyzed by Google’s Gemini Nano on-device AI and saved in a searchable index, allowing you to ask Google for information about things you saved days, weeks, or months ago..

Sounds like a benefit, to be honest. I take a lot of screenshots. It's never occurred to me to "ask Google" about something I screenshotted. I don't hoard screenshots, they're actively used for something, maybe an idea for a creative project, or a quote I liked. Once they're logged somewhere, I delete the screenshot, as it's no longer necessary.

This feature also sounds suspiciously similar to Windows Recall.

Is it just the unlocking or do those apps also look at the exact keys securing the boot chain & OS? In other words, what if I install GrapheneOS and lock the bootloader again?

Sounds like a win-win scenario?

Does it start working again if you re-lock the bootloader?

I'll gladly finance at 4x the cost (so like around $5,000) to purchase an alternative Pixel for a fully open source bootloader with physically compartmentalized chips with open interfaces and a less sleek device.

I don't give a shit about Ai slop.

This is exactly the reason why Fairphone should increase their Hardware security comparable to the Titan M2 so that there is an environmentally friendly, secure alternative out there that support AS many custom Roms/OS AS possible.

The "and nothing of value was lost" meme seems applicable here.

as long as it still does call screening im ok. the rest is AI hype garbage.