> No. It only cares about unlocked bootloaders on devices that shipped with Android 7 because a requirement of shipping with that was hardware support facilitating dm_verity, which is essentially a check that the bootloader wasn't tampered with. Without the necessary hardware there's simply no way to perform this check in anything resembling a reliable fashion.
So in other words "yes, that is a requirement that will eventually be on all android phones"? Am I misunderstanding something? Older phones being an exception does me little good going forward.
> Also, neither root not an unlocked bootloader is required to make "proper backups". Some data actually can't be backed up, and for some data there is no point in making a backup. If the goal is to be able to restore the system to a specific, known state, a bit-for-bit image backup of the entire filesystem is just one way to accomplish the task.
The last time I tried adb backup and restore, it was a mess. Multiple apps like Skype had no data. And authenticator explicitly opts out of being backed up.
Titanium backup, on the other hand, works perfectly.
Ideally I would just have a rooted phone, but then safetynet complains, and I can't even use Netflix and pokemon. As an alternative I could accept an unrooted but unlocked phone, and root it only when making and/or restoring backups. But having neither is a big hassle.