Asus frustrated the Android homebrew community earlier this year after it was discovered that the company encrypted its Transformer Prime bootloader. The company reversed that decision recently and now says it plans to distribute a Prime unlock in February, allowing modders to load custom ROMs on their devices.

Asus is still pushing out updates to help improve the Prime's GPS performance, something that could be a fundamental hardware design problem, but the bootloader unlock will please owners who want full access to their tablet in the meantime. HTC toyed with encryption-locked bootloaders, but changed its mind after a public outcry. The backlash from Asus's decision was enough to make it reverse course too, and we suspect both companies will want to avoid bootloader scandals in future.