Motorola made a pretty terrible decision last year when the company announced that it wouldn't be updating the 2014 Moto X on either Verizon or AT&T to Android 6.0 Marshmallow. This is a phone that's only one year removed from being Motorola's flagship, so the move left many customers (understandably) livid.

But while Motorola hasn't reversed that decision, it's at least taking one pro-consumer step: the company is now offering codes that will unlock the Moto X's bootloader and let users install custom ROMs and other software on it. So even though Motorola won't be delivering an official Marshmallow update, you might still be able to get it on there by installing CyanogenMod or another modified version of the Android OS.

In its forums, Motorola announced that it "received the green light" — presumably from Verizon Wireless — to offer the bootloader unlock codes. It makes sense in a way; this phone is now officially outside its one-year warranty for many owners, so why not give power users and loyal Android fans the deep system access they want? Motorola's abandoning of the 2014 Moto X still leaves a really bad taste in our mouths; carrier testing and pushing through one last major update can't be that difficult. But this is better than being stuck with a locked phone that met the end of its software upgrade path way too early. To get started with the bootloader unlock process, head to this website.