

ASUS will release a bootloader unlocking tool for the Transformer Prime - peterfschaadt
https://www.facebook.com/ASUS/posts/300815559961849

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padobson
That was pretty quick. Nice to see they were on top of things.

Also looking forward to getting Ice Cream Sandwhich on the 12th of January. I
ordered mine a few days ago, but Amazon was out of stock so it looks like I
may have to wait a while.

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wwweston
It's nice to see they were on top of things, but it's pretty chilling to see
why they had locked the bootloader in the first place:

"Regarding the bootloader, the reason we chose to lock it is due to content
providers' requirement for DRM client devices to be as secure as possible."

It's nice that in the end they prioritized what their customers wanted over
what other parties whose interests run completely counter to their customers
want. It's frightening that the content cartels have enough influence to
essentially try to lock down general purpose computing in the first place.

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Terretta
I think you may have misunderstood either who ASUS's customers are, or what
those customers want.

You are not a normal ASUS customer. If you were, you wouldn't be here
discussing this. "Normal" customers want Netflix, Hulu+, Kindle, and the like,
not hackable boot roms.

Open source boxes that are not locked down generally do not get to have an
official Netflix client, Hulu+ client, etc. Users won't buy things that don't
have the content they want, and Hollywood won't let things have that content
if users can easily compromise the digital path.

Btw, it's not ASUS's issue, it's that users want movies and Netflix has them.
It's not Netflix's issue, it's in their contracts with DRM providers and
studios, contracts they have to sign to have the movies users want. To carry
the movies, lock things down. Users want movies, ergo, things are locked down.

For all the Apple hate, Jobs stared down the record labels, and unlocked
music. To solve the "open" business, Google should put money behind open
business models for movies, enough money that Hollywood capitulates and all
these contracts up the chain can get redone in the consumer's interest.

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jsight
> For all the Apple hate, Jobs stared down the record labels, and unlocked
> music.

Amazon is responsible for getting the record labels to release music as DRM-
free MP3.

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toyg
Happy to see that they're addressing the bootloader problem.

Less happy to read that GPS is beyond fixing. I don't particularly care about
that, to be honest, so I might end up buying one anyway (once they're
available in the UK, damn), but still, it's one of those where you wonder how
the hell could make it through QA (and if they missed that, what else did they
miss...?)

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cullenking
I doubt they missed it, they just made the decision that most tablet users
won't be using GPS. Most smartphones don't have GPS reception indoors, so
tablet GPS reception is mostly a non-issue. It was probably a decision to
either scrap millions in development cost plus delay launch, or just go
forward with it.

