Creativity and resourcefulness are two crucial values a good developer must possess. Occasionally in the community a  project or an idea pops up that utilizes these values to accomplish something other than fixing code or implementing features. From time to time, a user finds a creative new use for something they already have. One such resourceful Asus Transformer Prime owner, Jason Harrison (XDA Forum Member iksteh), used his tablet as a replacement CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) sensor for his telescope, churning out some really fantastic shots of the moon fueled by the power of Android.

Jason is an Android and Linux fan who dabbles in amateur astronomy. After using several cameras and setups, he decided on using the Transformer Prime’s 8 megapixel camera with the focus mode set to infinite, the exposure set to -1.3, and the  white balance set to ‘Cloudy’. Jason, an Android fan since 2.2 (Froyo) and owner of several Android devices, says the camera aperture on the Prime fit perfectly with his 15cm Dobsonian telescope. He is located in Tasmania so the light pollution levels are low.

If amateur astronomy is something you’re interested in Jason’s work with the Prime can be found here. Got any other creative uses for your Android device? Let us know!

While not fatal, soft-bricking your Android device can be a disaster. For many devices there’s no clear cut method or tool that will help you out in such a situation. While rooting and unrooting tools usually take much of the press and popularity, tools that help users get rid of soft bricks are every bit as important. The Transformer Prime now is lucky enough to have all of the above.

XDA Senior Member MasterZen88 has released a tool dubbed WSG UnBricker that helps users recover from soft bricks and, as noted by MasterZen88, should only be used as a last ditch effort if none of the other methods to fix soft bricks works. The process, which is a Windows-only .bat file with a number of helper files, is easy to use but users should definitely take care when using it so they don’t flash the wrong files at the wrong times. The tool allows users to select the function they want to use, and then users drag-and-drop the appropriate included file to flash. The flashing takes place via Fastboot, so any Prime that hopes to get fixed with this method must at least have access to that.

Please be careful as to what file you drag and drop when it prompts you
One final note do not give it a file from another device or a non .img file it will flash it anyway no matter what file you drag and drop once you press enter it flashes what ever was dragged onto the script. Also do not drag a radio img when it asks for recovery or in revers, bad things will happen Wile they are fixable by repeating the process I dont want anyone to mess up their device making such a simple mistake.

For additional information, download links and full instructions, check out the original thread.

With the Asus Transformer getting a little home screen love, it was only a matter of time before someone would figure out an awesome way to modify the home screens of its younger brother, the Asus Transformer Prime. Since tablets bridge that gap between mobile devices and computers, their screen size is ideal for not only mobile operating systems like Android, but they can also be skinned effectively with UI’s designed for full sized TVs or computer monitors. An example of this would be the Xbox 360 Dashboard.

The example is not a coincidence, as Transformer Prime users can now make their tablets look and feel like the Xbox 360 Dashboard. XDA Forum Member Charlos_OOO has written up a very nice tutorial with a list of all the software required to make the Transformer Prime look very much like the popular gaming console. To be frank, this process takes some time so don’t start if you have pressing engagements in the near future. The software list required to make this all work is quite long as well. According to Charlos_OOO, you’ll need at least:

ADWLauncher EX
DesktopVisualizer
DesktopVisualizer ImageCrop (Trial)
Multipicture-LiveWallpaper
FolderOrganizer (light) … to get a text-style app-launcher-Pop-up
A 2D-graphics-tool of your Choice

From here comes one of the longest three step processes on XDA, which each step being broken down into many sub-steps. Don’t be alarmed, however, as Charlos_OOO has written out the instructions beautifully so even those who aren’t as Android savvy can understand them. It just takes a long time.

Additionally, Charlos_OOO has put up a few pieces of opinionated information for discussion, such as the ideal Android launcher that would improve over all the current Android launchers. While not a part of the tutorial, it is an interesting set of fun and awesome features that were suggested.

More information, the full process, screen shots, and more can be found in the original thread.

Not long ago we brought you news about the Bootloader Unlocker Took for the Asus Transformer Prime. It came in apk format, and was easy to install and use. Now, it’s being taken a step further.

XDA Senior Member 1wayjonny has decompiled the Asus Transformer Prime tool using APK Tool, and provided a .zip file for anyone who wants to go rooting through the tool to see what it does, how it does it and, very likely, modify it to work in different ways and possibly for different devices. XDA Forum Member sparkym3 then posted a java version in the second post.

So far, the code that does all the magic has been isolated and revealed and it appears as though the tool registers the Transformer Prime as an unlocked device before actually unlocking the bootloader as was observed in the UnlockFlagandReboot.smali portion of the apk and there have been several other pieces of the code that have been identified as important to the overall process. A few things remain unclear about the process itself. As observed, there’s a registration that occurs before the unlock, which leads some to believe that the unlock tool will blacklist any Transformer Prime and prevent warranty coverage if something bad should happen.

Those eager to check out the code and the apk for themselves can find it in the original thread.

Transformer Prime users rejoice: a new update is rolling out which brings some much needed bug fixes, especially to hardware functions such as WiFi and Bluetooth. Many users have been complaining about low WiFi reception and general WiFi problems when Bluetooth is enabled. Together with the WiFi and Bluetooth packages, the kernel received an update too, bringing its version number to 2.6.39. Even though some users don’t really seem to notice any WiFi performance improvement, a lot of people do get better WiFi reception.

Since the update, one thing all users agree with is the fact that the overall performance of the Transformer Prime has gotten much better. The lockup and reboot issues seem to be fixed, games and apps not only load quicker but also seem to run much more stable. Skeptical readers saying this has something to do with the placebo effect are wrong – XDA Member Darkseider brought some interesting facts to the table: benchmark results are 5% to 8% better than before the update.

One downside is the fact that the Ad-Hoc tethering bug is still not fixed – though a fix for that problem has been created by XDA Senior Member Darkseider. If your Prime is rooted, make sure you use Voodoo OTA Rootkeeper to keep getting the best out of it.  Visit the Transformer Prime Update thread to join the discussion or read other people’s feedback.

Over the last week XDA Member Erusman and several other Transformer Prime owners have been hard at work in this thread tearing apart the Transformer Prime.  Once the Prime was completely disassembled and analyzed, some key design flaws were noted. A handful of late nights and torn apart Primes later, a hardware fix for the Transformer Prime light bleed issues has emerged.

If your screen shows light near the edges when the screen is dark then your case may be assembled improperly. Users have also reported success extending the range of the internal GPS antenna and an overall increase in GPS connection speed with the back of the tablet removed.

If any of this is relevant to your interests, head over to the thread here but be sure to read every word of it before you tear your Transformer apart to start playing around. This is trial and error stuff and we don’t want you messing up your tablet!

A week ago we reported on those official support threads maintained by ASUS Technical Marketing Manager Gary Key, through which ASUS hoped to gain additional insight into some of the issues that owners of the Transformer Prime were experiencing. The fixes that were promised are now being worked on, and are expected to arrive in early February.

For the random system lockups (forum thread) that some experienced after updating the tablet to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, ASUS is working on “two different solutions”. Should you be “comfortable with flashing a new ROM image” and willing “to take the time to complete each process”, however, you can go ahead and try to one of those solutions right now:

One option to try is to revert back to the last Honeycomb image through the manual update process, set the unit power mode to balanced performance and screen brightness manually to 50%, and then manually update to the latest ICS build using these instructions – http://service.asus.com/TF201_fwupdate. You will need a fully charged battery and have the system plugged into AC power. This worked on a couple of returned units but not on all units.

Same goes for the BT/WiFi fallout issue (forum thread), which would lead to the Bluetooth signal degrading when streaming media via WiFi, except that there’s no manual workaround available in case you don’t want to wait for the official fix sometime next month.

Still not completely solved, though, is the “serial number not found” issue (forum thread). There is an experimental fix available that may or may not work; in the latter case, you should contact ASUS with further information, following the instructions in the linked forum thread.