Motorola notifies Xoom owners ahead of Flash 10.2 rollout
The first update comes to the Honeycomb tablet, readying it for Flash.
Motorola and Verizon Wireless have begun to roll out a minor update to the 10.1-inch Xoom tablet this week, preparing the Honeycomb device for Flash 10.2.
Released as a staged over-the-air update, Android 3.0.1 also addresses (PDF) a bug in the Xoom affecting daylight saving time and calendar appointments. It's expected that the update will be delivered to all tablets ahead of Flash 10.2's arrival in the Android Market on March 18.
According to Adobe's blog, this latest build of Flash will be available initially in beta form for all tablets that have the Android 3.0.1 update. Once loaded, the 10.2 version is expected to offer better battery performance and higher frame rates than its previous iterations.
According to Motorola, if you've already rooted your tablet you will need to restore it to its original state. Failure to do so would keep the Xoom from receiving the software notification.
While this might upset a few early adopters, things are not quite as bad as they seem. In a sign that the company is embracing the unlocking of its devices, Motorola has created a dedicated page in its forums that aims to assist users in unlocking and flashing the tablet with ROMs. Perhaps the company is beginning to understand that not all Android owners want to have their "open" hardware locked down.
Depending on when the new slate of Honeycomb tablets is released, some will be preloaded with the Android 3.0.1 and Flash 10.2 combination. In other cases, look for an update process similar to the Xoom.