With Update, Motorola Sets Stage For Xoom Flash Support

Motorola has begun rolling out updates to their Xoom tablet, according to a tweet by the company.

The company said that the update was sent to devices in phases starting Thursday evening. The update, which upgrades the Xoom's Honeycomb operating system to version 3.0.1, is meant to set the stage for a March 18 update that will add Flash support to the tablet. Flash support is a major selling point for the Xoom, which was released last month without the feature.

Neither flash support nor the Xoom's 4G radios were included during the Xoom's launch. Xoom owners looking to add 4G support to their tablets are required to ship the devices to Motorola, a process the company said takes up to six days to complete.

Flash support, a feature Apple omitted in its iPad, has been a major point of contention for tablet manufacturers. Though Motorola hopes adding flash support will offer the tablet an edge over the iPad, Apple contends that flash is a major burden on the battery life of tablets.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been especially vocal about the iPad's lack of Flash support. Calling the technology a CPU hog Jobs said that including the functionality in the iPad would reduce the device's battery life to 1.5 hours.

With the iPad 2 launching this evening, it remains to be seen whether the Xoom's flash support will be a feature large enough to draw users away from Apple's tablet.

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