Motorola Xoom Won't Have Flash Support At Launch

Several readers have sent word that Motorola's Xoom tablet, marketed as the iPad's first significant competitor, won't ship with Flash support. Quoting: "Support for Adobe's Flash technology has been an argument for the Android operating system since Apple CEO Steve Jobs notoriously said that Flash is a dying technology and that it won't make it onto iOS devices for several reasons. Flash support appeared in Android with version 2.2 and Google even flaunted it as a killer feature for tablets running Honeycomb (3.0), like the Motorola Xoom. But it looks like Adobe and/or Google have yet to put the finishing touches on Flash's implementation in Android 3.0. An advertisement for the Xoom on Verizon's site says (in 6 point text at the bottom) that Adobe Flash support on the Xoom is expected in Spring 2011, meaning this functionality won't be available at the launch of the first Honeycomb tablet on February 24. Considering how slow carriers and manufacturers are when it comes to software updates, this Spring 2011 update could mean more like late Spring 2011 ETA."

Check the track record first...

[TheQuantumShift]

Motorola has been quite bad about promising updates and not delivering. See here [motorola.com] for a list of broken promises. Especially glaring was the failure on the Cliq XT. A year of "we're testing it" followed by "we just couldn't do it". Never mind that the phone ships in Korea running 2.1, never mind that custom 2.1 firmwares work flawlessly, they just wanted to sell new phones. I know Moto is just another big corp doing what big corps do, but eff them, I (and all the non-techies that ask my advice) won't be buying Moto anything again.

Re:Flash is a dog on tablets

[UnknowingFool]

So what you're saying is that from your first hand experience, Flash on Android sucks. From my perspective, it's been about 8 months since Flash on Android has been released and they still haven't gotten the kinks out yet enough for it to be usable. I remember when Jobs made the argument nine months ago that Flash for mobile just was not suitable. A lot of people here on slashdot responded that that Flash for Android would prove him wrong. In your opinion, do you think that today Jobs was more right or the Flash supporters?