Motorola’s iPad Competitor to Launch Without Promised Flash Support
By 
One thing almost all iPad competitors have in common is their promotion of Adobe’s Flash technology as a key selling point and differentiator against Apple’s popular tablet. But is their key selling point ever going to see the light of day?
Earlier today Engadget discovered that Motorola’s highly anticipated Xoom tablet will ship without Flash support when it is released later this week. Motorola touted the Xoom’s Flash support as a key iPad differentiator during CES and in its subsequent Super Bowl commercials. According to the Verizon Wireless website, users will have to wait until “Spring 2011″ before they ever have a chance to use Flash on their new Xoom.
Adobe’s mobile Flash program has been plagued by delays as it has tried to get smartphone makers to adopt its multimedia technology. The release of Android 2.2 marked the first time Flash was available on Android based smartphones and most user reviews were mixed with many pointing to the software’s buggy performance as a major drawback.
Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) is the first Android release designed specifically for tablets and was expected to ship with Adobe’s 10.2 Flash player this week. Earlier today, Adobe posted on their blog that they will “offer Flash Player 10.2 pre-installed on some tablets and as an OTA download on others within a few weeks of Android 3 (Honeycomb) devices becoming available, the first of which is expected to be the Motorola Xoom.”
So while new Xoom owners won’t be able to enjoy Flash based apps and content immediately, it looks like they’ll only have to wait a few more weeks before Adobe’s software is ready. Here’s hoping Adobe has learned from their smartphone deployments and gotten the bugs worked out and aren’t faced with further delay.
Apple’s iPad 2 is just around the corner and if competing tablets hope to take any significant market share away, they’ll need all the unique selling points they touted late last year and during CES.
