The Xoom Gets Flash. But Don't Get Too Excited
When Motorola's Xoom hit Verizon stores last month, it was missing some of the features that promised to make it the iPad's first formidable rival-including its much-touted support for Adobe's Flash Player.
Context & Ripple Effects
When Motorola unveiled the Xoom at CES in January, its Flash Player support was pitched as the clearest functional edge over the iPad — a promise the company amplified with a Super Bowl ad casting the tablet as the anti-Apple. Instead, the device reached Verizon stores on February 24th without Flash, as reported ahead of launch.
The update now closing that gap arrives three-plus weeks after launch, and at an awkward moment: reporting earlier this month described Xoom sales as tepid, with production cuts floated. Restoring a promised feature fixes the product story but does nothing about the demand problem that had already surfaced.
First-order effects
- Xoom owners get the single most-touted differentiator Motorola promised in January, making the shipping product match the marketing for the first time since the February 24th launch.
- Motorola can finally market the 'full' Xoom experience it previewed at CES, closing the gap between its iPad-challenger pitch and what buyers actually received.
Second-order effects
- Android tablet makers lose Flash as a clean talking point against the iPad — every rival can claim parity once the Xoom has it, so differentiation shifts back to hardware specs and price.
- With sales already described as tepid before the update landed, Verizon and Motorola face pressure to re-market the device around a feature set that arrived after most early adopters had made their decision.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Android hardware launches become provisional by design — devices ship incomplete and mature through updates — which weakens launch-day reviews as a purchase signal and hands Apple an advantage in perceived polish that spec sheets don't capture.
- Flash's value as an anti-iPad weapon depends on timely delivery; a platform whose signature differentiator lags its own hardware undermines exactly the argument tablet makers were making against Apple's closed model.
The trend: Android tablet makers are launching flagship hardware before their key software differentiators are ready, trading launch-day completeness for update cycles while competing against a fully shipped iPad.