Telstra makes room for Moto Xoom 3.1 update: July

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 06 June 2011 15:54

Your IT - Mobility

With Telstra saying that its Motorola Xoom tablets have been 'flying off the shelves around Australia since they went on sale last month', there's finally an answer to when the 3.1 Honeycomb update would arrive: set to fly in July!

Telstra's 'now we are exchanging' site, which isn't really called that, has just posted a notice from Telstra's king of mobility, Andrew Volard.

Here we learn that Telstra is boasting of strong Motorola Xoom sales, stating that they've been 'flying off the shelves Australia-wide' since the Xoom launched locally last month.

Mr Volard's valued customers have been telling Telstra that their Xooms have 'become constant companions serving up HD video, email and games on the go' - which was, as you'd imagine, always the idea in the first place.

However, with Verizon Xoom customers in the US already enjoying their Android OS Honeycomb 3.1 updates (following on from the OS 3.0.1 the Xooms initially shipped with), the question turned to when Telstra's 3.1 update would likewise follow suit - or whether we'd have to wait several inordinate months before any such updates happened.

Thankfully, the wait won't be that great, but still reeks of a few weeks, depending on precisely when in July the update is to do arrive.

Sadly there's no absolutely specific July timeframe, so it could be July 1 through to July 31 and obviously anywhere in between.

Happily, however, the Android OS 3.1 update promises to let 'Xoom customers do even more with their tablets', with Telstra promoting the following list of 'improvements and new features' that its customers can expect from the 3.1 OS update:

- Full support for the final release of Adobe Flash Player 10.3, delivering significant performance enhancements when viewing rich Flash content on the web.

- Resizable widgets to enable further customisation of home screens.

- The MicroSD card reader activation enabling customers to play apps and media from MicroSD cards.

- Support for USB-connected peripherals and accessories, such as keyboards, mice, game controllers and digital cameras.

- Expanded Bluetooth features to support Bluetooth headsets in Google Talk video chats and Bluetooth mouse support in addition to additional shortcut keys with the Bluetooth keyboard

- Picture Transfer Protocol Feature support to enable easier transfer of photo files to your PC without the need for drivers.

- A file manager app allowing you to easily navigate through your storage.

Continued on page two, please read on!