I used a Motorola Xoom back in early March (check out my thoughts on the device) and was not at all impressed with the current state of Honeycomb. Jason wrote up a great article that puts to words many of my same thoughts on Honeycomb. DroidLife reports that an update is coming to the Xoom starting today, 28 April.
There is quite a list of improvements in the update, but they are primarily focused on fixes to problems that I never experienced during my short test period and look to have nothing to do with improving the Honeycomb experience. I still think that the Samsung Galaxy Tab with Android 2.2 is a better Android tablet experience and Honeycomb still has a few months to go before it should be considered out of a beta stage for all consumers to use.
The improvements coming to through the Xoom update include:
- For Internet browsing:
- Access and stay connected to Wi-Fi networks with added Proxy support.
- SSL data transfer with websites is now supported.
- WPA Pre-Shared Key pass-phrases are now supported when using the device as a Mobile Hotspot.
- Supports Google Widevine DRM and HDCP.
- For E-mail and Messaging:
- POP3 HTML emails will display in their entirety.
- Voice calling:
- Bluetooth® is now supported in Google Talk™.
- Misc. additions:
- Encrypted passwords can be entered during power up.
- Calendar events will remain up to date after an installed software update.
- Application storage errors will not appear unless the device has reached maximum storage capacity.
- Safely dock the MOTOROLA XOOM into the docking adapter without interruption.
- Ability to add and use a Bluetooth mouse.
- A shortcut key for the Bluetooth keyboard has been added.
- View and import pictures from digital cameras with Picture Transfer Protocol.
- When using the device in accessibility mode, menus will no longer prompt with sounds.
There is no LTE yet, the microSD card remains non-functional, and Honeycomb is still a bit of a convoluted experience.
