Xoom news: Unlockable bootloader, teaser ad and Xoom at the Oscars
The Xoom is popping up in news stories all over the place these days, which is to be expected seeing that it ships in two days as the first real Android tablet out there. Today was no different, and the Xoom popped up in 3 different news stories that I stumbled over.
First off, Droid-life noticed a Tweet from Motorola stating that “the XOOM will have an unlockable/relockable bootloader that will enable developers to access hardware for development”. This basically means that instead of taking a page out of Apples book (or even their own smartphone book) and trying to lock hackers out of the tablet, they’re instead inviting them right in. Custom ROMs and similar goodies will be easy as pie on the Xoom, which is sure to be a reason to buy the thing in itself for many people out there.
In another story that came from the same place, Verizon has released a Xoom teaser ad that makes very little sense. The 16 second short is titled “Motorola XOOM In Action ” and this has me a little bit frightened since all the video shows is the Xoom eating a man and turning into a spaceship. Our managing editor Grahm is planning on getting one on Thursday and if his Xoom turns into a spaceship and takes off with him inside, we might have trouble running the site until we can find a replacement.
The last story is even more obscure as Motorola is apparently planning on giving out gold Edition Xooms to the hosts and nominees of the Oscars this Sunday. Naturally this is nothing but a PR stunt, so I can’t help but hope that there is a geek among the nominees who ask Motorola if it has Flash. Again, just a PR stunt, but I guess it’s not gold all that shines- it might be a Xoom (at least as long as the shine is done with HTML5).
Of these three stories, only the first one has any implications whatsoever for us consumers- but at least it’s a nice implication. If nothing else, it should help keep the Xoom up-to-date longer as it makes it much easier to get updates software on it in the future if Motorola suddenly decides it’s only going to support the Xoom 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 (which given the rate that some of these Android manufacturers release devices, might be in early 2013).
