It seems that one of Android's key advantages over iOS – or at least the one that manufacturers are always so happy to point out – will be missing from Motorola's upcoming Xoom tablet at launch. According to a product page posted by Verizon on its website, the Xoom's Flash support is "expected Spring 2011", and not when the tablet goes on sale on this coming February 24.

Adobe had already confirmed that it is working on Flash Player 10.2 for Honeycomb, complete with dual-core support and a reduction in CPU usage during video, game and animation playback. But it seems that Android 3.0 won't launch with Flash Player 10.1 as is available for current Android 2.2 devices.

The delay could come back to haunt Google and OEMs, especially considering most Android tablets announced so far can't match the iPad's Wi-Fi-only price point. It also highlights a big problem with Flash, as every hardware and software combo needs to be certified by Adobe and they are missing such a high profile launch.