ASUS Eee Pad Transformer gets long-promised Android 4.0
updated 09:05 am EST, Thu February 23, 2012
Eee Pad Transformer adds Android 4 in Taiwan first
ASUS posted confirmation Thursday that its long-promised Android 4.0 update to the original Eee Pad Transformer was starting to roll out. Beginning with Taiwan, over-the-air updates were supplying the OS to the company's first native Android tablet. Other countries would get the update "soon after," although it declined to give exact schedules.
The device builder was adamant that it would keep a strategy of supporting existing hardware rather than dropping support shortly after new models arrive. "Although we will announce several new innovations at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week, we take great pride in delivering on-going [sic] enhancements and support for products that are well into their life cycle," ASUS said.
Android 4 is less of a dramatic shift on tablets than it is on phones but brings tweaks to the lock screen, app launching, and an overall speed boost.
The Transformer Prime was the first ASUS device to get Android 4.0, unusually preempting its older counterpart. Performance optimizations for the new quad-core Tegra 3 chip may have played a part in getting the OS on to the newer device, which could take more advantage of Google's OS than the dual-core Tegra 2 of the earlier Transformer.
