Earlier this week ASUS informed everyone that another update would soon be rolling out for the Transformer Prime quad-core tablet. Teasing that it would bring “awesome” features to the device. We’ve been on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich for months with this tablet, and it has seen a good 4 incremental updates since then or more. Today we can confirm the newest release is rolling out to devices as we speak.
I wish other tablets were updated this fast. The update for the Transformer Prime should have introduced a few new features to the tablet. One being the face unlock feature from the Galaxy Nexus – according to what ASUS said yesterday. We’ve received the latest update for the Prime this morning with the latest version 9.4.2.21 and the build date is March 23rd, but the new face unlock feature doesn’t seem to be present anywhere that we can see — including the usual places. ASUS said we’d get face unlock, new lockscreen notification options, Ethernet support with a USB converter and more but I’m not seeing these changes.
I do have an updated build version for both GPS, and WiFi again, as well as the new build #9.4.2.21 that was said to have all these features. This update made some changes to GPS and WiFi again so hopefully we see some improvements in that area. For now we’ll have to wait for another update, or a comment from ASUS because face unlock is missing for me. These aren’t a huge deal, but to announce them as coming and then not add them to the release seems silly.
Update: We do have the new lockscreen notification controls, but no face unlock.
Has anyone else got the newest update rolling out today? Are you seeing the “awesome new features” promised by ASUS earlier this week? Let us know in the comments.
[device id=1934]
I just installed the update and see the lockscreen notifications but everything else seems to work just as before..
EDIT: I see a system bar lock to prevent inadvertant pressing of system buttons while in an app. This seems new to me. Also a setting to disconnect network during sleep for battery saving, all under ASUS customized setting. Did I just not pay attention before or are these new?
yea that sound new to me cause i manage to get to all the tricks tech like in the asus pime. so i’ll try to update mine later tonight!!!!
Yea that seems new to me too and the @vibe FREE music app.
looks the same to me….
I noticed tethering and portable hotspot options, wifi direct, device encryption and status bar locking. Could be more and of course some of these may have already been there and I didn’t notice.
Face Unlock is purely a gimmick, just like Siri. It’s nice to show off to your less tech-savvy friends but ultimately no one needs it for practical purposes. I don’t think it will be missed.
Checked and double checked, not seeing any face unlock. Every other device had it sercurity unlock area. It should be right in there with pattern, password, pin, ex…. but its not. As far as a the other updates, I can see they are working or at least there. There is a new app, @vibefreemusic. I havent gotten that to work, every time i open it it dont work. I think this update with be like the last group. Small group of them all fixing the same thing they said would be fixed in the first. Not sure why they do this, but have research why companies do many updates and not just 1 big. What I found was that if something goes wrong during major or large download and install then its more likely to brick the device. Now if its doing something small, most likely will be fine just have to redownload and install again. And with the wifi/gps issues reported in the first days of the prime pretty sure they dont want more bad media. But the way I look at it, The prime is still king of android tablets and puts all Ipads to shame.
i like the fact that asus continues to update their devices…..thats really a good thing, but on the other hand some of firmware updates are mainly to help fixed issues some ppl have with their devices. i think a major firmware updates would more likey come from google instead of Asus. so far ICS is better than the previous OS, but could be much better and better choice of apps from the market. we will see what happen months from now.
I just update the prime without any change
The only thing that I noticed is that now we have an option to lock the bar so we don’t accidentally touch during a game.
And also e have full suport to ps3 controller by Bluetooth.
I got my update this morning and the first thing I looked for was the face unlock. Unfortunately I couldn’t find it either.
It looks like the update now allows me to see what is using the battery which previously was unavailable. The menu was there but no data was available.
I’m not sure it this is new with this update, but the ASUS tree live wall paper has animations added. Kind of cool…
NO FACE UNLOCK
I received the update yesterday and have the updated active wallpaper and the enhanced battery monitor, but don’t seem to have the face unlock feature, nor any changes that I can find with security. I don’t have the usb device to test the wired ethernet capability so I don’t know about that. Does anyone know if the USB ethernet connection is coming from ASUS or is a universal device? I am not familiar with it.
Gps seems to work better.
I just got the prime and the asus dock about 2 weeks ago. My first droid device. I own severalWindows laptops, a macbook and a iphone 3g and 3gs. I have had an intermittent poor wifi signal and one apparent reboot but overall i have had a great exerience and love the features over an ipad. I have android 4.0.3 loaded with firmware 9.4.2.15 and just updated 9.4.2.21.
I would like to find an android online manual and a support community. Am i there?
Chris
Chris, not sure about an online manual for Android itself – but my TF101 (the non-Prime Transformer) came with a skimpy manual install in the bookshelf app, plus there’s stuff out there on the net.
Support community is easier – there’s a shed load of ones out there. For a start there’s a forum here, there’s the official Asus support forums, Android Central (who do podcasts too), transformerforums.com and of course forums.xda-developers.com. If you don’t fancy the forums here, then the Prime forums at xda-developers are highly regarded and recommended.
Welcome to Android – hope you have good experiences!
where do i download the update from??????? not finding it
might just be this prime but after the update i am noticing screen problems
the bottom menu bar when having the dock connected and charging for instance
keeps jumping up and down one pixel.
i also in some apps like firefox or skifta some times get significant screen flicker on the left hand side top to bottom 50 to 100 pixel wide
physical action on the left hand side does nothing and leaving the program fixes the problem so dont think it is hardware problems
I also in some apps like firefox or skifta some times get significant
screen flicker on the left hand side top to bottom 50 to 100 pixel wide.