Owners of the Verizon Motorola Xoom tablet are in for some great news, as an update to Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean finally started rolling out.

The software update is long overdue and comes after a delay of several months. The firmware is rumored to have been finalized as early as September 2012, but it's only now rolling out. The reasons behind that delay remain unknown, but it's better late than never. The new update now brings a taste of Jelly Bean, including its most popular flavors such as Project Butter and Google Now, to the 3-year-old Motorola tablet.

Motorola unveiled its Xoom tablet back at CES 2011 and launched the slate in late February that year. The Motorola Xoom launched as the very first device to rock Google's tablet-only Honeycomb operating system (OS). Honeycomb was a version of Android specifically optimized for larger displays, but received lots of criticism for its design, unintuitive controls and poor overall performance.

The Android chief at the time, Andy Rubin, reckoned at one point that Google may have rushed with the software, rolling it out before ironing out all the details. The Motorola Xoom enjoyed a strong marketing campaign, but the Honeycomb OS led to disappointing sales nonetheless.

On the other hand, the Motorola Xoom survived the Honeycomb experience and Motorola promised to continue providing software updates. The tablet still had its glory days and was one of the most popular Android tablets, at least until Google's Nexus slates came along.

All Motorola Xoom tablets got a major OS upgrade to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) last summer, bringing some new features and enhancements. Now it's finally time for a Jelly Bean update, with Android 4.1.2 now rolling out. While it's definitely good news for Motorola Xoom owners, the new update also marks the end of support for the 3-year-old slate. On the other hand, many Android devices never get to see a major OS upgrade, so the Motorola Xoom is a fortunate case.

The update to Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean is already rolling out to Motorola Xoom LTE devices and users should receive an upgrade notification soon. Check out Verizon's support document (PDF) for more information and details on the new upgrade.