Google Preparing iPad Rival?

dazedNconfuzed noted an update in the ongoing rumor train about the Google iPad Competitor. It would be based on Android (not ChromeOS) and supposedly Eric Schmidt was telling people about it at a party in LA recently. If any Googlers want to leak me s3cr3t information, I promise anonymity, though without an actual product, price or date it's tough to get really excited. But the iPad clearly has significant limitations that someone else can capitalize on.

Comments

first ??

[Anonymous Coward]

first ??

Wow.. a brand new item

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is making an Archos 7.. or is it an Ipad?

Teh suXX0rs

[BadAnalogyGuy]

iPhone/iPad is great because Apple owns every aspect of it.

An Android "gPad" would suck because Google would have to give up some control to an OEM. The alternative is that they produce the HW themselves, but we saw what happens when they do that (Nexus One).

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[teh31337one]

The alternative is that they produce the HW themselves, but we saw what happens when they do that (Nexus One).

But Nexus One is manufactured by HTC

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[0xdeadbeef]

There was a country where people thought having total control over everything would be good. It was called the Soviet Union. It didn't last very long.

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[nomadic]

It lasted 50 years, and turned a backwards agrarian society into a world superpower and put the first man in space.

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[Pojut]

"When Hitler rose to power, a lot of people just stopped playing. And you know who those people were? The French. Are you French, Clyde?"

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[jedidiah]

It also butchered it's own people by the 10's of millions.

Russia also wasn't quite as backwards as you're trying to make it out to be.

Their big problem was being a corrupt inbred aristocracy rather than being primitive.

Also, Russia put their first man in space the same way the US did: captured German rocket scientists.

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[jason.sweet]

The transformation from an agrarian society was already underway when the Soviet Union was formed. In fact, it was probably the political destabilization caused by that very transformation that allowed the Soviet Union to be formed. And 50 years as a country is not particularly impressive. That's a bit like bragging that your marriage lasted 6 months.

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[AdmV0rl0n]

It lasted 50 years, and turned a backwards agrarian society into a world superpower and put the first man in space.

Pre Soviet Russia was not a backwards agrarian society, any more than other states were.

It was never a world super power, but it was a nuclear one, driven by fear after being driven by hate.

The soviets were so powerful, they signed a pact with Nazi Germany, and offered many congratulations to Hitler, each time he domino'd a single state, including france. And during this time it decided to get a bloody nose picking on Finland.

Afterwards, when the panzers rolled across these so called previous agrarian lands, the soviets screamed for a second front from people it had cast into the fires of history to be crushed while it stood by and watched (and in the case of Poland, decided to go join the fun.)

Despite all is supposed power, it spread a failed political doctrine far and wide, caused untold damage to the planet, and now 1 in 5 people have an AK47, and a higher percentage have failed and weak governments. It never got true amphibious power, and spent the whole cold war in agressive posture, yet never able to make a move, failing in the end because of its own weight, and inability to go on.

And this summary does not count the millions killed and enslaved and left in misery by this comparitive short period in human history.

Oh don't worry, You won't quit publishing garbage, because its what good socialist and communists do.

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[CohibaVancouver]

iPhone/iPad is great because Apple owns every aspect of it.

iPhone/iPad is inadequte because Apple owns every aspect of it.

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[Anonymous Coward]

Neil Armstrong was from the US, you fucking moron.

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[dunkelfalke]

It also butchered it's own people by the 10's of millions.

It has not. Simply by the fact that the USSR was able to sustain the population after the second world war. FYI the soviet losses in the WW2 were about 20 millions. The total population of the whole USSR was about 100 millions in 1920ies. If there really were tens of millions butchered then by 1945 the USSR would have a population of 50 millions or less. Frankly, it was not the case.

And yes, russian empire was as backwards as it gets.

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[Princeofcups]

Pre Soviet Russia was not a backwards agrarian society, any more than other states were.

I'm afraid that it was. The communist revolution leaders (e.g. Lenin, Trotsky) had to make major philosophical changes to Marx's theories to accommodate the fact that the bulk of the people were "peasants" and not "working class." It was under Stalin that the Soviet Union really industrialized.

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[dunkelfalke]

Pre Soviet Russia was not a backwards agrarian society, any more than other states were.

Uh, wrong. The Russian Empire was - compared to the rest of Europe - a backwards agrarian state with a huge percentage of illiterates, almost no industrial base (nearly all machines had to be imported from Britain and Germany), crazy cultists who've cutted off their own dicks and an absolute monarchy comparable to the French monarchy just before the revolution.

The soviets were so powerful, they signed a pact with Nazi Germany

Also wrong. The pact was only because both Germany and the Soviet Union were isolated by the rest of the world.

and in the case of Poland, decided to go join the fun

Poland likes itself in the victim role, but the truth is that Poland itself has invaded the USSR in the 1919, occupying western Ukraine, a huge part of Belarus and a good half of Lithuania. The division of Poland between Nazi Germany and the USSR was pretty much the revenge.

The rest of your argumentation is even more laughable (OMG the evil communist AK47!!!1111one one one eleven)

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

What an interesting mismatch of fact, propaganda, and ignorance.

Where to start?

* Pre soviet Russia, was very backwards. Look at their performance in WW I where they showed up with ancient weaponry.

* It was a super power, no other way to describe a country that controlled half of the world, put the first man & satellite in space and was capable of destroying the world umpteen times over.

* Yes, it was a super power *AFTER* WW I, not before or during.

* And finally, being a super power doesn't mean you are a nice guy. If that's a requirement to super power, then yes it was not a super power.

I neither endorse nor condone any violent actions the Soviet Union performed during its history, but your account was just too messed up to leave un commented upon.

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[AdmV0rl0n]

It also butchered it's own people by the 10's of millions.

It has not. Simply by the fact that the USSR was able to sustain the population after the second world war. FYI the soviet losses in the WW2 were about 20 millions. The total population of the whole USSR was about 100 millions in 1920ies. If there really were tens of millions butchered then by 1945 the USSR would have a population of 50 millions or less. Frankly, it was not the case.

And yes, russian empire was as backwards as it gets.

The Russian populace at 1920 was around 137,727,000 , so you can quit lying.

On 26 January 1934 Joseph Stalin reported to the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party as one of the main achievements "Growth of population from 160.5 millions in the end of 1930 to the 168 millions in the end of 1933". On 1 December 1935 Joseph Stalin made a speech, on the Meeting of Kolkhozniks with the Soviet and Party leaders:
“ Everybody says that the material situation of workers has dramatically improved, that life has become better and more fun. It is of course true. But this has led the population to breed much faster than in the old days. The birth rate is higher, the death rate is lower and the pure population growth is far stronger. It is of course good and we welcome it. [Jolly murmurs in the auditorium.] Now every year we have a population growth of three million souls. It means that every year we grow as much as the whole of Finland. [Everybody laughs.] ”

Combining his reports, one could have expected to have a population of about 180 million in 1937.

Official statistics based on the registered birth and death rates implied that the 1937 census should show a population of 170-172 million. On 21 September 1935 Sovnarkom adopted a decision On the organization of registration of natural population changes most probably authored by Stalin

Stalin's population growth, meant that he enforced a change in the agrarian system - one that was implemented by force and was focused on the Kulaks and 'mechanised farming'
According to data from Soviet archives, which were published in 1990, 1,803,392 people were sent to labour colonies and camps in 1930 and 1931. Books say that 1,317,022 reached the destination. The remaining 486,370 may have died or escaped.

In the region of 24 million people, civilian and military were lost in WW2, but you can add in plenty there was killed by their own side, in the red human sausage machine.

Afterwards, millions were enslaved, and sent or killed by the regime, and stalin's words ever echo in the imphamy of history;
"One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic".

The butchering of people by the 10's of millions might be an expression too far, but millions fits, and thats before any expression about the misery caused to the rest of the populations involved in soviet misery

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[archangel9]

The soviets were so powerful, they signed a pact with Nazi Germany, and offered many congratulations to Hitler, each time he domino'd a single state, including france. And during this time it decided to get a bloody nose picking on Finland.

Mr. Hand? Is that you???

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[dunkelfalke]

Who are you trying to bullshit? These "plans" and expectations had nothing to do with reality. Even in 1990 the Soviet population was less than 300 millions.

Compare it to the German population - it was at 65 millions right after the war, 65 years later it is at 82 millions - and that is in a much prosper state with a much higher life expectation.

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[Anonymous Coward]

Others have pointed out some details in your account that they felt obligated to contest. However, the part I wish to critique is this:

You won't quit publishing garbage, because its what good socialist and communists do.

What? Did you just come back from a tea party rally or something?

It strikes me that you are writing about a country that is not your own from an extremely American perspective. Ordinarily that's not a bad -- it's only fair that you write from the perspective of the place where you are from. But I think your writing should be more open to the fact that others don't see it in your terms.

Precisely in this thing about "socialists and communists". You are drawing a false dichotomy between "socalists/communists" and those who oppose them, when really this is irrelevant to the discussion. I've known enough Russians to know that it's perfectly possible to say good things about the USSR's accomplishments and still not be a "socialist" or a "communist". Most Russian people in the 21st century have moved on from these terms, if they ever supported these ideas to begin with (many of them did not). There is also widespread acknowledgement of the USSR's flaws. In my mind, though, this should not prohibit them from recognizing their country's successes where they do exist. It doesn't make them a "socialist" to do so.

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[Anonymous Coward]

OT:

Not that anyone on /. will read this, and not that you especially will bother educating yourself, but the Soviet Union's aggression had zero to do with it being a communist state. Its tyrannical nature was independent of its economic policies, and not all socialists and communists support violent suppression of people - as a matter of fact, very few of them do.

But go on, keep publishing uneducated sheepish drivel on the internet, you buffoon.

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[Anonymous Coward]

80 years
And don't forget North Korea is still going on.

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[Wolvenhaven]

Please, just stop talking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#USSR
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_pogroms

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[cheesybagel]

The Russian Empire was backwards compared to the most advanced industrial nations but it still had a respectable industry. I certainly hope you do not think their weapons manufactured themselves. Nor that they merely bought weapons from abroad while fighting France, Britain and the Ottoman Empire put together in the Crimean War. The Tula Arsenal, for example, was founded in 1712. It still exists today. I should also add the Russian Empire had less military manpower yet smaller losses in the Crimean War, even though they lost, the war took like 3 years so it was no cakewalk. This could not have happened if the Russian Empire did not have reasonably advanced weaponry. In the late XIXth century they designed and manufactured the Mosin-Nagant rifle which is still considered a respectable weapon today.

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[dwarfsoft]

I guess you don't know the difference between "first man into space" and "first man on the moon". You fracking mormon ;)

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[SakuraDreams]

The Soviets used far fewer and less knowledgeable Nazis and they abandoned them much sooner than the USA. To suggest that the Russian space program was a German affair is incorrect. By the time they sent the first man into space they didn't use any significant German scientists.

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear asshole,
THE MOON IS IN SPACE. Or do I need you to draw a Venn Diagram?

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[AdmV0rl0n]

What an interesting mismatch of fact, propaganda, and ignorance.

Where to start?

* Pre soviet Russia, was very backwards. Look at their performance in WW I where they showed up with ancient weaponry.

* It was a super power, no other way to describe a country that controlled half of the world, put the first man & satellite in space and was capable of destroying the world umpteen times over.

* Yes, it was a super power *AFTER* WW I, not before or during.

* And finally, being a super power doesn't mean you are a nice guy. If that's a requirement to super power, then yes it was not a super power.

I neither endorse nor condone any violent actions the Soviet Union performed during its history, but your account was just too messed up to leave un commented upon.

Most sides in WW1 turned up with ancient weaponary. The advancements came during the war, not really before it. Or maybe you've never read about the appalling losses and complete stalemates of WW1.

As for the rest of your inept garbage, I have little care for socialists or and especially communists, or their spewing of idiocy. The death of the communist Soviet was and remains one of the great days in human history.

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[shutdown -p now]

Pre soviet Russia, was very backwards.

True.

Look at their performance in WW I where they showed up with ancient weaponry.

Not quite so true. Some was ancient, but it was true of many other countries, too. But e.g. infantry rifle was the same as later used in WW2; and Russia also fielded the first dedicated bomber plane in the world.

Russian weaponry was very outdated in Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905), which is largely why Russia lost it - and that, in turn, gave some boost to new research in the area.

But, of course, a country can have fairly advanced weapons while still being mostly backwards otherwise. I mean, Pakistan has nukes, and maybe even North Korea - so what?
 

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[AdmV0rl0n]

You'll find many understood right and wrong.

The invasion of Poland resulted in Great Britain and the Dominions, and France declaring war on Germany. I rather trust their view more than yours.

As for the rest of your garbage I don't need to say much, others have already said enough to cover it previously.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Winston Churchill

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
Winston Churchill

"If I were asked the difference between Socialism and Communism, I could only reply that the Socialist tries to lead us to disaster by foolish words and the Communist drives us there by violent deeds."

"Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the abject worship of the State."

"Government of the duds, by the duds, and for the duds."

"No socialist system can be established without a political police."

"Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy."

"It is not alone that property, in all its forms, is struck at, but that liberty, in all its forms, is challenged by the fundamental conceptions of socialism."

"'All men are created equal' says the American Declaration of Independence. 'All men shall be kept equal' say the Socialists."

"Some see private enterprise as a predatory animal to be shot, others look on it as a cow to be milked but a few see it as a sturdy horse pulling a wagon."

"If you destroy a free market, you create a black market."

"The vice of capitalism is that it stands for the unequal sharing of blessings; whereas the virtue of socialism is that it stands for the equal sharing of misery."

"Socialism assails the pre-eminence of the individual."

"Is it better to have equality at the price of poverty or well-being at the price of inequality?"

"The flame of Christian ethics is still our best guide...only on this basis can we reconcile the rights of the individual with the demands of society."

On leftists:

"They are the most disagreeable of people...Their insincerity? Can you not feel a sense of disgust at the arrogant presumption of superiority of these people? Superiority of intellect! Then, when it comes to practice, down they fall with a wallop not only to the level of ordinary human beings but to a level which is even far below the average."

"These very high intellectual persons who wake up every morning...see what they can find to demolish, to undermine, or cast away."

"Let them quit these gospels of envy, hate, and malice. Let them abandon the utter fallacy, the grotesque, erroneous, fatal blunder of believing that by limiting the enterprise of man, by riveting the shackles of a false equality...they will increase the well-being of the world."

On Communism:

"Bolshevism is not a policy; it is a disease."

"The day will come when it will be recognized without doubt throughout the civilized world that the strangling of Bolshevism at birth would have been an untold blessing to the human race."

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you still can't count to "first". Do you want me to draw you a number line? Maybe it can intersect the Venn Diagram.

People were in space before they went to the moon. The Venn Diagram you speak of will therefore show you that "First In Space" does not intersect with "First on the Moon"

Re:Teh suXX0rs

[dunkelfalke]

Oh come on. I owned a Mosin rifle some years ago (the finnish version, which is somewhat better). It is nothing special and was nothing special at the time of its introduction. Actually, it was backwards in some ways, using rimmed ammo because Russian Empire couldn't afford advanced machinery for making rimless cartridges.

If you want to take a look at a truly innovative bolt action rifle of the late 19th century, take a Swiss Schmidt-Rubin.

google ipad

[dmesg0]

You can already buy it.

Re:google ipad

[Microlith]

Those are some pretty CG renderings, but a device with those specs and 3G would be receiving much more noise than, well... none.

It doesn't help that it claims to have a paltry 128MB of RAM and Android 1.6/

Re:google ipad

[dmesg0]

It's not just a rendering, there are several Chinese ipad knock-offs with Android. Their production has just started now, so the information is pretty scarce. However none of them mention 3g support, so this particular ebay listing might be bogus.

I agree that the specs are not great at all, at least 256MB is a must for android. Some other sites claim 256MB for the knock-off.

Re:google ipad

[Buelldozer]

I've put that on my watch list. I want to see if any of these actually get delivered. In theory it wouldn't be hard to for a Chinese manufacturer to build the hardware and port Android to it. Based on the ebay username (lifengsihai), and the fact that it's shipping out of Hong Kong, this looks like what is happening.

It should be noted that this device ships, supposedly, with Android 1.6. If that's true I wonder if it's possible to upgrade it to 2.1?

I also wonder about it's 3G support. I mean "built-in 3G HDSPA/UMTS/WCDMA modem" seems a touch unrealistic?

It's a neat looking package but I have deep concerns about it. I wouldn't order one without someone else taking the risk first.

Take a peek at what else this seller has on offer: http://shop.ebay.com/lifengsihai/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340 There is some interesting stuff in there.

Re:google ipad

[gbjbaanb]

Surely you mean the WePad

So we took a seriously stylish, state-of-the art media tablet and put a whole lot of fun in it. With the WePad, you can browse the Internet, watch YouTube, check your e-mail, chat with friends on Facebook, and much, much more. You can even get some work done, if you absolutely must. Most importantly, we created an open system, so that everyone can participate.

We built a platform based on two established, well-known technologies, Android and Linux, meaning that software developers can dream up apps for anything you may want to do with your WePad (and even some things you might never have dreamed possible yourself). It's quick and simple - and needless to say, any app that already exists for Android also runs on the WePad. Right out of the box.

ok, you can only pre-order it, but surely those crazy Germans aren't touting vapourwar (apparently the grad unveiling is at a show in May, cost 449.

Re:google ipad

[elfprince13]

It purports to be a sungworld product, but sungworld shows no such product on their website.

Re:google ipad

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you ask it on ebay? GP is poster not seller.

Re:google ipad

[rsborg]

You can already buy it.

This product is obviously just a photoshop... if someone were releasing it, they'd clearly run afoul of trade dress IP violations with Apple, at the very least. It's amazing folks are actually bidding for this obvious fake.

Re:google ipad

[bazorg]

you know, on ebay there are hundreds of knock offs of Apple, Nokia, Samsung, etc... All "KIRF" as Engadget likes call them. Some of them have dual SIM slots and other features that respectable brands rarely offer. I have never risked sending a few £ to HK by paypal but this might be my first time. It's a small portable browser, PDF reader with BIN price is £140... tempting.

Re:google ipad

[sootman]

Oh yeah, I can't wait to give my money to a company I've never heard of until just now who doesn't even list the product in question on their 'products' page. It's shown in the Flash video at the top of the page and says "Spring" but that's it. SIGN ME UP!!!!!111oneoneeleven

Re:google ipad

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if anyone finds the location of this seller, I could pick up a couple to dissect when I am over in Hong Kong next week... Some of the Chinese knockoffs are really quite fun.... I love the look of the windows seven ipad clone, with the gig of ddr2, and the 1.6 intel atom.... Pretty much the same specs as my Dell mini nine hackintosh.... I would love to see if I can get osx to run on this thing.... And with these specs, no wonder the battery life for the clone is three hours of runtime....

Re:google ipad

[cheesybagel]

Looks like a Chinese KIRF knockoff of the iPad. Hence the low hardware specs.

Re:google ipad

[jeffmeden]

LOL, not in China! There is a company called Teso making a tablet that is basically an Iphone scaled about 3x in each dimension, and it runs windows 7 (and actually has decent specs for a netbook). See this link: http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=12752&tag=trunk;content They have to be seen to be believed, but believe me they are real.

Re:google ipad

[jeffmeden]

The first device linked to looks like the Sungworld ipad knockoff, which is allegedly real but there haven't been many sightings of it as of yet. What is certainly real is the other tablet that seller is advertising, the 10.1" Teso model that runs windows 7. I have seen them for sale in Shenzhen, China but that seller's picture looks like the one floating around the internet. So, they may be out to try to ring up sales before they come up with a way to import them from China when they have the money. Could be a mess, who knows, but the seller's feedback is pretty good. The price definitely stinks, though; they can be bought off the shelf in China for $580, and who knows how low you could get someone if you were a good haggler (rumor is the bulk price is $315 us).

Re:google ipad

[Maxmin]

That's not Google's tablet, that's a "Google Android Tablet" ("Google" as part of the OS name, not the physical tablet's branding.)

That's somebody else's tablet hardware running what looks like a seriously stock Android installation. (I mean, would Google go to all the trouble of designing a tablet with the same minimalist home screen as a mobile phone? Or a 600 MHz CPU when their phone sports a 1 GHz grinder?)

Waitasec, scam alert: here are some threads questioning whether this device actually even exists (commenters posting about unfulfilled orders for this very same "Google Android" tablet device.)

Here's a video for a "Smit MID-560" with a 5" *resistive* touch screen (rather than capacitive), speculated to be the hardware of this fakey "Google Android Tablet" that is not sold by Google.

Nice try buddy ... looks to be utterly bogus.

zenPad

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Could be the Enzo zenPad. Pure vapourware.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/09/ensos-zenpad-is-vaporware-get-refunds-while-they-last/

Apple, Google, Microsoft...

[Anonymous Coward]

What's really newsworthy here is that the competition is between Apple and Google, Microsoft is nowhere to be found. It's temping to declare that their relevance has hit a new low. Competition is good, regardless of which side you're on, but it's really, really nice to see Microsoft no longer be competitive in a market.

Re:Apple, Google, Microsoft...

[nomadic]

What's really newsworthy here is that the competition is between Apple and Google, Microsoft is nowhere to be found.

I don't know if "Microsoft maintains its 30-year tradition of not entering the consumer PC market" really counts as "newsworthy."

Re:Apple, Google, Microsoft...

[dskzero]

Why would Microsoft release a Tablet PC?

Re:Apple, Google, Microsoft...

[alen]

you're not looking hard enough. Apple and Google both license ActiveSync from Microsoft. Every iphone, ipod touch and ipad has a fully licensed ActiveSync client that you pay for even if you don't use Exchange email. all the iSecurity features Apple hypes are just ActiveSync features and MS code. iPhone OS 4 is going to support Exchange 2010.

Google licenses it as well, but so far only for Google Docs. if this iGoogle pad will have document transfer then it will be MS code and patents running it. a lot of people do buy Touchdown from the marketplace which is a fully licensed ActiveSync client

Re:Apple, Google, Microsoft...

[Golddess]

Why would Microsoft release a game console?
Why would Microsoft release a portable music device?

That said, I agree that, similar to what nomadic said above, "Microsoft continues to stay out of tablet hardware market" isn't exactly newsworthy.

Re:Apple, Google, Microsoft...

[dskzero]

That doesn't completely clarifies why would microsoft release a Tablet PC, given that the Zune was pointless and the Xbox 360 is simply a way to find some gain from a powerful industries, but it is a point, so I'll concede.

Re:Apple, Google, Microsoft...

[node 3]

Why would Microsoft release a Tablet PC?

The same reason they released Zune, because nobody else has had success against Apple using MS supplied software.

Of course, the Zune failed, so you do kind of have a point.

The only way to compete (sans monopoly) with Apple is to control the whole widget. Unfortunately, that's not the whole equations (c.f., Palm, Zune).

It's kind of funny when you think of it, how MS does their best to make the best software out there, then leave it up to the PC manufacturers to complete the other half of the computer. Or looking at it in reverse, how the PC makers do their best to make a PC, but leave it up to MS to supply the OS. Apple is the last of the true PC companies left. Everyone else just makes half the widget and outsources the rest.

Re:Apple, Google, Microsoft...

[tepples]

Microsoft Entertainment and Devices wouldn't release a Windows Phone 7 Series tablet like the one in this concept video. But one of the companies making handsets that run Windows Phone might.

Re:Apple, Google, Microsoft...

[nine-times]

I believe Gmail also supports ActiveSync. On my iPhone, I can set up my Gmail account as an Exchange server.

So yeah, Microsoft is in the mix.

Re:Apple, Google, Microsoft...

[node 3]

all the iSecurity features Apple hypes are just ActiveSync features and MS code

Screen lock (with device wipe upon repeated failure), encrypted filesystem, Find My iPhone... Which of these are based on ActiveSync?

Besides, it's extremely obvious that that's not what he's referring to. He's talking about MS devices (like the Zune). And he's right, MS *is* nowhere to be found, which is their business model. They are almost exclusively a software company, with hardware being a rare exception, based either on the need to break into a new market (Xbox) or to shore up a dying market (Zune). The fact that MS doesn't have an iPad competitor is noteworthy.

Re:Apple, Google, Microsoft...

[dskzero]

Apple is the last of the true PC companies left. Everyone else just makes half the widget and outsources the rest.

This is probably true, but it doesn't makes them any better. This just makes them oddly old-fashioned.

Re:Apple, Google, Microsoft...

[node 3]

Apple is the last of the true PC companies left. Everyone else just makes half the widget and outsources the rest.

This is probably true, but it doesn't makes them any better. This just makes them oddly old-fashioned.

Their market success begs to differ. In fact, this is exactly the thing that enables them to be better, and among all things, the single greatest limitation of every other PC maker.

Apple is the market leader in handheld portables, and they lead all PC makers in terms of customer satisfaction.

They are also the largest PC maker on the planet, and the most profitable. This would absolutely *not* be the case if they didn't make the whole widget.

Re:Apple, Google, Microsoft...

[dskzero]

Ah, it makes sense.

Re:Apple, Google, Microsoft...

[plague3106]

Ya, poor MS, fading into irrelevence as they rake in the cash from Windows 7 (seriously... go look up sales).

Re:Apple, Google, Microsoft...

[plague3106]

A shame really, I really enjoy my zune, and my wife replaced her ipod with a zune, because it "just works" (without spending $2000 for a mac computer to hook it up to).

Re:Apple, Google, Microsoft...

[socceroos]

Despite not being in consumers hands yet, the Microsoft Courier looks really cool. That takes a lot for me to say that.

Re:Apple, Google, Microsoft...

[Mr. Slippery]

Apple is the last of the true PC companies left.

No. Apple makes "information appliances", not PCs. The hallmark of a personal computer is that it was personal -- the owner, not the manufacturer, had control.

The iPad is all Jobs, no Woz; it's marketroid, not hacker.

Re:Apple, Google, Microsoft...

[wvmarle]

MS is a software company. OK they build some game console and are known for their mice, but that's about it hardware wise.

So no wonder MS is "no-where to be found", other than as the primary operating system driving almost all other "pads" or "slates" or how-ever you want to call them.

New Product Launch Name

[Anonymous Coward]

The name of the new product is called "iMenstrual".

Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[rjamestaylor]

Really hoping this rumor is true - not that I need to buy another "pad" device (yes, I stood in line for an iPad) - but I'd really like to see how the Closed vs. Open platform models play out. Best case: Apple revises its Closed stance in response to a thriving gPad ecosystem.

I really like my iProducts, but having been a proponent of open platforms for so long I am uneasy at the tight hold Apple holds over developers and users.

For example, why hasn't Apple approved the Opera Mini yet? I'd welcome a choice in browsers, personally.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[StreetStealth]

I don't think either will "win." They are two worlds with two different goals.

Apple's model will always compromise developer flexibility when user experience is at stake. Google's model will always compromise user experience when developer flexibility is at stake.

People will choose based on what is important to them.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[rdtreefrog]

I am very much in your line of thinking. Sadly, I think Closed in this case has the upper hand because the Open world isn't doing enough to make it easy on users. Basic apps loaded on device, 1 touch button to access a host of other apps that install just as quckly, and have been verified to work on the device.. etc etc.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[uprise78]

Totally agree. This is totally exemplified by dmesg0's comment above: "By the way, I own nexus one, and with the right firmware (latest cyanogenmod with UV kernel), it's a great phone." Do you really think that Apple would ever let it's users deal with something that nerdy? It's a totally different target audience. The iPhone/iPad is about simplifying things so much that the actual hardare gets out of your way. Android is more about tinkering and spec sheets and more nerdy goods. If you look at the iPad's spec sheet on the Apple webpage it doesn't even show the GPU or RAM! What nerd on earth would ever stand for buying a product with no RAM numbers given? Different strokes for different folks. It is 100% obvious that the iPad was not created for Slashdotters. It was created for Slashdotters parents, grandparents and sisters or anyone else who has come to a Slashdotter wondering why "the internet doesn't work".

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Bakkster]

Apple's model will always compromise developer flexibility when user experience is at stake. Google's model will always compromise user experience when developer flexibility is at stake.

People will choose based on what is important to them.

That's the most succinct and accurate synopsis of these two companies I've ever seen. Give this man a cookie.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[thepike]

And, even if the usability were the same, Apple has marketing that the open world usually lacks. I know that Android phones are getting marketed well (at least Droid on TV and Nexus One online) but they've got nothing on Apple commercials and hype. That'll hurt the open market.

Add to that the possibility of having multiple competing open devices (droid vs eris vs nexus one etc) while close has one, and the sales of any one open device will be lower than the one closed device, again making things look bad. And Apple has the jump here, and name recognition.

As much as I support the open movement and even this particular (vaporous) device, there are some issues.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple's model will always compromise developer flexibility when vendor lockin is at stake.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

Different strokes for different folks. It is 100% obvious that the iPad was not created for Slashdotters.

The issue isn't so much that geeks weren't the target audience, but that they are specifically excluded. There's a big difference between marketing it to a user set, and locking out a user set (which is what they've done)... How else can you rationalize the inability to install apps from outside of the app store (even if it involved purchasing an "unlock" code from Apple)? There is so much that Apple could do to make the i(Pad|Pod|Phone) so much more geek friendly without sacrificing their #1 goal (user experience above all else) that not doing it is almost silly (and hence why a lot of Apple haters point to the draconian control measures). Yet they don't allow it. Perhaps part of the reason is controversy keeps them fresh in the mind (would we be having these conversations if Apple was as open as Google?)... Perhaps part of it is that they think that they can get away with it in the long run, so why not...

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, Android phones are a great alternative to the iPhone even without a custom ROM. My mother uses one (a Telus branded Milestone) and loves it.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[jedidiah]

The problem isn't the almighty "user experience". The problem is that Apple will compromise developer flexibility on a whim.

An actual genuine engineering rationale would be one thing. However, the faithful are just searching for any excuse they can find. If some stupid restriction was a sound engineering tradeoff yesterday, then it was also that same thing when the product was first launched. Adding new restrictions is just acting in bad faith.

Apple built it's power and now is seeking to dispose of those that helped it gain that power.

There are some obvious comparisons here that would trigger Godwins Law.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

>How else can you rationalize the inability to install apps from outside of the app store
Because your friend who thinks he knows way more about technology than he actually does would come across a badly written howto in some bodybuilding forum he reads and would then proceed to screw up his phone. He'd then have a hard time following instructions from support on how to restore it to factory settings, and which point he'd be upset that he lost all his high scores in his games. He would then tell everyone about how the iPhone sucks.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[jedidiah]

> apps loaded on device, 1 touch button to access a host of other apps that
> install just as quckly, and have been verified to work on the device.

Sounds like a Unix package manager actually.

Not terribly revolutionary, magical, or original.

OTOH, at least one of those nasty chaotic Macs will allow me to install a
non broken web browser or an application that plays just about any video
file you can dredge up.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you can screw up the phone by installing an app, then that speaks loads about the operating system... And if you're going to say that, then perhaps the reason for their draconian control measures is that they know their OS sucks, but they can make it look nice by keeping a tight hold on it...

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[PopeRatzo]

Best case: Apple revises its Closed stance in response to a thriving gPad ecosystem.

I don't think that will ever happen.

For better or worse, Apple is married to closed systems. In fact, I'd make a significant bet that we'll be seeing future desktop and laptop products from Apple that are also locked into the app store. Apple has staked its future on the notion that people don't really want to do anything with their systems that's outside the realm of what Apple will allow.

Those of us that like to be able to really dig into the capabilities of our technology and make our equipment our own will just have to find a "pad" computer for the rest of us.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

Give this man a cookie.

So we can track the sites he visits and report any suspicious activity?

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[_Sprocket_]

At face value, that's all true. But it also misses a very important part of the bigger picture. It's those "nerds", tweakers, and hackers that push the state of the art which we all end up enjoying. Sometimes there's really sudden, disruptive change. But often that disruption comes from a series of small hacks that stack up in ways central gatekeepers never foresee or approve of. And that means that even the stereotypical parents, grandparents, and sisters can benefit even if they don't even understand how the Internet works much less what custom firmware is.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[poopdeville]

Well, if you can screw up the phone by installing an app, then that speaks loads about the operating system...

Sorry, it doesn't. If I can convince you to run "sudo rm -rf /", it's hardly the operating system's fault everything got deleted.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[PopeRatzo]

Do you really think that Apple would ever let it's users deal with something that nerdy? It's a totally different target audience.

So Apple targets people who aren't really interested in doing anything that Apple doesn't allow. They're not interested in the people who bought the original Apple or Macintosh computers.

That's fine. They're a successful company that now makes a fortune from limiting peoples' options.

But do you understand that the Internet and personal computing were made by people who reject that approach? The people who made Apple a success in the first place are people who probably formatted the hard drive on their new Macs within at most a day or so. The first place we looked was extensions or control panel or settings. If people like that wanted somebody to hand us a sealed black box and be grateful that it just "works" (as long as "works" means "things that Apple thinks you should be doing").

We should be very careful of applauding a company for marginalizing creativity and exploration. The worst case is that the rest of the companies making technology will decide to emulate Apple's success. We're just enabling a future that's a lot less interesting.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[vijayiyer]

The problem is that the "nerds", tweakers, and hackers usually push the state of the art for other "nerds", tweakers, and hackers. Very rarely have they done so so in a way that benefits "ordinary folks". Look at the state of Linux on the desktop. It's great for us, but despite what anybody says, it doesn't have the level of usability (different from eyecandy, looks, etc) that would prevent tech support calls to me from my mom. Therefore, we have two different markets with varying degrees of overlap. Nothing is wrong with that.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[nine-times]

I think I agree with you. The main thing that bothers me about Apple's approach to the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad is the restricted nature of the application distribution. It's bad enough that they force you to go through their App Store, but even worse when their approval process seems self-serving.

Even so, I could cut Apple some slack for wanting to exhibit some control over their platform in order to ensure a good experience; having the app store lets them filter out horrible applications and malware. Even though it would annoy me, I could understand Apple wanting a cut of applications' profits. What really annoys me is when they don't approve nice-looking applications from real developers. Why not approve Opera Mini? Why not approve Google Voice?

What's more, I think it's a bad idea for Apple to be doing this, for their own sake. I may be wrong about this, but it seems to me that if Apple wants these platforms to be successful, they should be encouraging developers to invest in coming up with innovative new applications. By refusing to approve applications that stray too close to Apple's turf, they're essentially sending the message, "Don't invest too much in building applications. No matter how good they are, we might block them for completely arbitrary reasons."

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[denmarkw00t]

I believe he got one when he logged in

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Altus]

People are sick of jumping through hoops for technology and I suspect that developers will go where the users are. Now I'm not saying that open platforms need to be hard to use, but it is too often the case right now.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[PopeRatzo]

People will choose based on what is important to them.

I'm not sure that's as accurate as you say.

I think "People will buy what they're told to buy" is a better way to put it. Very little "choice" is involved. There's a reason that companies like Apple spend more on marketing than R&D. Because marketing "just works". Even if (or maybe especially if) you're someone who believes that advertising "doesn't really affect me" and that you're immune to marketing. I hear that a lot around here, and advertising executives get a big kick out of that.

Believe me, marketing is a lot more powerful than you are. It works on a part of your brain over which you have little control unless you've spent the last 20 years meditating in a Buddhist monastery.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Calsar]

I think that's a bit over simplified. If that were the case than 90% of people would have Macs and geeks would be the only people with PCs. The real factor is that open platforms are cheaper. That is why the Mac lost the PC in the past. Apple tried to control the hardware and software with huge markeups. The PCs came in with competition and thin margins so they advanced faster and became more efficient lowering costs even more. Monopolies breed inefficincies because there is no reason to improve. Apple has a monopoly of sorts now, but competitors are catching up and AT&T isn't going to subsidize the $800 iPhone once it becomes available on other networks because it will no longer provide them with a competitive advantage. When people have to pay hundreds of dollars more for an iPhone when competing phones offer the same capabilities you'll see a drop in their marketshare. Apple apparently hasn't learned from past mistakes.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[tepples]

People will choose based on what is important to them.

But sometimes, "what is important to them" is availability in the first place. I'd like to play with a phone running Maemo/MeeGo, but U.S. carriers tend not to have them.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Altus]

From where I sit, there is a lot more marketing for Droid then there is for the iPhone. WAY more.

People like to act like apple is some magical marketing machine. They aren't. They have marketing things that have failed in the past. The iPhone has more momentum because they hit the market first and hit it hard. Lots of people know someone who has an iPhone and not that many know someone who owns a Droid.

Its more than just who has the flashiest advertising... though it is true that you cant get by without advertizing and I think the G1 was very under advertized. The first android phone needed to hit hard and grab mind share like the iPhone did. As it is its been more of a slow adoption that makes them look like they are playing catchup. They could have waited 6 months and really hit hard and that probably would have led to Android being better positioned.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but that's also hardly installing an application... Android's permission system is such that even if you installed an application that executed "rm -rf /", the only thing it could delete is itself. I'm not saying that Android is the best, but I am just using it as an example because I know it.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Altus]

nothing apple makes is like a package manager. From a mac users point of view a package manager is nothing but a pain in the ass.

Mac applications (and iPhone ones) when they are properly made, are single files (actually a folder, but not to the user) that handles everything you need. You dont have to worry about dependencies. When you want to get rid of it you just throw it out.

Admitedly, there are applications on the mac that don't work like this, but in general you dont deal with the same kind of issues on the mac as you do on windows or even linux. (unless you want to run some software that was developed for linux)

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[DrgnDancer]

But do you understand that the Internet and personal computing were made by people who reject that approach? The people who made Apple a success in the first place are people who probably formatted the hard drive on their new Macs within at most a day or so. The first place we looked was extensions or control panel or settings. If people like that wanted somebody to hand us a sealed black box and be grateful that it just "works" (as long as "works" means "things that Apple thinks you should be doing").

Yes and no. I have an iPhone. I like my iPhone. I haven't even jailbroken my iPhone. Why? Because I'm really not all that interested in hacking my phone. My computers are every kind of weird hack jobs, with dual boots and virtual machines and such, but not so much my phone. It does what I need it too, and I don't really "work" on it. I don't need it to have an IDE and three different web browsers. I don't need root access to it. It's a phone. Sometimes I read a web site on it if I'm bored or need some bit of info *right now*. It allows me to quick scan my e-mail in a pinch. In an emergency I can even manage my servers from it.

If that makes me a bad geek, I'm sorry. I am interested in how things work and playing with new hardware/software, but in this case I'm *more* interested in a device that does what it's supposed to.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[uprise78]

@PopeRatzo, I'm not really sure why your attacking me on this. I didn't make the decision. I agree with what you are saying on most points but definitely not all. We (anyone using Slashdot) have to continually remember to think about things from a perspective other than our own. We are all comfortable on the command line. We all have no problem diving into the control panel or preferences pane and tinkering with options to make things work the way we want them to. We are also oftentimes the creators of the programs we use. We know what the word firmware means and we know what RAM is. We will continue to create the internet and every single platform that is to come in the future. We know a lot of technical goodness and we probably enjoy it all (or else we wouldn't be on this website). Most of us don't think about things from the other side. When I deal with 'non-techies' they don't give a crap about RAM. They don't know or care to know what OSS is. All they want is something that works and does the few things they want it to. (That touches on another huge difference between us and them: they only do a few things with hardware. We do a lot more). There is a separation between content creators and content consumers. We are generally the creators: tinkerers, programmers, web devs, net admins, etc. What it boils down to is that what Apple has done is fine in my opinion. They made smartphones easy for non-techies. They revived the tablet industry and made something kids and non-techies 'get'. You and I don't have to use these devices. We don't have to support them. We don't have to complain about them either. If you don't like it don't buy it. There is and always will be techy products for use. Remember, we are the creators. We will make things that we want to use. In summary, we have different wants/needs/likes than non-techies. There are products for use and products for them. No need to get angry/defensive at either sector. Just use what you want to use and enjoy it.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Belial6]

More accureatly, look at Windows vs. the Mac. That is the most accurate comparison between an iPhone and Android. Why does Grandma buy a Windows machine instead of a Mac?

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[bnenning]

Do you really think that Apple would ever let it's users deal with something that nerdy?

Of course not. That would be as absurd as shipping a Unix shell with a consumer operating system

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[node 3]

You were doing good up to this point:

It is 100% obvious that the iPad was not created for Slashdotters. It was created for Slashdotters parents, grandparents and sisters or anyone else who has come to a Slashdotter wondering why "the internet doesn't work".

The way you phrase it, the iPad is only for old people, girls, and technologically dumb people.

The iPad is for people who want to do things with it, and not to it. That's what the entirety of your post preceding that last bit is about. By default, this covers all the people you listed (ignoring the blatant agism and sexism), but it also covers vast swaths of geeks, nerds, and otherwise technologically literate people who would rather have a portable device that works, tinker-free.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[uprise78]

Ummm...weren't we talking about the iPad/iPhone here?

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[John Hasler]

> Mac applications (and iPhone ones) when they are properly made, are single
> files (actually a folder, but not to the user) that handles everything you
> need.

Why should the user have to deal with a "folder"? With a package manager you just select the package and click install.

> You dont have to worry about dependencies.

Package managers take care of all dependencies.

> When you want to get rid of it you just throw it out.

With a package manager you just select the package and click uninstall. No need to figure out which "folder" to delete.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[hey!]

Apple's model will always compromise developer flexibility when user experience is at stake. Google's model will always compromise user experience when developer flexibility is at stake.

I wouldn't put it that way.

Apple's model is to ensure you have the experience Apple wants you to have. Naturally they want you to have a good experience.

Google's model is to provide an open system with maximum connectivity to data sources and services.

Microsoft's model is to cater to decision makers higher up on the food chain than the user: IT managers, cell carriers, and developers. They get lots of criticism for their product design, but in fact it's not as incompetent as users think. Users aren't the audience and Microsoft typically does just enough to give it credibility with its real target markets.

In a nutshell: Apple provides the user a deal in which they give up control over their iPods and iPhones but in return get a reliable, high quality experience. Google gives you a decent experience out of the box but doesn't limit what you do with it.

There are sound business justifications for both approaches, and good reasons for users to favor either of them. In Apple's favor, they do a great job on the iPhone experience, they provide a very good content store that sells things at reasonable prices, and they give you a reasonable amount of flexibility in space shifting the stuff you bought. The price is you have to use the Apple store and accept Apple control. Since they do a great job and can attract developers, chances are you're happy with your iPhone.

In Google's favor, if you want something they don't forbid you from having it. Apple forbids Flash on the iPhone because it undermines their control. Google would not stand in the way of Adobe porting Flash, or somebody porting Gnash. The barriers are technical, not policy. As a user or an administrator you could customize your phones all you like.

What experience shows is that most people are better off letting someone else manage their stuff.

I have both a Motorola Droid and an iPod touch Gen 1. Despite being a couple years older, the iPod is far snappier and very smooth to use. If I was only thinking about the next six months, no question I'd go for the iPhone as the better device. But Android is good enough now and meets my long term needs better because I don't want to be locked in. I don't want to invest in something controlled by someone else, and I'm delighted that Google has finally broken through Verizon's closed platform mentality.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[node 3]

And, even if the usability were the same, Apple has marketing that the open world usually lacks. I know that Android phones are getting marketed well (at least Droid on TV and Nexus One online) but they've got nothing on Apple commercials and hype. That'll hurt the open market.

Marketing doesn't play into it nearly as much as some people seem to think. In order for a marketing campaign to be successful, you have to have a compelling product, and for the overwhelming majority of people, Open Source systems just aren't up to the challenge. The most notable exception is Firefox, and Firefox has had zero television or radio marketing (and very limited web marketing). In fact, both IE and Chrome have out-marketed Firefox, yet Firefox has taken significant share from IE and still leads Chrome.

If Apple's success were primarily a marketing success, they would have been a flash in the pan. In order for successfully marketed product to have staying power, it has to have inherent appeal.

Add to that the possibility of having multiple competing open devices (droid vs eris vs nexus one etc) while close has one, and the sales of any one open device will be lower than the one closed device, again making things look bad.

That's why Apple outsells HP, Dell and Acer? That's why people always say Apple is the number 4 or 5 PC maker in the US, as opposed to always pointing out that they only make up about 8-10% of the market, while MS has the other 90+%?

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Bakkster]

People will choose based on what is important to them.

I'm not sure that's as accurate as you say.

I think "People will buy what they're told to buy" is a better way to put it. Very little "choice" is involved.

In that case, what is important to them is probably "looking cool, just like everyone else".

Oddly enough, that's probably a subset of the 'prefers user experience to developer freedom' group.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[josh.m.vh]

Because its cheaper and Grandma doesnt even know what an operating system is let alone the difference???

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[icebraining]

It depends what you mean by marketing (it's more than publicity). The fact that I know about the iPad is obviously the result of marketing. Doesn't mean I'll buy it. In fact, I don't remember buying anything above 40E in the last three or four years that I had heard about before I researched.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[_Sprocket_]

The problem is that the "nerds", tweakers, and hackers usually push the state of the art for other "nerds", tweakers, and hackers. Very rarely have they done so so in a way that benefits "ordinary folks".

They may not target ordinary folks. But they certainly do benefit ordinary folks. The entire industry is driven by major and subtle changes introduced by hackers - albeit not always introduced to the mainstream by hackers alone.

As one example, lets look at Apple. It begins with the Homebrew Computer Club - hackers doing things to show to other hackers. Woz puts together some nice designs and gives away paper copies so others can build them themselves. Jobs thinks they should build and sell the designs. They do; the Apple I. But it's still hardware for hackers. One has to still add a keyboard, monitor, etc. to make it usable. Woz continues to improve his designs. Jobs pushes to include a keyboard and a custom molded case that not only makes the Apple II ready to go out of the box, but gives it a consumer electronics feel. The Apple II is among the first wave of microcomputers that go beyond the hacker crowd. And Visicalc is the killer app that makes microcomputers business devices. That sequence of events is the beginning of everything changing.

Look at the state of Linux on the desktop. It's great for us, but despite what anybody says, it doesn't have the level of usability (different from eyecandy, looks, etc) that would prevent tech support calls to me from my mom. Therefore, we have two different markets with varying degrees of overlap. Nothing is wrong with that.

Not everything that hackers do will have mainstream application. Linux on the desktop might be one of those things. Yet, my wife recently asked me to put Ubuntu on her laptop and has been very happy with it replacing WinXP (although she still keeps WinXP on her desktop system). And Linux in general impacts the mainstream in ways that they're completely unaware of.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Stele]

yes, I stood in line for an iPad

Why did you stand in line? Mine arrived via FEDEX at 10am.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[BlueStraggler]

So Apple targets people who aren't really interested in doing anything that Apple doesn't allow. ... They're a successful company that now makes a fortune from limiting peoples' options.

What's amazing to me is how persistent this meme is on Slashdot, of all places.

I bought *my* mac because it came with gcc, perl, apache, CUPS, and X-windows pre-installed on an open source Unix kernel. As a result, I could install just about anything on it.

You'd think that would count for something around here.

For those of you who haven't beaten yourself with a cluestick recently, the closed platform is not Apple; it is iTunes. This is Apple's variant of Xbox Live or Playstation Network, nothing more. You want onto an online media service that is integrated with your hardware, pick one of these, buy the appropriate gadget, and quit your whining. Want an online media service that doesn't integrate with your hardware, then get a multi-purpose computer, roll up your sleeves, and roll your own.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Altus]

Its not a folder to the user, its the executable file to the user. The same thing the user goes and clicks on to launch the application is the thing they throw out. Under the hood for a developer an application is a folder with an internal structure that allows them to put all the libraries and resources the application needs right into the package. The result is a single object to the user that contains the entire application.

In many cases good mac apps don't even have an installer, you just drag the application from the CD (or disk image or your downloads folder) into your application folder and your done.

Package managers might take care of dependencies for you, but not really having dependencies in the first place is a lot easier for the user to deal with.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[rjamestaylor]

For the line party :)

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[plague3106]

Ya, that's what marketing people say to keep them with an income.

Please explain why then, when xbox and ps3 advertise equally, some would pick one over the other. Why is that that display a lot of Long John Silvers commercials, I never go to eat there?

Marketing works in that it lets people know of a products existence.. beyond that I'm not sure.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

And none of Pro Apple applications for MacOSX are good mac apps? Since I've never seen an Apple Pro app that lets you install it by dragging application to local.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[pablodiazgutierrez]

Except that it's not true. Google provides a very good user experience. It just happens not to screw its developers over.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a female slashdotter and my brother and dad come TO ME to find out why teh interwebs is broke!

Here is what I like about the iPad: It's pretty.

What I dislike about it: Limited customization, lack of SBSETTINGS, it's an enlarged iPhone but no phone and no camera. No Adobe Flash. No access to the filesystem to copy files from/to it unless it's jailbroken. It does not act as a mass storage device.

It is pretty though. SHINY!

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Bakkster]

Except that it's not true. Google provides a very good user experience. It just happens not to screw its developers over.

That's not to say Google can't have a good user experience, only that the user experience will never stand in the way of developer freedoms. In general, if there's a poor UI choice or something is confusing or convoluted, it's probably because Google gave the developers the freedom to create such a bad interface. Contrast with Apple who disapproves applications for the iPhone whose icons don't meet their standards.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[ricosalomar]

Word.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Altus]

Many of them are not idea applications and many of them were originally developed outside of Apple. (plus there is this whole framework for the pro apps that apple uses. I don't much care for the technique and even Apple wouldn't recommend it to other developers. They get away with it because of the level of control the have over the platform, framework and applications)

In most cases installers are used to install ancillary files in places other than the application folder, or to register services or other fairly advanced features. Some people still use libraries stored in a shared location although this is kind of a waste since you will have to jump through hoops to make sure new versions don't overwrite your versions. The one case where this makes sense is if you have a suite of apps that is only updated as a whole and shares some libraries, but I'm still not sure its worth the savings in hard drive space vs complexity.

The mac method of dealing with applications is much easier on end users, in particular consumer level end users. Its one of the most appealing things about the platform for non technical users.

There is no reason that I should have to worry about dependencies just to install a new browser.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[toriver]

Because they are cheaper due to the zero-margin industry that pushes them, and she has a nerd grandson who can install antivirus and answer silly questions like "why do I have to click on "Start" to turn it off?" for her.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to be a troll, but my biggest concern with Android and Google is ultimately that I am growing to distrust Google. They started out as a search company that became a marketing company (AdWords, etc) that created products intended to create even more marketing opportunities (Gmail, Google Calendar, Buzz, etc). Google's biggest source of revenue is in advertising, which means that every interaction I have with them, whether it's search, gmail, or some other product like an android phone, creates another data set that Google is using to profile me, data mine me, and eventually sell to the highest bidder. Perhaps Google's greatest marketing decision is the entire "Do no evil" mantra that they spout... people definitely seem to be falling for it.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Idbar]

...in response to a thriving gPad ecosystem.

So if the goal to sell a product that is on top of the iPad, shouldn't be better to call it the gString?

I know.. bad joke, bad joke.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[PopeRatzo]

It might be an xbox over a ps3. You might pick Jack-in-the-Box over Long John Silvers.

But advertising has played a part in every single purchase you've ever made. And the "beauty" of it is you don't even realize it.

After all, what made you believe you had to have either an xbox or ps3 in the first place? How'd you know you had to have one or the other?

At some point, it doesn't even matter what specific product an advertisement is for. The purpose is not just to make you buy that product, but to make absolutely sure that you buy something.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[w0mprat]

Google's model will always compromise user experience when developer flexibility is at stake.

Many would consider Google's user experience is generally pretty good. At least better than certain competition (*cough*Windows Mobile*cough*). It could do with a bit of shiny iLook, but that is all it is lacking. Android is rather good, especially now Google is no longer affraid of Apple and we're seeing multitouch on the platform.

It seems you can actually have a open platform and also good right-brain thinking in user experience design. I guess it's about keeping developers and designers at arms length.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[PopeRatzo]

I didn't mean to sound like I'm attacking you. Really. It's not even that I disagree with your post. My point was tangential and not a challenge to the things you wrote.

Sorry I didn't make that clearer.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[PopeRatzo]

I bought *my* mac because it came with gcc, perl, apache, CUPS, and X-windows pre-installed on an open source Unix kernel.

OK, so you came to Apple late in the game. I was talking about the people who bought the Apple II or the first Macintosh. By the time OSX came out, they were already a household name.

Those were the people who put the glamour in Apple's brand, and they're the ones who are being disregarded in Apple's locked-down strategy.

the closed platform is not Apple; it is iTunes

Do you think iTunes is some random malware that got put on your computer accidentally? iTunes IS Apple. It's the centerpiece of their strategy.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[w0mprat]

Android is more about tinkering and spec sheets and more nerdy goods

Disagree. Android is about actually *doing* stuff with your phone. I have modified Android on my phone also, and it's very much all about usability, I use it heavily. I found I didn't actually *do* much with my old 2G iPhone, despite the fact I did enjoy it. I now can't live without Multi-tasking on a phone!

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[socceroos]

What?? this is a load of bollocks! I demand that all those who modded this guy interesting stand up and be shamed.

Why on earth is a guy who decides to mod his Nexus One (which he is free to do btw) suddenly become an example of why the phone is not built for the user market but is really just a tinkerers phone??

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[anethema]

Bash/terminal work just fine on my iPhone :D

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[steveha]

I bought *my* mac because it came with gcc, perl, apache, CUPS, and X-windows pre-installed on an open source Unix kernel. As a result, I could install just about anything on it.

Fair enough. But you cannot deny the truth that Apple's newest platforms are very much locked down. iPod Touch and iPhone and iPad, all of them you cannot install any software you want; you can only install software officially blessed by Apple. And Apple can and will deny software for capricious and unfair reasons, in addition to denying software for good reasons.

For those of you who haven't beaten yourself with a cluestick recently, the closed platform is not Apple; it is iTunes.

I really couldn't care much less about the iTunes Music Service. With the iPod, you can still install your own music files. Music is less locked down than apps.

I considered buying an iPod Touch to replace my old Palm PDA. One thing I do care about: I want a Palm emulator to run a few legacy Palm apps I care about. Apple's policy is no emulators, ever, on their closed platforms, which includes the iPod Touch. So I won't buy one. I shouldn't have to "jailbreak" my own hardware just to install software of my own choosing.

P.S. So tell me, do I need to be beaten with a cluestick? If so, where am I clueless?

steveha

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, I stood in line for an iPad

+5 Hilarious!

Captcha: comical

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Kitkoan]

Totally agree. This is totally exemplified by dmesg0's comment above: "By the way, I own nexus one, and with the right firmware (latest cyanogenmod with UV kernel), it's a great phone." Do you really think that Apple would ever let it's users deal with something that nerdy? It's a totally different target audience. The iPhone/iPad is about simplifying things so much that the actual hardare gets out of your way. Android is more about tinkering and spec sheets and more nerdy goods.What nerd on earth would ever stand for buying a product with no RAM numbers given? .

Many people here on Slashdot own a Blackberry, as do many others (it's still the number 1 selling smartphone.) Very few know its specs, nor are they listed on their website. Also note that the Droid (running on the 'nerdy' Android) is in 3rd place.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[sootman]

How's that for timing? Opera approved.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

My computers are every kind of weird hack jobs, with dual boots and virtual machines and such, but not so much my phone.

You don't say! I have dual boot and virtual machines too - grub and VirtualBox - but never realized that made me a hacker. Woohoo!

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has approved the the Opera Mini app.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Marketing is not just advertising. And when its done right, you won't even know that your are being channeled towards a product, and your decision making is really clouded by their psychological tricks

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[bkk_diesel]

FYI - I just downloaded Opera Mini from the app store. Works great.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[DrXym]

Android doesn't require you tinker at all. Out of the box, modern Android phones are as usable and simple as any other smart phone out there. But if you want to tinker, at least some devices allow for it.

I think where Google have been smart is they recognize that leaving the doors open saves them a pile of hassle, keeps the hackers happy and most people would keep the default settings anyway. Everyone is happy.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

Marketing works in that it lets people know of a products existence.. beyond that I'm not sure.

The greatest tool of marketing is people's insistence that they are not swayed by it.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

Ipad = No multitasking = no flash = no hulu = no Disney = poor user experience.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[plague3106]

It might be an xbox over a ps3. You might pick Jack-in-the-Box over Long John Silvers.

And yet 99% of the time when I go out to eat, it's a place that doesn't even advertise, enough though there are plenty of options that do. (LGS is out simply because I don't like seafood.. advertising never seems to overcome my dislike for fish).

But advertising has played a part in every single purchase you've ever made. And the "beauty" of it is you don't even realize it.

I see a lot of dell commercials, and hp ones. Yet when I bought a laptop, I went with a Sony Vaio. Because my wifes worked really well, and it had the best price per feature. (I never even KNEW sony many computers until I met my wife).. so again, where is this effect of advertising?

After all, what made you believe you had to have either an xbox or ps3 in the first place?

In my case, having already played most of the resident evil series (which again, I never heard of, but was exposed to in college), I wanted to play RE5. And I knew of the RROD issues on the xbox firsthand (my friend got one, and is now on his 4th). So I got a PS3. So far, most of the games I got I had never heard of anywhere, I looked at the box in the store and thought I'd give it a shot. So if you want to count box art as advertising, but I didn't go in looking for a particular game.

At some point, it doesn't even matter what specific product an advertisement is for. The purpose is not just to make you buy that product, but to make absolutely sure that you buy something.

Then its failly pretty badly. When Walmart advertises diapers, it doesn't make me want to go to walmart (actually nothing does, but that's another matter).

So again, I'm not really sure what you're point is.. especially when I've been turned off from some companies for overagressive marketing. I remember them all right... and purposefully avoid buying their products.

Usually though I don't even pay attention to the ads.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue isn't so much that geeks weren't the target audience, but that they are specifically excluded.

Cute meme, but totally inaccurate. There are several developers here walking around showing off their iPads for the past couple weeks, and many more jealous of them. Just because someone reads slashdot or works in IT doesn't mean they can't appreciate a well-made device with a decent interface.

If anything, after working with Windows and Linux all day, I'd far prefer to go home to a Mac where I can get shit done without being persistently frustrated by battling the OS on basic usability.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[uprise78]

Not to knock your comment or anything but if modern Android phones (as opposed to ancient ones ?!?!) are not as simple to use as any other smart phone. If this were true why on earth is there even a need for task manager Android apps to exist? I'm not saying Android isn't a great OS. It is damn nice. What I am saying is that if there is a need for a task manager they are doing it wrong.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[DrXym]

Not to knock your comment or anything but if modern Android phones (as opposed to ancient ones ?!?!) are not as simple to use as any other smart phone. If this were true why on earth is there even a need for task manager Android apps to exist? I'm not saying Android isn't a great OS. It is damn nice. What I am saying is that if there is a need for a task manager they are doing it wrong.

Android is a multitasking phone OS. You can run more than one app at the same time, unlike the iPhone (until 4.0 turns up). Some people just like being able kill tasks even though the OS is quite capable of killing apps for itself if memory runs low. Again, this ability to tinker, improve, augment should be seen as a benefit. If I as a user or a developer don't like a default component I can just extend or replace it with one of my own choosing.

Re:Hopefully true - Closed vs. Open platforms

[Ol Olsoc]

As I open a nice Unix shell, and enjoy the true geeky goodness of a real command line on my Mac, it strikes me that if you think Apple is marginalizing creativity, and I mean this most respectfully, you just don't know crap about it. And that's only part of it

It even lets me run the "superior" Windows system on it, So again most respectfully. If I can run OSX, and Windows, and more just how is Apple limiting my options?

I'm Preparing For The

[Anonymous Coward]

Google BLEND.

Enjoy.

Yours In Petrograd,
Kilgore T.

Re:Teh wr0/\/g20Rz

[Anonymous Coward]

Google never made Android hardware. Both "Google" phones, the Nexus one and the G1 were designed and manufactured by HTC.

Quite the opposite

[dmesg0]

Apple is selling a phone with outdated hardware (screen size and type, low screen resolution, bad camera etc), while Android vendors continuously improve the hardware - look at Samsung Galaxy S specs, for example. The same will hopefully be true for android MIDs

By the way, I own nexus one, and with the right firmware (latest cyanogenmod with UV kernel), it's a great phone.

Re:Quite the opposite

[Foppel]

By the way, I own nexus one, and with the right firmware (latest cyanogenmod with UV kernel), it's a great phone.

And this sentence illustrates perfectly the biggest issue with the android platform.

Re:Quite the opposite

[DrgnDancer]

By the way, I own nexus one, and with the right firmware (latest cyanogenmod with UV kernel), it's a great phone.

That, to a large extent, is the problem. It's a perfectly reasonable thing for you to say, don't get me wrong, but 9/10 of the population would look at you and say, "Firmware? Is that some kind of new exercise plan? What do kernels have to do with it? Is their a corn diet too?"

I exaggerate only very slightly. iPhone continues to dominate the consumer smartphone space because people buy an iPhone and use it. Every so often iTunes pops up and tells you there's an OS update. It downloads and installs in a few minutes automatically like every other sync. Yeah, the major releases are sometimes a bit messy, but mostly it all just does what people expect it to, automatically.

If you get an app from the App Store it just work on your phone. No need to worry about which version of the OS is on it, whether your carrier has installed their own UI mods, or whether your phone supports the features. Even if your phone has some obvious missing feature, like a location based app on a first gen iPhone, the app works with the existing feature set and simply provides what information it can.

I'm not saying that the iPhone paradigm is better or worse. Certainly there is something to be said for flexibility and portability. When it comes to computers and electronics though, most people seem to prefer predictable and intuitive to flexible and portable. Ideally people want both, but we both know how easy that is to accomplish.

Re:Quite the opposite

[node 3]

Apple is selling a phone with outdated hardware (screen size and type, low screen resolution, bad camera etc), while Android vendors continuously improve the hardware - look at Samsung Galaxy S specs, for example.

Yet iPhone dominates Android in the market. Why do you suppose that is? It's because people don't care about spec sheets as much as you might think. They care about the only thing that truly matters, and that's the experiences having the device brings. No Android device can compete with the iPhone in that aspect, outside of a geek niche, regardless of specs.

And your specific list is fairly suspect:

1. Screen size: Some Android phones have larger screens. But this also means larger phones. It's a trade-off and not a simple matter of one is superior to the other.
2. Screen type: I assume you mean OLED, which is, presently, inferior to LCD is most respects. And just like #1, this is only on some phones.
3. Low screen resolution: Again, like #1 and #2, only some Android sets are higher resolution. Do you see a trend here? Do you see a problem? But anyway, most people really don't care. Sure, they'll prefer the higher resolution, but it's rarely going to be a deciding factor.
4. Bad camera: All cell phones have bad cameras. Megapixels are already almost meaningless on compact P&S cameras, and are more so on the minute CCDs on cell phones. And, surprise, surprise, not all Android phones have superior cameras.

In other words, pretty much nobody cares. It's the experience that matters, and the experience with an Android, any Android, is inferior to that of the iPhone, excepting the case where a person places higher value on some of Android's strengths, none of which you actually listed. The only inherent strength that Android has over iPhone is tinkerability. The fact that this resonates so well with many here on Slashdot is no surprise, and I'm glad such a phone exists for them, but to mistake niche appeal for something more than it is is a big mistake.

The same will hopefully be true for android MIDs

You are more correct than you realize.

Re:Quite the opposite

[bnenning]

That, to a large extent, is the problem. It's a perfectly reasonable thing for you to say, don't get me wrong, but 9/10 of the population would look at you and say, "Firmware? Is that some kind of new exercise plan? What do kernels have to do with it? Is their a corn diet too?"

And they don't have to care. The N1 is perfectly usable out of the box. If you want to, you can tweak it and make it even better. If you don't, it will still work just fine. How is that a problem?

If you get an app from the App Store it just work on your phone

This will unavoidably become less true as iPhone hardware improves. Already there are apps that work well on the 3GS but not the slower versions, and most existing iPhone apps look lousy when pixel-doubled on the iPad.

Re:Quite the opposite

[bnenning]

The only inherent strength that Android has over iPhone is tinkerability.

Apparently Apple believes that multitasking and folders are strengths...

Re:Quite the opposite

[node 3]

The only inherent strength that Android has over iPhone is tinkerability.

Apparently Apple believes that multitasking and folders are strengths...

Note the word "inherent". Multitasking is already a function of the iPhone, and folders are not something that's inherently Android but not iPhone.

The one thing that Android has, at its core, that the iPhone does not, is tinkerability. One of the fundamental design goals behind Android (after Google's acquisition of it) is that it be open (mostly) and hacker/tinker friendly. Cameras, folders, screens, multitasking, etc. None of these things are inherent to Android, but not to iPhone.

Re:Quite the opposite

[Touvan]

It's worth noting, that Android having only been pushed for a few months (it's been out longer, but the big push was last Christmas season) it's catching up to iPhone in terms of market share very very quickly. People's preferences are often trumped by other factors - most notably - price. Android will come to dominate despite the chaos that surrounds it. This is a repeat of the Windows vs. Mac competition of the 80s, only this time it's Apple vs. Google (MS is playing the role of UNIX this round - perpetually behind/slow).

Re:Quite the opposite

[DrgnDancer]

I'm personally pretty damned tempted by the HTC EVO that Sprint announced at CES. I've really liked my iPhone, but I gotta say that there is enough tech stuffed into that announcement that my "iPhone does everything I need" argument is starting to fail under the sheer volume of shiny. On the other hand, I really don't want to switch carriers. I know lots of people aren't pleased with AT&Ts network, but here in Northern Alabama it's pretty solid.

Re:Quite the opposite

[kellyb9]

Yet iPhone dominates Android in the market. Why do you suppose that is?

Marketing mostly.... your average consumer has NO IDEA what android is.

Re:Quite the opposite

[nahdude812]

I have a Nexus One also, which I upgraded to from my iPhone 3G. This is hands down a better phone than my iPhone was in a variety of ways.

Like anything, there are some downsides. For example, some people don't like the pixel configuration, which I only know because I read about it - Within a minute of using this device, personally I felt the screen was better than the iPhone's.

Its weaknesses come from a weaker app market (though this is rapidly closing the gap, and honestly most people wouldn't notice unless they were searching out a specific title), and weaker third party hardware support (fewer custom accessories since there are so many different handsets which run this OS). The car dock from Google is fantastic though, and makes this phone a better GPS than my dedicated GPS device by a pretty wide margin.

Re:Quite the opposite

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is selling a phone with outdated hardware (screen size and type, low screen resolution, bad camera etc), while Android vendors continuously improve the hardware - look at Samsung Galaxy S specs, for example. The same will hopefully be true for android MIDs

Comparing "specs" of one product to another is the greatest mistake people make with Apple products. iPods, iPhones, and now iPads don't have the best specifications or more features. Company X releasing product Y will tend to have more features plus the kitchen sink thrown into their product. That will then be touted as reasons product Y is the next i-Killer. It rarely ever is.

Re:Quite the opposite

[DrDitto]

OLED inferior? Have you ever used the 800x400 OLED screen on the Nexus One? The screen is stunning.

Re:Quite the opposite

[BondGamer]

The average person doesn't use Google.com? Google has advertised their new phone a few times. Google has free advertising to millions of people every day. Apple is at the disadvantage here when it comes to advertisements.

Re:Quite the opposite

[node 3]

Yet iPhone dominates Android in the market. Why do you suppose that is?

Marketing mostly.... your average consumer has NO IDEA what android is.

If Android were superior, people would know. But it's not. Not for them. It's only superior for those that place a high value on the ability to tinker with their phone. Which is to say, statistically pretty much no one.

There are plenty of "Droid Does" ads, and it's not like they hide the Android phones in the back room at the phone stores. To blame Apple's success on marketing is a cop out. If Apple didn't have quality products to back up their marketing, their products would have faded away as a fad by now.

Re:Quite the opposite

[nahdude812]

As you point out, different model Android phones have different strengths. Interestingly, users for whom specific features are important can locate a handset which has strengths in that area. Don't like OLED, fine, buy a LCD model. Don't like on-screen keyboards, get one with a physical. Want a high resolution, buy one with that.

The point is that with Android, it's about customer choice, and less about sole-manufacturer choice.

Also, the four points you highlight: Screen Size, Screen Type, Screen Resolution, and Camera Quality are all four better on the Nexus One than on the iPhone (within the bounds of objective measurability). Of course you're right, some people prefer the washed out colors and higher battery consumption that comes with LCD. But then some people prefer vinyl audio to digital, and some people even prefer MP3 to a lossless format. People like what they learned to like, and even ostensibly objective differences can still be subjectively rejected.

Having used an iPhone 3G for 2 years, then upgraded to Nexus One last month, I can say without reservation that this upgrade was money well spent. I kept my iPhone so I could use it like an iPod Touch and use the apps I'd already bought for it as well as use it to listen to music. It makes kind of an ugly paperweight over on under that pile of papers where it's currently been untouched for weeks.

Re:Quite the opposite

[brianleb321]

Apple is selling a phone with outdated hardware (screen size and type, low screen resolution, bad camera etc), while Android vendors continuously improve the hardware - look at Samsung Galaxy S specs, for example.

Yet iPhone dominates Android in the market. Why do you suppose that is? It's because people don't care about spec sheets as much as you might think. They care about the only thing that truly matters, and that's the experiences having the device brings. No Android device can compete with the iPhone in that aspect, outside of a geek niche, regardless of specs.

Actually, the reason the iPhone dominates Android is because the iPhone has been available for several years longer than Android products. It has an established user base. Given that we're talking about several hundred dollar handpieces here, a lot of middle-America is going to wait until they need to switch (or until it's cheapest) before they make that decision again.

Re:Quite the opposite

[maadmole]

The market will decide iPhone vs Android, but there's another reason "specmanship" is pointless. It is a leapfrog game for things like screen size, memory, etc. The Android phones came out nearly half a year later than 3GS... do you really think the next iPhone won't likewise advance? Ditto for RiM, Palm (if they stay in business), etc. For the most part other companies are developing the most fundamental technologies, and handheld manufacturersare just riding the curves.

Re:Quite the opposite

[BobMcD]

And they don't have to care. The N1 is perfectly usable out of the box. If you want to, you can tweak it and make it even better. If you don't, it will still work just fine. How is that a problem?

Shifting the subject against the rebuttal is bad form.

OP said:

By the way, I own nexus one, and with the right firmware (latest cyanogenmod with UV kernel), it's a great phone.

The implicit is that without these it is not a 'great phone', and THAT would be the 'how' this is a problem. Yeah?

Re:Quite the opposite

[BobMcD]

The one thing that Android has, at its core, that the iPhone does not, is tinkerability. One of the fundamental design goals behind Android (after Google's acquisition of it) is that it be open (mostly) and hacker/tinker friendly. Cameras, folders, screens, multitasking, etc. None of these things are inherent to Android, but not to iPhone.

I'd broaden this to 'choice'. You can choose what software you run on the Android AND you get a choice in who manufactures the device it runs on as well. There are multiple price/feature/network options to mix and match.

You spent considerable time pointing out how the platforms differ from device to device a few posts back, and somehow this fact eluded you? How so?

Re:Quite the opposite

[BobMcD]

If Apple didn't have quality products to back up their marketing, their products would have faded away as a fad by now.

Fad, no. Niche, yes. Think about it.

Re:Quite the opposite

[BobMcD]

The Android phones came out nearly half a year later than 3GS... do you really think the next iPhone won't likewise advance?

In a word, yes. Apple doesn't much care about the hardware being amongst the best available. They never have, they never will. They will advance, to be sure, but they will certainly not likewise do so. They'll lag behind, just as they always have, with the possible exception of the PowerPC or whatever it was.

Re:Quite the opposite

[cheesybagel]

No, several Android phones have larger and/or higher resolution screens (in DPI).

I'm guessing when iPhone uses OLED in a couple of generations you will think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Apple does not increase the resolution partly because their GUI API is braindamaged, so iPhone applications are not resolution independent because of this. Notice they took the trouble of using a display with exactly 2x the horizontal and vertical resolution for the iPad and people still think compatibility mode sucks. This is unlike any recent resolution independent GUIs, and is particularly damning considering MacOS X does not suffer from this problem. Heck I think NeXTStep did not suffer from this problem.

Cellphones don't use CCDs for the camera dummy. They use CMOS sensors because they are lower power, cheaper, smaller, and have a higher pixel density. Nice if you want to claim your camera has a zillion megapixels.

I think you are severely mistaken and the Android platform will overtake the iPhone, just like the IBM PC clones overtook the Commodore 64, Apple II, and whatever. The push for this is nearly irresistible.

Re:Quite the opposite

[cheesybagel]

What did you expect from the guy (Steve Jobs) who insisted the first Apple Macintosh had a black and white display, bolted onto the main unit? I mean even the Commodore 64 was color. Heck a Magnavox Odyssey was color. Then like a decade passed and the first NeXTStep computer still had a black and white display. Jobs loves removing features. It is like his passion. It is said the Amiga developer team showed him a prototype and his expression was that "it had too much hardware". In retrospect he was correct. But the guy is still a minimalist.

Re:Quite the opposite

[cheesybagel]

It's called first mover advantage. However it means squat in the long term if you shoot yourself in the foot, like Apple is doing.

Re:Quite the opposite

[tknd]

The grand parent should have left out the part about firmware. It is possible to root an android phone install a custom firmware but that's obviously not the intended feature.

Every so often iTunes pops up and tells you there's an OS update. It downloads and installs in a few minutes automatically like every other sync.

Whenever there is an update to the firmware on the phone by the phone distributer (in my case technically T-Mobile), my android phone will notify me that a firmware update is available and ready to install (it downloads it automatically). I don't have to connect it to a computer or anything. I don't pay $5 or whatever. It just works.

If you get an app from the App Store it just work on your phone. No need to worry about which version of the OS is on it, whether your carrier has installed their own UI mods, or whether your phone supports the features.

The first part is partially wrong. In android you can set a minimum version level your application will support. This prevents it from getting distributed in the Market to phones with older versions of android. It is possible to have two version of your application, one for older versions of android with features stripped out, and one for newer versions such that newer phones see both version of the application as compatible. But this will also begin to exist in the iphone world since not all iphones are getting updated to support every new feature.

Now the part about UI mods and features, sure, that's true. But I'm not so sure that's a bad thing. If the newest android phone comes with a feature that is unheard of (even for iphones) then it is a good thing because it means the hardware is improving. With the iphone you're stuck with what the iphone comes with, no more no less.

Re:Quite the opposite

[node 3]

The one thing that Android has, at its core, that the iPhone does not, is tinkerability. One of the fundamental design goals behind Android (after Google's acquisition of it) is that it be open (mostly) and hacker/tinker friendly. Cameras, folders, screens, multitasking, etc. None of these things are inherent to Android, but not to iPhone.

I'd broaden this to 'choice'. You can choose what software you run on the Android AND you get a choice in who manufactures the device it runs on as well. There are multiple price/feature/network options to mix and match.

You spent considerable time pointing out how the platforms differ from device to device a few posts back, and somehow this fact eluded you? How so?

Neither of those things are inherent to Android, but not to iPhone.

On the iPhone, you not only get to choose which software to run, but you have a much wider array of choices. You also have a choice of hardware (although much more limited, to be sure). But that's not what I said, I said (which you quoted, yet somehow this fact eluded you. How so?):

"The one thing that Android has, at its core, that the iPhone does not, is tinkerability."

Re:Quite the opposite

[Touvan]

For me on the tablet front - I have to be able to let my kids play nickjr, disney, and webkins - not to mention robot galaxy, build-a-bear etc. on long trips - it needs Flash, and Apple is being wrong headed about it. The Android tablets are likely to let me put whatever plugins I want on it (if not, I won't buy those either), and that has appeal (even if it's less important on a phone - it should be my damn choice).

Re:Quite the opposite

[LoudMusic]

A) I fucking hate Apple. But everything you said is correct.

2) Console gaming proves it.

Re:Quite the opposite

[Buelldozer]

"Yet iPhone dominates Android in the market."

Danger! I detect starry eyes! Well, it's that or out of date information.

The truth is that Android phone sales are on a rocketship headed straight up. If they stay on pace Android handsets are expected to surpass the iPhone in 2011 or so.

http://industry.bnet.com/technology/10005344/android-unit-sales-catching-iphones/

So Apple's iPhone is ahead yes, but mostly because they had a head start. Android shipping 5.4 million handsets in a quarter is no small feat. The iPhone has only managed it thrice since 2007.

Is it technically accurate to say that iPhone is "dominating"? Arguably yes, but to use that to justfy everything else you wrote is laughable in light of the competitions performance. It's also funny to hear about iPhone "dominating" when it's getting it's ass thorougly kicked by Symbian and RIM.

The iPhone is sexy and mostly functional but it is not the final word in smartphone development, it's not even close.

Re:Quite the opposite

[Buelldozer]

I would disagree with this. In the past week I've seen the Motorola Droid in use by a middle aged lady behind the counter at the gas station and several teenage girls. If that's not "average consumer" I don't know what is.

Re:Quite the opposite

[antiseptic_poetry]

The Sony Ericsson Cybershot series of phones contain CCD sensors. Very good picture quality, I no longer have a need for a digital camera.

Re:Quite the opposite

[Skreems]

My Macbook crashes or locks up waaaaay more frequently than my Windows desktop, and yet the Macbook has not faded into obscurity. Apple makes beautiful, high quality hardware (for which you pay a premium), and mediocre software at best.

Re:Quite the opposite

[BobMcD]

With the iPhone you have zero choice of hardware. You can choose Apple or nothing, which isn't any choice at all, is it?

Since Apple never intended their OS for use on non-Apple hardware, and since Google never intended Android to be exclusive, these are indeed inherent traits, by the definition of the word.

So, one important example of a thing that Android has, at its core, that the iPhone does not, is the choice between CDMA and GSM. I could go T-Mobile or Verizon and still have an Android device. Possibly even the same family of device. I can make this choice without ever tinkering with anything at all - neither hardware nor software. I cannot do so on the iPhone due to Apple's very concept of the product. This may change in the future, but it was envisioned this way in Apple's camp while Google had the exact opposite in mind. Apple has decided that I need to select GSM to enjoy the iPhone's OS, and that I am not permitted to experience how it would behave on CDMA. Their exclusivity is by design, just as Google's openness is by design. These are intrinsic to the concept.

What are you seeing that I'm not?

Re:Quite the opposite

[node 3]

No, several Android phones have larger and/or higher resolution screens (in DPI).

Please quote where I said they didn't.

I'm guessing when iPhone uses OLED in a couple of generations you will think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Only if OLED has advanced to a point where it's sufficiently superior to LCD. This is the canard that the anti-Apple brigade always likes to trot out, that "something is bad until Apple does it, then it's good". But the case is usually, "something is bad, which is why Apple doesn't do it. Then, when that thing is no longer bad, Apple does it."

Apple does not increase the resolution partly because their GUI API is braindamaged, so iPhone applications are not resolution independent because of this.

You are clueless as to the way Cocoa Touch applications work. Apple has not increased the resolution because they want apps to work exactly the same across all iPhones, excepting speed improvements and additional features. Having a screen that's 10% wider than another, and one that's 20% taller, etc., does not fit Apple's model for consistency.

Notice they took the trouble of using a display with exactly 2x the horizontal and vertical resolution for the iPad

Except it's not.

and people still think compatibility mode sucks.

This is because the iPad is not simply a "big iPhone that can't make calls" like so many jackasses seem to think it is. The larger screen and higher resolution leads to entirely different UIs, and a UI designed for the iPhone will be inferior to a UI designed specifically for the iPad. This also undermines you point that the only reason Apple keeps the same resolution is because apps aren't resolution independent. It's because a screen that's even a little bit wider or taller in pixel count will benefit from apps designed specifically for that resolution.

Cellphones don't use CCDs for the camera dummy. They use CMOS sensors because they are lower power, cheaper, smaller, and have a higher pixel density. Nice if you want to claim your camera has a zillion megapixels.

Bearing absolutely *zero* affect on what I wrote, which is that megapixel count is largely irrelevant as it concerns picture quality.

I think you are severely mistaken and the Android platform will overtake the iPhone, just like the IBM PC clones overtook the Commodore 64, Apple II, and whatever. The push for this is nearly irresistible.

Stated with absolutely *zero* reasoning. Android will be on more handsets, but as a platform, Android has a long ways to go in order to supplant iPhone OS, and Android's potential to surpass iPhone is by no means "irresistible".

People said the same thing about the iPod vs Plays For Sure. They said the same thing about iPhone vs Windows Mobile. And vs Palm. Who knows, maybe some day they will be right, but that day is not any time soon, so for now, I have the luxury of using not only the *best* mobile platform, but also the *most popular*.

Re:Quite the opposite

[node 3]

Apple makes beautiful, high quality hardware (for which you pay a premium), and mediocre software at best.

Yet the fact that you don't primarily run Windows on it argues otherwise.

Re:Quite the opposite

[pablodiazgutierrez]

The hardware fight is tilted towards Android hands down. And still, iPhone/iPad's responsiveness is better, by a matter of milliseconds, or it might be just perception, but everyone I know agrees. I guess it's Java getting in the way?

Re:Quite the opposite

[node 3]

With the iPhone you have zero choice of hardware.

This is not true.

You can choose Apple or nothing

This is true.

Since Apple never intended their OS for use on non-Apple hardware, and since Google never intended Android to be exclusive, these are indeed inherent traits, by the definition of the word.

This is part of tinkerability. You can put Android on whatever you want, including a PC.

But choice, in hardware and software, is not something inherent to Android but not to iPhone. Choice in hardware manufacturers is. If you want to break that out from tinkerability, I have no problem with that, but it doesn't really change anything.

As far as the bulk of your post discussing CDMA, that's not inherent to the iPhone, it's simply an implementation decision. There's nothing about the iPhone design or philosophy that precludes building a CDMA handset. In fact, the iPhone was originally offered to Verizon, to run on their CDMA network. But they turned it down.

Re:Quite the opposite

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I think you are severely mistaken and the Android platform will overtake the iPhone, just like the IBM PC clones overtook the Commodore 64, Apple II, and whatever. The push for this is nearly irresistible.

Android will sell more devices, no doubt, but will Android Apps sell better? Will Android as a platform bring any real advantages? Unfortunately, no. Everyone seems to make the comparison to desktop machines and while if my desktop were as locked down as my iPhone, I'd go mad, the reverse in my experience of a string of crap WinMo phones and using Palm devices(which mostly weren't crap until the end), yes, the reverse is true. Desktop metaphors and paradigms don't work in the mobile sphere.

Re:Quite the opposite

[djrosen]

How So? It argues that since he paid way more for the hardware than he should have, that he might as well run the OS that's is licensed to run on it, otherwise spend half the price and be done with it. OR he could work in a the Graphics industry and is limited to what software he can use, etc.

Re:Quite the opposite

[BobMcD]

Since Apple never intended their OS for use on non-Apple hardware, and since Google never intended Android to be exclusive, these are indeed inherent traits, by the definition of the word.

This is part of tinkerability. You can put Android on whatever you want, including a PC.

If I buy a PC preloaded with Ubuntu, am I now tinkering?

Choice in hardware manufacturers is. If you want to break that out from tinkerability, I have no problem with that, but it doesn't really change anything.

Buying a shrink-wrapped product and using it without modification is never tinkering, period. This isn't being broken out to placate me personally. It is simply the proper uses of the words.

I think you're abusing the tinkering label to make your point, and I think you've gone so far with it as to strain logic.

As far as the bulk of your post discussing CDMA, that's not inherent to the iPhone, it's simply an implementation decision. There's nothing about the iPhone design or philosophy that precludes building a CDMA handset. In fact, the iPhone was originally offered to Verizon, to run on their CDMA network. But they turned it down.

The inherent philosophy behind the iPhone is, and has always been, 'the iPhone user experience'. Aka 'my way or the highway'. This specifically precludes using anything other than the stuff shipping out of Cupertino. If the new iPhone switches to TCP over Carrier Pigeon, you have no choice but to accept it, should you wish to stay on that platform. With Android, this cannot be - and this is intrinsic in the very concept.

This changes everything.

Re:Quite the opposite

[node 3]

"Yet iPhone dominates Android in the market."

Danger! I detect starry eyes! Well, it's that or out of date information.

Except for the fact that it happens to be true.

The truth is that Android phone sales are on a rocketship headed straight up. If they stay on pace Android handsets are expected to surpass the iPhone in 2011 or so.

If bacteria continued their growth at the same rate during their early growth phase, the entire universe would be made of bacteria in no time.

"Starry Eyes" indeed.

So Apple's iPhone is ahead yes

In other words, I'm correct.

Is it technically accurate to say that iPhone is "dominating"? Arguably yes, but to use that to justfy everything else you wrote is laughable in light of the competitions performance. It's also funny to hear about iPhone "dominating" when it's getting it's ass thorougly kicked by Symbian and RIM.

The iPhone is dominating them as well. Units shipped is a poor metric. Apple is by far the most popular smart phone in terms of usage, in terms of apps, in terms of customer satisfaction, in terms of profitability. You name it.

The iPhone is sexy and mostly functional but it is not the final word in smartphone development, it's not even close.

You're right. Year after year Apple finds a way to improve upon the smart phone, surpassing their last product.

However, it's pretty undeniable that Apple is the market leader. The only metric they don't have covered is most units sold.

Or put differently, do you not think there's a single handset make who wouldn't jump at the chance to trade places with Apple? There isn't.

The only real competition that Apple has right now is Google, and Google isn't competing on quality, but quantity, and they're presently even losing *that* battle. When they're not, that'll be an interesting milestone, but also largely irrelevant as Apple will still be the premier handset maker.

This is because Google doesn't care about quality or handset profitability. What they care about is ad revenue, and to get that, they need the *broadest* customer base they can get, not the *best* customer base, or the most directly *profitable* customer base, just numbers. A game which they are still losing at, btw.

Re:Quite the opposite

[cheesybagel]

Which model would this be? The SE Cybershot C905 certainly isn't. It uses a CMOS sensor like everyone else. Even DSLRs use CMOS now.

Re:Quite the opposite

[node 3]

How So? It argues that since he paid way more for the hardware than he should have, that he might as well run the OS that's is licensed to run on it, otherwise spend half the price and be done with it.

That doesn't make any sense. Why buy the Mac in the first place if that was his opinion? In fact, it *wasn't* his opinion. He stated that Mac hardware is both beautiful and high quality. Running Windows on a Mac doesn't change the hardware, so if he truly thinks Windows is better, why wouldn't he run that, and have both the hardware he prefers *and* the OS he prefers?

OR he could work in a the Graphics industry and is limited to what software he can use, etc.

Yeah, that's probably it... /rollseyes

Re:Quite the opposite

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone is spending an awful lot of time defending their ego, err, iPhone. Come on, admit that you're none one other than Steve Jobs himself. It's ok, we'll keep your secret.

Re:Quite the opposite

[dmesg0]

I guess my first post was quite misunderstood. Android is perfectly usable out of the box and is a very nice OS. No knowledge of kernels and ROMs is required to use it efficiently (although rooting is recommended for a lot of extra stuff ).

However Nexus One specifically has a few hardware glitches, and I grew tired of waiting for Google to fix them. After installing cyanogenmod the phone is much more responsive, has almost twice as much RAM (I still fail to understand why google kernels limit the RAM to just 256MB, while 512 is actually available), and the touch screen doesn't go crazy 10 times a day. Heck, the latest test kernel even improves the loudness of the speakerphone.

Unlike some other ROMs (e.g. Modaco's HTC Desire rom for N1), cyanogenmod doesn't change the interface at all. So I end up using the same android but faster and better.

Re:Quite the opposite

[node 3]

If I buy a PC preloaded with Ubuntu, am I now tinkering?

No. But the hardware manufacturer tinkered with Ubuntu to get it onto the PC (or maybe not, with Ubuntu and PCs, but with handsets, this is exactly what must happen, and exactly what Android specifically promotes).

With iPhone OS, however, other hardware makers are *not* allowed to tinker with the OS to get it to run on their handsets.

Buying a shrink-wrapped product and using it without modification is never tinkering, period. This isn't being broken out to placate me personally. It is simply the proper uses of the words.

I think you're abusing the tinkering label to make your point, and I think you've gone so far with it as to strain logic.

No, because I'm not saying what you think I'm saying. I've also already stated that if you want to break it out into a separate category, I don't mind.

I never said, "end-user tinkerability", I said "tinkerability". And the ability for HTC, Motorola, etc., to ship Android handsets stems *directly* from Android's tinkerability. If you want to break it out into a separate category, however, like I've said more than once, feel free.

The inherent philosophy behind the iPhone is, and has always been, 'the iPhone user experience'. Aka 'my way or the highway'. This specifically precludes using anything other than the stuff shipping out of Cupertino. If the new iPhone switches to TCP over Carrier Pigeon, you have no choice but to accept it, should you wish to stay on that platform. With Android, this cannot be - and this is intrinsic in the very concept.

Yes, exactly. You can tinker with Android and make your own phone, that uses TCP over Carrier Pigeon, if you are so inclined. But there's nothing inherent in iPhone OS that precludes Apple choosing Avian TCP.

This changes everything.

The only thing it changes is that it allows third parties to fracture the Android market. And this *ALL* stems from their ability to tinker with the system. Some can make hardware keyboards, some have flashes on their cameras, etc.

Re:Quite the opposite

[Anonymous Coward]

>some people prefer the [...] higher battery consumption that comes with LCD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_LED#Power_consumption

Re:Quite the opposite

[cheesybagel]

Hah. You are comparing the iTunes store with a more closed platform which did not even support MP3 properly and had obnoxious DRM. If anything it was MP3 which won. Like Amazon MP3. Even despite being a technically inferior codec people prefer being able to use non-DRM MP3 than AAC or WMA. Music player hardware is getting increasingly irrelevant ever since cellphones got audio jacks and MP3 support. They will eventually be pushed out of the mainstream market, just like general purpose computers displaced typewriters.

As for Android it only got decent with version 2.0. This is comparable to Windows, version 1.0 sucked and it took version 2.0 for MS to get it right. Once they did it sales went through the roof around the time of version 3.0. Apple is clearly more aware of this than you are since they are suing HTC, just like they sued Microsoft in the 80s.

Re:Quite the opposite

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple: you can do whatever Steve want you to do.

Android: you can do whatever YOU want. You can buy better hardware if you can afford it.

Obviously you have not seen the EVO 4G or the aforementioned Galaxy S. Better hardware provides better results and experience. When 3rd party apps comes in, it's experience is purely determined by the apps. Besides, if I were to write iphone apps, I would also release Android apps, why should I close the door to money making opportunities? That's is why for the last month alone, there were 9000 entries to the Android market. Sure there will be good app and bad ones, same as win32 apps on the desktop. It only matters if an app does what it says, for example an app that blocks anonymous / advertiser / automated cold call. Whether such app has "nice" UI does not matter to me at all.

I am not sure if Apple ALLOW me to read a "downloaded" pdf/epub book, (there are tons of them on the net). I can even convert text/pdf/doc to epub and read it. Android does.

I don't think the Apple ALLOW me to access non-English books, since there is none available.

I don't think the Apple ALLOW me to buy any books outside US servers, perhaps those servers has not exists yet.

I don't think Apple ALLOW me to download pr0n, it's a huge market in Japan.

I don't think Apple ALLOW me to download something like the Android "vibrator" app, either.

But Apple would like to stick ADS up your screen every time you open an app, how's that for experience? iAdblock anyone?

Android app is easy to write, and fun too. Besides, I don't need to get a Mac. Linux and Windows pc will do just fine. Is that tinkering?

Re:Quite the opposite

[njfuzzy]

You must be new here.

Re:Quite the opposite

[toriver]

Exactly: You have ONE vendor which has ONE telephone. As opposed to MULTIPLE vendors competing for a slice of the Android pie, eventually leading to divergence in the platform because each one wants to stand out from the rest. Then you end up with J2ME all over again.

Combined with manufacturers with MULTIPLE devices each targeted at a small-ish segment. But these devices cost money to research, design, manufacture, and this base cost needs to be split across the few-ish that sell of each model. For an added bonus some of these manufacturers (looks at Nokia) cannot decide and push a multitude of operating systems and application frameworks, including support for developers and users both. Which drives costs.

So to recap:

ONE phone for everyone with ONE OS = win.

MANY phones (because they think they have different target markets) with DIFFERENT OSes (because they think developers are fickle) = lose.

Eventually.

Re:Quite the opposite

[cheesybagel]

Does not matter. I think eventually all the cellphone market is going to consist of what we today call smartphones. The BRIC countries need thousands of millions of phones. iPhone does not seem to be the one who is going to do it. For another thing Apple seems unwilling to replicate its highly successful iPod strategy, where they segmented their product line into several products to compete across the whole spectrum.

Re:Quite the opposite

[BobMcD]

tinker [ting-ker]

1. a mender of pots, kettles, pans, etc., usually an itinerant.

2. an unskillful or clumsy worker; bungler.

3. a person skilled in various minor kinds of mechanical work; jack-of-all-trades.

4. an act or instance of tinkering: Let me have a tinker at that motor.

5. Scot., Irish English.

a. a gypsy.

b. any itinerant worker.

c. a wanderer.

d. a beggar.

6. chub mackerel.

–verb (used without object)

7. to busy oneself with a thing without useful results: Stop tinkering with that clock and take it to the repair shop.

8. to work unskillfully or clumsily at anything.

9. to do the work of a tinker.

–verb (used with object)

10. to mend as a tinker.

11. to repair in an unskillful, clumsy, or makeshift way.

Put it this way...

Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Unless anyone but Apple is an unskilled gypsy, that is.

Re:Quite the opposite

[BobMcD]

So to recap:

ONE phone for everyone with ONE OS = win.

MANY phones (because they think they have different target markets) with DIFFERENT OSes (because they think developers are fickle) = lose.

Eventually.

Welcome to 1981. Your name is IBM. Enjoy the next few decades. You'll do well for yourself in certain fields, but you're completely, totally wrong about what the consumer market wants.

Re:Quite the opposite

[mdwh2]

iPhone continues to dominate the consumer smartphone space

Well, for starters, they don't - just check the market data. No one company dominates, but closest are Nokia, at 40-50%.

And whilst updating firmware is annoying, how is this any different to the "But it can do that if you jailbreak it" response when someone points out how the Iphones lack a basic feature? You think random member of the public knows what "jailbreaking" is - and would want to try something so dubious sounding to their expensive product?

I don't know about Android, but the claims you list for Apple are true for Symbian too.

Re:Quite the opposite

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I think it does. If the Android platform becomes so toxic that handset makers abandon it, what then?

Re:Quite the opposite

[mdwh2]

I agree, although I'd say the more interesting comparison will be Android versus Symbian, as Nokia have the largest market share - how Android does compared to other small players is of little relevance to the big picture.

Android has the advantage of taking advantage of the market share from all the other companies (e.g., LG, Samsung, Motorola) who currently don't have their own decent OS, and hence may be eager to use Android (as Motorola have done - not sure about the others yet?) but can nonetheless ship plenty of phones (all of them have way more market share than Apple). But at 40-50% of the market, Nokia are still some strong competition to that.

I'm also curious to see what will happen to the low end. Symbian is already on low end phones (e.g., the Nokia 5230 at only £100 on PAYG in the UK, which is pretty much well into "feature phone" price range). Feature phones have long hand Internet access and apps, and now have large touchscreens - the limiting factor is traditionally the OS. For Nokia, we could see them ship Symbian on even lower end phones. Meanwhile, what if Android starts shipping on these cheap phones? These are the phones which dominate, and once they have the OS, for most people these phones will be good enough. Apple won't get a look in, unless they dramatically change their style (selling products at high profit margins is generally what they prefer).

Note that one problem with a Mac/whatever versus PC/Windows analogy is that by the time that platforms like the Mac, Amiga, etc appeared, the PC was already dominant. Here, the dominant platform is Symbian, and the "open" Android is having to fight against that.

Re:Quite the opposite

[mdwh2]

Yet iPhone dominates Android in the market. Why do you suppose that is?

Because most people are buying neither - they're both dominated by other companies (most notably, Nokia). I don't know what the Iphone is selling better than Android, though the latter hasn't been available for long, and it will be interesting if the other phone companies switch over to Android entirely, as their market share (even individually) beats Apple.

The only inherent strength that Android has over iPhone is tinkerability.

What strengths do the Iphones have?

The fact that this resonates so well with many here on Slashdot is no surprise, and I'm glad such a phone exists for them, but to mistake niche appeal for something more than it is is a big mistake.

Quoted for irony. That's exactly how I see people's view regarding the Iphones, here on Slashdot. You shouldn't mistake niche appeal for something more than that.

Re:Quite the opposite

[mdwh2]

They probably don't know what Darwin is either.

But they know about things like the Google phone, Droid, and so on. Although having said that, I do agree - the overwhelming free advertising for Apple, but less so for Google, means that Android unfairly has it harder. (It's interesting though that the biggest player in the market (Nokia) don't get any free advertising at all - they're hardly even mentioned here on Slashdot, for example.)

Re:Quite the opposite

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPhone dominates the market b/c they were the first one out.... they now have a ton of apps, and the biggest thing is that Apple is the newest fad!!!!!

Whether they release the best product or not they get people all excited and people buy the product before determining if they even want it. The iPad is a freaking joke.... it's merely an iPhone with a bigger screen.

I have an iPhone and if it was not paid for by work, I wouldn't have it!!!!! I hate all the DRM and locking down that apple does (and their phone's security is still a joke!), I can't even get flash on the phone!

I like Apples interface but I am against some of their companies CORE PRINCIPALS!!!! (I try to support linux whenever possible!)

Re:Quite the opposite

[mdwh2]

The iPhone is dominating them as well. Units shipped is a poor metric. Apple is by far the most popular smart phone in terms of usage, in terms of apps, in terms of customer satisfaction, in terms of profitability. You name it.

Did you really just say that? Number of items sold is a "poor metric" in terms of how popular each company is?

Standard Apple fan tactic - redefine market share to mean something else. Let's see:

* Do you have stats for how much people use their phone? If you mean web usage, that's a poor indicator. It just rewards Iphone users for being wasteful on downloads when people such as me try to respect fair usage limits on our networks. Furthermore, it penalises platforms like Symbian that are more efficient on download usage (e.g., maps can be stored locally).
* You have a source for the number of "apps" - nope, I'm not interesting in only the official app stores, as it's only Apple that restricts you to those.
* Customer satisfaction? You have a source for this? It's a "poor metric" anyhow in terms of how a company dominates.
* Yes, Apple make money off of people. From the consumer point of view, I'm not sure why this is most important - and by that logic, you should be loving Microsoft.

However, it's pretty undeniable that Apple is the market leader. The only metric they don't have covered is most units sold.

God, you really believe it don't you. The RDF is so powerful, that you've given up any attempt to argue reasonably - instead you just twist everything to its advantage.

Seriously, let's enter fantasy land for a moment, and imagine that Apple really were the market leader - which means, to everyone else on the planet, selling the most number. You'd be all over it, saying how wonderful Apple was - and if it was Nokia at 5% of market share, but someone say "But people are more satisfied with Nokia, honest", would you believe them, and agree that Nokia were market leader? Of course not.

And now I'm going to argue that the Amiga is the market leader in computers. Sure, it doesn't sell well or anything like that, but that's a poor metric. People were always satisfied with them, so I'm going to claim it's the best, therefore that's what counts, and it's market leader. You can't argue with that, can you?

Year after year Apple finds a way to improve upon the smart phone, surpassing their last product.

Yes, just like every other company in the market. It's what we call progress. In technology, it happens a lot.

Re:Quite the opposite

[mdwh2]

Indeed. And that reminds me, when I have pointed out Nokia's dominating market share in the past, I inevitably get an Iphone fan pleading how it's not a fair comparison, because Apple have only been in the market for three years, and we should be amazed how a billion dollar company has managed to obtain a few per cent market share in that short time. So it's amusing to see that this argument doesn't apply for Android, for some reason.

Of course it's the same old story - any argument whatsoever is valid if it is in favour of Apple, and invalid when it isn't.

Re:Quite the opposite

[mr100percent]

Flash won't work properly on a touchscreen. How will it tell the difference between a mouseover and a click? Ever tried to use the javascript toolbars on an iPad or iPhone? You can't navigate those sites even with a flash plugin

Re:Quite the opposite

[mdwh2]

Yes - I was amused to see that even my 5800 at half the price (which is never mentioned at all in the media) beats the Iphone resolution hands down (and in other ways, too).

It's interesting to see how the "one model" idea is backfiring. The supposed advantage is that if there's only one model, it means there's a standard set of features that application developers can assume. Okay fine, I can see that. But the downside of this is that technology moves on quickly - Apple either has to end up with outdated technology as they are currently doing, or choose between either updating it (in which case, they've the problem of multiple different models, same as anyone else after all), or breaking compatibility with an all new phone, which then just fragments their market, and risks losing their old users.

Re:Quite the opposite

[Skuld-Chan]

iPhone dominates now, but Android is growing extremely fast (adoption rate was 4x faster than iPhone in January for instance).

1) Nexus one is about the same size as an iphone physically - its actually thinner (and has user serviceable memory and battery)
2) AMOLED looks better indoors - its a fair tradeoff. Marty Cooper said that over 70% of all cell phone calls are made inside anyhow.
3) ?
4) Not all phones have bad cameras. Everything else on the N97 sucked, except the camera - which takes photo's just as good as many dedicated digital cameras.

Oddly enough a good chunk of all the features in iPhone OS are in Android already - like the multi-account single inbox (which blackberry invented), multi-tasking and the location services. iPhone OS 4 is in fact playing catchup with Android at this point.

Having used an iPhone and Android I'd say the user experience is very very similar - except the Android OS is far more capable of consuming media for the simple fact its not marred down in rules and ego. There's nothing limiting an engineering firm from making an app that runs on Android to fulfill user requirements. But its the apps you say? Every quarter they announce that the marketplace has another 3000-4000 new apps, many of which were made popular on the iPhone :).

Re:Quite the opposite

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, um no! How much marketing do Apple do prior to announcement of the iPad? Exactly none. Yet, pretty much the whole world knew about. Even nerds who don't actually live in the real world. That's not marketing. You cannot buy what that was from any marketing company in the world. That was Apple's history of releasing outstanding products. That's why everyone knows about Apple products and, not so much, about everyone else's.

Re:Quite the opposite

[shutdown -p now]

I own a Nexus One as well, and it is still a great phone with the firmware that came out of the box (I haven't even tried rooting it).

Re:Quite the opposite

[shutdown -p now]

The picture is stunning, absolutely - except under sunlight (but then LCD screens don't fare much better there).

The thing drains battery like there's no tomorrow when in use, though. When checking battery usage by category on my N1, it always shows screen as >50%, and more often than not >60%, of all power consumption.

Sure, in theory, it's easier on the battery for dark backgrounds, but how many of those do you see when, say, browsing the Web, or using Google Maps?

Oh, and the screen isn't quite 800x480 that they advertise. Well, it is, but it is PenTile RGBG - meaning that each pixel isn't a full RGB pixel, but rather, every odd pixel only has R and G subpixels, and every even pixel only has B and G - and then they use subpixel dithering to make it look right for other color blends. So the effective resolution is lower; in fact, it is variable, depending on what colors are being used - for solid red or blue, it is effectively twice as low.

(All that said, the screen is still better than one on iPhone...)

Re:Quite the opposite

[node 3]

Did you really just say that? Number of items sold is a "poor metric" in terms of how popular each company is?

Standard Apple fan tactic - redefine market share to mean something else. Let's see:

Yes, I did. And I backed it up. Every other indicator favors the iPhone.

And like I said:

"Or put differently, do you not think there's a single handset make who wouldn't jump at the chance to trade places with Apple? There isn't."

That really sums it up right there. Which mobile maker do you think would not trade their entire phone division for Apple's phone division?

If Apple weren't the market leader, why do you think every single other handset maker would trade places with them in a heartbeat?

And now I'm going to argue that the Amiga is the market leader in computers. Sure, it doesn't sell well or anything like that, but that's a poor metric. People were always satisfied with them, so I'm going to claim it's the best, therefore that's what counts, and it's market leader. You can't argue with that, can you?

Name a single metric by which Amiga leads the market? World's greatest "nostalgic has-been" doesn't count. Name a single PC maker that would trade places with them. Hey, maybe Psystar!

Re:Quite the opposite

[maadmole]

Don't let me stand in the way of your dislike of Apple... my point was evolving handheld technology tends to become quickly available to all manufacturers, so many spec advantages are transient. As for PowerPC, in retrospect that would be judged a failed strategy. Those machines were never price or performance competitive, and served to marginalize the platform. And all because (legend has it) Intel pissed off Jobs in the 80's and he held the grudge for 20 years.

Re:Quite the opposite

[mgblst]

Fuck off, this is a cheap argument. Droid was pushed very heavily.

Now, a more reasonable reason to explain Apple's dominance is that they are very well known, but they have also been around for an extra 2 years. Android is making great gains in that time.

Re:Quite the opposite

[guhknew]

I more or less agree with most of what you say, but I do have a few issues. The user experience is subjective: for you and me, it's straight forward and functional. The interface as a whole is a little rough around the edges, and the iPhone has a pretty distinct advantage in this area for most people.

Also, the android market place is pretty horrible compared to the apple app store. Discovery sucks, sales are low, etc. Even some of the popular iPhone apps ported to Android aren't selling but a handful of copies. Hell, some of the best apps on the Android can't even be found without specifically searching for it.

That being said, the hardware itself is much, much better. The screen is absolutely stunning, the web browser is much faster and thus more usable. Multitasking: 'nuff said. Best of all, I can decide what software to put on the hardware I paid for (including those I wrote myself without having to sacrifice my first born at the altar of Steve Jobs).

Re:Quite the opposite

[BobMcD]

Well I do dislike Apple, but the finer point I'm trying to make is that the iPhone will never be the best hardware. I assume this is by design, though I cannot really say just why this would be selected. Avoiding bugs I guess. Anyway, they historically have aimed low, and will likely always continue to do so.

Re:Quite the opposite

[wvmarle]

By the way, I own nexus one, and with the right firmware (latest cyanogenmod with UV kernel), it's a great phone.

Thanks for the advice. I'll pass on the Nexus One then.

A phone just has to work, that's it. Make phone calls, take photos, keep tel. numbers and maybe appointments. If it's not good out of the box then it's not good.

Re:Quite the opposite

[wvmarle]

The iPhone comes basically in one model.

The Android runs on maybe dozens of phones by now. It would be sad of those dozens of phones together could not keep up with the iPhone.

Imagine this: the iPhone is one in a market of in total just ten different smartphones, 1 of them running iPhone OS, 2 of them WinCE, and 7 of them Android, then it would become no surprise if Android is #1 in market share, WinCE #2 and iPhone OS #3.

Now say that in this market iPhone OS has 30% market share, Android 50% and WinCE 20%. Android is the largest in market share. But actually iPhone OS powered smartphone is doing really well (10% of the models with 30% market share). And Android phones are doing worse (50% market share on 70% of the models) than WinCE phones (20% market share and 20% of the models).

Re:Quite the opposite

[wvmarle]

You average consumer does not care what OS is running on the phone. They care about the phone only.

99% of the iPhone buyers won't even know that it is powered by this software package called "iPhone OS". And the rest doesn't care as long as it works.

Same for Android. The only reason for Android to appear on more phones than say Windows or PalmOS or whatever OS there is for phones, is that manufacturers like it. Not because consumers walk into a phone shop asking for "an Android-powered smart phone". Just like they will not ask for an "iPhone OS powered phone". They will just pick up an iPhone instead.

Re:Quite the opposite

[Touvan]

Symbian and Nokia are almost completely absent from US markets. I had a European friend that came states side with a Nokia phone. It was quite an impressive unit. But it's the only one I've ever seen.

Re:Quite the opposite

[Touvan]

This has always been a non-issue. I develop websites for a living - both dhtml (yeah, dhtml that's how long I been doing this) and Flash, and I can tell you that most sites will work fine (sites that rely on only hover/mouseover, will suffer, but that's an extreme minority).

Re:Quite the opposite

[Skreems]

Yet the fact that you don't primarily run Windows on it argues otherwise.

I'm more interested in playing with the Mac OS as a toy than I am in having a functional laptop. If I needed it to be useful I would wipe it and run Windows or Ubuntu. I keep meaning to learn Objective-C programming someday.

Re:Quite the opposite

[Skreems]

That doesn't make any sense. Why buy the Mac in the first place if that was his opinion?

Because I was curious, and have more money than common sense?

Re:Quite the opposite

[toriver]

Ask instead what the market dilution has brought Nokia's shareholders. How can they even begin to get a grip of which of a thousand phones actually are making them money? Support for which operating systems isw being subsidized by what other?

Apple are so wrong, that they are selling shedloads of their devices.

Fantastic!

[mikkelm]

Apple revives a ten year old niche that no one really liked for reasons that are still entirely relevant, and now it is speculated that Google will compete with a Google-style "open" alternative. It was interesting when their battle was over smartphones, but when it is over shoveling out pointless generic consumer electronics, it is not.

Re:Fantastic!

[Bakkster]

One could have said similar things about consumer smart phones before the iPhone was released. I don't think anyone would have predicted before the iPhone release that we'd have 50 million iPhones sold, plus tens of millions of other devices riding off of its popularity, many powered by Google's mobile OS. Four years ago, something like the iPhone would have been called "pointless consumer electronics" too, pointing out the failure of the PDA market. I see no reason why we couldn't see a repeat in the tablet market.

I have no doubt Google has at the very least explored a direct rival in the tablet space.

Re:Fantastic!

[mikkelm]

That's a preposterous assertion. Four years ago, just as six years ago, and ten years ago, the emphasis was on pushing more features and more technologies into phones. The iPhone was not a revolutionary device, it was an evolutionary one. No one would have called it a pointless consumer electronics device, and no one would have pointed to a market which failed in large part to a lack of features which are integral to the smart phone. Nor is it at all pertinent to suggest that people would point to a dead market to dismiss the applicability of similar features to a living market, when the issue at hand is that the tablet market itself /is/ the PDA market in your analogy, and not merely a thriving market absorbing the redeeming features of failed products.

Re:Fantastic!

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Everyone's chasing Apple's formfactor and design concept. Just like how everyone's chased Palm's formfactor back in the 90's and early 00's.

That's a revolution. When you do something and everyone follows.

Re:Fantastic!

[dskzero]

One could have said similar things about consumer smart phones before the iPhone was released.

The difference here is that 10 years ago smartphones weren't really there to start a competition.

Re:Fantastic!

[Midnight Thunder]

Apple revives a ten year old niche that no one really liked for reasons that are still entirely relevant, and now it is speculated that Google will compete with a Google-style "open" alternative. It was interesting when their battle was over smartphones, but when it is over shoveling out pointless generic consumer electronics, it is not.

Just because a 'niche' is old, it doesn't mean it is pointless. Sometimes old technology can be reshaped and innovated upon, providing a solution that finds a market today when it didn't in the past. There are reasons that technologies fail, including lack of maturity, market not being ready or lack of supporting technologies. The Wii Remote was laughed at for being a modern light pointer, now Microsoft and Sony are doing their best to emulate it. You can't simply right off technology as being old and thus irrelevant.

Microsoft didn't succeed with tablet PCs, partly because like Windows CE, they were trying to shoe-horn a desktop UI into something that would benefit from an adapted UI. To use the automobile analogy: you don't design a car by starting with boat that uses an outboard motor. Computers are the same.

Re:Fantastic!

[mikkelm]

What kind of vague assertion is that? "Form factor" and "design concept"? The "form factor" is an obvious, logical concept that was carried over from.. PDAs and tablets! Apple didn't invent the concept of a touch input device. As for design concept, that's such a non-argument that I don't even know where to start.

It's an evolution. It's not a revolution.

Re:Fantastic!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think anyone would have predicted before the iPhone release that we'd have 50 million iPhones sold, plus tens of millions of other devices riding off of its popularity, many powered by Google's mobile OS.

I think you're right that iPhone's success wasn't widely predicted (obviously there will always be exceptions, where people said, "I knew this would be popular") but I really do think that nearly everyone foresaw that smart phones in general were going to be a big thing, with millions and millions of people waiting for the first one that wouldn't suck.

Four years ago, something like the iPhone would have been called "pointless consumer electronics" too, pointing out the failure of the PDA market. I see no reason why we couldn't see a repeat in the tablet market.

I just have to totally disagree with that. The failure of the PDA market was that the products were all fairly lame and just didn't measure up to people's expectations coming from desktop personal computers, but the demand for it and the cry of "when will somebody get this right?!" was always strong. People wanted good pocket-sized computers but there were never any good ones on the market until $PRODUCT. (I don't wanna fight over what that product is, but many passionately inter-flaming factions, agree that it's now on the market.)

It's the demand for "keyboardless but still too big to conveniently carry" that I think a lot of people are questioning; that is: if anyone ever makes a decent device and gives it a good software stack, even then, will it be useful? It's an awkward form factor, no matter how high-tech the guts or good the software. Gimme the tech from a thousand years from now, put it in an iPad form factor, and I think most people still won't want it, unless it's able to fold up or something. It's too big and too small at the same time. Lame.

Re:Fantastic!

[DragonWriter]

Apple revives a ten year old niche that no one really liked for reasons that are still entirely relevant

The reasons no one really liked the form factor before is that you couldn't get enough computing power to do much from a traditional "computer" point of view in the form factor, and that there weren't compelling non-traditional applications specialized for the form factor.

The first has changed -- as netbooks, UMPCs, and smartphones doing things that previously were reserved to traditional computing has shown -- and so has the second -- which the explosion of dedicated eBook reader devices has shown.

So I don't think its really accurate to say that the reasons why tablets haven't been successful in the past are still "entirely relevant".

Re:Fantastic!

[Dog-Cow]

Apple brought smartphones to the average consumer. That was a revolution. It doesn't matter if the hardware (or software) was evolutionary.

Re:Fantastic!

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Compare the Nexus One to a Treo, a Palm Pixi, any given 2006 era Windows Mobile device, etc.

Stylus free touch screen, simple button layout, no built in keyboard, candy bar phone... it's pretty clear that when Apple set the bar with the iPhone, everyone scrambled to copy it.

Re:Fantastic!

[mikkelm]

Simple, natural /evolution/. Stylus gives way to finger touch, keyboard gives way to touch screen. It's not revolution, it's not rocket science, it's simple, obvious logic.

Re:Fantastic!

[icebraining]

What form factor? It's a fucking Touch Book with rounder edges (Note: it appears to be a normal laptop, but you can detach the screen from the keyboard. The whole computer is in the top part).

It has BT, Wifi, a similar screen size, 2x Ram, accelerometer, *plenty* of USB ports (4 external, 3 internal), and 10 hours of battery. It also has a fucking keyboard!.

The only difference is the screen being single instead of multi touch. Big whop. Yes, it's nice to have MT, but it's hardly a fantastic breakthrough in design :|

And this was present *a whole year ago* !

Re:Fantastic!

[Anonymous Coward]

Look up the definition for the word 'revolution', please. It's not what you think it is.

Re:Fantastic!

[shadowrat]

i don't know. I wasn't a big proponent of the iPad when it was announced. I made fun of apple calling it magical and revolutionary. I pointed out that it wasn't a replacement for smartphones or full computers or netbooks. It instead was a third device and i didn't need it.

Now i have one (I was lucky enough to get one from work, so i didn't have to shell out $500), and i love it. I was wrong, i do like having this third device. reading on it is a joy. It's the first device that i've felt i actually liked better than a book. I love browsing web pages with it. Honestly, i now wonder why i liked looking at the web prior to having this device.

Did it deliver on being revolutionary? well, it didn't deliver any new content to me, or really create new ways of doing anything. It sucks for typing. But it did leave me feeling like in the future i want to hold websites and books in a convenient form. Maybe that's a revolution.

Just so i don't sound too much like a fanboy, i'd like the see the google offering. I'm not running out to by an iPad of my own just yet. But i don't particularly care about the openness of this kind of device. it's an appliance. i'd expect it to hold my books, and let me see stuff online. nothing more. If the google device is as snappy, and cheaper, i'll be all over it.

Re:Fantastic!

[Gilmoure]

So obvious a non-phone maker made it.

Re:Fantastic!

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Massive changes in contrast to minor changes over time. Touch screens are revolutionary, not evolutionary. Not having to worry about a lost stylus is a big freaking deal.

Re:Fantastic!

[mjwx]

Microsoft didn't succeed with tablet PCs, partly because like Windows CE

Microsoft didn't succeed with tablet PC's because of the ergonomics of using a tablet PC. I've seen plenty of usable XP and Vista tablet PC's but all suffered from the fact that they were uncomfortable to use for any length of time. Thus they have remained an entirely niche market (actually semi-common in the GIS field, but GIS in itself is a niche market) for highly specific purposes. Apple is trying to create one for general purpose and will fail in the same way other manufacturers who tried this will. The fanboys will buy, the fanboys will always buy but that is not some magic field that will protect Apple from failure.

Re:Fantastic!

[Midnight Thunder]

Microsoft didn't succeed with tablet PC's because of the ergonomics of using a tablet PC.

While, in terms of ergonomics, the hardware may be a factor, so is the software. If you don't make the GUI part of the ergonomic solution then you will be doomed to failure. Anyhow we will see in two years what the market decided on.

Re:Fantastic!

[mjwx]

While, in terms of ergonomics, the hardware may be a factor, so is the software. If you don't make the GUI part of the ergonomic solution then you will be doomed to failure. Anyhow we will see in two years what the market decided on.

The biggest factor is the human form, no UI will ever change that. using a tablet PC for any length of time is very uncomfortable which is why I've only seen them used by surveyors (I know other people use them for various purposes, this is my experience). These guys use them for about 10 minutes an hour to enter in results. The human body just doesn't adapt that well to a large flat control area with no feedback, it's always very focused (pen, mouse, KB) and tactile.

Accuracy on touch screens is a very big issue also, currently touch screen devices guess what you're trying to do fairly frequently and get it wrong quite a bit. This is annoying and wastes time, which is fairly pointless considering we already have input devices that work well.

how about Notion Ink's Adam Tablet

[Anonymous Coward]

Not from Google per se, but how about Notion Ink's Adam Tablet? Gizmodo had a piece about it ... http://gizmodo.com/5471559/notion-ink-adam-tablet-caught-on-video-specs-finalized

Biggest iPad Limitation: No HTML Editing

[psydeshow]

I have an iPad. I liked it, until I tried to compose a blog post. Mobile Safari doesn't support content-editable fields.

Typing HTML code into textareas in order to compose blog posts and web pages is NOT fun. Google Docs doesn't work. and rich HTML in Gmail or other webmail services doesn't work. There are HTML editor apps, but that doesn't mean what I think it means, because they are all code editors not rich text editors.

The bottom line is that Apple supports rich text output in PDF and proprietary formats, but not HTML. Not even a little bit.

Everyone has their own priorities, of course, but until Mobile Safari supports tinyMCE and other rich text editors, I have to consider the iPad a toy. Then again, it's perfect for posting on Slashdot! (And it even supports unicode, so why should I complain?)

Re:Biggest iPad Limitation: No HTML Editing

[gyrogeerloose]

I have an iPad. I liked it, until I tried to compose a blog post. Mobile Safari doesn't support content-editable fields.

I'm not arguing with you, but could you clarify that statement a bit? I've made Slashdot posts using Mobile Safari on a demo iPad at an Apple Store so it is possible to use text entry fields, at least.

Re:Biggest iPad Limitation: No HTML Editing

[psydeshow]

Content-editable is the standard that allows rich text HTML editing. You get a textarea with support for WYSIWYG HTML composition. Slashdot doesn't use it, but most blogs do.

Safari has supported it for years, but Mobile Safari doesn't, because it wasn't really needed on the iPhone. The iPad, OTOH, is pitched as a composition device.

The lack of support is frustrating if you use Blogger or WordPress or any decent Content Management Systen.

Re:Biggest iPad Limitation: No HTML Editing

[rinoid]

Did you throw in the word "proprietary" just to sound cool? How does Apple support rich text output in proprietary text formats?

The on screen keyboard is not the best for long posts but I do quite well with bits like this, and even longer emails. In fact
I've gotten sort of quick at this on screen keyboard, only in landscape mode though.

Why don't Google docs work? Something short in mobile safari?

I did notice the particular type of editable field in Wordpress not being editable on my iPad but then just opened the nice Wordpress app and kept on trucking.

----

Here on this site I can't ad just the threshold of comments seen. The slider doesn't work for some reason.

Overall mobile safari is pretty damn impressive. MUCH more impressive than the web browser I built (not).

Re:Biggest iPad Limitation: No HTML Editing

[nedlohs]

He means those javascripted WYSIWYG editor widgets, like: http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/examples/full.php

Re:Biggest iPad Limitation: No HTML Editing

[gyrogeerloose]

Okay, thanks, I get what you mean now. Seems like a fairly large omission for the iPad.

Re:Biggest iPad Limitation: No HTML Editing

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, no. The iPad is pitched as an entertainment device.

However, I bet that if you complain enough and if there are alternatives such as a Google Pad, then Apple will update the iPad software to suit your needs.

Re:Biggest iPad Limitation: No HTML Editing

[CdBee]

the wordpress app may be all well and good, but there can't plausibly be an app for every site that would otherwise work in a browser. I don't foresee Apple allowing a GoogleDocs app to allow mobile editing of documents, competing with iWork for iPad....

Re:Biggest iPad Limitation: No HTML Editing

[jDeepbeep]

The lack of support is frustrating if you use Blogger or WordPress or any decent Content Management Systen.

Out of curiosity, are there no 'Blogger' or 'WordPress' apps in the store? I'm not saying that is preferable overall to adding in the Safari support, but I'm interested if that niche has been addressed.

Re:Biggest iPad Limitation: No HTML Editing

[sootman]

I just fiddled around a bit with my WordPress site and another that uses CKEeditor (formerly FCKEditor) with my iPhone (since I don't have an iPad... yet.)
- With CKEditor, I can't even put the cursor into the box. Bummer.
- With WordPress, You get the 'lite' editor, so if you press 'Bold' you see a <strong> appear, and then you type, and then you press the button again and a </strong> appears. The thing is, when you go back and forth from the text area to the buttons, the keyboard appears and disappears. That behavior also indicates a general problem with rich text HTML editors:With the iPhone (and I assume the iPad is the same) you can only select text with the keyboard showing. As soon as you try to click a button anywhere on the page, the keyboard disappears and your selection goes with it. So even if they could get all the CSS and JS magic working correctly, there would still be no good way to go back to text you've already typed and apply a style.

The only way around this is with blog-editing apps like this WordPress app (WARNING: iTunes link*) but even so that still only solves the problem on a per-platform basis. I, too, would LOVE to be able to use rich text editors ANYWHERE but I think it'll be tough to make that happen given what I've described.

* Dear Apple, thank you so much for creating web pages for all the apps in iTunes. But WHY OH FUCKING WHY do you STILL insist on launching iTunes when I look at one of these pages?!?!?!?

Re:Biggest iPad Limitation: No HTML Editing

[sootman]

Wait, scratch that, I was wrong. I made my post based on how it looked but when I went ahead and tried to edit my WP site (even though I thought it would fail) through the web front-end it did work! I could select multiple words, click 'Done' on the keyboard, and click a styling button and it would apply the style to all the words I had selected, even though I could no longer see the selection. It's still in code mode but it does, in fact, work.

Re:Biggest iPad Limitation: No HTML Editing

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPad is a pure media consumption device, it was never meant to be a productivity tool and Apple has gone rather far out of their way to make sure it stays that way (else why would you keep buying Macs).

It's not that the iPad is a toy, it's that you're simply trying to use it for something God (Jobs) did not intend for it to do. The iPad is for reading blogs, not authoring them.

Re:Biggest iPad Limitation: No HTML Editing

[517714]

You must be a Microsoft shill. Surely, there's an app for that!

Re:Biggest iPad Limitation: No HTML Editing

[frinkster]

the wordpress app may be all well and good, but there can't plausibly be an app for every site that would otherwise work in a browser. I don't foresee Apple allowing a GoogleDocs app to allow mobile editing of documents, competing with iWork for iPad....

Why not?

There has been an Amazon Kindle app for the iPad since day one. It connects to the Amazon bookstore, not the Apple bookstore.

Re:Biggest iPad Limitation: No HTML Editing

[Deosyne]

Pitching it as an entertainment device doesn't make for very good definition regarding what it can and can't do, especially when it features a general purpose web browser, and one with the exact same name as a desktop browser that does possess those missing capabilities at that. The fact that the iPad OS and applications are limited in functionality compared to a desktop OS doesn't bother me, as I would almost expect it to have some limitations given that it is targeted at that platform. However, there's a whole lot of dodging the question when it comes to explaining the actual differences, particularly to those of us who don't just look at a device like that as having "the Internet on it."

Re:Biggest iPad Limitation: No HTML Editing

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should you complain? Because you paid $500 for the ability to post to slashdot from a bigger but gimped iPhone maybe.

Re:Biggest iPad Limitation: No HTML Editing

[sootman]

Yes and yes. WP also has a version for the iPad and it looks great.

Re:Biggest iPad Limitation: No HTML Editing

[psydeshow]

I'll definitely check those out.

There is no evidence from the screenshots on the WordPress app that WYSIWYG editing is supported. The BlogPress app does seem to allow pasting images into the editor, which is a good sign.

Terrible product names

[youngdev]

NO MORE PADS!!!!!!!!

*Tab is a terrible name. For a company who is lauded for their marketing genius, every time I hear the name of their product, I think about menstruation. IPad is just a terrible name. iTab isn't terrible but really Steve, try a new letter or even a whole new word. Not everything in the product line has to start with "i". Google would do well to avoid this trap altogether.

Re:Terrible product names

[MBGMorden]

I'm sure if Apple could be bothered to climb down from their tower of money that they'd be happy to hear your ideas that should correct their obviously failed business practices.

Re:Terrible product names

[Anonymous Coward]

NO MORE PADS!!!!!!!!

*Tab is a terrible name. For a company who is lauded for their marketing genius, every time I hear the name of their product, I think about menstruation. IPad is just a terrible name. iTab isn't terrible but really Steve, try a new letter or even a whole new word. Not everything in the product line has to start with "i". Google would do well to avoid this trap altogether.

The phrase "slate" is often used with these types of personal computers.

iSlate would have translated to "is late", which would have made for some good jokes while were waiting for release dates.

Re:Terrible product names

[nomadic]

Well an aesthetic criticism is not necessarily a criticism of a business model. There are plenty of stupid product names that have done well, but that doesn't mean the name isn't still stupid. World History Grand Champion in the Mind-numbingly Stupid Name Category, for example, is the Nintendo Wii--and that's done pretty successfully.

Re:Terrible product names

[Reality Master 101]

I'm sorry, but if the word "pad", a perfectly reasonable word, immediately brings to mind menstruation, then there's something wrong with you, not with the word.

Re:Terrible product names

[Hatta]

Then there's something wrong with just about everyone, as that's the first association most people have. I even heard them talking about "pads" on NPR the day the iPad was announced.

Re:Terrible product names

[Reality Master 101]

I don't think most normal people had that association. I think a few people had it, made a few immature blog postings about it, and it became fashionable for "everyone" to say that they "immediately" had that association. But it's just stupid that out of the numerous meanings of "pad", the seemingly ONLY definition now in people's minds is feminine pads, as though the word has never had a different meaning.

here

[grumpyman]

Something like this? http://wirelession.com/products_view.asp?cid=108&id=75 http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/u6lTOUAqv0U/

IPad Competition

[painandgreed]

Did anybody really think they wouldn't? Seriously, who was not expecting everybody who made an iPhone imitator not to make an iPad imitator? MS has already revamped and trying to re-advertise their tablet offerings. Still, I don't think what they get is that what they need is really not a tablet with WinOS, but a touch screen slate with a better OS designed to do what the device is supposed to do. I expect Android to come out with a larger version of the Droid. Since Palm is up for sale, I guess they probably won't come up with something any time soon. Who I do see jumping into the competition will be Amazon and other book reader manufacturers who will try and capitalize on the iPad sales as well as from having them cannibalize their own sales.

Despite being a Mac fan, I think this if fine and good. I like Mac products because they put time and efforts into their designs, not simply because they have an Apple on the side. Let's see the competition. Let's see Flash on a Droid. Let's see open source app competition for other products. Let's see some fresh and new ideas incorporated into new products that others haven't tried before. Let's see everybody have to put some time and effort into their devices and raise the bar a little with every release. Apple may be my first choice, but it certainly isn't my final choice. If another product is better and suits my needs, I will switch.

I am _not_ planning an iPad killer

[sextoynazi]

You might have assumed that already, but lack of experience in manufacturing electronics doesn't seem to be dissuading anyone else.

Well then

[dsavi]

Let's hope they get the eye candy right, because for the first time I can say that that is the only reason that an Apple product looks better. There, I said it.

wrong spin

[copponex]

a device with those specs and 3G would be receiving much more noise than, well... none

Well, clearly it's the wrong story. "Company releases new multi-touch tablet device with accelerometers and 3g capabilities." That thing fizzles at the gate.

"Apple releases magical and revolutionary device with mindblowing features. It will change the future of media and the planet, and it's glory will echo throughout eternity!" Send out the skin tight girl jeans, put on some popular music and a novel graphic overlay. Hey, you just made a billion dollars!

That's why you need marketing departments. They are depraved human beings, but someone has to polish the turds.

Re:wrong spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Google device has gyroscopes, so it can stand unassisted on your beer belly (assuming you have one). This makes it a better couch surfing device.

Re:wrong spin

[virgil_disgr4ce]

Doesn't anybody else find it funny that the only people claiming these things are "mindblowing" are their detractors?

Re:wrong spin

[phantomfive]

It's not just the marketing department. The 'marketing' extends down to every part of the device. Have you actually held it? I went into the apple store the other day, and held one, and it made me feel happy. It's pretty. The same kind of happy I would get from eating a carmel ice cream sundae. Or petting a warm kitten. I played a game. It was a rather inane game, drawing lines to make airplanes land, but it held my attention. The iPad gave me a nice warm feeling. After using it, my impression was the iPad is utterly useless for anything practical I would use it for, certainly compared to a laptop. However, I would feel happy if I had it, and people are willing to pay for happiness.

THAT is why the iPad will be a success.

Re:wrong spin

[copponex]

"Magical and revolutionary" I guess doesn't score high on your bullshitometer. Isn't it funny how people develop blinders for brand loyalty?

http://www.apple.com/ipad/

iPad
A magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.
Starting at $499

Re:wrong spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Marketing departments are not depraved anything. They're people out to help sell a product, which could be *your* product, but it's highly unlikely many of the techie spoon-clangers actually run anything besides their mouths.

Re:wrong spin

[copponex]

However, I would feel happy if I had it, and people are willing to pay for happiness.

THAT is why the iPad will be a success.

People just don't understand what happiness is. They'll trade twenty or thirty hours of work for an iPad, but not take that time off to spend with family. And don't think the marketing departments aren't aware of this fact - that's why their job is to make you believe in their narrative and fantasies, by cramming your whole world full of lies and pretty pictures.

The iPad will be a huge success, though. Just like cigarettes, cheeseburgers, and reality television.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. -Mark Twain

Re:wrong spin

[copponex]

it's highly unlikely many of the techie spoon-clangers actually run anything besides their mouths.

I think I've seen them running around as ACs on slashdot, pretending to be important.

Whereas I am not anonymous.

Re:wrong spin

[plague3106]

They'll trade twenty or thirty hours of work for an iPad, but not take that time off to spend with family.

When has spending time with family made anyone happy? At best, its tolerable. At worse, it makes you unhappy.

Re:wrong spin

[indiechild]

What a deeply cynical view of the world.

So what are you doing on Slashdot, instead of spending more time with your family?

Re:wrong spin

[socceroos]

Despite how cynical you think his view is, it is remarkably accurate.

Re:wrong spin

[shutdown -p now]

The iPad gave me a nice warm feeling. After using it, my impression was the iPad is utterly useless for anything practical I would use it for, certainly compared to a laptop. However, I would feel happy if I had it, and people are willing to pay for happiness.

Call out Gouranga^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H iPad and be happy!

Re:wrong spin

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a coworker that would completely disagree with you. He knows what happiness is, and is not spending time with his family. Most people would not bother returning if they had an afternoon appointment, he on the other hand will swing back in even if its well after 5. If he is driving by on the weekends he'll stop in and try to find something to do. Anything that provides an acceptable excuse to not be at his home and he'll jump on it. Not everyone has made the choices that make family and home the best parts of their lives. Some people have found jobs they love that they take great enjoyment from. Others hate their families, and hate their jobs, and find pleasure or escape in a shiny screen of distraction. I'm not convinced that any option is necessarily better than the rest - they all have tradeoffs.

Re:wrong spin

[gmhowell]

They'll trade twenty or thirty hours of work for an iPad, but not take that time off to spend with family.

When has spending time with family made anyone happy? At best, its tolerable. At worse, it makes you unhappy.

Hey, are you spending time with my family?!

Re:wrong spin

[Mr. Slippery]

However, I would feel happy if I had it, and people are willing to pay for happiness.

Of course Apple wants you to believe that you would feel happy if you had it. And perhaps you would feel a shallow sort of sham happiness (mostly a placebo marketing effect) for a few days, or even a few weeks, if you had one.

But no material thing -- not an iPad, not a brand new sports car, not an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle -- will make you truly happy. Nor will other people, who have this annoying tendency to change, to disappoint your expectations, to get old and sick and to die.

The good news is that, knowing this, you can stop wasting so much time and energy looking for the things and relationships that are finally going to make you happy. Nothing outside yourself will do it.

Meanwhile, while neither is going to bring me happiness, when looking for tools I prefer actual general-purpose computers to information appliances designed for passive consumers. Fsck the iPad and all the other gilded cages that come out of Apple.

Sunlight readable VGA please!

[Shivetya]

Two reason I will not buy an iPad

The LCD is not sunlight readable, it is another fashion over function device

USB support, lack there of.

Actually the first is the real killer. I will not buy something that only works indoors or should I say, is usable only where the light isn't bright and the glare can be minimized. Sorry, having to change the devices orientation based on lighting sources while even INDOORS is usability bullshit.

Damn, why is it the majority of upcoming computing devices practically require you to be indoors? Basement dwellers rejoice, your new freedom empowering computing/etc device is optimized for work under the stairs.

My marine GPS is perfectly legible in direct sunlight, let alone rugged enough to get a bit wet. Hell I would be afraid to take an iPad outside, less it get wet or too hot, totally disregarding the fact I cannot read it unless I held it above my head to block the sun

Re:Sunlight readable VGA please!

[Anonymous Coward]

Two reason I will not buy an iPad

You are making the erroneous assumption that anyone here or, especially, at Apple actually cares why you won't buy an iPad. The've already sold half a million of the things, you know.

Re:Sunlight readable VGA please!

[vijayiyer]

Have you tried using it outside?
Not saying you have or haven't, just curious.

Re:Sunlight readable VGA please!

[Anonymous Coward]

The LCD is not sunlight readable, it is another fashion over function device (...)
I will not buy something that only works indoors or should I say, is usable only where the light isn't bright and the glare can be minimized. Sorry, having to change the devices orientation based on lighting sources while even INDOORS is usability bullshit. (...)
Damn, why is it the majority of upcoming computing devices practically require you to be indoors? (...)
Hell I would be afraid to take an iPad outside, less it get wet or too hot, totally disregarding the fact I cannot read it unless I held it above my head to block the sun

Although in this regard the iPad is miles away from an e-ink reader such as the Kindle, it is not nearly as bad as you think it is:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3640/apples-ipad-the-anandtech-review/7
(Go to around 1/3 into the page, right around the photo of the dog.)

Sub-par for the task you want? Definitely. Really worth the huge fuss you are making over it? No, not really.

Re:Sunlight readable VGA please!

[e2d2]

I haven't used it outside, but if you can point to an LCD that can output more light than the sun, well I'm game. That's why this whole "Kindle Killer" spin is nonsense. You can't overcome the ease of use in e-paper. If Apple was serious about usability for reading they'd use e-paper.

Archos 7 inch internet tablet

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Archos has been making an Android based tablet for some time now well before the iPad came out. Of course Microsoft has been trying to sell various tablets for years since Pen Windows plus various WinCE devices, UMPCs, Windows XP tablets etc.. Universal reaction tablets are dumb and waste of money. Steve Job's throws on his magic turtleneck and tells everyone "This is a magical device. I am really proud of the team. I really think your going to love it." And people go stand in line to get a tablet. Umm so can we all just agree there is a certain group of people that will buy whatever Steve tells them they need and hype it for him endlessly? Sorry folks but you who behave this way represent an abnormality and are not really representative you are iPeople.

Re:Archos 7 inch internet tablet

[NekSnappa]

Umm, no we can't.

You compare devices that keep trying to make a desktop OS on tablet HW work. A method which has previously failed several times. To a device that uses an OS from a popular cell phone that was designed from the ground up to be touch enabled.

While Android was designed for cell phone use. The interface was intentionally left wide open to make it usable on a wide range of HW. There's nothing wrong with that. I think it's great. Problem is that it allows different manufacturers to put their own UI on it which when combined with the variety of HW, makes it harder on developers to ensure that their software works as they intended on every device.

Usability will trump capability with consumers. No matter how "superior" the capabilities are. i.e. It's the interface stupid.

Re:Archos 7 inch internet tablet

[rinoid]

This isn't about any of your anti ranting. It's not about you, me, or "people that will buy whatever Steve tells them they need and hype it for him endlessly?".

It's about a pretty good product people want. Not your dreams or anyone elses particularly. There is no need to attempt to brand purchasers of a _thing_ a fanboy, a hero, or a sheep. It just is and this convo is a waste of energy.

It's (the iPad) a great little device, it doesn't blow smoke up my ass and it doesn't do everything but damn it has been nice to have.

Re:Archos 7 inch internet tablet

[Caste11an]

Umm so can we all just agree there is a certain group of people that will buy whatever Steve tells them they need and hype it for him endlessly?

I think the word you're looking for is "consumers."

Re:Archos 7 inch internet tablet

[danbert8]

I have an Archos 5 tablet (which is much smaller than the 7) and I am completely happy with it. Though it is locked down, it wasn't hard to unlock and have access to the whole library of Android apps. It also has GPS, which means I can use it to give directions in my car, track bicycle trips, use while hiking, etc. My only complaint is that the screen is glossy and unreadable outdoors, but an anti-glare protector fixed that. Oh and it had wifi included, connects and charges via USB, and *gasp* has a microSD slot for more memory. Why did I want an iPad again?

Re:Archos 7 inch internet tablet

[nine-times]

Umm so can we all just agree there is a certain group of people that will buy whatever Steve tells them they need and hype it for him endlessly?

I think there is some truth to this, but it's more like "there is a certain group of people who have been so pleased with past/present Apple products that they'll be excited to try any new Apple products which are released."

That doesn't mean they're morons or sheep. I'm going to buy Portal 2 as soon as it comes out, but it's not because I'm mindlessly buying whatever Valve releases because I've been brainwashed. It's because I've loved all the Half Life games and think that Portal was one of the best things since sliced bread. I'm also going to try out Ubuntu 10.04 as soon as its released, but it's not because I have a cult mentality towards all of Canonical's products.

As far as tablets in general, I think that people have always been excited about the idea of tablets, but they just haven't proved themselves to be very useful. Part of the problem has been that the GUIs on tablets generally haven't been designed for the size of the device nor for the interaction of a touchscreen. Beyond that, the real world use-case of tablets has been unclear. Microsoft, for example, tried to position tablets as normal computers, with muddled results. They were big and heavy like laptops, and when you were doing normal desktop work, laptops and desktops still make more sense.

It's possible that Apple has found a sweet spot for tablets where they actually begin to make sense. I don't really know how using one works out in real life since I haven't even seen an iPad IRL yet.

Re:Archos 7 inch internet tablet

[Steauengeglase]

It really amazes me that the same guy who went on an on about how magical the iPad is, was once this guy:

These Heathkits would come with these detailed manuals about how to put this thing together and all the parts would be laid out in a certain way and color coded. You'd actually build this thing yourself. I would say that this gave one several things. It gave one a understanding of what was inside a finished product and how it worked because it would include a theory of operation but maybe even more importantly it gave one the sense that one could build the things that one saw around oneself in the universe. These things were not mysteries anymore.

http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/sj1.html

I guess owning your own content distribution platform really gives you a sense of spirituality.

Re:Archos 7 inch internet tablet

[Anonymous Coward]

So you can stop regaling people with pointless tales of your lesser devices?

Great, we get it, you like crap. Some of us have higher standards.

If there is one downside to the iPad, its all these people who have come out of the woodwork to tell us about their purchase of some other crappy device. iPad has already sold more than Archos 5 ever will.

The captcha for this post is 'disdain' How perfect. :)

Re:Archos 7 inch internet tablet

[Skuld-Chan]

One thing about the iPad (not an Apple fan btw!) is that it was designed around being able to touch it with your hands. Testing one out in the lab/store I found it easy to use without a pen.

As the former owner of several Windows tablet pc's - none of them were designed to actually be used with a touch screen. Most of the ones I had the hand writing recognition never worked, the keyboard button had to be used for all input, but the buttons (while resizable) could never be used with your fingers - you always had to use the stylus, and finally - every single app was designed for a mouse.

Office 2007 ribbon is far better metaphor for touch device - so they are going in the right direction, but in the past it wasn't that great a picture - outside of vertical market point of sale/medical apps (the only two places I still seem to see tablets in great use).

Alas - one of the things that has me worried about the hp slate is in fact that it runs a stock copy of Windows 7 with a menu system that starts on top of that (similar to the UMPC tablets, or Windows Media Center) which is great, but the problem there is none of the apps that you want to run are going to have that iPad like motif. Who knows - maybe they'll pull it off.

Re:Archos 7 inch internet tablet

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does Apple threaten you? I think you just don't get it and that scares you. Your post reminds me of how I feel about Scientology. The difference is that I don't hang out on Scientology blogs writing comments telling its members that they are 'abnormal'. Why? Because Scientology doesn't threaten me. I think it's a joke, but John, Tom and Kirstie are entitled to spend their money and time any way they like. Just my opinion. You, however, are pathetic. I've used Macs in my marketing consulting business for over 20 years. I honestly couldn't have done what I do without all the Macs I've owned. They have made me LOTS of money. So count me as one particular iPerson. I welcome Apple into my life for all the right reasons. I enjoy using their products. I am productive using their products; considerably more-so than my Windows counterparts. I really just have to laugh at all of you anti-Apple idiots. You really should channel your frustrations into something more productive. "What's my excuse" you say? I'm sitting on the toilet, with my iPad.

Re:Archos 7 inch internet tablet

[mjwx]

Usability will trump capability with consumers. No matter how "superior" the capabilities are. i.e. It's the interface stupid.

I know this is a popular myth amongst /.ers, especially the Mac fanboys but it doesnt stand up to the smell test (harsh reality).

This does not explain why Windows is still number one. Yes you could complain that they strong arm but that still doesn't explain it. The UI on Windows is not that good, the user experience varies wildly based on both the machine and the user so why does everyone keep using Windows?

Two reasons:

1. Windows works. Every mundane I talk to about Windows vs Linux will tell me why should I change, Windows does everything I need it to. Ultimately the vast majority of people want their computer or phone to do something and if it cant do that something it doesn't matter how good the interface is they just wont use it.

Linux and Mac have completely different philosophies but fail at mass consumer markets for the same reason (with different causes) they simply cant meet user requirements, Linux is too hard and OS X has no features or software. People use Windows not because it works well but because it does everything they need it to without any real difficulty.

2. Everyone else uses Windows. Linux users are geekish shut in's, Mac users elitists snobs so they both are niche markets. At least the Linux user can be a bit of help to the Mundane on Windows, "get a Mac" is not useful computer advice.

So the actual equation is for the average user is (functionality+capability)-difficulty. Windows wins because it has a massive amount of functionality and capability, despite the difficulty in operating it. Linux loses because it has a massive amount of functionality, some capability but a massive learning curve. Mac loses because it has little functionality, almost no capability despite is lack of difficulty. Things don't have to be good, they just have to be good enough, MS for all it's flaws understands the old engineering adage "perfect is the enemy of done".

Full disclosure, I'm a Linux/Windows sysadmin. After being a Windows/Mac sysadmin for 3 years I swore never to touch the bloody things again.

Android tablets have been here for a while

[OrangeTide]

Did you miss CES when a dozen Android tablets were announced? Did you not notice the multiple android tablets that were released this month and last month?

How come when Apple does something people take notice. But when a hundred others go through more traditional channels such as trade shows people who think they are industry insiders don't have a clue?

Re:Android tablets have been here for a while

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Because those devices largely suck with no real thought put into optimising the experience of using what is essentially a giant PDA.

Re:Android tablets have been here for a while

[Uksi]

Exactly! Slapping Android on a tablet is an easy answer and easy answers to hard problems never sold well.

Re:Android tablets have been here for a while

[wfolta]

Did you miss CES when a dozen Android tablets were announced? Did you not notice the multiple android tablets that were released this month and last month?

Yes and yes.

How come when Apple does something people take notice. But when a hundred others go through more traditional channels such as trade shows people who think they are industry insiders don't have a clue?

Perhaps because the Apple device is worth noting, while the others are not? Just a wild guess, mind you, but it all goes back to a succinct quote above:

StreetStealth: Apple's model will always compromise developer flexibility when user experience is at stake. Google's model will always compromise user experience when developer flexibility is at stake.

Re:Android tablets have been here for a while

[DragonWriter]

Exactly! Slapping Android on a tablet is an easy answer and easy answers to hard problems never sold well.

How is that any easier of an answer than slapping iPhone OS on a tablet?

Re:Android tablets have been here for a while

[DragonWriter]

How come when Apple does something people take notice. But when a hundred others go through more traditional channels such as trade shows people who think they are industry insiders don't have a clue?

Because Apple has a better marketing department than its competitors.

Re:Android tablets have been here for a while

[Jer]

How come when Apple does something people take notice. But when a hundred others go through more traditional channels such as trade shows people who think they are industry insiders don't have a clue?

Such is the magic of Apple - Steve Jobs knows how to whet an appetite. You don't announce your product at a generic trade show and hope that the tech press picks it up, you let rumors grow for months - sometimes years - allowing the momentum behind your product to build a life of its own. Then you have the big reveal and everyone in the tech media (and often, the mainstream media) picks up on it and talks about it.

Jobs is an excellent showman - he knows how to get people excited about products. He knows how to work the press and work public opinion to his advantage. In another universe he might have been a very successful politician (the skillset is comparable for the best pols), but in this one he can take a 10-year-old product (tablets) slip some minor improvements into it (multitouch) and sell it as revolutionary. All the while convincing customers and developers both that a sales model that involves Apple taking a cut of everything they buy/produce is in their best interest.

He's a phenomenal businessman. I may not like his vision of the world, but he's certainly good at what he does.

Re:Android tablets have been here for a while

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

because the whole experience was reworked with the tablet interface in mind? I mean, in addition to having several disparate screen resolutions, android tablets are going to introduce more resolutions and UI considerations for Android devs. iPad might just blindly scale up iPhone OS apps, but, it doesn't leave iPhone developers out in the cold figuring out how to setup their UI.

Re:Android tablets have been here for a while

[am 2k]

If you just scale up the iPhone apps, they most likely won't get accepted (except games perhaps), because then the app doesn't follow the guidelines. For example, on the iPhone the toolbar has to be on the bottom, but on the iPad it has to be on the top.

Re:Android tablets have been here for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

yea. not nearly as cool as owning a giant iPhone that can't dial out.

Re:Android tablets have been here for a while

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Right but you can still run iPhone and iPod Touch apps on the iPad, they just blindly scale the display up. Looks ugly as sin, but it's still usable.

Re:Android tablets have been here for a while

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

With iPhone OS4, a 3G iPad and a bluetooth headset and Skype can replace your phone.

Re:Android tablets have been here for a while

[am 2k]

In all the reviews I've read, the unanimous statement was that iPhone apps are basically unusable and just a stopgap measure. I guess that's exactly how this is intended.

Re:Android tablets have been here for a while

[macshit]

Exactly! Slapping Android on a tablet is an easy answer and easy answers to hard problems never sold well.

How is that any easier of an answer than slapping iPhone OS on a tablet?

You don't think Jobs' just bought his magical turtleneck at Walmart do you? That thing is woven from the neck-beard-hair of a thousand virgin developers, and .... Ok, so it took a few days.

Re:Android tablets have been here for a while

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Not true. They look ugly as sin, and I would want to play say, Sonic the Hedgehog on one, but EchoFon for twitter or the iTunes remote app or anything else that doesn't require me to grip it by the sides and play, sure. That includes Rock Band. Which it's fantastic for. Might even be cheating.

Re:Android tablets have been here for a while

[wvmarle]

The iPhone OS has a user interface that is designed for just that task.

Android's user interface by and large has to be designed by the user (as in the tablet/phone producer that installs it on their devices).

Designing a good user interface is hard to say the least. And it's something Apple is simply doing well.

Re:Android tablets have been here for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

yes. it's so pocket sized too!

I hope you don't depend on vibrate function to know if your phone is ringing.

Zekret knoliz

[HoppQ]

I can tell you all there is to know. It will have 4 cameras, 2 on both side, for 3D video conferencing. Obviously the display is 3D as well. It will have a number of sniffers to detect chemicals. It has more than one so that you can easily detect who it was that farted in the elevator. A 3D holographic arrow will pop up to tell you! The sniffed data is used to automatically update your twitter and facebook accounts. It will have 4g, WiMax, WiFi, and Token Ring networking support. The touchscreen display can give tactile feedback, making an onscreen display feel like real. Obviously it has uses in internet porn as well.

Most importantly, the product is not only free, Google will pay you to use it. In return you will give Google the rights to all data the device collects or sends. In order to unlock the device though you have to brand the google logo on your buttocks.

Re:Zekret knoliz

[Gilmoure]

Oh man, I hate Token ring. Brooksstone networking is much cooler and easier to comprehend.

Very questionable

[yuhong]

If any Googlers want to leak me s3cr3t information, I promise anonymity

Looks like a very questionable idea, would probably break NDA, for one thing

Re:Very questionable

[yuhong]

It would be much better for them to try and get permission to disclose.

Sidenote

[standingfast]

It will be interesting to see if the iPad will remain in the middle of the entertainment vs. productivity market, or if it will be shifted more to the entertainment side of things by more business oriented devices.

Re:Sidenote

[Altus]

the real question is, will devices like this ever take off in the business environment. I can see a few uses, mostly among IT people who might carry something small like this around to be fully connected all the time, but really I think the market for tablets is infotainment in and out of the home for people who really dont need or want a full blown computer.

Re:Sidenote

[Anonymous Coward]

Or if it will end up as an oversized coaster like it deserves, the fucking pile of shite.

Use this to promote Android

[elewton]

I believe that Google should spare no expense in SOLID build quality. Even if it's expensive, a high-resolution, magnesium-cased, tough, PADD-style device would make Android the platform with clearly the BEST tablet device. Put the best of everything into it; cameras, good speakers. Enough to mesmerize the tech journalists. Other, more reasonable, price-points would benefit from being in that market.

Re:Use this to promote Android

[Culture20]

Give me USB and root. Sold.

don't get it

[Tom]

But the iPad clearly has significant limitations that someone else can capitalize on.

Yeah, less memory than a Nomad.

When was the last time that a /. opinion on anything counted for something? The track record of this community on what the greatest thing ever is and what will fail is not exactly stellar.

Re:don't get it

[Pojut]

The track record of this community on what the greatest thing ever is and what will fail is not exactly stellar.

Being great and not failing are two very different things. It's in your best interest to remember that.

Re:don't get it

[TheoCryst]

When was the last time that a /. opinion on anything counted for something? The track record of this community on what the greatest thing ever is and what will fail is not exactly stellar.

Are you kidding? /. has a flawless record!

(Once you realize that you need to negate anything that you see on the front page, that is.)

Re:don't get it

[prockcore]

The track record of this community on what the greatest thing ever is and what will fail is not exactly stellar.

Really? You had to go back 9 years to find that one.

Re:don't get it

[Tom]

Really? You had to go back 9 years to find that one.

Only because it is the most famous. /. has rooted for Openmoko and Android, and they are failures. There have been a dozen or so "this will kill the iPhone" stories, usually telling the lame tale of how the development model isn't open and you can't access the OS source code - and yet...

Oh yes, and I'm sure 2010 is the year where Linux is ready for the desktop.

Vista being a big fail was about the only tech story with mainstream impact that we here at /. got right, isn't it?

5 also

[FunkyELF]

It is their 5 and 7 Home tablets, not their Internet tablets.

Ideapad U1

[muindaur]

The Lenovo Ideapad U1 Tablet slated for this summer is the first real rival I think.

It kicks the iPad's rear for the shear fact you get a Windows 7 notebook with a detachable tablet screen that performs the same function as the iPad with WiFi and 3G.

The tablet part will have an 8 hour battery life running Linux on the snapdragon processor I think.

I don't care if it looks like a copycat either because it's taking a good idea and expanding on it.

Full Disclosure:

I have a strong personal distaste for Apple products due to high price tag with less features.

Re:Ideapad U1

[Dog-Cow]

Full Disclosure:

I have a strong personal distaste for Apple products due to high price tag with less features.

In other words, you've decided to hate something because it's not designed with you in mind.

What a loser.

Re:Ideapad U1

[icebraining]

The Touch book can do that: http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/ (well, not the 3G, but it has internal USB ports, so you can stuff a 3G card in there).

Also, it's definitively not an iPad copycat: it was released in March 2009.

"Mothership" pad / netbook

[RevWaldo]

I'd like to see a pad or netbook that's an explicit extension of a smartphone. You pop your Android / iPhone / etc. smartphone into the device. You're still using your smartphone but the "mothership" pad / netbook gives you a bigger touchscreen, more battery life, a real keyboard, webcam, better (if still not necessarily great) audio, etc. etc. No worries about syncing since the mothership has no RAM or SSDs (at least none intended for explicit use by the user.) Pop the smartphone out of it on the fly when you don't want to carry the mothership around. Basically a dumb terminal for your smartphone.

Re:"Mothership" pad / netbook

[cl0s]

That or a doc with a full keyboard, mouse & monitor. Been thinking about the same thing! Could even be wireless Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.. just plugin for monitor (which could maybe be wireless as well) and charge... Switches to 'Desktop Dock' kind of how u got the car and clock docks on there now.

Re:"Mothership" pad / netbook

[biglig2]

Two words. Palm Foleo.

tinyMCE? Thanks!

[TheNinjaroach]

I went out to Google "tinyMCE" because you mentioned it and I found a perfectly suitable Javascript widget that I have wanted for a long time. Thanks!

I'd rather have Nokia or Intel

[Lemming Mark]

With MeeGo (the Moblin-Maemo offspring), surely we could have a tablet that was more open than the iPad and closer to a standard Linux to develop for than Android. You could have an OMAP or an Atom processor depending on your price / performance / power draw constraints. If Dalvik's VM etc ran on it you could even have Android applications. That'd be far more attractive to me, giving me access to more applications whilst still retaining advantages for development and openness.

Nowhere to be found?

[KingSkippus]

What's really newsworthy here is that the competition is between Apple and Google, Microsoft is nowhere to be found.

Um... Nowhere to be found?

No Windows Mobile tablet

[tepples]

What's really newsworthy here is that the competition is between Apple and Google, Microsoft is nowhere to be found.

I don't know if "Microsoft maintains its 30-year tradition of not entering the consumer PC market" really counts as "newsworthy."

I think it has more to do with the wholesale rebranding of Windows Mobile as an operating system for phones, not tablets or smartbooks. Microsoft used to have an OS for smartbooks but abandoned it.

always innovating touchbook

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the Always Innovating touchbook. When detached from its keyboard/auxillary battery, it takes the form of an ARM-based tablet device. It's been "available" for some months, although waiting lists are long.

Forget this what about the WePad?

[ClosedSource]

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/04/12/the-wepad-gets-a-price-and-launch-date/

Just like before

[Thyamine]

This all seems very similar to when the iPhone came out. A lot of people bitched and complained about how it was junk and no one wanted it, then every phone manufacturer turned around and tried to create their own version. I can see this being exactly the same way. For whatever reason you want to come up with (poor decisions, no business clout, no innovation, etc) companies do the same thing over and over, and we get lulled into more of the same. Smart phones were stagnating and pretty poor in some cases, then Apple came along with a really well designed phone. No one made any progress in the tablet market, and Apple comes along with something well designed.

Once again, everyone will complain, but if this is correct, we'll be seeing people coming out were more versions of tablet systems running a non-desktop OS. But everyone will still complain that Apple didn't contribute at all.

I know I probably sound like a fanboy (I am to some extent), but I always find it odd that a lot of technical people can't understand that 90% of the world are just users, and want something nice that just works and looks cool.

Adam or Dell mini 5

[greenskyx]

I'm holding off for the Notion Ink Adam or the Dell Mini 5.

Re:Adam or Dell mini 5

[elewton]

Pixel Qi does it for me!

The ability to read in sunlight is the one thing keeping me tied to either p-books or my crappy eReader.

But the Mini 5 doesn't have an exceptionally high resolution, and has some weird 30 pin adapter. What about it do you find appealing? The size of the on-screen keyboard?

Re:Adam or Dell mini 5

[greenskyx]

The mini 5 looks appealing because it's Android and because it would fit in a larger pants pocket. The Adam because of the screen, the camera and it looks like a nice tablet. Both of them because of Android.

Jobs: If you see a stylus or a task manager....

[scorp1us]

Jobs: If you see a stylus or a task manager, 'they blew it'

Google: If you see a proprietary, locked-down OS and App Store which may not support your model in three years, 'they [Apple] blew it'

There is so much potential to blow the iPad out of the water:
- Dual cameras for video Skyping,
- non-Integrated obsolescence (at least not having your hardware vendor determine what updates you get)
- Open App store
- Google voice / Apps.

Though I still think that the most open phone platform is still Maemo5/Meego. There are rumors to the affect that Nokia is also planning a tablet... But Nokia's execution has always left something to be desired. (In what they envision isn't want is actually delivered)

Always Innovating Touchbook

[Anonymous Coward]

The Always Innovating touchbook does some of the things you mention, but it is more a case of a tablet docking into a proper laptop.

Flash

[jDeepbeep]

Let's see Flash on a Droid.

I have Flash support on my Droid Eris.

Re:Flash

[Anomalyst]

I have Flash support on my Droid Eris.

Allow me to express my deepest sympathies for your unfortunate condition. Hope it clears up soon.
Is your RAM full of llamas, too?

what does Gogle have to build on?

[peter303]

Apple is 2nd to none in hardware and UI design. On top of that they add pretty good software and 2nd to none app availability & delivery system. Google is inferior in all three of these, especially the first item. They could give away their hardware for free and not catch up to Apple.

Can Google out-innovate 2003?

[delire]

The question is not whether Google can deliver but whether they'll be fashionably late enough while doing so.

Re:Can Google out-innovate 2003?

[serviscope_minor]

I had one of those at work. It was a fantastic machine. The screen was indestructable, well, it survived all the years of lab work I saw with it without a scratch. It was decently fast for tis time (still will beat a netbook). The wacom stylus based screen was excellent. It nearly had the performance of a full-on graphics tablet, allowed right clicking, etc.

It even had a good (removable) keyboard. The really neat thing is that it pivoted from the middle, so it was amazingly usable on an aitplane tray table.

Not too heavy, accpetable battery life. All in all, a very nice machine.

This is a twisted anti-elitist argument

[Geof]

Android is more about tinkering and spec sheets and more nerdy goods. . . . It is 100% obvious that the iPad was not created for Slashdotters. It was created for Slashdotters parents, grandparents and sisters or anyone else who has come to a Slashdotter wondering why "the internet doesn't work"

It is utterly ironic that the debate about openness has been twisted into one of elites vs honest folk. These anti-elistist sentiments are so powerful they drive much of American politics and scientific backlash (e.g. creationism). Moreover, Apple - long seen as the maker of elitist products for snobbish users - has been recast as the ally of the common man (or grandmother). If I were a PR manager for Apple I could not hope to do better.

There is definitely a strong strand of elitism among technical folk, from the the old idea that users are losers to the incredible resistance to ease-of-use I remember from the 1990s ("If they can't use a command line I don't want them using my software). A lot of technology really is obtusely designed; the people who get frustrated (which is to say all of us) are not stupid. Tying the open vs closed debate to this experience of disrespect and frustration, and the wider discourse of elite domination by entities from bankers to bureaucrats, is very effective for evoking (legitimate) emotional responses, passing over the need to make thorough arguments.

Because the linkage is wrong. There is no necessary connection between something being open and it being hard to use. The iPad is easy to use and it is relatively closed. That is correlation, not causation. Apple is simply very good at designing (and marketing) the user experience. This ability seems to be rare among its competitors.

There is a historical precedent for a more open system that turned out to be easier to use than what it (partly) replaced. You allude to it in your post. The Web was a huge step up in intuitive usability compared to the desktop software that had previously performed many of its functions. It was also a huge step up in terms of capability (compare searching Wikipedia to searching Britannica). And it is open. Too open, in fact, for the iPad and its prohibitions on running interpreted code. Fortunately for today, it is already established and was granted a special exemption. If the iPad lockdown had been the norm 20 years ago, the Web might never have been invented. If lockdown is the norm in the future, the next huge improvement in usability and functionality might not happen.

I am fully confident that Apple has the talents to develop an easy-to-use and open system. (After all, my computers are Macs.) But the temptation for control is hard to resist. Especially when you can remake yourself as the computer of the people with that wonderful anti-elistism PR.

Re:This is a twisted anti-elitist argument

[uprise78]

You bring up some good points. I don't think I was clear in my intentions and it certainly appears as though my people-groupings have raised some flags. I also didn't mean for there to be an 'elites vs honest' grouping. I apologize if that is how my post came across as it was not meant to. I would argue that there is oftentimes (but not always) a correlation between open and hard to use. I'm going to get bashed for this but I'll say it anyway. The people who care most about 'open systems' are generally techies tinkering with them or who want access to the 'guts' to toy around. (There are exceptions to what I am about to say so take it with a grain of salt). I'm not calling out any specific software as an example here but a lot of OSS is hard to use and has absolutely terrible UI's. You almost have to be a techie to be able to use it. There are some very user-centric, pretty and usable example as well but they are few and far between. There can be some debate about this but where is it ok to have an open system and where is closed ok? It seems no one cares so much about their TV or microwave being 'closed'. Nor do most care about their game consoles (besides a few PS3/linux folks) and portable music players. Nor their landlines, mice and electric razors. Computers are on the other end of things. At that level people do care. Personal computers at least. Not so many care about mainframes and routers and switches. People never used to care about mobile phones. Before the iPhone there wasn't much talk at all about the 'openness' of phones. We all survived through it. Where should the line be drawn? Perhaps because we are looking at mobile phones as mini computers we think they should be 'open'? Perhaps mobile phones should be in the 'other consumer electronics' pile and we shouldn't care if they are open or not? Who knows? Not me for sure. There are a few things on the subject I can say though. As 'closed' as the iPhone and iPad are they most certainly did/do not stifle innovation for developers. In fact, I would argue the opposite. Where else have developers had a platform to create apps with a built in distribution system? The system is broken now (way too many apps, hard to find good ones, etc) but that is to be expected. It is very young and it needs to evolve. We have never had a touch-sensitive tablet to interact with at this level. They are innovative products that have sparked life into smart phones and tablets. 'Open' tablets will follow just as they did in the world of smart phones. The choice is there and it will be really interesting to see how this all pans out in the future.

Re:This is a twisted anti-elitist argument

[Geof]

I also didn't mean for there to be an 'elites vs honest' grouping. I apologize if that is how my post came across as it was not meant to.

Thank you for the cogent reply. I didn't mean to criticize you personally so much as use your post to illustrate a point.

My main concern lies with the social impacts of the technology. Apple's market power allow it to potentially determine or shape who has access to their platform for disseminating content (ugly word) and communication. For me, the great potential of digital technology and the Internet is that it makes it possible for everyone to participate in the creation of culture. Established oligopolies would rather continue with the model of television. Future innovation is likely to be new forms of communication; I want those to permit easy access and multi-way discourse rather than one-way channels for established players.

If the iPad turns out to be only one platform in vigorous competition with open systems then its being closed is a minor matter. However, computer platforms tend towards monopoly, both theoretically and empirically. We have seen this with Microsoft, Google, and so on. The time to do something about that risk is now, not when the outcome is clear - and it is too late.

Incidentally, I think the game machine argument is wrong. I recently bought a PS3 (for games - I have no interest in running Linux on it). Its biggest failing, in my opinion, is a lack of innovative games. The innovation that does happen seems to be with downloadable games rather than AAA titles on disk, and even there the variety is quite limited. I suspect this is largely due to the complexity of getting approval from Sony. The vibrancy of the iPhone game market to me is an indication that the relative openness of that platform (compared to the PS3) leads to more innovation. The reason I'm not on a PC is that I jumped ship when Microsoft introduced activation, and wouldn't want game DRM messing with my system. Which is quite ironic: the PS3 is as locked down as could be. I chose it because of something completely unrelated: it has a quiet fan.

P.S.: I was concerned about the openness of phones before the iPhone came along.

Re:This is a twisted anti-elitist argument

[Lunzo]

Apple is still elitist, it just appeals to a different group of people who want to be seen as elites. Your stereotypical nerd will buy whatever has the best specs and your stereotypical suburbanite wanting to be cool will buy Apple. People who buy iPhones are smug that it's better than your smartphone. iPad owners will gloat about how much better their new shiny device is than existing netbooks and kindles and nooks.

As for usability - Apple's better user experience is 90% marketing hype (haven't used an iPad so I may be wrong). In the past Apple has delivered a user experience marginally better than the competition (not hard), but it's not a great user experience by any objective measure e.g. Nielsen's Heuristics, or asking a non-fanboi.

actual product? WHY?

[Dahamma]

though without an actual product, price or date it's tough to get really excited.

That didn't stop all of those months of speculation on the iPad.

Which means in the battle with Apple fanboydom, it has already lost...

Incorrect analysis

[Anonymous Coward]

"Apple's model will always compromise developer flexibility when user experience is at stake."

You meant to say that

"Apple's model will always compromise user & developer flexibility when platform lock-in is threatened"

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tablet PCs are a tiny niche market at best, and completely worthless at worst. The only thing the iPad does that other tablets haven't done before is prove just how completely stupid Apple fanboys are. Why does Google want to introduce a competitor to a worthless product?

Investors care

[dazedNconfuzed]

Because moving upwards of a billion dollars' worth of product in the first few weeks on the market isn't "completely worthless".

How much $$$ has your whining about the iPad made you, Mr. A.C.?

Re:Investors care

[g8oz]

And how much $$$ has your swooning over the iPad made you?

I heard about it from a Googler

[Anonymous Coward]

Before the Nexus One came out they gave them out to Google employees as a gift, one of those employees was showing me theirs and mentioned off-handedly that it was "faster than our tablet". I tried to get details but they said they weren't even supposed to show me their N1 and couldn't say anything about the tablet.
So, it does exist. Whether it'll ever come to market, who knows.

Mind blowing?

[AliasMarlowe]

Apple releases magical and revolutionary device with mindblowing features.

Mind-blowing features? Don't tell me Apple is responsible for the we-vibe!
http://we-vibe.com/

Re: Jobs: If you see a stylus or a task manager...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, you seem like someone who totally gets it. Apple totally blew it with the iPhone OS being locked down. Apple is not making money hand over fist on it. Apple hasn't turned the mobile industry upside down and made other companies go out of their way to copy Apple. Take a step back and realize what Apple has done.

I don't think you have a clue how fast mobile devices are made obsolete. I have friends who purchased normal mobile phones and 6 months later when it broke they weren't able to get the same model. They were forced to switch to a totally new device. If you are REALLY still using the first gen iPhone then you are really missing out. But, if you decide to stick with it ... you can still use 3.0. There are TONS of apps that will continue to work with 3.0. Apple didn't say they were no longer supporting 3.0, they just said that 4.0 won't work on it. With technology there comes a time when you need to cut ties with older stuff so you can innovate forward.

An open app store isn't going to make a difference. Apple still and will continue to hold the top position regardless of the app store openness. If your theory was correct then Android would have passed the iPhone OS already. Guess what, it hasn't and it won't.

Programming languages & Innovation

[Geof]

If the iPad lockdown had been the norm 20 years ago, the Web might never have been invented.

To be fair, interpreted code was added later with Javascript and CSS. If Apple permitted Web browsers, their current lockdown would have resulted in an HTML-only Web. That would be a great loss. Today, Javascript is essential for many Web applications like GMail and Flickr that are easier to use than their desktop counterparts. This was not true in its early years when Javascript complicated Web sites unnecessarily. Initial complexity followed by refinement and easy of use is not an uncommon pattern for open systems.

Apple's ban on interpreters and other languages looks like a huge gamble to me. One of the time-honored techniques of solving a problem with software is to invent a language for the general case, then use that language to implement the specific solution you need. This has been standard advice for Unix developers for decades. XSLT and Prolog, for example, are orders of magnitude more effective within their problem domains than are general purpose languages. The organic fit between object-oriented languages and GUI interfaces is another example (one that often obscures the fact that there are many problems for which OO is not the best fit). Without the ability to use the right language for the job, many programs simply wouldn't be written.

It's not just a matter for geeks either. The possibility of anyone writing HTML web pages, even though only exercised by a few, fed the Web's explosive growth and ultimately led to easy-to-use publishing software like blogs and wikis. There is no nice clean line between geeks and ordinary users. It's in that fuzzy region where the two mix that much of the most innovative work happens.

not sure if this is the answer...

[roc97007]

So the big egos at Apple came out with an iPad with deliberate limitations. Then the big egos at Google prepare a competing product that (users hope) will capitalize on those limitations, but will almost certainly have limitations or flaws of it's own. Let's face it -- when you can capitalize on mindshare, you don't have to work quite as hard on the actual product as long as it's shiny.

I'm thinking we should still wait until Acer or some company with smaller egos and no axe to grind produce a product on which someone can actually get work done, and that interfaces to the usual peripherals in the usual way. I'm thinking I'll wait for that.

Problem with Android on iPad sized unit is buttons

[SuperKendall]

Android has a real problem translating to something the size of a tablet - the hardware buttons.

Already, with the iPad, the single button sometimes is annoying far away (when I'm holding the device in landscape). Now imagine the Android back buttons (which get used all the time instead of the iPad's button used for simply closing an app) equally far away... do you add buttons to all sides to solve that? Yikes.

Great Linux tablets are coming

[steveha]

I don't care whether Google prepares an iPad rival. A whole bunch of new Linux tablets are coming, likewise a whole bunch of "smartbooks" (netbook computers with non-x86 processors).

I'm really excited about the nVidia Tegra 2 chip. Typical power dissipation of about 500 milliWatts, 8 cores: ARM7 "housekeeping" core, dual 1GHz ARM9 processing cores, audio core, graphics accelerator core, video encode core, video decode core, and "image processing" core (which will support a high-resolution camera). nVidia showed off prototype smartbooks with a Tegra 2 playing HD video, and claimed that the chip was dissipating 150 milliWatts; elsewhere I have seen 500 milliWatts as the typical number.

I'm also excited about the Pixel Qi screen. That's the same display technology from the OLPC. A nice-looking display that dissipates 2 Watts when the backlight is on, and about 0.2 Watts with the backlight disabled. If you want to sit outside in the bright sun, you turn the backlight off and you get a nice, readable, sharp display that's very suitable for ebooks and web surfing, but you could watch movies that way too if you wanted.

A typical Atom system dissipates 15 to 20 Watts while operating. That's why netbooks need cooling fans. A Tegra 2/Pixel Qi system ought to have tremendous battery life, especially with the backlight off, and won't need a cooling fan. Win/win.

So, what I want is a tablet and a smartbook with a Tegra 2 and a Pixel Qi screen. I want Linux, but that's no problem, because Windows doesn't even run on a Tegra 2, and I don't think anybody is going to ship a Windows CE tablet. And I insist on a device with USB ports: I want to be able to plug in a keyboard, a mouse, a memory card reader, or USB storage devices.

I imagine that Acer and Asus will both ship products I will want. But the actual announced product I know about is the Notion Ink Adam tablet: Tegra 2 chip, Pixel Qi screen, capacitive multitouch touchscreen, Android OS. It also has an intriguing feature: a trackpad on the back of the device, which allows you to use Flash applications that were designed for use with a mouse (you use a finger on the back to drag the cursor around, and tap on the front with your other hand to click the mouse). It also has a camera that can be flipped around to point at you, away from you, or in between. It was originally announced for June, but recent news casts doubt on that.

By the way, one reason why tablets are the hot new form factor: people who see something that looks like a notebook computer expect it to run Windows, but people who see a tablet device have no expectations. So, there will probably be more tablets than smartbooks.

steveha

What new API's and UI guidelines for Android pad?

[SuperKendall]

How is that any easier of an answer than slapping iPhone OS on a tablet?

If you look at the new OS features added to the tablet, and the work that went into the guidelines for using the device, it was hardly "slapped on". As much as you might like to believe what they did was easy, sweating the details is always hard.

What Google needs to do:

[spankey51]

Give it a keyboard and it'll kill the Ipad.

Re:What Google needs to do:

[toriver]

With a software keyboard, I can get my æ, ø and å. With a physical keyboard they either need to make multiple devices or make non-English users "hack" their national characters in some fashion, like the early iPhone OS (and current 3.2 on the iPad) does on the software keyboard when you hold some keys down to get a "menu".

Phones with physical keybards did not kill the iPhone.

One more reason Apple has physical Stores

[Anonymous Coward]

So where are people going to line up and create the buzz for the Google Pad - Best Buy, Radio Shack, Sears??

Apple's iron triangle of hardware, physical stores, and iTunes is pretty much unstoppable at the moment. I sure don't know how I'd play anyone else's hand in their chosen markets.

Failure redefined

[SuperKendall]

Being great and not failing are two very different things

Beng great is, if you think about it a form of failure. If you were not making something great, what was the point really?

Lots of people like to define away failure so that no-one can get hurt, but that just makes everything suck more.

Re:Failure redefined

[Pojut]

Beng great is, if you think about it a form of failure. If you were not making something great, what was the point really?

Everyone can't come in first place...someone is going to come in second and third :-)

Irrelevant to programmers

[SpaghettiPattern]

I'm a programmer and I carry a notebook almost anywhere I go. It's my destiny.

Although my eye sight gets poorer over the years and I'd be better off with large fonts, I'd be damned to carry a mini PC like the iPhone around. So I have an Android phone.

I don't see a single reason for me to carry a notebook sized [ig]Phone with a crappy keyboard next to my notebook.

Sure YMMV, but here on /. I expect a higher than average amount of critical opinions towards these gadgets.

Re:Irrelevant to programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

> Sure YMMV, but here on /. I expect a higher than average amount of critical opinions towards these gadgets.

I guess you're in luck then. Just read this thread.

Another thing... (was: Re:Quite the opposite)

[beh]

Imagine the situation like this:

Google would have brought out the ipad.

Afterwards Microsoft would ready its rival - trying to copy all the best things from the ipad.

Do you think MS would get the same positive (or even lukewarm) reception here? Nope - it would be 'Redmond's "innovating" (i.e. copying/stealing/plagiarising) again!!'...

But because this time it's google doing it: Hey! It's all fine! I hope it will have a bigger screen, better xyz, more foo-bar, additional ...

Note: I love linux - I have used it since early slackware days - but with the ipad, apple has done something, noone has succeeded at yet, and immediately we applaud if someone else tries to build a clone.

Note 2: The same, btw. is true between open and closed source. If closed-source comes up with something open source has done first - oohh - bad guys!
But when plex86 (first attempt at a vmware clone) was 'announced': "Yay! Go, open source!".

Re:Another thing... (was: Re:Quite the opposite)

[shutdown -p now]

But because this time it's google doing it: Hey! It's all fine! I hope it will have a bigger screen, better xyz, more foo-bar, additional ...

In this case, though, given that this is precisely how Android phones are different from iPhone, it's something that is rather natural to expect by extension.

no cookies

[curri]

Nooo ! cookies are an evil security risk and ..... oh, never mind

Google Preparing Archos Rival?

[mdwh2]

My thoughts exactly - there are other tablets around, and there's no need to give free hype to Apple even when we're covering other products (for once) by calling them "iWhatever Rival/Killer/etc". It was bad enough with the Iphone (who cares about rivalling Apple, when there are loads of bigger companies in that market?) It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy - these products aren't compared to Apple because of anything to do with Apple, it simply results from the media always comparing to Apple in the first place.

Or maybe we could just quit with the astroturfing and say "Google Preparing Tablet Computer". This is supposed to be a place for geeks - we know what products like mp3 players, phones and tablets are, without needing to be told in terms of brand names. (Was the news of Google releasing ChromeOS announced with "Google Preparing Windows Rival (or worse, OS X Rival)"? Was Firefox announced as being an "Internet Explorer Rival?" Was the first Iphone announced as being a "Windows Mobile Rival"?)

What do you mean "track record"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing is being said about succeed/fail. People are just saying that that iPad is pretty lame and has some staggering limitations that would be embarrassing if seen on a 20 year old personal computer, just like the original iPod was pretty lame compared to its contemporary music players. WTF does this have to do with track records? Yes, maybe the iPad will take off, just like Windows 3.1 took off. That doesn't mean it ain't lame, though.

Onto what "counts"..

When was the last time that a /. opinion on anything counted for something?

Again, you don't get it. This is about efforts, not predictions. People want computers that don't suck. Nobody is saying they'll get them, just that they want them and they're trying to collaborate. Most "computer people" think the iPad is a piece of junk; the speaker is voicing a common opinion. If they can find others, then maybe they can make sure the iPad doesn't get too much marketshare before it's too late.

To use an analogy, you're saying, "You voted against GW Bush, but he won, so your criticisms of him were invalid. You don't have a very good track record."

It's advocacy. Yes, infused with opinion, but not just opinion, and certainly not prediction. Imagine a world where the iPod hadn't sold, so that it would be standard for music players to be able to play modern codecs like Vorbis, and music players could be synced to any OS without proprietary software like iTunes, etc. I'm not saying the iPod didn't sell, I'm saying too bad it did, and maybe the world doesn't have to repeat the same mistake.

Wouldn't it be great if (assuming the tablet market isn't a totally stupid idea) people got decent tablets instead of iPads?

Apple did it again

[wvmarle]

That is the first thing I thought when I read this article. Oh and please note I'm not a fanboi or so. I like my iBook, use it now, works fine, serves me well. I also love the Ubuntu box connected to the other side of the KVM switch.

Back to Apple.

It started basically with the iPod (though that took a while): Apple enters a new market with a new device - that hardwarewise is not spectacular but looks nice and so. A few years later it was the reference player - as if there was no other.

Then after a year or so of rumours there it finally was: the iPhone. Yet another smartphone in a saturated market. Weeks later, sorry days later, the iPhone was the smartphone against which all other smartphones were compared. Within weeks we were talking about "iPhone killers".

Now the iPad has been released. Not the only computer in this format, not the first one. Half a year or so ago at some major conference this new format got the name "slate". It is all but forgotten. Apple has released the iPad and with all it's shortcomings it is already the reference device.

It has been released for just weeks now. And already it's apparently so dominant in the market that "Google [is] preparing [a] iPad rival". No they are not bringing out a "slate-device", but it's an "iPad rival".

Apple's marketing is really beating Microsoft's here, and then I'm talking about the best times of MS marketing (I think around 1995 and the release of Win 95). I'm really impressed by what Apple has pulled off again.

Apple addressed all the iPod shortcommings.

[Anonymous Coward]

They even had to go as far as to sell DRMless tracks in iTunes.

If anything Apple is too slow to respond to the people that know what they are talking about, in the case the shortcomings of the iPad (from the device itself to the app store draconian and restrictive model of software distribution) is is patently obvious how straight-jakceted the device is.

Bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

People buying Apple gadgetry upgrade firmware allright, it is just made transparent to them, or it is explained in simple terms, but upgrade they do.