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Hands-on Face-off: IPad 2 V Motorola Xoom
GMGruman writes "Is the iPad 2 all that it's cracked up to be? Or does the first Honeycomb Android tablet, the Xoom, still hold up? I spent an intense weekend comparing the two tablets, detailing in this review how each performs in a battery of tests."
The Xoom has features that the iPad doesn't. The iPad's UI is smoother than the inaugural Android 3 (Honeycomb) release. We needed 7 pages to tell us that??
I'd really like a tablet to run my home automation display. But the cheap Android ones are no good (poor screens, buggy), and the xoom is way to expensive. I hate Apple for how the lock down their products, and how they act as a company. But the ipad2 so definitely the better buy. Still, I'm going to wait a while and see what happens.
http://www.infoworld.com/print/153837
http://www.infoworld.com/print/153837
...when the iPad 3 is coming out in the fall?
Deathmatch, really? I was hoping to see tablets thrown over buildings and smashed on the ground, not a comparison of iOS 4 vs. Honeycomb.
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
I used to use the Compaq TC1000 as a tablet for business and pleasure. But I have never been able to get to grips with the iPad: I find handwriting more useful than fingerpainting, there's a lack of hardware expandability, and it just doesn't have the software base of Windows. Can people tell me what experiences they've had using an iPad in a commercial environment for getting work done? Thanks.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4216/apple-ipad-2-gpu-performance-explored-powervr-sgx543mp2-benchmarked
and their review helps as well http://www.anandtech.com/show/4215/apple-ipad-2-benchmarked-dualcore-cortex-a9-powervr-sgx-543mp2
The key items to take away from both are, yeah the cameras suck but this is truly a real upgrade from the iPad. Performance alone puts is ahead of the older model as well as many available tablets. They did find out that the dual core processor is actually running at only 900mhz. While the Xoom pushes more pixels because of its 1280x800 versus 1078x768 the iPad2 pulls far ahead of it, beyond what the pixel count would account for. As for gaming, some games are already taking advantage of the new power, Infinity Blade has been updated and looks fantastic. This brings up the issue, will there be apps sold that are marked iPad2 required?
Better yet, its cheaper than its nearest competition. The only question is, how long before really good Android tablets come along?
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* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Am I the only one that just don't care about tablets? Ok, it's a cool piece of tecnology, but why all that hype around it?
Everything was calm before iPad1, now everybody needs one plus every company urges to build their own.
Am I eval()? - http://www.monst3r.com.br
I stopped reading at the bottom of page 1, where there was a comparison chart detailing that both tablets scored pretty much the same on all the tests, with a slight edge for the iPad in one of the tests.
Really, why bother reading beyond the point that the Xoom scores average 8.0 and the iPad scores average 8.4?
Putting moderation advice in your
Love Apple, hate them or something in between: nobody is going to beat the iPad, no matter how great a device they build, until they are able to build a competing "ecosystem" like Apple has done with the iTMS/AppStore. Nerds care about the specifications, but nerds aren't the target market anymore; everyone else is. And everyone else is more interested in what you can *do* with the damn thing.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Number of current Android tablet-specific apps (running Honeycomb): less than 100
Number of current iPad apps: over 65,000
Number of iPad apps at launch in April 2010: 2300 (citation)
I'm still not sure who would buy an Android tablet. Buying one is like buying a TV that gets only 3 channels. Why purchase a tablet hoping that the app inventory will grow when you can get a state-of-the-art iPad with 65,000 apps?
Kids go where the hardware is. Adults go where the applications are. I remember learning this when I switched from Sega to Playstation when I was in college and when I switched from MacOS 7.6 to Windows 2000 when I was in grad school.
Also, to get the Xoom's 3G, you have to commit to a 2-year contract, whereas the iPad's 3G has a monthly contract.
Where is the tablet that has SD card reader (not microSD)
I really wan't a tablet (not windows based) that has a normal SD card reader build in.
That way I can view photos that I have taken with my camara, and/or take back up of photos when I'm on vacation.
Let's cut to the chase -- the iPad 2 that Apple just released pulls further ahead in the battle with the only real competitor on the market: the Android OS 3.0 "Honeycomb" Xoom tablet from Motorola Mobility.
And the engineer in my soul sings! Summary and THEN the backing info!
One other thought. Why the hell can't Thunderbird work with exchange properly if everyone else can?
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
A complete non-story. Basically it says the iPad2 is much better, but we really really want to make it look like there is competition (to drive hits to our ads of course). The Xoom costs more too.
As far as I can tell, every other tablet manufacturer is a generation behind, more expensive, built cheaper, and has worse software/support than the iPads. I think it will take a few years for the field to balance out.
As an owner of an android phone (Droid), I was keen on buying an android based tablet but eventually bit the bullet and purchased an iPad for $350 (refurb from apple) as I was sure that I wouldn't find a good android tablet at that price point anytime soon. As much as I've wanted to like the iPad (and I do like a lot of things including the amazing IPS LCD screen), I was amazed to learn that Apple has chosen not to have a native filesystem on its products. Making things worse - each App runs in its own sandbox with no ability to access files in another apps filesystem.
This has been a massive disappointment for me. I primarily bought the iPad for reading and organizing a lot of academic publications and texts, so that I could always have my library of papers and textbooks available to me. Right now, I have all my PDFs imported into iAnnotate (a PDF reading/editing app), but none of the other PDF reading/editing apps such as GoodReader or Papers (similar to Mendeley) can access these PDFs. I can only "open" a file from within iAnnotate in another app, but this is fundamentally useless as it doesn't even share the same physical file, but instead, creates a copy that is moved into the other apps sandbox. Any changes made to the file in the other app, do not reflect back in the original copy in iAnnotate.
This alone has rendered the iPad pretty useless to me. Using Dropbox to sync files in different apps helps to some extent, but is still really stupid because a) I am unnecessarily using bandwidth I shouldn't need to use just to share the same file library between different apps & b) I now have 2 complete duplicates of my library stored locally on my ipad for the 2 apps I am using.
This is a complete mess and I can't begin to understand why universities and schools would spend tons of money buying iPads for kids when it can't even handle having a common filesystem - allowing different apps to access their documents. All the other Apple decisions I can understand (closed system, etc), but not having a filesystem? How are you even supposed to consider it for serious use without one? I don't give a fuck if it is dual core or quad core. If I can't even share files across different applications on my iPad, it has very little value to me.
Considering that Apple hasn't attempted to remedy the situation so far, I have very little hope that things will improve. I guess I'll just wait another year or so for Android to get a bit more polished and then buy an Android tablet. I find it funny that Steve Jobs kept reiterating that the iPad2 isn't a "toy", and yet, it seems most suited to run single apps at a time without any ability to share your documents and files amongst applications on the iPad2.
Loved your cooking show, but was unable to recreate the results due to the lack of the secret ingredient "Charlie Sheen".
When does Apple (and especially iTunes) become too 'big' w.r.t. anti-trust issues? What are the metrics used?
Just saying.. If you run any "free" OS, you're not getting iTunes, hence you can't use your iWhatever. That's enough for me to ignore the platform entirely. Yes the iPad is faster and prettier (IMO), but still. I'm not doing lock-in. Yes, I bought a Xoom.
One has Flash and the other doesn't.
Don't get me wrong, I have an iPad2 (I'm getting a wifi only Xoom later this month) and it's great and seems to beat Xoom in quite a few areas, but I cannot fathom how you can compare their web experiences and call them equivalent when flash still doesn't exist on iOS due to Jobs' ridiculous ego.
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AFAIK neither of them currently have Flash.
It seems to me that Apple doesn't make their devices as good as they can be -- only good enough to be a lot better than the competition. If they can be the market leader without X feature, they won't include it. When the competition catches up with the first generation, then they'll release the second generation with X feature, to once again put themselves one step ahead. Why would they make the iPad 1 with dual cameras, when it would sell just as well without them, because it had no real competition?
Purely because it has people forming long lines to have epic buttsex while I give them faptime and let them lift my smart covers to my magical device.
It just doesn't have the software base of Windows
I strongly disagree. The iPad has a huge range of software now, enough so that if you want productivity or content creation apps for just about anything, the iPad almost has an edge over the desktop (where competition is weakened by huge players like Photoshop and Office).
If you are talking about tablets specifically, then the iPad really has a huge lead over any Windows tablet past or present.
There are even a number of apps geared to writing with a stylus, if that is your thing. Or you could just get a compact Bluetooth keyboard if you find you can't type quickly on screen (I find I can touch type pretty quickly with it sitting on my lap or a table).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No, Xoom does NOT have Flash. That is something that might come "later." No, Xoom does not take memory cards as the slot is, as of now, a non-working dummy slot. No, Xoom can not play Hulu or Netflix because the hardware doesn't support it yet. Just how many YouTube videos can you watch?
I can't figure out why it took seven pages to declare what every other review Xoom has said: Xoom is an $800 buggy beta product not yet ready for prime time. Love them or hate them, the iPad is another iPod: Apple caught everyone off guard and all the competitors will be nothing more than Zune-like also-rans. But hey, at least Zune worked well, unlike the sad and embarrassing Xoom.
Flash can easily be sideloaded on the Xoom today, and it will have "officially" supported Flash very shortly.
Flash on the iPad will not be forthcoming anytime soon.
No you're not alone. I also consider the tablet market 'useless' because you can't really do any real work on a tablet (unless you're in a niche where keyboards aren't required). Tablets are for media consumption, so it's really a big iPod.
And just to be fair, it wasn't Apple that started this craze, it was Amazon. Yes, Amazon. The Kindle was a more successful product than you thought, because it got lots of manufacturers thinking about a Kindle sized product that did more than read ebooks.
The January 2010 CES show was filled with Kindle knock-offs (because no one had iPad knock-offs yet). Sony alone had three different models, nevermind Samsung and Toshiba.
This year, everyone's finally got their tablet out (only 2 years behind Apple), but it's still for a product that reads ebooks, butb allows you to watch Youtube too. And surf the web. But that's about it.
But yeah, I'm amazed that companies spend a lot of R&D to make a "me too" product that will suffer lackluster sales because it's not even close to being the market leader.
They still think this is like VHS machines, where we will pick a random device off the shelf at the Wiz, and that's where their sales will come from. But that's not how Americans shop anymore. Now there's only one brand worth having: Apple. And that's because they are the market leader, so there's no point in having some other, incompatible device.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Actually, you need "tiger blood". And believe it or not, you can order it from Paula Dean's website.
The Xoom tablet displays mail as black text on a white background (as does the iPad 2), not as white text on a black background in the manner of Android smartphones. Thus, the messages are much more readable.
Uh, my phone displays black text on white background; this of course makes text much less readable than white text on black background like most high-contrast settings for visually-impaired users provide.
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While for the most part the review is very good, I have to say he does overlook some wins the XOOM has and calls it a tie, or gives it to the iPad. For example, he says the XOOM no longer has the upper hand in cables and such, but then goes on to say how much you have to pay for these cables and adapter for the iPad... I don't think accessories should be part of the consideration. Also he fails to mention video chat quality, which means that the XOOM 2mp front facing camera really noticeably out does the iPad VGA. He also talks about in internet usage how the XOOM scores better in tests, but then uses his subjective view of which is faster...
That's not all, i didn't take notes as I read and I am not saying he's a fanboy, I just think he should have been objective and a bit more scientific in the grading as opposed to "yep, iPad"
Come on, you don't remember the UMPC? That had a huge wave of hype around it. You just don't remember it because of how quickly it tanked.
At various times Microsoft also heavily promoted Windows on tablets and there were a lot of stories etc.
What there wasn't ever really, was a lot of consumer interest. So in fact you are about as wrong as you could be, miscategorizing true consumer interest as "hype" and thus claiming there was none before.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Too bad the Xoom has such mediocre battery life. There's really no excuse for that. I have an Android phone (Nexus S) and want an Android tablet, but I'm not buying one with a 5-6 hour battery life.
Not having Flash is a feature. I don't have it on my desktop and I sure as hell don't want it on my phone or tablet.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
I also consider the tablet market 'useless' because you can't really do any real work on a tablet (unless you're in a niche where keyboards aren't required).
Except that all current tablets support keyboards quite well, and have really good virtual keyboards in addition. And there are a ton of apps to support writing, including some that support using a stylus if you choose.
But beyond that you have no idea of what can be done on a modern tablet. I have met a number of people who have replaced laptops with an iPad because the iPad works perfectly well at correspondence and writing documents.
I also find it works better at drawing than a PC (unless you buy a tablet) and it's also better suited to playing music than anything other than a real instrument.
At this point the only thing that keeps the iPad being a truly viable replacement for a computer is the need to sync it to a computer. But if you buy in an Apple Store you can have them set it up there, and then just buy apps and media on the device going forward (though it makes me cringe at the thought of people doing that and not backing up the device regularly).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yeah, I guess you could say that the lack of Flash is an advantage for the iPad, but you CAN turn Flash off on a Xoom, right?
I think you're being a bit unfair to the Xoom when Flash-free nirvana is really like just a check box away.
Is the problem that the Xoom enables Flash by default (I wouldn't know, I haven't got one)? I suppose I could see the argument that users who don't know about the check box will have to suffer...
I want to be able to decide for myself which software I run on my computer
Then buy an iPad and jailbreak it.
Stop pretending you don't have a choice when you do, just so that you can claim some rational reason for your choice beyond sheer hatred of Apple. If you want to not buy a product simply because you hate the company than admit that, and don't claim it's a technical issue when it's not.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
One has Flash and the other doesn't.
Don't get me wrong, I have an iPad2 (I'm getting a wifi only Xoom later this month) and it's great and seems to beat Xoom in quite a few areas, but I cannot fathom how you can compare their web experiences and call them equivalent when flash still doesn't exist on iOS due to Jobs' ridiculous ego.
As several other comments have pointed out, flash is not yet available on the Xoom. While it's currently promised as a software update, the functionality of the device is currently the same as the iPad in that regard, so reviewing them the same is only fair. Once the flash update for the Xoom arrives, maybe it will be worth doing another comparison review.
Even if you have a flash-enabled device, you can choose not to view flash content or even uninstall it. There's no conceivable way that not having the option is a good thing.
Neither have Flash. The Xoom is still waiting for Flash support.
I agree that not being able to shift around a master is a bit annoying, but I don't find it crippling - I simply have one creation hub app that I use for different documents, and move documents around to other apps keeping that one as the source (re-importing as needed).
Perhaps if you jailbreak the iPad you could then simply shift files around yourself, most apps will put files in Documents and probably pick up new files automatically (since that's where files would be incoming from iTunes if added there).
Also for photography this is not an issue because applications can work by sharing images across apps via the photo library, same thing for contacts in applications. It's just other documents that have more limited means of local sharing.
I think what you are discounting is the security value in this arrangement, which matters more to most users than the inconvenience this currently causes. As noted, really technical users can work around this issue and people not as technical will be OK with it as it is.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Man, I wish I wouldn't have to be sitting down this whole time while I type this up or surf this page or watch this video." I have, and the iPad might actually let me really be mobile. Laptops are a joke, you still need to sit down, plug in and BAM, you're in front of a tiny desktop machine. Tablets hope to change the way we compute. Smart phones were a taste of that, now we can get real mobile computers.
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
I hate to reply to myself.
I forgot the important part.
Because she couldn't get the Toshiba to work, she bought an iPad.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
One has Flash and the other doesn't.
I agree; it's a real issue that one supports flash ads when browsing and the other automatically disables them. Can't see why I'd pay (much less pay $300 more) for a device that includes software to make browsing worse.
And it's not like you can even play Flash games using flash on a tablet, since none of them integrate keyboards or mice which PC flash games require to operate...
That leaves the only real use of Flash as video. For watching video pretty much any site I can think of feeds video straight to the iPad instead of some clunky custom Flash player that takes overhead just to pull down a video file that's h.264 anyway. So there again why would I want to pay more to make the video viewing experience worse?
Support for Flash on a mobile device is just a curse at this point, now that so many sites support video properly on an iPad.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I guess that makes Motorola evil, right?
One has Flash and the other doesn't.
Which one has Flash, exactly? Adobe is still promising Flash for Honeycomb "real soon now" as far as I've seen...
Uh, my phone displays black text on white background; this of course makes text much less readable than white text on black background like most high-contrast settings for visually-impaired users provide.
A setting to correct deficiencies in vision is not necessarily the best setting for someone who lacks those deficiencies.
I don't wear glasses or contacts and despise white text on a dark background, I find it strains my eyes horribly. I know some people prefer it but to make a blanket claim that such text is more readable for everyone, is just wrong.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't think I'm thaaaat wrong, there IS some hype. People interests changes, I agree with you; but how it changed that much, is a question I don't know the answer.
Am I eval()? - http://www.monst3r.com.br
One has Flash and the other doesn't.
Don't get me wrong, I have an iPad2 (I'm getting a wifi only Xoom later this month) and it's great and seems to beat Xoom in quite a few areas, but I cannot fathom how you can compare their web experiences and call them equivalent when flash still doesn't exist on iOS due to Jobs' ridiculous ego.
They're not equivalent. The question is, how much value is there in Flash, and how much do you care if you don't have it? Aside from youtube and clones of youtube, I keep FlashBlock running on all my browsers at home and at work, and I don't ever look at Flash, ever. I guess if you do a lot of online Flash games or something, then it has value. I've heard a coworker talk about a streaming music site called GrooveShark that depends on it too, but for me, there's little to no value in Flash at all, so lacking it wouldn't hurt at all.
- Vincit qui patitur.
So Xoom has flash now? I thought it did not release with it..... I smell the vapors..
Why should Flash be an essential for the web? Why should the WWW need to rely on proprietary software from Adobe? Only by killing Flash can something better, open source and available to all (patent free) come along. Flash is holding everything back.
Proprietary browser plugins were fine when everyone was running Windows on a desktop, but things have moved on.
No OS maker should have to crawl to Adobe with their wallet open to request a plugin for their browser. Perhaps if the plugin was a Microsoft one then people would be less friendly to it?
Where would we be if email required a plugin for Microsoft to work?
Have you ever tried to use all the tools on a swiss army knife? they become cumbersome to use the more you add. They become smaller and not as efficient at their intended task.
The same applies to gadgets, if you try to cram too much functionality in there it just becomes a mass of buttons, icons, control panels, switches and so on. Apple produce a tool to do a few things very well rather than a tool that tries to do everything but sucks at most of them.
What good is 1000 features in a device if due to software bugs and poor QA only 900 of them work or work to a point?
I guess you could say that the lack of Flash is an advantage for the iPad, but you CAN turn Flash off on a Xoom, right?
Yes, it's same as on Android phones - you don't even get Flash immediately as page loads; rather, you see the "download" icons, which you tap if you want that particular Flash animation to run.
Since when has Flash been used for Actual Work(tm)?
usually flash is used to AVOID work. ;)
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
1)Tablet-optimized generally means an application that takes advantage of the extra real estate for a better user experience. No one is "slapping tablet-optimized" on anything - they'd be raked in the reviews, believe me.
2) That statement is nothing but TROLL!
You can put flash on it now, and it is officially supposed to be on Xoom on the 18th of this month.
Don't get me wrong, my iPad2 is fantastic, except for one GLARING hole - no prospect of flash.
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Is that you Steve? Shouldn't you be stealing somebody's liver?
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A lot of companies had the technology first but fail at integration with other service to make them easier for consumer. On the other hand, Apple had spend a lot of effort in supporting and integrate the device with other product to make it easier for consumers to use. Apple might have spent more money than on the actual product.
Look at the following products. None of them were invented by Apple, but Apple had succeed in dominating the market:
IPod: mp3 player clone. MP3 players came out years before IPod.
IPhone: smart phone clone.
Mac OS X: Unix clone.
IPad: read above thread
Mac interface: Xerox
Touch gesture: check the video released by NY university researchers from youtube.
There are lots of computers we interact with on a daily basis for which we don't have the ability to run arbitrary code--they are appliances which serve a function and there is nothing morally wrong about creating them or buying them.
Your personal preference is to have a Linux PC in your pocket, not a mobile internet appliance--that's fine, but that doesn't make you any holier than the millions of people who have a different preference.
Apple wants a total control on the app. Allow flash will give a back door for flash app to bypass Apple app control.
Relying on using software exploits to achieve the desired level of functionality isn't sustainable.
It has held up through every iteration of every device and every OS change.
The simple fact is that what is not sustainable, is locking users out of doing whatever they like with a device they physically possess. That is what does not hold up in the long run.
Apple doesn't even try very hard (in large part because they know the same truth), many OS updates do nothing to break existing jailbreaks.
Even if Apple were to somehow arrive at a mystical zero-vulnerability state that has never been achieved in the history of software (well, except perhaps for TeX), it wouldn't matter because you can always subvert the update process (which is how many jailbreaks work between finding on-device exploits).
The fact is there is a world of ability there easy at hand for anyone with a small amount of technical understanding, on really well built devices. It is really a shame to avoid that just because you don't like how a device is configured when it ships. A real hacker doesn't care how it ships, they care what they can do when they have one.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Oh, iPad2 comes with adblock now? Just that it's the first thing I install after the web browser on any web-enabled computer I own.
No, I have morals. I don't mind the ads that are not actively trying to annoy me because they help pay for what I am reading. So I get to support the site but not get annoying ads, win-win.
Well, no, you wont be playing Flash games on a tablet if you were stupid enough to buy Apple.
That's not what Xoom users are saying (who have side-loaded early version of Flash). I can't think of a single Flash game I've ever played that would work OK on a touch-screen device. They just are not built for them.
That is indeed a use, but not the only one. Maybe you don't use many commercial websites, but I do. Many of them use Flash. Many of them just wont work without it.
I use a ton. They all provide Flash-free, fully functional versions of the site for the iPad that work just as well. Or applications that work even better.
Name a site you think "just won't work" without Flash.
Congratulations on avoiding substantial parts of the web.
The only parts I have to avoid are those that cannot work on tablets by design anyway (Flash game sites), so it wouldn't matter what tablet I had. And it's not like the iPad is hurting for games you know.
Support for Flash on a mobile device is perfectly fine. Must be your mobile device that's fucking useless.
Ah, swearing, the last resort of someone who knows they have lost the argument. Perhaps the more useless device is one that burdens users with software that drains battery and processor while providing little benefit in everyday use.
In reality I have installed a Flashblock on my main computer a few years back and have only had to disable it once, and that was for a YouTube video that messed up the h.264 encoding somehow.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Ok, I agree my wording was too strong about you being "as wrong as you could be", but...
People interests changes, I agree with you; but how it changed that much, is a question I don't know the answer.
The thing is, people's interests didn't change at all. People were always curious about tablets. But they didn't sell because the experience was awful for most people, because they tried to be normal computers that you used through a touch screen (or usually stylus). A fiddly thing with a special pen that is really big and doesn't last long, has too many restrictions on how people want to use devices they can carry around all the time. Smartphones didn't even really take off until you could expect to walk around with one for longer than a day without charging.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why so much fuss, everyone knew iPad 2 would be invincible? Look at it, it's polished in every way. Xoom has just about half its battery life and the software still seems glitchy. Did Motorola hope that people would buy into that only to have more "freedom"? I like freedom very much, and I also dislike Apple, but to tell you the truth, if I'd walk into a store where both are sold, I wouldn't give the Xoom more than a finger swipe. And the store clerk would probably agree with me. Apple are in their own league here. If you want to compete with them, you have to work really hard, and not just in one department...
Seriously. If you're going to use words like "Intense" and "Deathmatch", you should be sure to make sure your facts are correct... Now, unfortunately, I don't have my Xoom handy, but, I KNOW I have search my GMAIL from within the APP. I also know there is a system wide (including Internet) search from the home screen. I am also pretty damn sure I saw an agenda view for my calendar... it was a Widget that I can put on my desktop...
Is it right to hold have a 'deathmatch" but not allow one of the competitors to use their all their weapons? Last time I looked, the iPad(s) didn't have ANY widget capability. It's just an array of icons with "badge" notifications. The widgets can be equally amazing... Like my bookmarks which scroll within the widget with screen shots of the website.. Or the YouTube videos that can be 'flipped' through with a finger. That's pretty impressive if you can use it to create 'dashboards' into your world...
I still say that the biggest difference between Xoom and iPads is simply iTunes. You either love it, or you hate it. Personally, I hate it, so I bought a Xoom. So far, it's pretty sweet. And once the app makers begin writing things for the tablet format, it will get even better. Same problem the iPad had when it first came out...
If Apple REALLY wanted to improve the iPad, they would have put a high capacity MicroSD slot on it.
There has been a long standing open bug regarding this. Please vote on this if you can. http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6914
From waht I can tell google is/was lax with the minimum system requirements and thus doesn't want android to require h/w acceleration so as to not alienate cheaper handsets manufacturers from adopting android. This is why all the rendering is done on the CPU instead of the GPU.
According to apple and apparently they have documents to back it up. The iPad was built as a concept device years before they built the iphone. But the OS wasn't ready. Seems like they were on it well before amazon.
Zoom doesn't have FLASH yet. When it does, will it be usable?
when flash still doesn't exist on iOS due to Jobs' ridiculous ego.
I am no Apple fan but often they are ahead of the curve in removing old useless technology (eg. floppy drives, etc).
I think they got this one right, no one will be using Flash in a few years.
Maybe you'll like the upcoming HP TouchPad.
WebOS is a fantastic operating system, Linux underneath, apps in HTML/CSS/JS, C++ for those who want 3D and high-performance. The browser is brilliant, multi-tasking is fantastic, development is a snap and is very open. True, the OS isn't fully Open Source, but Palm have a great development platform and a very open approach to development. The hardware looks great too!
One advantage I've noticed is there are a large number of Flash games that will work on mobile Flash. They get very popular, and thus they are remade for iOS and are sold for money. With Flash on your device you can play them for free, without you pay extra.
-]Phreak Out[-
Let me know when android rips the vm out and can match the performance of IOS native code and I might care.
Got Code?
No it is not a feature.
You can disable it if you want but everyone else actually wants it as there are important websites I need that require it. Further, it pretty much eliminates 100,000 apps on the App Store.
The thing is, there are apps that use Flash that aren't about video OK?
The Flash sites that are just displaying video can be done in other formats. Youtube, for example, uses HTML5 instead as well.
That said, there are certain websites such as neighbours.com.au that have NO alternative to flash. No matter what, it is impossible to view neighbours episodes on an iPad (yes, I've tried Frash, Skyfire and numerous other apps).
http://www.apple.com/feedback/
http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html
Follow the links above and let your voice be heard.
Actually... both don't have Flash at the moment.
Not having Flash is a feature. I don't have it on my desktop and I sure as hell don't want it on my phone or tablet.
Oh come on, you can stop with the idiocy. I chose an ipad because i think it's the best device in that category, but i don't feel the need to ignore the fact that a lot of great web-content is flash-based and that not having the option to be able to view it is a shortcoming. If you need to be forced to not have access to flash in order to not use it then that's your shortcoming, not flash's.
http://liverpoolfc.tv/
Further reinforcing my statement that the only thing Flash is really needed for is video...
However in the case you gave, you can view liverpoolfc.tv via Skyfire:
Just to add to what others have posted about the Skyfire web browser you can get from the app store - until recently, it wouldn't play videos from LFC TV. However, a couple of days ago Skyfire issued an update to the browser which now allows many, many more flash videos across the web from a lot more sites to be viewable, and that now includes LFCTV vids.
Next!
Or, just possibly, someone that knows how to accentuate their speech through use of broader vocabulary.
Swearing is the sign of someone who has run out of vocabulary, patience, and wit. Sorry man, you can't walk back out from your own gaffes that easily.
What sort of cunt gets worried about language?
Who said I was worried? I was just noting how unintelligent you were (and are) making yourself look. At this point anyone reading is just shaking their head at how infantile you are becoming.
I'll let you have the last reply, I don't feel the need to read further thoughts from anyone who can't find a single valid Flash example, and has as I said run out of words and wit. What's funny is you will rise to the bait and beclown yourself all the further, even though I've told you what you will do. Quite amusing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I totally agree with the thought that Flash is the equivalent of iFart.
Of course the thing is, Apple is not shipping iFart as a system update the way Xoom is.
The funnier thing is how many people seek so desperately on Android to install what is the equivalent of iFart, to watch stuttery video and a lot more ads. At least iFart makes no pretenses about the "experience" you are about to have.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If by "content creation" you mean some basic typing or low-end media editing. I'm sure it's fine for consumers (blogging, youtube etc) and I do know a couple of professionals who prefer the iPad for filling out reports, simple presentations etc, but for almost anything substantial, there's no comparison at all with laptops & PCs. Tablets are sharply limited by screen area, resolution, memory, processor speed, storage, connection bandwidth, graphics power, peripherals - pretty much in every possible way except mobility.
- Substantial writing is a lot easier with more screen area, especially if you want to research stuff at the same time.
- Detailed photoshopping, large images, not the basic levels & color stuff.
- Drawing/painting (with a pressure tablet, as you said earlier)
- Final Cut/Avid-level film editing
- Compositing
- 3D rendering
- Software development
- Web page development
- CAD
and far more; these are just some of the things I occasionally need to do.
Even the many things a tablet *can* do, can be done far more easily with more powerful hardware, larger screens and richer input peripherals. The sole advantage a tablet has is mobility, and that's a pretty small consideration for the vast majority of real, paid work - *especially* content creation. While tablets certainly have their place (I have one), they're never going to replace PCs or laptops for most of what many, many people need to do.
P.S. This of course applies to all tablets, not just iPads, so relax.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Many people, especially many upper-level executives, consider the need to boot up into Windows (or Linux, or Mac OS X) and use full, heavy-weight applications to do simple things like reading mail as something they really, really care about.
The Slate is a very different device, and, equipped with Windows, it's going down the same rabbit-hole HP went down already---without success---with the tc1000. People who want a full PC usually don't want a tablet's compromised input devices, and people who want a tablet don't want a desktop OS and it's baggage.
--srj/mmv
That's when the Native Development Kit was first released.
Though arguably, since 2.2's inclusion of an automatic JIT compiler, everything is native code now. And of course the system libraries always were, which is what 90%+ of most apps' time is spent in.
Then there's the hardware - CPU speed, available RAM etc, which tend to be higher on flagship Android devices as a rule. But I expect you're not really interested in actual resulting performance, you've probably just got something against VMs.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Do you have one? I know two people who have them, have put Flash on it themselves and they say it's great. My iPad2 is also great.
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I still find it astonishing that people cannot understand that the actual reason Java and Flash aren't on the iWhatever is because it would let you bypass the app store. Every other excuse is just window dressing bull****.
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Flash is old useless technology? Hell, I think flash development is fundamentally gimpy but it is a million times better than HTML application development, and HTML is an older technology. Should Apple be dumping that too? LOL.
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Back in the day when I was a student, I lusted after one of those little UMPCs. Unfortunately they were way too expensive and out of my reach.
I definitely don't consider the Kindle to be a tablet, and neither do most other people. In fact, a lot of people own both a Kindle plus a tablet computer (iPad or Android-based tablet).
The Kindle is successful because it does one thing very well, and that's ebook reading. It essentially sucks at everything else. I love my Kindle for reading, despite the fact that it has an appallingly bad and klunky user interface.
The iPad is a completely different beast to the Kindle. And that's why both Amazon and Apple can be successful in the arena. Pundits like to claim they're competing against each other, but they're not -- at the moment. Who knows what the future will bring...
I didn't mention the video on liverpoolfc.tv
Does Skyfire display the flash on their homepage, including the news items?
Does Skyfire display the live match coverage?
Trust me, I've already told lfc to stop using Flash so obnoxiously, but writing it off as mere video is frankly a lie.
Thanks for the last reply, it's good to know you realise how wrong you are.
For what it's worth, I can type on the iPad almost as fast as on my desktop. I have to look at the keyboard a bit while I do it, but I can take notes faster on the ipad than on paper, and I've only had it a week. After some time setting it up so I can access all my documents and media from the tablet, I haven't felt the need to use my laptop since buying it. Obviously it's not a full blown desktop, but it's incredible if you think of it as simply a window to content. It's definitely going to replace the gigantic reams of paper I used to carry around to meetings, replace all my paper auto repair manuals and be the end of hauling a laptop around as a multimedia device. Like the iPhone (and later Android/WebOS stuff), it's a device that truly opens up a lot of possibilities that weren't there before and developers are only getting started with it. It's just going to take a while for people to figure out exactly what its strengths and weaknesses are.
i like the ipad 2
http://lyricsbus.net
When you reviewed the new iPad2 with the motorola did you use the smart cover? Aparently it saves battery, does the motorola have any thing like this? Its just battery life on all of these tabs are a major issue for me. Have a look at iPad2 Smart Covers, its just where i read a bit of information on it.