A Deep-Dive Look At Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1

MojoKid writes "Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 was announced way back in February this year just prior to Apple's iPad 2 launch. Shortly after, a Samsung VP noted the company was re-evaluating their Galaxy Tab line in the wake of Apple's strong iPad 2 showing in early March. Since then, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has begun shipping and early reports show the Android 3.1 driven device to be slightly thinner than the iPad 2, lighter and with NVIDIA's 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor under the hood, every bit as capable. With recent Honeycomb entrants in the 10-inch Android tablet market, like the Asus Transformer, Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, the iPad 2 finally has solid competition in terms of both hardware and OS performance."

Comments

Well

[zero.kalvin]

"the iPad 2 finally has solid competition in terms of both hardware and OS performance." That's good news, more competition, better options for the rest of us.

Re:Well

[garcia]

Does it really mean that? This is Apple after all. People are going to buy the iPad2 over the other devices for any number of reasons--mainly the OS and the applications available for it.

Personally I would much prefer an iOS device if I were to get a tablet simply because I already own an iPhone and I prefer the UI. While I don't enjoy using my Mac Mini (1st gen which really needs to be retired) simply because I prefer the application support available for Windows, nothing beats the iPhone IMO.

Now, if the Tab had come $100 cheaper and offered me something MORE than what the iPad2 does, I would be all over it. But for the same price it's just not worth it to lose the ease of use, interoperability, and application support.

YMMV.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

well, maybe if they hired some people to do UI who werent engineers, everyone would have better options. i really don't care how fast my tablet can run a LINPACK benchmark, i care how responsive it is and how usable the UI is, with the choice of applications most of the time.

Re:Well

[amiga3D]

If the samsung came with something like Meego or one of the touchscreen linux distros I'd be more interested. I'm underwhelmed by Android. The more I see it the less I like it. It's okay for phones but on larger devices it's not so good.

Re:Well

[eL-gring0]

Dunno, man. 16GB/3G models are $200 cheaper than their Apple counterparts (429 vs 629 @ BestBuy). Do you think there's enough margin to go any lower without a Microsoft-style flooding the market at a loss?

I'll admit I'm waiting for the leapfrogging of models to slow down and to see if the tablet market will crash before jumping in myself.

Re:Well

[blahbooboo]

Now, if the Tab had come $100 cheaper and offered me something MORE than what the iPad2 does, I would be all over it. But for the same price it's just not worth it to lose the ease of use, interoperability, and application support.

Exactly. It's not enough to match the ipad, it has to be CHEAPER than the ipad to be worthwhile for normal people.

Not meant as flamebait, but I believe Android would never have gotten as popular as now if the iphone hadn't been limited to one carrier and priced higher than the android phones in the USA.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do ppl always claim IPad has more apps for it ? Knowing the filtering with respect to installing software on the ipad as well as the almost mandatory use of objective C and the limitations in the available API sets to access hardware ... why whould it carry or have the capability to carry more software than an andoid device ? Only the things apple believes in are available. Usb ? No not needed ... Additional memory ? Hmm .. no really either ... Connect to a regular HDMI/VGA monitor ... are you kidding ?

Speaking of stability and quality ? Honestly i have used an Ipad and yes it crashes and yes things sometimes just - no not - work ... like with other OS-ses.

Interoperatibility ? Man, android is built using linux ... linux is interoperable with anything ... much more than IOS. but yes with Apple stuff, sure, there you are right.

You are right that an IPad matches better with IPhone and MacOS but have you tried using it in a non-apple world ? Really hard !

Re:Well

[PCM2]

Why do ppl always claim IPad has more apps for it ? Knowing the filtering with respect to installing software on the ipad as well as the almost mandatory use of objective C and the limitations in the available API sets to access hardware ... why whould it carry or have the capability to carry more software than an andoid device ?

Because more people write iOS apps than Android apps? Because the iTunes App Store has more apps in it than the Android Market? This is a strange question. Sure, people could theoretically write more apps for Android than iOS... but they don't.

Re:Well

[Samantha Wright]

Well, it means that people who do prefer the Android way of doing things, and (for some reason beyond my imagination) require a tablet-like device, will be able to get the product they want instead of resorting to their less-preferred Apple backup. I think it's a win for everyone. Definitions of "ease of use" and "interoperability" go both ways, naturally.

Re:Well

[Kral_Blbec]

Unless you are going to install every app in either market, that is a moot point. Most of the apps in both are worthless.

Re:Well

[iluvcapra]

The $429 16GB Galaxy Tab you're looking at is not the 10.1, but the small-screen kind. The price of a 16GB Galaxy Tab 10.1 with no 3/4G is $499, identical to the iPad 2.

Re:Well

[index0]

The answer is Asus' EEE Transformer that costs $399. It also has a microsd slot, that an ipad does not have.

Re:Well

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

Um, the ipad can connect to both HDMI and VGA monitors now. Sure, you do have to buy adapters but you have to do so for many android devices too.

Re:Well

[symbolset]

The Transformer did come $100 cheaper, and did offer me more than the iPad2 did. And now I have it and I really like it. YMMV

Re:Well

[iluvcapra]

That's not completely reasonable -- Android is free to be used on any carrier network and by any handset manufacturer, so I'm told this spurs competition and improves consumer choice.*

If there are six people writing mortgage interest calculator apps instead of two, it's pretty clear which market has better competition and consumer choice. The fact that 3rd party developer revenues on the Android store are significantly less than on Apple's store, leading to less developer interest, less choice and competition, and more ads and undesirable misfeatures (like customer data gathering) despite having a more open market, is a perverse but real outcome and directly attributable to the business model.

(* Set aside for a moment the fact that any Android phone without "Nexus" in its name is more locked-down than an iPhone.)

Re:Well

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Objective C isn't a requirement.

you can use c and c++ too.

Re:Well

[camperslo]

Why can't they be much cheaper? These vendors got the OS for free. Most won't do huge ad campaigns. The CPUs cost far less than x86 Intel chips. It's not like the displays are made of anything extraordinary. With competition and SOCs, these could likely be in the price range of netbooks. Of course the margins would be fairly thin, but when they're Windows-netbook-like commodities without the price of Windows, that's how anything that isn't the hottest stuff should be priced.

Hopefully seeing that the losers don't make any money will motivate companies to put out better products. Maybe someone will actually be smart enough to leverage the power of the user community, and release the full source so others can help polish/innovate to the next level.

The lack of support for old Android products is shameful. Even if there is too little RAM to use the latest version of Android, all vendors should still have provided updates for things like security issues. Some units are being treated like they're disposable. They should be priced to match.

And with some vendors putting out models that are a bit quirky or are otherwise duds, the previous generation models being cleared out ought to be dumped at really low ($100 - $200) prices.

If Google is making ad money off of the OS, perhaps some hardware vendors should consider asking Google to pay them to use it? Maybe Microsoft shouldn't be the only one to pay to see its OS and search product installed?

Re:Well

[iluvcapra]

Okay I pulled those numbers out of my ass. On the App Store we got 174 "mortgage interest" , and on the Android Market we have 234. OTOH, on the Android Market about 50 or so of these apps are just branded "$reatlor Mortgage Calculator" apps like this one and another 50 that are just RSS feed readers of some guy's blog on the financial crisis. All of the Apple store apps were legit, destinguishable calculators from a variety of vendors.

Re:Well

[krelvin]

Does it really mean that? This is Apple after all. People are going to buy the iPad2 over the other devices for any number of reasons--mainly the OS and the applications available for it.

For the very reason you mention, a lot of people won't buy an iPad because it is Apple, stuck with iTunes etc... I don't have an iPhone, would never want one, so that attraction isn't there. My wife has one though.

Right now, I don't think the tablet experience is there yet, but it will catch up like it has with smartphones.

Re:Well

[cduffy]

(* Set aside for a moment the fact that any Android phone without "Nexus" in its name is more locked-down than an iPhone.)

My LG P-999 (aka T-Mobile G2x) would beg to differ with you. So would my phone before that (an HTC Hero) and my phone before that (an HTC Dream).

Also -- missed the announcement from HTC they would be unlocking their future bootloaders?

Re:Well

[Dr Herbert West]

Quick question-- how well does that work? Do you have true mirroring/2nd monitor functionality (drag an app window from one screen to the other)?

I know the HTC Evo has a crippled firmware driver that will only play "approved" content (Sprint and YouTube video, native slideshow viewers, etc). Luckily the dev community (Sam Bero with his FullHDMI app in particular) has stepped up and built a driver that allows for full output, but I felt pretty betrayed when I found that the implied functionality was not the actual functionality. Marketing douchebags-- "connect your phone to a hi-def tv" implies that you will actually be able to, you know-- PLAY stuff on the hi-def tv.

Re:Well

[UnknowingFool]

I think it means that Apple competitors have now acknowledged that they can't rush out a buggy, incomplete tablet and hope it does well against the iPad. It has to be fairly complete when released instead at some future date. Consumers have short attention spans and first impressions matter.

Re:Well

[UnknowingFool]

Why can't they be much cheaper?

While some here on /. will refuse to admit, it actually is costly to make a tablet and get a decent margin on them. Most here would like a tablet to cost $150 and be able to run Crysis II while mixing 5.1 audio at the same time; there are limits to what tablets can do for a price. Some components like 10" screens are not plentiful as they have not been mass produced by many suppliers and are still limited to a few companies.

The CPUs cost far less than x86 Intel chips. It's not like the displays are made of anything extraordinary. With competition and SOCs, these could likely be in the price range of netbooks. Of course the margins would be fairly thin, but when they're Windows-netbook-like commodities without the price of Windows, that's how anything that isn't the hottest stuff should be priced.

Just because the CPUs may cost less does not mean the whole device is going to cost less. The touchscreen probably makes up for the difference in prices. Also form factor has a cost. Generally the smaller form factor costs more to manufacture. A manufacture could probably make a cheaper 1" thick tablet but no one is going to buy it next to thinner one.

And with some vendors putting out models that are a bit quirky or are otherwise duds, the previous generation models being cleared out ought to be dumped at really low ($100 - $200) prices.

One advantage that Apple has over their competitors is the vertical integration. They can sell the iPad at lower prices and still get a decent margin since they sell enough of them at retail to keep those margins.

Re:Well

[iluvcapra]

LG P-999 (aka T-Mobile G2x)

Why is this phone $420 and only available with T-mobile? Is this really a competitive handset? The freedom premium here is a little extraordinary, particularly if it's only T-Mobile bands.

Also -- missed the announcement from HTC they would be unlocking their future bootloaders?

I have seen it, but let's see what happens to HTCs sales through it's carrier channels, huh? Maybe Verizon will decide they want to start pushing the Samsungs harder all of the sudden, or maybe they aren't really an HTC kind of company.

Re:Well

[UnknowingFool]

Why do ppl always claim IPad has more apps for it ?

Maybe because Apple got at least a year start than Android when it comes to tablets. That and all iPhone/iPod Touch apps work on the iPad without having to recompile. They are not optimized for an iPad screen but they will work. Android did not have that advantage as Honeycomb is different enough from previous phone Android releases where they are not guaranteed to work. They may work but it is not guaranteed.

Knowing the filtering with respect to installing software on the ipad as well as the almost mandatory use of objective C and the limitations in the available API sets to access hardware

And why would any consumer really care about which languages their apps are programmed in? Developers care. With a huge library of apps when launched, developers will develop for iOS due to the large number of consumers.

Speaking of stability and quality ? Honestly i have used an Ipad and yes it crashes and yes things sometimes just - no not - work ... like with other OS-ses.

Can you name exact instances? Seriously Win 7 crashes sometimes on me. Not as much as XP did. By your metric, it is unstable as well.

Interoperatibility ? Man, android is built using linux ... linux is interoperable with anything ... much more than IOS. but yes with Apple stuff, sure, there you are right.

Um have you actually tried to update Android? Depending on the manufacturer, you might have a good experience or a terrible one. And it's all linux. Interoperability indeed!

You are right that an IPad matches better with IPhone and MacOS but have you tried using it in a non-apple world ? Really hard !

I use 4 different OS's on any given day from Windows to OS X to (non-Apple) Unix to Linux. Have you really tried OS X (not Mac OS) because I suspect you haven't if you can't get the name right.

Re:Well

[UnknowingFool]

Yes and no. In both stores, there are terrible apps but the larger number of apps generally means you can find an app that you want.

Re:Well

[AliasMarlowe]

(* Set aside for a moment the fact that any Android phone without "Nexus" in its name is more locked-down than an iPhone.)

In the US, maybe. In most other parts of the world, Android phones tend not to be locked down.

Re:Well

[Haedrian]

Not meant as flamebait, but I believe Android would never have gotten as popular as now if the iphone hadn't been limited to one carrier and priced higher than the android phones in the USA.

The US isn't the only country in the world you know. Where I come from androids are still more popular, even though there are no carrier locks or anything like that (in fact, most mobiles are bought from a shop and then you put in the sim card, not bought as part of a contract)

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

One advantage that Apple has over their competitors is the vertical integration. They can sell the iPad at lower prices and still get a decent margin since they sell enough of them at retail to keep those margins.

The other vendors have distributors in place. The vertical integration helps Apple make a better product since they were heavily into the design. But as far as cost goes, the main vertical-piece the (want-to-be) competitors get from others is the OS which they get for free. If they've made products they're confident in, they can build in volume too. A company like Samsung actually has an advantage over Apple since they make both screens and semiconductors. So they really do have lower costs than Apple, and should be able to settle for lower margins as well. The prices should come down.

Re:Well

[t2t10]

But for the same price it's just not worth it to lose the ease of use, interoperability, and application support.

Interoperability? With what? iOS is tightly locked down and it primarily "interoperates" with iTunes and (eventually) iCloud.

Ease of use? That's rather dubious. iOS is a bit simpler because it's more limited. But ease of use ultimately needs to be measured in functionality per unit of UI complexity, not just UI complexity.

Application support? There are more tablet apps for iOS to be sure, but entire categories are missing because Apple doesn't allow them.

Sorry, I'm willing to pay extra for an Android tab. Having the Samsung 10.1 come out with the same size and price as the iPad is more than good enough for me, not despite Android but because of it.

Re:Well

[bondsbw]

Does iOS have real widgets (that you can change out for whatever you want... like wifi/3g/etc. buttons)?
Does iOS have voice-recognition throughout?
Does iOS currently have a split keyboard, or let you replace the stock?
Do iOS devices support SD cards?
Does iOS support a mouse?

Disclaimer: I own both an iPhone and a Xoom, and the wife has an Android phone (HTC Aria). I don't see any reason to replace my iPhone anytime soon. But I cannot and would not try to claim that it has Android beat in all categories. The iPad does have Honeycomb beat in tablet apps... so I'm hoping the GT 10.1 will get enough momentum to help change that.

Re:Well

[toadlife]

My Samsung Epic 4g (Galaxy S) has a custom ROM.

No locked bootloader here.

Re:Well

[Divebus]

The people I know with Android devices are (1) "anything but Apple" geeks, (2) buy only on initial price, (3) can't tell the difference between iOS, Android or anything else they're looking at or (4) don't really care (a rarity). I've helped these people set up their Androids for various things (mail accounts, ringtones, Wi-Fi access) and I get the "what were they thinking" feeling about how Android behaves. It's relatively clunky, vague, inconsistent, rigid and confusing compared to iOS across all the devices.

Funny thing is Android users typically don't even want to touch an iPhone or iPad. They apparently don't want to know the differences for fear of feeling foolish, or fooled maybe. I don't think they have anything to worry about - to each, his own. They won't hesitate to challenge me to some sort of page loading duel or app demonstration which usually ends badly for them or at least at a draw - their brand new Android against my two year old 3GS. When they do touch an iOS device, however, they're astonished at how fluidly their fingers seem to connect to what's on the screen and can't put it down.

Android has replicated a lot of the whoosh and swoosh from the original iPhone and that's good enough for most people - the "sizzle off the steak". The real geeks love Android because they can "do whatever they want" - but few of them actually do it, they just talk about it. The real key is the entire Apple ecosystem of products that can't be replicated by all these disconnected devices. Solve that equation and Android could achieve functional parity with iOS in a large desirable ecosystem. Unfortunately, Android is starting to look a lot like the "Plays For Sure" products with hundreds of junkyard class competitors which will surely overcome the iPod.

Re:Well

[metalmaster]

A company like Samsung actually has an advantage over Apple since they make both screens and semiconductors. So they really do have lower costs than Apple, and should be able to settle for lower margins as well. The prices should come down.

Thats not actually the case. Synergy doesnt necessarily come easy for corporations that have a hand in everything. Samsung may make both led screens and soc, but if its more profitable for another company to purchase those soc you can bet thats what Samsung will do.

This was discussed a few months back when Samsung was producing chips for Apple. Ya, Samsung makes their own tablets and phones. Apple can afford to pay for more units, so they get the contract....not Samsung's own division. Its what keeps corps like that afloat. Otherwise its hard to have a hand in everything.

Re:Well

[cduffy]

Why is this phone $420 and only available with T-mobile? Is this really a competitive handset?

Dual-core CPU, 4G radio, latest-generation 3D acceleration, DVI output (and the hardware is more than adequate for streaming a great-quality picture off Netflix over that DVI output). I bought it as future-proofing, but the consumer justification for the markup is that it's gamer equipment... nothing about a "freedom premium".

Re:Well

[Mike_K]

The reason they cannot be much cheaper is *because* they get the OS for free.

None of the other vendors can match Apple on purchasing power alone, so they will have a hard time competing on cost for comparable hardware. And since Apple owns the software and the store that comes with it, they can sell the hardware below cost, and make it all back in the App Store, iTunes, etc.

Re:Well

[greentshirt]

I'm a university student working in cellular sales part time and I can tell you that the trend I see is actually the opposite. People come into the store due to Apple marketing, wanting an iPhone. They are sometimes shocked that a touch screen demo phone they are playing with isn't actually an iPhone, but is a Windows Mobile 7 or Android device. Many people have no idea what a phone OS is or that there are touch screen phones that are not iPhones.

That being said, however, even the most basic users quickly see the advantage of Android over iOS. When people try Swype for the first time, it blows their mind. When people see live wall papers for the first time, it blows their mind. When people see home screen widgets for the first time, it blows their mind. When I show people my own Android device which is running a custom launcher called ADW EX, and how quickly and easily I can change my theme to look (and behave) like an iPhone, or like a Nexus S, or any other presets I've configured, it blows their mind.

For customers who don't care about any of that, and just want something easy, Windows Mobile 7 seems to offer a very strong alternative to iOS. It is extremely simple to use, well laid out, and the devices I've used have been blazing fast.

At this point in the game, both Apple and Microsoft are extremely concerned about Android. Google had a master stroke in creating and developing Android and providing it for free. They have gained unprecedented hardware support and once Google voice spreads to the rest of North America, and the world, it will only shake things up even more. I'm certain Google's hardware coup played a part in the Microsoft / Nokia merger, and the potential of Google voice must have played a role in the Microsoft purchase of Skype.

Betting against Apple is usually a suckers bet because they sell an image, not a product. That being said, my prediction for the mobile world five years from today is a landscape where Apple is marginalized to cult followers and the rest of the market is split fairly evenly between Google and Microsoft. I think Microsoft will fight for mobile as if their survival depended on it, and Windows Mobile 7 is probably the most iPhonesque non-Apple OS I've seen thus far. Will be fun to watch.

Re:Well

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

samsung can, not only because they're HUGE, but also because they can make their own chips if they decide to ditch tegra2. remember that samsung is the current manufacturer of apple's Ax chips.

Re:Well

[pandrijeczko]

It does.

You OWN an Android device, you LOAN an iOS one.

Re:Well

[UnknowingFool]

The other vendors have distributors in place. The vertical integration helps Apple make a better product since they were heavily into the design. But as far as cost goes, the main vertical-piece the (want-to-be) competitors get from others is the OS which they get for free. If they've made products they're confident in, they can build in volume too.

In terms of cost and pricing, Apple's retail stores provide a huge advantage in that their competitors sell mostly at wholesale. So their competitors don't get the retail price; their competitor's distributors do. Apple sells at both retail and wholesale.

Take for example the $500 iPad 2 model. For Apple to get 30% margin on that model their costs cannot exceed $350 for manufacturing and retail costs with $150 in margin. A competing product has cost far less because the distributor has to take a cut as well. Suppose the distributor makes 10% or $50 on each $500 tablet. That means they have to buy it at $450. The manufacturer has to keep costs down to $300 to make the same margin as Apple. Or they can take less margin. While these numbers are only examples, I would think that distributors want more than 10% margin and manufacturers want at least 30% margin. Something has to give.

A company like Samsung actually has an advantage over Apple since they make both screens and semiconductors. So they really do have lower costs than Apple, and should be able to settle for lower margins as well. The prices should come down.

Theoretically yes but in practice, no. Each separate division of Samsung is responsible for their own accounting. Samsung semiconductors and memory has to show profit at the end of the day. Now they could sell to another division at a discount; however, Samsung semiconductor sells enough product to non-Samsung customers that it isn't good for them in the long run. Also very few companies, even Samsung could manufacture all the parts. For example the 10" screens are probably made by a few suppliers. There are stories that Apple has kept costs down by locking up the supply with long term contracts. Over time as more suppliers come on board they price goes down; but they go down for everyone.

Re:Well

[Divebus]

Selling the woosh and swoosh of a single device against the entire Apple ecosystem takes some shallow customers to be successful. You could argue the opposite depending on what's important to the individual. Unless Apple stops selling products today and goes on a five year cruise, I don't think the balance will change that much in five years.

It's just as likely that Android or Windows Phone will be relegated to cult followers, but I don't think that will happen either. It'll take perhaps 10 years before the current balance changes enough to declare any of these items marginalized, if at all. It took 15 years to go from the first Mac to the Marginalized Apple In Trouble phase of that company and they tried their hardest to screw it up.

Android is just one self propagating destructive worm away from oblivion, which is a distinct possibility. Besides, incumbents are hard to unseat, no matter how badly they perform. It could happen, but I doubt it. I'll file this away and look again in five years. That's the only way to know - and frankly I don't actually care. It's just funny to watch what people think is important and how much emotion they put behind what they've chosen.

Re:Well

[pandrijeczko]

Selling the woosh and swoosh of a single device against the entire Apple ecosystem takes some shallow customers to be successful.

Why do you describe someone who doesn't choose an Apple product as "shallow"? If Apple is as successful as you say it is, then someone choosing NOT to go with the in-crowd and selecting a device based on its merits, whether an iPhone or not, strikes me as being anything but shallow.

Android is just one self propagating destructive worm away from oblivion, which is a distinct possibility.

Rubbish. How many worms & viruses have hit Windows over the years, yet the number of Mac and Linux users on the desktop is peanuts by comparison - and I'm a Linux person.

Oh, and PLEASE listen to me. Just because Apple locks down iOS does NOT mean it is immune to viruses or worms - in any OS it is simply about finding a vulnerability due to a software coding bug that can be used to spread malware. Or is there some other reason why Apple releases fairly regular iOS updates?

It's just funny to watch what people think is important and how much emotion they put behind what they've chosen.

Actually, I think it's very sad that too many people buy gadgets based on their cool factor and how much they will impress their friends, rather than thinking about what this means to their personal freedoms and how much control they are handing over to an evil corporation.

Re:Well

[pandrijeczko]

I don't buy Apple because I know damn well that with the current locked-down state of iOS, it will not run at least half the stuff that I want to on it. Period.

And I couldn't give a stuff about how much more usable the iOS interface is than Android because iOS does NOT do what I need a device to do.

Likewise, I'm not even sure I can find a reason to buy any tablet at the moment because I have a perfectly good netbook that lets me install what software on it I want to when I want to and I'm pleased that I don't have such a self-important lifestyle that waiting 30 seconds for a Linux netbook to boot up is really THAT important to me.

Oh, and for your information, I work in security and I like old games. Therefore I need to use packet-sniffing, IDS and white hat hacking tools, and in my spare time I run emulators like MAME, UAE and DOSBox. But Apple does not allow many of these things to be available on the App Store and you cannot go anywhere else for the software unless you jailbreak the device - probably voiding your warranty in the process and defeating the object of buying the device in the first place.

Finally, and most importantly, a computing device to me is a tool for productivity and entertainment - I could care less about what colour it is or whether it goes with the pullover I'm wearing. Consequently, I see no reason to pay a premium price just because a gadget "looks nice" - my muscular structure really isn't that fragile that I particularly care that an iPad probably weighs half of what my netbook does... life REALLY is too short to worry about a "0.7 kg weight difference" for example.

Re:Well

[pandrijeczko]

If that's the case then why did iPad 2 come out only ONE YEAR after iPad 1?

Nothing to do with iPad 1 being rushed out without a camera, by chance?

Re:Well

[shutdown -p now]

+1. Love my Transformer.

However, I wish that Honeycomb tablet manufacturers would gang up on Google and force them to fix all the software glitches in OS. I had Xoom before Transformer, and a lot of that crap is clearly in stock Honeycomb. Like, browser being essentially unusable on Slashdot (it lags a fair bit when scrolling through comments in the stories, but if you want to see how bad it can get, try posting a comment here... typing is like 1 cps).

Re:Well

[pandrijeczko]

Are you serious?

You get maximum interoperability (i.e. intercommunication with other devices) when the platform uses open standards that let YOU choose the best intercommunication protocols based on what it is you are trying to intercommunicate with.

For example, if I have, say, a Linux file server on which I store my photo collection and I happen to like using Photoshop in Windows to edit those photos, then I can use a protocol like SAMBA to share the photo directory over the network to the Windows PC and it works fine. I then buy an iPhone and would like to transfer the photos from it to the file server using the SAMBA server I am already happy with - but I CAN'T do it because Apple doesn't let me and I need to jailbreak the iPhone to put SAMBA on it.

And, sorry, but I fail to see how one app store is "better application support" than being able to put apps on from where I want to get them from.

Let me be honest here. I was using Android long before I looked at my first iOS device and, yes, I won't deny iOS is pretty slick. But having used Android first, it took me a while to work out how to do stuff in iOS - so what I'm trying to say is that usability comes from what you were used to using in the past compared to the new stuff you are about to use, it is not a fixed parameter.

My missus gave me her old iPod Touch when she went to iPhone and because I'd been using Banshee and MediaMonkey for MP3 tagging and media transfer to various devices, the first time I tried iTunes I found it completely uninituitive (and still do) - yet there are millions of people out there who like it and use it. Again, a demonstration that your vision of usability may be completely different to everyone else's.

Re:Well

[blahbooboo]

I don't believe Apple sells any hardware below cost.

Re:Well

[UnknowingFool]

Not having a feature !=incomplete. So what do you call a Xoom when it launched advertising these features: memory card*, 4G**, Flash***
*not working yet, will update later
**not available yet, will have to send in unit to upgrade later
***not available until a month later

Re:Well

[ne0n]

The last Apple purchase I made was a Nano 6G, not realizing it wasn't supported by libgpod. It's easy to forget how crippled this hardware is without iTunes, and how unpleasant iTunes is until you have to use it again. Since then I traded up to a Clip+ and I'm happy again.

So as far as tablets go I'm waiting to pay a reasonable amout, possibly even more than iPad2 prices, for a de-iTuned tablet from Samsung. Android gets better with every revision, whereas iPads get locked down more. The only logical option is to opt out of this game of jailbreak chicken.

Re:Well

[pandrijeczko]

Not having a feature !=incomplete.

Are you serious? Weren't video cameras the defacto standard in just about every laptop and mobile phone when the iPad 1 came out? Didn't Lord Steve himself describe it as "magical" - though, in reality, not that magical when it came to recording your own video?

Incidentally, "think differently", not blinkeredly. Just because I neither like or want an iPad does not automatically mean I want a Xoom or indeed any of its competitors. I'm eagerly waiting someone who can convince me of the benefits of any tablet when my netbook does a lot more stuiff at half the price - and my life's not so self-important that I can't wait 30 seconds for my netbook to boot up when I need it.

Re:Well

[jo_ham]

I've not used it (since I don't have one) but for the iPad 2, Jobs specifically mentioned a marked improvement over video output on HDMI (compared to the iPad 1 which does it, but with limitations). From my understanding of a friend's husband who streams TV to his plasma direct from the iPad all the time, it works without limitation on "approved" content. As far as apps go, I believe it does full mirroring (and quite possibly runs as two separate screens -eg, notes and slides in Keynote, with the big screen showing just the full slides - but don;t quote me on that, I can't remember if I've seen that done live or if it was just being talked about).

Re:Well

[pandrijeczko]

Here's an idea...

Open your mind to the possibilities of fact, rather than hearsay...

(* Set aside for a moment the fact that any Android phone without "Nexus" in its name is more locked-down than an iPhone.)

Dare yourself to go to a store in your local town that doesn't include a type of fruit in it's name...

Maybe ACTUALLY TOUCH an Android phone, just so you LEARN something about them before coming on here and making yourself look like a total plonker.

Because here, right before your eyes, is a FACT:

Having upgraded from a Google Nexus One to a HTC Desire Z (note the distinct lack of the word "Nexus" in the name) about 3 weeks ago, I can tell you categorically that going into "Settings -> Applications -> Unknown Sources" and ticking the box, allows me to install applications other than those on Android Market.

Having just gone through iOS 4 on my wife's iPhone, I can find no equivalent setting there to allow me to install non-Apple Store applications.

Please file this one away and consider yourself as having taking one big step away from stupidity as a result.

Re:Well

[Divebus]

It's not about "not choosing an Apple product", it's about the veneer of Android looking impressive enough to make people think it's just like an iOS product. There's no visible unified ecosystem for Android like there is for iOS and you, my friend, are in the tiny minority of people who will sudo apt-get install git-core.

Anyone who has asked me about what to buy has had a few concerns, none of which had anything to do with whether it went with their shoes. The days of "cool factor" and "impressing their friends" were done a few years ago, so that's a bullshit argument. Their concerns are about security, whether it works with their media and whether the cell service is any good. Security in Android is as good as buying your apps out of the trunk of a car in Baltimore. Some even know that their Android device is in danger of never upgrading beyond what it is out of the box (like the Xperia X10 which wouldn't get past Android 2.1 when it was only 3 months old). Most people want an appliance that just works and lets them do what they need without any hacking around - and nobody has asked about an "evil corporation". Just you.

Exactly what do you suppose is "evil" about Apple? Their stuff works because normal people can't really screw it up? They've kept the RIAA at bay with pricing (they wanted like $2.50 per song)? They've created a platform where developers can make real up front money instead of needing to annoy their users with ads? They're pushing the technology envelope and putting things unimaginable a few years ago in the hands of people who don't have to live in their mom's basement and eat boogers to use it? They've figured out how to make something light and responsive with 11 hour battery life for a reasonable price? They're trying their best to keep users safe from exploits rather than allowing anything and everything to load and run?

If any of that "evil" goes against your grain, certainly do something else (as you have). I like hacking as much as the next geek but the vast majority of people who use anything technical REALLY need to be hooked in to that which you think is "evil".

Re:Well

[Divebus]

Good for you. Seriously.

Re:Well

[UnknowingFool]

Are you serious? Weren't video cameras the defacto standard in just about every laptop and mobile phone when the iPad 1 came out? Didn't Lord Steve himself describe it as "magical" - though, in reality, not that magical when it came to recording your own video?

Are you completely missing the point or what? Motorola Xoom advertised said features. Yet when launched they were not ready. Some of of them are not ready today 4 months after launch. Apple never included a camera in the iPad 1. Show me anywhere in their literature that the iPad 1 would have a camera. What is your definition of incomplete: It doesn't have the features that you wanted even though the manufacturer never said it would have the features.

Incidentally, "think differently", not blinkeredly. Just because I neither like or want an iPad does not automatically mean I want a Xoom or indeed any of its competitors. I'm eagerly waiting someone who can convince me of the benefits of any tablet when my netbook does a lot more stuiff at half the price - and my life's not so self-important that I can't wait 30 seconds for my netbook to boot up when I need it.

And how does any of this go against my point that tablets like the Xoom and the Playbook were buggy and missing features that were advertised they were going to have? How does that negate my point that consumers may have bad first impressions of a product if a company launches it that way. I don't have a tablet either and I see no justification to get one. Up until now, the tablet makers have not helped their case by having bad product launches.

Re:Well

[pandrijeczko]

Motorola Xoom advertised said features.

In which case, that makes both Apple and Motorola equally bad. Once again, you incorrectly assume that because I won't buy an iPad automatically means I will by a competing product. Your thinking is blinkered.

And how does any of this go against my point that tablets like the Xoom and the Playbook were buggy and missing features that were advertised they were going to have?

You only mentioned Xoom, you never mentioned Playbook, unless it was in a different thread.

I don't have a tablet either and I see no justification to get one. Up until now, the tablet makers have not helped their case by having bad product launches.

Why's this any different to the launch of iPhone 4 with the antenna problems? Maybe you didn't MEAN to do it but you singled out Motorola exclusively and I am saying that many other manufacturers, including Apple, are guilty of bad product launches - that's my point.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Meego is a piss poor distro for touch screens. If you completely disregard the clunky 'app store' and the sucky way it handles applications and updates, it's almost useable. If it wasn't for the fact that the built-in email reader is awful and every other app is basically unusable. And I still haven't gotten MMS to work properly here. I bought the N900 for the fact that it was a relatively open phone, but now it's only a matter of time before Nokia pulls the plug and quite frankly I'm buying an Android based device anyway. It was a huge letdown.

Re:Well

[thegarbz]

It's okay for phones but on larger devices it's not so good.

As a matter of interest have you used Honeycomb? I tried it for the first time yesterday in an electronics store. It is so incredibly far removed from the Android on my phone that about the only thing I recognized on it was the Market App. It provided a very different experience entirely. So much as to say I wouldn't ever want Honeycomb running on a device the size of a phone.

Re:Well

[thegarbz]

Funny the Apps are the reason I went with Android instead of iOS. It seems while there are generally less identical apps in the App Store, but a larger number of total apps on the Market (many of which are worthless), if you sort through the shit (both of which have plenty) I find more free apps that do exactly what I want on the Market rather than the App Store.

Re:Well

[UnknowingFool]

In which case, that makes both Apple and Motorola equally bad. Once again, you incorrectly assume that because I won't buy an iPad automatically means I will by a competing product. Your thinking is blinkered.

My point from the very beginning has been that if other tablets makers want to compete with Apple they can't release buggy and incomplete products. Consumers will not like it. You interjected Apple==incomplete only because it didn't have features you wanted.

You only mentioned Xoom, you never mentioned Playbook, unless it was in a different thread.

As an example of another Apple competitor who released a buggy, incomplete product.

Why's this any different to the launch of iPhone 4 with the antenna problems? Maybe you didn't MEAN to do it but you singled out Motorola exclusively and I am saying that many other manufacturers, including Apple, are guilty of bad product launches - that's my point.

And Apple suffered for it. However, you are getting away from the point of the thread is for tablets. Right now Apple is viewed as the leader. For other companies to compete with Apple in this market for consumers' attention, they can't follow the same pattern of rushing out a product and creating a negative first impression. I singled out Motorola because it was one example. I could have listed the PlayBook as another. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 seems to not suffer the same fate as the other two.

Re:Well

[thegarbz]

Can you name exact instances? Seriously Win 7 crashes sometimes on me. Not as much as XP did. By your metric, it is unstable as well.

Why argue scemantics when the real answer is that both platforms seem to behave equally stability wise. Any instabilities

Um have you actually tried to update Android?

Yeah plugged my phone in to the computer one day and it said update 2.2.1 was available so I clicked update. Recently I did it again. Plugged it in and it said 2.3.3 was available so I clicked update. Took a whole 5 minutes and I was done. No fanfare though, no congratulations, just the phone rebooted and it was done.

Seriously why do these arguments always seem to pitch a vendor against a system. It's always iPhone vs Android and the haters will grab the worst case of Android (often Motorola) and the fans will highlight some of the best case scenarios. Both platforms behave equally when set up nicely. Both platforms have some good vendors, one platform has some bad.

Treat a phone like a computer and do some bloody research and you get to weed out the bad. No more saying "Android crashes and is unstable OMG", because it really isn't and doesn't. No more saying "Android is not supported long term" the phone I just updated to 2.3.3 is more than a year old and nearly out of its contract.

If you buy shit you get shit, and that is platform independent.

Re:Well

[fluffy99]

Why can't they be much cheaper?

While some here on /. will refuse to admit, it actually is costly to make a tablet and get a decent margin on them. Most here would like a tablet to cost $150 and be able to run Crysis II while mixing 5.1 audio at the same time; there are limits to what tablets can do for a price. Some components like 10" screens are not plentiful as they have not been mass produced by many suppliers and are still limited to a few companies.

If you look at the Shangzai market, you can find tablets with similar hardware specs being sold for at least $100 less. It's somewhat safe to assume that there is at least $100 profit on the hardware. For example $414 gets you this http://www.merimobiles.com/Venus_Pad_Honeycomb_android_3_0_Dual_Core_Tegra2_p/meri0641.htm.

Re:Well

[rsborg]

If that's the case then why did iPad 2 come out only ONE YEAR after iPad 1?

Nothing to do with iPad 1 being rushed out without a camera, by chance?

Sorry, this is a lame argument. A camera is not a necessary tablet item by any means. I have a "rushed" iPad v1 and there was simply no other tablet I could have bought anywhere near the price with the same capabilities. Apple didn't include a camera because there was no competition and it wasn't absolutely essential.

Re:Well

[digitallife]

Unfortunately for you, you are in the vast, vast minority. Most people can find everything they are interested in on the apple app store, and a bunch of stuff that they love but would never have thought of. The fact that the app store is so extensive, combined with the more useable interface (I know, I know - you don't give a stuff for sissy 'usability'), make iOS a significantly more appealing platform... to everybody else.

Anyways, that you think a netbook is in the same category, use-wise, as a tablet, illustrates that you are clearly not the target demographic.

But you and I both know that's all moot, don't we? Your various intonations about iPad users being 'self-important' and concerned with 'whether it goes with the pullover' they're wearing illustrate rather more accurately why you don't like iOS. However you're probably far too self-righteous and hypocritical to let your deluded prejudices drop for even the second it takes to realize this.

Re:Well

[Divebus]

I am awake and Murdoch is a paying customer for Jobs. In fact, I work for Murdoch and help to put hundreds of things on the iPad for one of his fringe outfits.

You must be a member of the Australian Parliament.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

"Now, if the Tab had come $100 cheaper and offered me something MORE than what the iPad2 does, I would be all over it. But for the same price it's just not worth it to lose the ease of use, interoperability, and application support."

The Asus Transformer is $100 cheaper, and it has SD card support. I would say that is something MORE.

Re:Well

[JinjaontheNile]

Itunes - How many fart apps would you like today????

Sure, people could write more apps for Android than iOS... but they haven't (yet)

corrected that for you

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Evil corporation? You mean the one that just announced a way to replace all the glitchy crap music you downloaded from TPB with near CD quality unencumbered-with-DRM files in spite of what the RIAA thinks? That evil corporation? They're my fucking hero!

Re:Well

[symbolset]

I'm afraid we can't lay the blame for slashdot's "creative" site style on Google. There are other browsers available on the thing. Maybe one of them will suit you better for slashdotting. Slashdot doesn't work well for me on nearly anything. It's kind of like HP's websites: you feel that by struggling through it you've earned experience points.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention all the subsequent profit Apple makes from App store sales. On the other hand, Android tablet manufacturers have to make all their profits out of the sale of hardware.

Re:Well

[JinjaontheNile]

There are a couple of good points there, Part of an open system is of course that it is open to everyone - including douche bag marketers.
I personally would like it if Google were a bit fussier in there acceptance of apps but I vastly prefer their approach to Apples closed door policy.

With Android, I can load any app I want from anywhere I want. (including my own)
I hate it when companies decide they know better than me as to what I can and cant do with my own equipment!

You should be thankful to Google for some of the functionality you now enjoy (Like teathering, VOIP over 3g etc)
Without Android, Apple would happily ignored the wants and desires of their users while raking in the dollars

On a side note, I Australia we are now getting an enormous number of advertisements for Iphones and Ipads. Something we have never had before.
I wonder if Apple is getting a bit worried that android is outselling them by so much?

Re:Well

[JinjaontheNile]

Like, browser being essentially unusable on Slashdot

Somehow that might not be the browsers fault (There is miles to much javascript on Slashdot these days)

Re:Well

[JinjaontheNile]

Yep, but as everyone already knows
Motorola = Douchebags (bootstrap fuses anyone)

When the Xoom was released, it was duly noted by all the reviewers that some advertised features were missing.
Anyone who jumps onto the bleeding edge of technology based on a marketing promise deserves to get cut to ribbons.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

People don't buy iGadgets for the OS, they buy it for the trend factor.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Give pandrijeczko a break... I think he ate a bad booger.

Re:Well

[shutdown -p now]

Yeah, I've been using Opera specifically for Slashdot. Still, it's no excuse - I mean, if every other browser on the platform can render it fast enough, and if Chrome on desktop can do so, too, it's no excuse. Heck, Android browser on 2.x lets me type comments just fine, even on Nexus One, which has much less juice. So it's clearly a Honeycomb bug, and that one's on Google.

Then also it's not just Slashdot. Posting comments on XDA forums is also practically impossible.

Re:Well

[UBfusion]

Android users typically don't even want to touch an iPhone or iPad

Precisely my policy too, I never touch a religious item if I'm not a member of the cult.

Re:Well

[shutdown -p now]

Slashdot is fucked up, but browser on Android 2.x has no problem either reading or posting comments. Something seriously regressed in Honeycomb right there.

Re:Well

[UBfusion]

+1 insightful.

People don't know the difference and they won't know it in the future either, in the same way they don't know what freedom is.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it really mean that? This is Apple after all. People are going to buy the iPad2 over the other devices for any number of reasons--mainly the OS and the applications available for it.

Personally I would much prefer an iOS device if I were to get a tablet simply because I already own an iPhone and I prefer the UI. While I don't enjoy using my Mac Mini (1st gen which really needs to be retired) simply because I prefer the application support available for Windows, nothing beats the iPhone IMO.

Now, if the Tab had come $100 cheaper and offered me something MORE than what the iPad2 does, I would be all over it. But for the same price it's just not worth it to lose the ease of use, interoperability, and application support.

YMMV.

Really, because Im not going to buy something just because its Apple. I would expect the readers of this site to be a bit more intelligent than that. You know research specs and features of the device. Figure out what its expandability is. How can I hack it. Unless you're really just that impressed with the transition effects.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like Android is growing quite a large cult.
Big, blind religious Android cult with their fingers in their ears going "blah blah blah blah blah blah"

Re:Well

[jcupitt65]

"Every bit as capable" for CPU, but the iPad2 was two to five times faster than the Tab 10 at graphics, and that's not changed with the 10.1. Strangely, the performance comparison linked at the top misses out any iPad/Tab graphics comparisons:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4216/apple-ipad-2-gpu-performance-explored-powervr-sgx543mp2-benchmarked/

Few consumers care about GPU specs, of course, but they are likely not notice if games on iOS look better.

Re:Well

[julesh]

The price of a 16GB Galaxy Tab 10.1 with no 3/4G is $499, identical to the iPad 2 [apple.com].

Yes. But in terms of hardware spec, it's far superior.

1280x800 10.1" display vs. 1024x768 9.7". Galaxy Tab's also narrower, meaning it is more likely to fit in pockets, etc.
595g vs. 610g
1GB RAM vs 512MB
sdhc slot vs. no expandability of storage

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't they be much cheaper?

Because it takes millions of dollars to design and prototype a tablet or a notebook, btw. We are talking in the range of 20-300 millions dollars as it has to compete with the iPad design. That means they need to sell millions like the ipad did for the price to drop. It will, but it will tale some time.

perhaps some hardware vendors should consider asking Google to pay them to use it? Maybe Microsoft shouldn't be the only one to pay to see its OS and search product installed?

Wow, it always amazes me how some people want everything in live free. The freeloaders that want everyone else to pay for them. If Microsoft is paying billions for getting Nokia to ship their product is because MS is desperate for not losing the mobile train, Google does not need to pay anyone(they had already provided hundreds of millions of dollars to Android development for free)

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

not true, I recently days ago bought the ASUS pad and although performance is excellent as is the screen (which is the main reason I bought it), the fact is that to me coming from years of pc linux and NO MOBILE PHONE for 15 years, I find
Android horribly restricted and what I would call locked down. And free aps!
That's the biggest pisser, they are not free, the fucking advertising that you have to endure has a great cost on my sanity! I cannot turn them off, I am not provided with the choice on MY FUCKING HARDWARE. There is also an icon on the desktop for Amazon Kindle and I am not allowed to remove it as with all the other icons I have removed so far. WTF! If this is what Google is up to then fuck them with the same stick as all the other abusive corps (if they're a corporation, they're abusive).

Re:Well

[narcc]

combined with the more useable interface

Sorry, have you used an iPhone? It's hell on earth. Well, to be fair, just about every touch-screen-only phone is a nightmare.

I honestly don't know why the things are so popular. Trying to do simple things like re-position the cursor or click a small link is needlessly challenging. My blackberry torch, in contrast, handles these and a multitude of other problems simply and intuitively via the optical trackpad.

Why so few android phones have an optical trackpad is beyond me. I don't know that I could use my phone in any serious capacity without one.

Re:Well

[itsdapead]

If that's the case then why did iPad 2 come out only ONE YEAR after iPad 1?

The iPad 2 was probably being developed even before the original launched, because after 1 year, it was inevitable that serious competitors would start to appear, and the iPad would need a "bump" to maintain interest. It helps that the semiconductor industry is quite predictable (Moore's law and all that) so they can guess what components are going to be available and affordable 18 months down the line.

Making the 2 a bit thinner, a bit lighter (dont diss the apparently small changes in size and weight until you've held both - its very noticable) and adding cameras was the ideal "bump" - enough to drum up new business and keep ahead of the game without pissing off iPad 1 owners (who I guess will mostly wait for iPad 3). Apple also used the time to come up with their own videophone system (which is about the only point of having cameras on a tablet).

Its called marketing strategy, and everybody does it. It can be annoying, but its one reason why you get to buy nice things at reasonable prices.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

lol - so according to someone that works for Rupert Murdoch, apple is not actually evil!!!!!!

I think that says it all really.

anyhow, what a shame that you put all that stuff onto the shiny ipad and no one really wants to look at it (or pay for it, which of course is what matters to a mercenary little cocksucker like you!)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jun/05/will-tablets-be-the-cure-for-newspaper-ills

fucking hell - i hate apple people more and more. not more than you hate yourselves though.

Re:Well

[narcc]

The fact that 3rd party developer revenues on the Android store are significantly less than on Apple's store, leading to less developer interest, less choice and competition, and more ads and undesirable misfeatures (like customer data gathering) despite having a more open market, is a perverse but real outcome and directly attributable to the business model.

Funny, developers earn more per app on BB AppWorld than they do on Apple's store or the Android market, yet attracts fewer developers. Source

According to you, developers should be flocking to BB.

Re:Well

[narcc]

it works without limitation on "approved" content.

You don't seem to know what "without limitation" means.

Re:Well

[JinjaontheNile]

Bummer

Probably something to do with attempts to "optimise" execution time in JavaScript.
Some of the tricks I have read sounded fantastic but also set the danger bells off

Re:Well

[silanea]

This is mostly true for people who are already hooked to Apple's way of doing things through the iPhone or the latest iPods. I come from Linux on the desktop and Symbian S60 on the mobile, so to me the iPad 2 is not the benchmark but simply one option amongst many. So those tablets may not be much of a threat to Apple's dominance within their "home market", but they certainly mean competition over new customers.

Re:Well

[quick2think]

If you have an iPhone, get an iPad. If you have an Android phone, now you can get a comparable Android tablet. With the growing number of Android phones out there a solid alternative that allows you to stay in your chosen ecosystem is a good thing. Competition of features is also good. The newest one should always be better than the last one. I expect no different from the iPad3. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 won't woo any iPhone users, but it will sell tablets to Android users who don't already have an iPad.

Re:Well

[MichaelSmith]

any Android phone without "Nexus" in its name is more locked-down than an iPhone.)

Not true. Android devices can install applications from any network address, or a USB connection. With iOS you have to buy through the apple app store, or pay for a developer license to use on a limited number of devices.

Re:Well

[UnknowingFool]

Yes but that is after a $85 discount. The normal list price is $499. A quick look at it seem to be similar to the $499 iPad 2 in terms of specs. I suspect that it didn't sell well so it had to be discounted.

Re:Well

[Gumbercules!!]

Your first paragraph and other comments above show you know nothing about either the market or Android. Android devices, collectively, by virtually every benchmark currently -outsell- iOS devices, collectively. So your belief that iPhone reigns supreme is misplaced.

Exactly as was said above by pandrijeczko, widgets, live wallpapers and the flexibility of Android have made it technologically superior to iOS. The first iPhone was revolutionary but it has not really changed since then, fundamentally. "Webshots" (the ability to set a webpage as your background) was a *key selling feature* of the 2nd generation iPhone, for example. Since day 1, it's gotten a (worse) case (which screwed up the antenna) and it's gotten a sort-of-multitasking ability. That's about it.

Describing Android as clunky for mail, other other features is simply laughable. I set up about 10 phones a week for MS Exchange connections, iPhones, Droids and BBerry's and I can tell you Android is the easiest (by a small margin admittedly - with BBerry's idiotic BES system being the worst by a massive margin).

Additionally, I have iPhone 4s in front of me all the time and I have no idea where you get your assertion that its in any way faster than a new Android. It's no where near as quick, in any avenue of work.

Finally, to claim Apple's ecosystem of joining things together makes them strong. That's certainly what they say each year at WWDC. However, in reality, it's a joke. You need iTunes, a cable and whole bunch of other crap to make it work. If you want to migrate from iPhone to iPad or another iPhone, go install iTunes, get your cable, pair the things up, etc. Waste many hours. Want to swap Androids? Enter your gmail account. Job done. All your contacts, applications, settings, just migrated via the cloud. How on Earth is Apple's iTunes solution even remotely comparable to that?

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Motorola Droid 1 that I bought at launch and haven't felt the need to upgrade yet. My nephew has an iPod touch, so I have used both systems.

I think the games for iOS tend to be more refined, although I haven't downloaded any games for Android in about a year and a half so things have probably changed since then. I don't really play games on my phone.

The main thing I do with my phone is use VOIP with the CSipSimple app using my Google Voice account. I forward my Google Voice number to an IPKall number which connects to my Callcentric account. Incoming calls are completely free, outgoing calls are $0.02 per minute using Callcentric. Most of my calls are incoming. This works on 3G and WiFi, and does not touch my plan minutes, which I can also use easily (I choose at the time I make a call). As far as I know, iOS limits VOIP apps to WiFi only, so an iPhone is a no-go for me.

In fact when I bought my phone, Apple had banned Google from releasing their Google Voice app from the iOS market. This was a dealbreaker for me all by itself.

The second largest use of my phone is the free navigation built into Google Maps. As far as I know, and at least at the time I bought my phone, this was not available for iPhone.

I'm happy to hear that you are content with your iOS device, but it just can't do the things I need.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no reason Android tablet manufacturers can't provide app stores, music stores, video stores, book stores, co-branded coffee stores, buy-a-spouse stores, accessory stores, and paid support / therapy. They could go into the data-mining and ad business. They could charge for OS upgrades. And if there's cellular connectivity they could get in on that action too.

Re:Well

[fluffy99]

Yes but that is after a $85 discount. The normal list price is $499. A quick look at it seem to be similar to the $499 iPad 2 in terms of specs. I suspect that it didn't sell well so it had to be discounted.

I suspect you're reading too much into retail versus actual price. If you look, that's their every day normal pricing. Much like the advertised retail price on cars and what they normally sell them at. You can google and find a number of other China based dealers selling this for even lower. http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=Venus+Pad+Honeycomb+&catId=0 gets vendors selling at $375.

If anything this proves my point, which is that other manufacturers are capable of making a profit selling comparable hardware for $100 cheaper. Apple would have to be doing something very wrong to not be making $50-100 profit on the iPod2 hardware, considering they have the benefit of larger sales and better buying power..

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally - an AC with thoughtful perspective. There are lots of back room battles and agreements being made which affect what can actually go on any cell phone. The carriers certainly don't want VOIP on their phones but suddenly Vonage was allowed on the iPhone but Google Voice still wasn't. The tap dancing seems to be about these corporations trying to not attract the attention of the FCC and trying to make the chips for Net Neutrality fall where it benefits themselves the most. These corporations putting sticks in each other's eyes are putting a dent in what I can do with my phone because, technically, it's obviously possible to do.

The Google navigation feature of Android is pretty great. Maybe some day Google will allow that for the iPhone, but I doubt it.

Re:Well

[jo_ham]

In response to the OP's question - ie, it doesn't only work with "Sprint and Youtube Video, native slideshow viewers etc", it works as an unrestricted HDMI output - ie, if you can see it on the iPads's screen, you can see it on the main screen (if you have mirroring on).

So, in that when you connect an HDMI lead to an iPad you get mirroring or screen spanning, yes, it is "without limitation". I also understand "what that means".

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Some components like 10" screens are not plentiful as they have not been mass produced by many suppliers and are still limited to a few companies.

The reality distortion here is funny. Who cares if only a few companies sell panels? "Are not plentiful" but Apple has bought MILLIONS of them??? They're huge companies, very competitive and would no doubt ramp up to supply more given firm orders and payment. Several Japanese companies are dropping tv panel manufacture to focus on the smaller types. Somehow Samsung couldn't give themselves as good of a deal on displays as they'd give Apple? What nonsense. Also it's not unheard of to introduce a product at a loss or low margin with profits coming later as some components become cheaper. We're talking about big companies, not struggling under-funded start-ups. It seemed like some competitors thought selling a 7" model at the 10" price was the answer to cutting costs, but I'm not sure how satisfying those products have been. But what's such a big deal about the 10" display? Other than having a touch layer added, they're just 1024*768, certainly something widely and cheaply produced, essentially what goes into some netbooks and smaller laptops, and the companies that make them can and do crank them out in large numbers.

  I think the biggest display issue isn't price, but quality. There is a matter of touch behavior (or needing a stylus), brightness, backlight uniformity and bleeding, color gamut and depth, uniformity over a range of viewing angles, resistance to scratches and fingerprints, life and surviving high temperatures, refresh speed. Making things small isn't such a huge challenge to companies that have already done it in phones. Chances are good that if there's a significant price advantage, people would by a slightly thicker product if it really delivers on battery life. Slightly thicker might also make it easier to provide the added built-in ports some want. They don't have to be anywhere an inch thick (this isn't 1998).

Trying to match what Apple has done seems foolish. Besides coming in from way behind and with less of an eco-system, most can't pull off products of the same quality (either the hardware or software, much less the total experience). And even if they could, "me too" is nothing special. Competitors should offer something different of value if they can. And like it or not, most will have no choice but to go after a lower-priced market segment. It's a myth to say they can't do it. They just don't want too. But like PC clone box builders that can't do much to stand out, that is their fate.
There were leaked generic product videos a year ago showing tablets that wholesaled for under $100. There's no reason they can't have netbook-class prices. The biggest problem was a good touch OS. And of course avoiding x86 and Windows was also important to getting good battery life.

The Tablet PC running XP was announced in 2001. PC vendors have lived with lower margins than Apple with their other products. Why not tablets too?
If they're not competent to run their own stores, competitors can sell online and through a low-margin retailers such as Wal-Mart.

And for those that want the security of a name you recognize, I suspect that for less than $2000, some can even offer tablets that runs Windows and Office and sell it through the Microsoft chain of stores. That would allow people to run some of the most popular apps (anti-virus, uninstall programs, a disk defragmenter, and Solitaire).

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

"the iPad 2 finally has solid competition in terms of both hardware and OS performance."

That's good news, more competition, better options for the rest of us.

Is there some reason you want a tablet? I am sure they will get better, but there is still no reason I could see myself or anyone I know using one.

Re:Well

[Divebus]

There are perhaps a half dozen Android phones worth talking about. The rest are junkyard class giveaways. I just know what people bring me and we discover their phone won't load the NetFlix app or are slow to get updates (if at all) or I have to get used to the millisecond delays and touch response problems on Android that I don't have with the iPhone.

True, most of these are second tier devices that are given away for free (which amounts to a "sale", I suppose) but that's what people are doing. They buy the cheap shit that doesn't work, some of which won't do the live wallpaper or it slows the phone down so bad they can't really use it fluidly or the screen isn't that good. I run into a lot more unhappy Android users than iPhone users and many of them have asked if I have an Android charger they can borrow by 3:00 in the afternoon. Then there are the people who installed Angry Birds with the red logo. Oops.

As far as iPhones needing a "whole bunch of other crap to make it work", you're talking about a single cable and one piece of software. I really dislike the iPhone syncing system as it stands now myself but moving phones couldn't be simpler. Just encrypt your backup and restore to the new device and everything moves. Music, movies, apps, contacts, email, passwords etc, and it doesn't take "hours". Android, on the other hand, really does need a bunch of other crap to make it work. Do you use AppReferrer to move phones? I find that simpler to do but most people wouldn't know to do something like that. People call it "customizing" but the casual user has no clue how to get that great Android experience they've heard so much about and why they should be careful.

The tethering part of the iOS system was recognized as a problem three years ago and Apple started building massive data centers. Apple didn't have data centers like Google. Disadvantage Apple. They're done now, so that's about to change dramatically. Yes, Apple is playing catch up there. However, they're in the process of leapfrogging everyone else as far as media availability and connectivity for the casual user.

Re:Well

[pandrijeczko]

Rubbish! A camera has been pretty much essential in just about every mobile computing device for several years - phones, laptops...

The likeliest scenario was they omitted it because the technology or design wasn't completed in time for iPad 1 release - i.e. a rushed, incomplete device. And you know as well as I do that the comments in every (non-fanboi written) iPad review on its initial release expressed utter surprise as to the omission of a camera.

Re:Well

[pandrijeczko]

The iPad 2 was probably being developed even before the original launched, because after 1 year, it was inevitable that serious competitors would start to appear, and the iPad would need a "bump" to maintain interest.

Okay, that says the iPad was therefore a beta test unit for iPad 2 - therefore an incomplete device.

Making the 2 a bit thinner, a bit lighter (dont diss the apparently small changes in size and weight until you've held both - its very noticable) and adding cameras was the ideal "bump" - enough to drum up new business and keep ahead of the game without pissing off iPad 1 owners (who I guess will mostly wait for iPad 3). Apple also used the time to come up with their own videophone system (which is about the only point of having cameras on a tablet).

Within reason, I could care less about "slimmer" or "weighs 0.0000000001 kgs less" - my muscular structure isn't that sensitive to care about it.

Clearly we have different requirements - you care about the look and weight of the device, I care about functionality and expandability, and have no need to seek the approval of my peers with what is just a computing tool.

This is precisely Apple's target market - people who need fashion accessories.

Re:Well

[pandrijeczko]

Q1 2011 - iPhone user base = 17 million-odd, Android user base = 36 milion-odd.

Go invest in a dictionary app from the store and look up the word "minority" again.

Re:Well

[pandrijeczko]

I am owned by Murdoch and help to put hundreds of things on the iPad for one of his fringe outfits.

There. Corrected that for you.

Re:Well

[pandrijeczko]

You're preaching to the wrong person.

Music is my number one hobby but I have not to this date purchased one downloadable track and have no intention of doing so.

I buy CDs, I rip them to FLAC on purchase, store them on my server and convert FLACs to MP3, OGG or whatever I want when I need to - the CD sits on a shelf as it's own backup and I don't have to get on my knees to Apple, Amazon or anyone else to re-get my music if a hard disk dies or a player breaks.

I do not listen to artists incapable of putting together a good album from start to finish, I listen to albums and don't treat music as "pick n mix" sweeties. I don't need to interract with it, mix it or do all the other stupid stuff people who call themselves "musicians" do to fuck up other peoples' music. I just need to sit, listen and enjoy, whether it's at home in a comfortable armchair or at a live concert.

That means that as an album listener, I laugh hysterically at the prices of downloadable music because in just about every case, I can find the physical CD for less cost than downloading some lossy crap from some online merchant.

Incidentally, BitTorrent and Usenet have made my appreciation of music all the greater because they're a great way of previewing albums before I decide to buy them - I download, listen, then erase the stuff. If it's good, I buy the CD and rip my own copy, if it's crap I forget about it and move on.

What this has meant is that I never buy a bad CD and paying £10 for an album I may end up listening to for 30-odd years or more is great value for money. As well as that, there is a HUGE catalogue of music out there to tap into and I think the record companies do an absolutely perfect job of releasing and re-releasing good music. They pissed me off for a while with DRM-protected CDs but that's now been gone a few years and I am happy again.

RIAA? I'm not in the US so couldn't give a toss, if the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) get the same sort of powers and catch me torrenting one of my previews, they're more than welcome to come over for a cup of tea and see my huge legal music collection for themselves, then decide whether I support music and musicians or not.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

I forgot how many assholes hang out on Slashdot. Thanks for the reminder.

Re:Well

[joh]

But what's an OS worth that has hardly any apps that are in any way optimized for a tablet?

That's the major problem right now with Honeycomb. As an OS it's not bad, but compared to the loads of apps for the iPad there are hardly any for Honeycomb. This surely will change sooner or later, but right now?

Re:Well

[The Dawn Of Time]

You are committing the basic nerd mistake of believing your needs mean anything to the world at large. The success of the iPad disproves your stance - and did so a year+ before you posted it in this story.

Stop foaming at the mouth and start thinking. You'll feel better, we'll feel better.. win-win!

Re:Well

[AmiMoJo]

lets them do what they need without any hacking around

Have you look at all the restrictions on iOS devices lately? You can't even install apps from anywhere other than the App Store, let alone buy them.

iOS "just works" as long as you only ever want to do things Apple allows. So no Flash sites, no unapproved apps, no choice of wifi sync app... Arguably this saves people from themselves as we have seen with Android malware, but it also locks you in far worse than Microsoft ever did. I thought we hated Microsoft for lock-in.

Re:Well

[thegarbz]

As meantioned this is a chicken and egg game. The original iPad also had no tablet optimised apps. Build it and they will come they say, but it seems now most are saying the opposite.

What's a tablet optimised app that has hardly any device users worth?

Saw the same thing with Windows Phone 7 last year. Total number of apps was nothing compared to the Market or to the App Store, yet since it's release it has had a growth rate higher than all other vendors combined. This will plateau once it reaches a critical point, but its amazing how quickly things change in only a few months. Remember the biggest feature of the iPad is the time it has had to entrench itself. I'll be interested in what your opinion on this matter is in 2 years time.

Re:Well

[Gumbercules!!]

There's no need to use AppReferrer. Just Attach your Android to your gmail. For example, when I switched from an HTC Desire HD to a Samsung Galaxy S2, on the first power up, after entering my gmail, all my apps were automatically downloaded from the market and ready for use. Thats as easy as it gets - it's part of the welcome to your phone experience.

The iPhone is still a good product - it's just no longer the best phone out there. None the less Apple, deserve credit for starting this whole thing and I like where they're going. They just can't move as fast as Android because there's only 1 iPhone (at a time) and there's dozens of Android players, all releasing new phones far more frequently.

Re:Well

[itsdapead]

Okay, that says the iPad was therefore a beta test unit for iPad 2 - therefore an incomplete device.

By that measure, almost every phone, camera, PC, software product on the market - Apple or otherwise - is incomplete. Heck, sign a NDA with most big tech companies and they'll show you a "roadmap" that spells this out. In other news: Google are probably already planning Android 4.0, Amazon probably have the Kindle 3 on the drawing board, and Intel almost certainly have the next two successors to "Sandy Bridge" in the pipeline. Or do you think these products spring into existence fully formed a few weeks before launch?

Clearly we have different requirements - you care about the look and weight of the device, I care about functionality and expandability

For mobile/handheld devices, size and weight are part of the functionality (the clue is in the words "mobile" and "handheld"). Lots of people commented that the original iPad was a bit hefty for sustained reading or viewing. The iPad2 (if you can be bothered to pick one up) is lighter and thinner enough to show a noticable improvement. If you'd rather have a brick that you could chain to the table with a dozen cables, good luck.

Re:Well

[prestonmichaelh]

Now, if the Tab had come $100 cheaper and offered me something MORE than what the iPad2 does, I would be all over it. But for the same price it's just not worth it to lose the ease of use, interoperability, and application support. Exactly. It's not enough to match the ipad, it has to be CHEAPER than the ipad to be worthwhile for normal people. Not meant as flamebait, but I believe Android would never have gotten as popular as now if the iphone hadn't been limited to one carrier and priced higher than the android phones in the USA.

What about the Asus Transformer? It is $400 (equivalent iPad 2 is $500) has the internal memory, a dual core tegra chip, same gorilla glass ips screen, etc. It also has Flash, you don't have to use iTunes, and there are a lot more apps/options in general than iOS. I have one and love it.

Re:Well

[Buelldozer]

"(* Set aside for a moment the fact that any Android phone without "Nexus" in its name is more locked-down than an iPhone.)"

My Motorola Droid running CM7 not only disproves this it also shows how staggeringly ignorant you are of Android Phones.

Competition is good

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the iPad 2 since 3 weeks, like it a lot (in fact I realize that I now use my home laptop only for more intensive tasks like photo-editing), and there is plenty of good software available at reasonable prices.

Even so, I welcome this competition, it will ensure that all manufacturers will do their best to improve their products.

Missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny that these formerly PC performance sites decided to jump into the fray and began applying the gamer rig logic to tablets with pointless specs that don't explain anything of value to the average consumer.

The correct question should be "does it have awesome native apps and games, support, and enough differentiation from the leading tablet to stand on its own?"

So far, Android-based tablets don't. It's kind of a clusterfuck on that front. When carrier subsidy model is taken out of the equation you're left with bunch of spec-driven touch panels with goofy names.

Re:Missing the point

[pandrijeczko]

The correct question should be "does it have awesome native apps and games, support, and enough differentiation from the leading tablet to stand on its own?"

By your argument, I could ask the same question of iPhone since there are more Android phones than iPhones currently.

Re:Missing the point

[thegarbz]

That's because you have a chicken and egg scenario that the Apple culture overcomes easily. There's no mass Android tablets on the market, because by your reasoning there's no apps. There won't be any apps because there's no tablets, and round and round we go. Apple got through this firstly because developers knew zealous supporters would buy the iPad even if they had no good reason to do it, and secondly because it has had a full year on everyone else.

When Android phones hit the market there were few apps for them as well. Now there's more apps that have a wider range of functionality than the App Store could dream of, not to mention the apps that are available from third parties.

The Galaxy Tab just came out. It actually looks reasonably good. On the App front give it time. Review what you've said in 6 months and see if you still agree.

Re:Missing the point

[UBfusion]

Unless I see results of the same benchmarks on both iOS and Android devices, such articles provide no data as to which device is more powerful. TFA just compares various Android devices.

Re:Missing the point

[Graymalkin]

There's been no sales figures showing actual installed base of Android devices. There's been some recent quarters where Android devices outsold iPhones. Before that the iPhone handily outsold Android. This means that the installed base of Android phones is unlikely to be larger than that of the iPhone despite the increase in sales over the past year. Quarter over quarter market share figures don't tell you about the number of devices in people's hands.

Remember that iOS runs on iPod touches as well as iPhones. Apple sells about ten million iPods a quarter and their ASP (average sale price) has increased which means the more expensive iPod touch is a larger share of iPod sales than in the past. At the very least iPod touches add a few million iOS devices to the installed base.

Then there's the millions of iPads being sold every quarter. Over 11 million for 2011 as of the last quarterly report. So iOS devices not only outnumber Android devices in quarterly sales but in installed base.

Installed base is the important number for developers and accessory manufacturers. The only numbers we've seen about Android sales have been quarterly market share numbers. Even these numbers have only been slightly higher than iPhone sales. Android phones haven't been leading iPhones long enough to have a larger installed base. Worse for Android is a lot of unit sales aren't really practical to count for the platform since they're single use devices like eBook readers so only phones really expand developers' potential markets.

Re:Missing the point

[julesh]

It's funny that these formerly PC performance sites decided to jump into the fray and began applying the gamer rig logic to tablets with pointless specs that don't explain anything of value to the average consumer.

Speaking as somebody who's already decided to buy an Android 3.x tablet but has yet to decide which one, reviews like this are very useful. The specs in question are quite helpful: CPU performance, graphical performance, battery life. These things are important, especially as more and more people are buying tabs for portable gaming purposes.

Re:Missing the point

[pandrijeczko]

There's been no sales figures showing actual installed base of Android devices.

Well I found them easily enough - 36% Android compared to 17% iPhone, as of Q1 2011.

Remember that iOS runs on iPod touches as well as iPhones.

Here's a list of Android devices - not just phones and tablets either.

Android phones haven't been leading iPhones long enough to have a larger installed base.

But they DO, as above.

Worse for Android is a lot of unit sales aren't really practical to count for the platform since they're single use devices like eBook readers so only phones really expand developers' potential markets.

No, they're convenient not to count for a fanboi who has decided the outcome of this discussion before getting to it.

don't buy

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as i know steve jobs has a couple of patents on thinness and lightness, they will sue Samsung in the following weeks.

I have one of these

[PCM2]

I have a Galaxy Tab 10.1 and I've also used a Xoom. Both are pretty comparable in terms of performance, which means not flawless (video occasionally appears to stutter a little bit) but acceptable. I like the thinness and light weight of the Galaxy Tab. My main beefs with it are:

1. The onscreen keyboard kind of sucks, like most Android keyboards I've seen. It's slow, and I shouldn't have to toggle in and out of punctuation mode just to type an apostrophe.
2. The touchscreen resolution doesn't seem very good. In Facebook, for example, next to the logo, there are three icons: A person, a cartoon speech bubble, and a globe. Mostly you'll want to click the globe to see your friends' latest updates. Clicking the globe on the Galaxy Tab is a chore and a half. It wants to select the speech bubble, every time.
3. The built-in browser still renders pages strangely. It seems to want to reformat Web pages to fit the screen even when that option is not selected. And there are various other rendering quirks -- Slashboxes don't show up at all, for example, and the options in the top tab of Slashdot are scattered all over the place.
4. The screen aspect ration is widescreen. That's great if you plan to use it to watch Shrek 2 from bed, but for everything else it sort of sucks. In landscape mode, the onscreen keyboard takes up half the screen real estate, making it hard to see what you're doing. In portrait mode, the screen is excessively long and narrow. The iPad uses a more traditional screen ratio that makes it more versatile.
5. I'm just not so sure what's so great about this kind of device. A netbook is much easier to operate, is more versatile, and is almost as light. I can't see myself sitting on the bus with my Galaxy Tab like an asshole, so it's mostly going to stay at my apartment, where it just feels like a slower, harder to navigate version of the devices I already have.

Re:I have one of these

[deadcrow]

Keyboard: Get SwiftKey. It's much better, and you can long press for most punctuation and numbers.

Touchscreen: I found this for almost all touchscreen devices. Luckily, now you can just pinch-zoom in, click, pinch unzoom.

Built in Browser: Sucks. Use Dolphin. Much better performance and rendering. Also makes good use of left and right swiping to display favorites and add-on's.

I also recommend Battery Snap. It keeps data and displays a graph of all battery usage, so you can easily see what, where and when your battery was draining.

Re:I have one of these

[PCM2]

Keyboard: Get SwiftKey. It's much better, and you can long press for most punctuation and numbers.

To clarify, I was using the stock Samsung Keyboard that's the default when you start the machine. You can revert to the Android keyboard, which at least solves the apostrophe problem, but isn't a whole lot better. I'll look at SwiftKey. On my Android phone I use Swype.

Touchscreen: I found this for almost all touchscreen devices. Luckily, now you can just pinch-zoom in, click, pinch unzoom.

If only it was that easy. Seriously, trying to click that control is hell. Enough to frustrate a sensible person to the point that they wouldn't use that device anymore.

I also recommend Battery Snap. It keeps data and displays a graph of all battery usage, so you can easily see what, where and when your battery was draining.

One thing that does seem really good about the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the battery life. I don't know how much continuous use it can handle, because I've never run it out. I've left it sitting around, unused, for a week or so and there's still some life left in the battery the next time I pick it up.

Re:I have one of these

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing that does seem really good about the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the battery life. I don't know how much continuous use it can handle, because I've never run it out. I've left it sitting around, unused, for a week or so and there's still some life left in the battery the next time I pick it up.

Considering it just came out on Wednesday, how have you had enough time to leave it around unused for a week?

Re:I have one of these

[PCM2]

Considering it just came out on Wednesday, how have you had enough time to leave it around unused for a week?

I got mine at Google I/O in early May. The only thing I can't really speak to yet is Android 3.1 "Honeycomb." Mine came with 3.0 and only got the upgrade to 3.1 on Thursday, so it's possible things like battery life may have changed, but overall for day-to-day use the 3.1 changes seem minimal.

Re:I have one of these

[bondsbw]

I have a Xoom, and I recommend Thumb Keyboard. It lets you have a split layout for landscape mode on a tablet... very nice, Apple took the same idea and put it in iOS 5 for iPad. You can find it on the Android Market.

Re:I have one of these

[Anonymous Coward]

Hacker's keyboard, it's free

Re:I have one of these

[shutdown -p now]

licking the globe on the Galaxy Tab is a chore and a half. It wants to select the speech bubble, every time.

Capacitive touch screens are inherently inaccurate, so selecting small items is always a problem. I think that iPad does better at guessing where you actually wanted to click by looking at the "shape" of the fingerprint.

On Android, I like the way Opera Mobile handles this - if they can't figure out which of the two interactive elements you were trying to tap, they give you a list so that you can pick the one you want.

Re:I have one of these

[PCM2]

I think that iPad does better at guessing where you actually wanted to click by looking at the "shape" of the fingerprint.

I think that's also why I like the iPhone keyboard much better than any keyboard on any Android phone I've tried. Whatever it is, Apple is doing something right.

Re:I have one of these

[Anonymous Coward]

Settings contains a built-in battery consumption tracker under Applications.

Re:I have one of these

[UBfusion]

I'm just not so sure what's so great about this kind of device. A netbook is much easier to operate, is more versatile, and is almost as light. I can't see myself sitting on the bus with my Galaxy Tab like an asshole, so it's mostly going to stay at my apartment, where it just feels like a slower, harder to navigate version of the devices I already have.

I think this paragraph is great and has debunked the whole tablet mythology in the most objective and eloquent way possible.

Not a fan boy, but...

[FyRE666]

I've yet to see anything on Android that gives a user-experience anywhere close to the iPad. I bought the original Galaxy Pad at about the same time I bought the iPad ; I've had it around 4 months, and can count on 1 hand the number of times I've used it. The interface just doesn't seem as though it can quite keep up with the user, slow to launch apps, just didn't take to it. The iPad (and now the iPad2) I use every day.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of things I don't like about Apple - I hate iTunes with a passion, and the fact I'm forced to use it with the iPad, but there's little that's challenging the iPad at the moment...

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[nicholas22]

You made a mistake. You bought an expensive Android tablet. You should have looked at devices half or a third of the cost, such as Nook Color. It is great for most things such as web browsing and gaming. For the things it's not, you tend to not mind for a device of that cost.

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[Wumpus]

A cheap device you don't use is better how?

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[Jello B.]

You bought an old tablet and you're saying that because your old tablet doesn't compete with the iPad that none of the new ones compete either. Android tablets have changed dramatically.

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[brunes69]

The original Galaxy Tab runs Gingerbread. The Xoom, Transformer, and Galaxy 10.1 run Honeycomb. It is night and day different.

Not to mention these tablets all have high performance Tegra 2 chips while the original Tab was running only a Hummingbird.

You are basically saying you tried Windows 98 and hated it therefore Windows 7 has to be just as bad.

I have an Asus Transformer and LOVE IT. It's an amazing machine, and I don't have the handcuffs on that my iPad-owning friends have.

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a fan boy, but definitely not tech-minded I can see. You can't change the UX on idevices at all until Apple does so for you whether you like it or not. So you'd better like it, because it's all you'll EVER get. At least with android if you don't like how something works, you have options to change it. There is no recourse for the people who dislike a particular aspect of their idevices (and there are QUITE a few out there, you can almost get them to admit it when they're frustrated at their device not working properly/as they expect it)

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[pandrijeczko]

I've yet to see anything on iPad that gives a user-experience anywhere close to a netbook at half the price .

There. Corrected that for you.

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[bedouin]

You can go on /. and feel special telling people about it and hope someone mods you interesting.

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[GlassHeart]

You are basically saying you tried Windows 98 and hated it therefore Windows 7 has to be just as bad.

Don't blame customers for their bad first impressions if you don't care enough about your brand to do right by them the first time.

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[DJRumpy]

Try using a netbook to type a message while standing up on a train/subway.

I've yet to see anything on iPad that gives a user-experience anywhere close to a netbook at half the price .

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[pandrijeczko]

Try using an iPad while water-skiing. So what?

Maybe I organise my time well enough such that I can forget about work and messages on short, cramped train journeys...

I'm sorry, I love my gadgets and "always on the Internet" life, but my character is strong enough to withstand the desparation of being out of communication with the rest of the world for a 10 minute tube train journey.

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe you ask the parent for one thing. I believe they supplied it...

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[vijayiyer]

No netbook, or even full laptop, can do what this can on an iPad:
http://www.foreflight.com/ipad

The only sort of comparable devices are thousands of dollars.

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[JinjaontheNile]

Try booking an Airline ticket with a tablet

How about sending an email while referencing a web page
Or messaging someone while VNC'ing into a remote machine

How about anything that requires doing more than one thing at a time - or even just changing apps with something like a quick alt-tab
Netbooks plow through that sort of thing with out blinking - Cut down OS's just choke at the idea.
It horses for courses and the Netbook course is a lot lot bigger.

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[UBfusion]

If I had my own Lear Jet I'd certainly also buy an iPad.

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[DJRumpy]

Those are all trivial, and I've done them all on a tablet (except for the Alt-Tab, which is easier on a tablet since it only requires a single finger).

You make it sounds as if the netbook is some vastly different machine. The only difference is the input and OS, where the input requires a flat surface to use, and the OS, which is more desktop centric. That doesn't mean the touch OS's like iOS and Android are somehow limited, they are just different.

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[FyRE666]

Well I actually bought the Galaxy Tab AFTER my original iPad, so what you're saying makes no sense. The iPad was older.

I have tried out more recent Android phones, and the input lag still irritates me. Anyway, everyone has their preferences - I'm not frothing at the mouth and making outrageous claims, just giving my experience of the two platforms.

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[JinjaontheNile]

I will have to take my hat of to you
I have put the challenge I described to 3 people who loved their tablets (2 Ipads and a cheap chinese thing running Android 2.1)
They all ended out agreeing that it was horses for courses.
Possible != better no mater how much you love your toy

I could probably do all the tasks with a Symbian phone as well, I would just prefer not to.
I could easily do them on My N900 but I wouldn't unless I had no other choice.

If you want the convenience of portability, you sacrifice size
If you want more convenience, lose the keyboard
If you want the same convenience with longer battery life, sacrifice processor power.
Everything is a balancing act which the user gets to choose.

At home or work, I want a desktop with a decent screen
In a different city or country) I want my netbook
On a plane, bus or train, I want my tablet or my Kindle
Walking around, My phone is more than adequate

Horses for Courses - unless you are involved in a religious argument

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[DJRumpy]

I didn't say it was better, (although switching tasks is arguably easier on a iOS device).

For example, sending a link is as simple as holding your finger on the link. You will get a prompt to copy the link, which is easily pasted into an email with a double tap. If you need content from a web page, again just hold your finger on the content and you will be prompted to copy it with adjustable margins to control how much of the page you want to copy. It's not overly difficult in any sense of the word.

Same with messaging. A quick double-tap to switch from your VNC software to an IM session.

Even when you have a non-full screen app, your focus is always going to be on one or the other, as would your input if you were typing or doing some other task.

The only benefit a desktop screen has is real estate and the non-full screen nature of a desktop apps (something not possible at the moment on phones/tablets). I didn't say tablets are better, I said they are comparable. The parent ask for anything that you could do on a tablet that couldn't be done on a netbook. I gave him one. They both have their strengths depending on your use case, but to dismiss one simply because it's 'different' isn't a valid reason, given the tasks you outlined are easily done on both platforms.

I certainly wouldn't use a tablet for 'work', but they are perfectly usable for browsing, email, calendar management, purchases, etc.

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[JinjaontheNile]

Hmmm, to me that sounds more like possible rather than easy

How about
Right click, Copy (or Right click "search google" or Right click "Open link in new Tab")
Or just Click (or Ctrl-tab) to change browser Tab
Ctrl X,C or V makes moving text very easy
Selecting text down to individual letters is also trivial

When I am traveling I take lots of photo's
With my netbook I can plug the SD card into it, delete the dud pictures, Copy the rest to the hard drive then do another copy to an external drive.
3 copies means it will take an armed robbery to lose all the pictures.
I just spent $280 on a dual core netbook so I won't cry (much) if it breaks (the old one had a glossy screen which I absolutely hated)

On the up side, Maybe being more difficult to open lots of tabs would mean I wouldn't have so many open tabs (I often end out with over 2 dozen open - even on the netbook)

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[DJRumpy]

I'm guessing from your questions you've never used these features.

To search in google you just click the word to copy it to the clipboard, and paste in the 'Google' search field. To open in a new tab, just hold your finger on a link and it will give you that option to open it in a new page (or use the existing page if you like). To change to a different tab, just tap the new tab button and either create a new page, or just swipe to the web page you want.

Working with your pics, deleting, and printing is also easy. They are stored just like your regular photos and can be printed, emailed, MMS'd, deleted, etc. iCloud will make it even easier, removing the need to do anything but take the picture and sync it to any iOS device.

Again, these ultra-portables do some things better than traditional table top devices, and some things require more work. It all just depends on your usage and needs, but they are certainly capable of handling the same tasks.

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[pandrijeczko]

No. He supplied a ridiculous scenario - I retorted with an even more ridiculous one in order to emphasise how ridiculous his scenario was.

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[Wumpus]

You can do that without the cheap android tablet. It's cheaper!

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[Jello B.]

It makes perfect sense. The original Galaxy Tab is old as all hell compared to the new one. They're on completely different hardware and most importantly COMPLETELY different operating systems. I wasn't referring to the age of the old Galaxy Tab vs. the old iPad.

What about the Eee Pad?

[dogmatixpsych]

Looking at the results, the Asus Eee Pad Transformer comes out on top. I don't know how the designs compare but the Asus looks like a better deal, especially considering you can get a 32GB model for the same price as the 16GB Samsung. Neither at those price points is compelling enough to outdo the iPad 2 though. If they were $400 or $350, then they'd be compelling enough to get instead of the iPad. As the reviewers noted though, the tablet-centric apps just aren't there yet for the Android Market whereas there are a ton of useful iPad apps.

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[PRMan]

I have the Asus, and I love playing with emulators for every system and game I ever owned and watching movies ripped from my collection using Handbrake. We hooked up the HDMI out cable and watched a movie with the grandparents the other day and it was great.

All of which, I can't do with an IPad.

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[teh31337one]

You can actually do all those things with an iPad... VLC for the media, jailbreak for the emulators, and a 30pin to HDMI connector that Apple sells for the HDMI

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[Graymalkin]

None of the movies I've ripped with Handbrake work on my iPad? Shit I guess the HDMI adapter I just bought doesn't work either! Why didn't you tell me I couldn't do those things before I bought it?

Wait, you're full of shit and I can do all that with my iPad. Does the iPad also take 20 minutes to copy a 17MB file?

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[samkass]

HDMI... cables, how quaint. I stream video wirelessly to the TV via the $99 Apple TV (which also has the best Netflix UI of any device out there) from the iPad2. If you don't want to stream wirelessly, though, I suppose you COULD buy the HDMI cable for the iPad2. I also have a ton of stuff downloaded off the TiVo as well as movies ripped from Handbrake. I'm not sure why you think the iPad can't do this stuff... it does it better than anything else around.

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[tepples]

VLC for the media

I thought VLC had been pulled from the App Store for GPL violation.

jailbreak for the emulators

Until Apple fixes the vulnerability that allows a jailbreak. The advantage of Android, which I admit may in practice be only philosophical, is that the owner of a device doesn't need to exploit a security hole just to use a device as he intends.

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, you can actually. I really wish people would only post factual information, but *shrug* -- that's what the moderation system is for.

I have a non-jailbroken iPad 2 (it can't be done at this time). I have an 8TB Drobo nearly full of ripped and downloaded TV Shows/Movies. Each and every one of them stream with ease to any device in my house (Apple TV, iPhone, either of our iPads, etc). For a total of $5.98 on the Mac App Store and the iOS App Store, I don't even have to do any work --- I put a disc in, it automates the rip and insert into iTunes (with all cover art and plot info). Downloads are 100% automated ; once complete, it just throws it into iTunes for me while I'm asleep. And I can stream *anything* on 3G or Wi-Fi.

As for emulators, the only one I care about is SNES4iPad. I have a dev license, so I install whatever I want. I don't even know how to program in Obj-C at all. I guess we can chalk up the $99 for the license to the total? But that difference in price is nothing compared to the "I don't have to know what I'm doing" usability of iOS.

You do know that you can just simply connect an iPad to a TV with HDMI, right?

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[brunes69]

You can get a 16GB EEPad for $399.

I think part of the thing these reviewers all miss is that every Android tablet has a MicroSD slot. There is no point paying $100 for 16 Gb of storage. It's highway robbery. I don't know why anyone in their right mind would get the 32GB version over the 16Gb version.

This of course is very different from the iPad which has no such slot.

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[brunes69]

Perhaps his point is you don't have to use special software like Handbrake or buy special cables to use HDMI. All this stuff works out of the box on any Android tablet, including playing any format under the sun. I like Moboplayer for this.

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[teh31337one]

Preaching to the choir here, I have a Galaxy S II, and am well aware of the advantages and shortcomings of android. Just wanted to point out to GP that the things he mentioned are possible, even if you have to go through a few hoops. (JB and adapter for HDMI)

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[brunes69]

Er.. so? I can stream from my Asus TF-101 to any DLNA device under the sun, not simply an Apple TV. I can stream DIRECT TO MY TV, which is a Samsung flatscreen that has DLNA support.

But really this has nothing at all to do with the parent since you can't compare plugging in an HDMI cable to streaming to some external device? It is not even remotely the same thing. (Also, the iPad does not even have an HDMI port, you have to BUY an ugly and cumbersome external dongle).

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[Steve Blake]

I don't believe the Galaxy 10.1 has a memory slot (at least, I have not found any spec sheet online that mentions it). Major FAIL if true.

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[Overzeetop]

Well, that's only partially true - why do people bother RAIDing discs together instead of just burning their music and movies out to DVD or BR discs? It's more convenient.

Up until a year and a half ago (actually, closer to two now), my phone had a uSD card slot. You know how often the memory got upgraded/swapped? Each time I bought a new phone. And, at that point, I was in for $100 for whatever the largest card was at the time (which, interestingly, was always half of what I could have gotten in an iPhone as native). Having a 50GB music collection spread over 3-4 uSD cards isn't exactly my idea if fun (and 12-16 at the "sweet spot" for memory cost is even worse).

And though, in theory, I could carry far more movies on a handful of uSD cards than I can put on my 64GB iPad ($529, including 3G radio), it would cost me a bundle, and I'd have to keep up with them - unless there were a way to install/store multiple cards in another tablet.

Heck, even today you can't buy a uSD card with the capacity of an iPad (64GB is not actually been released).

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[PCM2]

Perhaps his point is you don't have to use special software like Handbrake or buy special cables to use HDMI. All this stuff works out of the box on any Android tablet, including playing any format under the sun.

Since TFA is about the Galaxy Tab 10.1, I have to disabuse you of this notion. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 does not have an HDMI port. According to Samsung, "You can even share Tab content on your HDTV through the Tablet Extender feature—or stream it wirelessly with Allshare" ... but I have no idea what the Tablet Extender feature is, or what Allshare is. Neither is mentioned in the product manual.

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[Graymalkin]

His point was clearly stated, he made the claim the iPad can't play movies with Handbrake or connect to a TV via HDMI. Both of these are simply ridiculous things to say. Shit, Handbrake has an output preset named iPad.

As for the buying accessories, there's definitely a valid use case for a built-in HDMI port. However with the adapter I bought for my iPad I got a free HDMI output upgrade for my iPhone. There's downsides to adapters but there's also iodized to device ecosystems. The single adapter I bought increased the utility of multiple devices and gives me an extra feature checkbox next time I upgrade one of those devices.

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they were $400 or $350

For that price point you might want to check out the Viewsonic gTablet (aka Malata Zpad + some other release name in Italy). Normally $300 but I've seen it on sale for $250. Tegra2 chip like the Xoom, 512MB RAM and 16GB SD built in with an additional external micro SD card (48GB max). Also has a full sized USB plug for external accessories (USB KB, etc). 10" screen though it's a bit narrower than the xoom screen and it doesn't include gps (though it can use an external bluetooth gps). Some folks have complained about the viewing angle, but I don't see much of an issue on mine.

It has about 4 different roms built for it. Currently running Cyanogenmod 7.0.3 with Netflix working and I'm pretty pleased.

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[UnknowingFool]

No his point was that he could use Handbrake to rip movies to play on his Asus using HDMI out and you could not do those things not on an iPad. A point which is clearly false.

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[dogmatixpsych]

I've eyed it but the screen is the biggest issue with me. I've heard a lot of people think the screen is just fine but I heard more people who disliked the screen enough to sell the gTablet and get something else. You're fortunately in the group who thinks the screen is good enough. If I get an Android tablet, I'm going to wait a year once the prices go down more and the features increase. I'm pretty tied into the Apple ecosystem though and I wouldn't want to put too much money into Android at this point.

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[shutdown -p now]

the tablet-centric apps just aren't there yet for the Android Market whereas there are a ton of useful iPad apps

In truth, iPad-aware apps are more important for iPad, because iPhone-only apps run like crap on it (as it doesn't do proper scaling). Whereas on Android, 90% of all phone apps look acceptable on a tablet, and many actually look perfect (e.g. for a file manager I use Ghost Commander - a 2-pane classic FM - and it's a 2.x non-tablet-aware app, but it looks great on Transformer).

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[DJRumpy]

You do realize you can encode the same movies for iPad, using handbrake using the 3.1 Main Profile, and play them in the default media player? In the end, if the media player plays the media, the differences become rather minor and cosmetic on most fronts.

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[julesh]

I don't believe the Galaxy 10.1 has a memory slot (at least, I have not found any spec sheet online that mentions it). Major FAIL if true.

This one mentions it: http://www.androidauthority.com/ipad-2-vs-motorola-xoom-vs-samsung-galaxy-tab-10-1-10341/

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[narcc]

Heck, even today you can't buy a uSD card with the capacity of an iPad (64GB is not actually been released).

What about this one? It started shipping late last month.

Ignorning that for the moment ... what would your point have been? With a slot, I can have as many 32gb cards as I can stuff into my pocket. In theory, I never run out of space. I just buy more. (My mp3 player has a microSD card slot, and I find it very convenient to have multiple cards with different things on them.)

If I had a tablet (which I don't see a need for) I imagine that I'd have different work and home cards, possibly a few music and movie cards for flights. Why wouldn't I want or need tons of built-in storage when I have an SD card slot?

There we go again

[Anonymous Coward]

Nerds who can only compare hardware components and checklist features without taking into account how the damn thing works compared to the competition.

Apple is successful because of what they do and how they do it, not because their hardware is the greatest and latest.

Acer a500

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the Acer a500 as another Android competitor.

Great story!

[webcrawleredge]

Thank you for the story! Really good reading! =)

I can haz one with a keyboard?

[rrohbeck]

Where are the ARM based netbooks that run Ubuntu? And no, I don't mean the Asus Transformer at twice the price of an Atom based netbook.

Re:I can haz one with a keyboard?

[shutdown -p now]

Transformer doesn't (yet) run Ubuntu other than in chroot, which is fairly limited.

Dear Companies making tablets,

[whistlingtony]

I don't want to buy a "product" that I can't tinker with.

I want to put my own version of Linux on it. I want to be able to open it up and put in more RAM, a bigger hard drive, replace the WIFI card, etc...

I hate having to search the internet for custom ROMs. I hate not knowing which dodgy weirdo put together what ROM. I hate having the OS loaded in firmware...

Give me a tablet form factor with an SSD drive and Ubuntu on it. I can actually USE this to do my homework. No, a text app doesn't replace OpenOffice functionality. I want to be able to install my own stuff on it. I want to program on it. I want to ACTUALLY USE the tablet as my MAIN computer. Give me HDMI out and a real USB port... I'll plug in a seperate monitor, mouse, and keyboard when I need to do my homework. I just also want to read on the bus, or in the park, or check a map when I'm in a new place, which the tablet form factor is great for.

Please?

Tony

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Dear technogeek,

We want products that work first. Unfortunately this means locking down. We also outnumber you by a wide margin.

Sorry

-everyone else

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[Pulzar]

We want products that work first. Unfortunately this means locking down. We also outnumber you by a wide margin.

I guess all the PCs out there just don't work?

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. They can get all 'community spirited' once they've actually made some money.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[CaptainLard]

What are your monitor, mouse, and keyboard plugged into right now? Can't you do your homework on that? If you really need to look at it in the park or on the bus (i.e. finish it at the last minute), just upload it.

I don't want to buy a "product" that I can't tinker with.

Then feel fulfilled buying an android tablet. Didn't you do a lot of internet searching to roll your own linux? Roll your own ROM if you must. Most of the major android devices have been rooted so I don't see where your complaint is coming from. Even if it really really must absolutely be linux, just put linux on it. http://liliputing.com/2010/11/ubuntu-linux-shoehorned-onto-the-samsung-galaxy-tab.html

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[iluvcapra]

Dear whistlingtony

We, the Companies Making Tables, primarily care about selling 100,000 units at a time to Verizon and Best Buy. We do whatever they need in order to make those tablets disappear off their shelves, causing them to order more tablets. Also if Verizon says that a Blockbuster app and VZ navigator will help them sell tablets, we always take their word for it and make sure the gear does exactly as they say, because they're our customer (a much bigger customer than you I might add), and much better at turning 100,000 tablets into retail sales than we are.

We do know these folks called "Apple," and they make tablets and are really good at turning them into money on a retail basis, but they basically agree with us on several of the lockdown issues for support and market positioning reasons. They hate carriers and channel resellers, though, so they never do what they tell them to do with their tablets, elitists!

Thank you for your concerns, we'll refer them to our marketing department.

Signed, Companies Making Tables

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[bjwest]

What you want is a slate computer, not a tablet. Tablets are designed to be light weight devices for somewhat dedicated use (web surfing, email, books, video, etc..), and specialized software. You go throwing in a hard drive (even ssd) and a full blown OS, you're going to need more power (both processor and battery) for it to work.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[UnknowingFool]

I don't want to buy a "product" that I can't tinker with.

Unfortunately the vast majority of consumers don't. Why should companies spend R&D and expend effort to serve a small minority of the population instead of a larger one?

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[Deus.1.01]

Because that minority invented Visicalc.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[ColdWetDog]

I guess all the PCs out there just don't work?

They don't for a lot of people. You know, the ones that bought a random Windows laptop a few years ago to do email / browsing / Farmbook and now have them so infested with shovelware / spyware / viruses that it's "broken". These are the people slurping up iPads - they need an appliance, not a general purpose computing device.

"We" are different and comprise a very small fraction of the consumer market. The market that powers the US economy for better or worse. THIS is Apple's claim to fame and fortune - the realization that everybody else was 'doing it wrong' in terms of the consumer computing experience. Now, Apple could have made it easier on "us" by having an expert mode in iOS and allowing sideloading. But they didn't (so the jailbreak community did). Sucks to be us but Steve don't care....

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[Anonymous Coward]

If you count downtimes and malware as "don't work", yes, sir.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[Anonymous Coward]

We want products that work first. Unfortunately this means locking down. We also outnumber you by a wide margin.

I guess all the PCs out there just don't work?

Have you seen the size of the tech support industry? Obviously they don't just work.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess all the PCs out there just don't work?

Not without screwing around with them. And once you get something working, don't change anything because it'll break.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[whistlingtony]

LOL... I'm 32. I'm LONG past the time where I enjoyed troubleshooting some stupid driver issue into the wee hours of the night... I just want things to work too. And you know what? They do. It's pretty nice really.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[pandrijeczko]

Please explain your logic as to how "working product" = "locked-down product".

Also, about 18 months ago, iPhones outnumbered Android phones - but not any more.

Apple were first to market with the iPad. Now the decent Android ones are coming out. How about we talk again in 18 months?

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[pandrijeczko]

Please explain.

I run both Linux and XP, I do not recall the last time I had a piece of malware on either.

I also do not recall the last time XP or Linux crashed on me either - the last downtime I had on Linux was installing a new kernel.

I wish you fanbois would quote facts.

Thanks for your time.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[pandrijeczko]

Have you seen the size of the car repair industry? Or the household heating servicing industry? Or the washing machine repair industry?

Machines go wrong sometimes. Deal with it.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[pandrijeczko]

Once you get your iPad working, don't drop it because it'll break.

Your point is precisely what?

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[pandrijeczko]

Dear Tony

Unfortunately, you do not understand.

Having a useful computing device that you can tweak to your heart's content is not the same as having a fashion accessory with a big silver logo on it that you can impress your friends with in a coffee shop.

A computing device is about self-expression and making a statement to the world! Only a selfish person would buy a computing device for his own personal productivity or entertainment, that is not the way of the world today.

You are nobody unless you have brand loyalty. Queuing up outside Best Buy or PC World is uncool, but queuing up for the opening of a new Apple store is cool.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[Anonymous Coward]

Because that minority invented Visicalc

...on an Apple II... but that's an application, not something you need to jailbreak anything for.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[Deus.1.01]

like Podcaster? (was eventually allowed but the point still stand)

Developers should not be hampered in their effort to develop new functionality that can be universally distributed.
The loss is on the customers.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[pandrijeczko]

Utter, utter crap!

I can't be bothered to provide links for you but if you're interested in seeing how completely WRONG you are, go and Google devices like the Netgear Stora (1 GHz CPU raid chassis that can be installed with your own Linux distro) or Pandora (600Mhz CPU handheld gaming computer that can do surfing, email, books, video, etc.)

Maybe you have more money than common sense but I would LOVE to have one single computing device that did ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING that I need to do on a computer - but the fact is, it does NOT exist, which is why I, like just about everyone else in this world, have to carry about a certain combination of devices depending on what it is I am trying to achieve at any specific moment in time.

The fact is, the ONLY way you will ever come close to having that one single device is by having it as at least a relatively open platform such that you can put on whatever software you need on it, and change out hardware components to give you the storage capacity, memory, expandability, etc. etc. that you need.

OK, I'll be generous and give you this link because it's interesting that they use the words "slate" and "tablet" almost interchangeably - which actually proves that you accept the limitations of your tablet device by virtue of having to invent some new category of device that isn't any different.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[shutdown -p now]

Give me a tablet form factor with an SSD drive and Ubuntu on it ... Give me HDMI out and a real USB port... I'll plug in a seperate monitor, mouse, and keyboard when I need to do my homework.

For the most part, what you've described is Asus Transformer. The only exception is that you can't easily install Ubuntu in dual-boot on it today. You can install Ubuntu in chroot under Android and VNC into it, but it's not particularly fast (though it does let you run OpenOffice when you really need it).

That said, as soon as we get nvflash, we should be able to do full dual-boot on that thing.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Between iPod Touches, iPhones and iPads, there are more iOS devices than android devices. What you've proven is that Android vendors are perpetually a year and a half behind Apple.

These aren't new players in the electronIcs field either. Why are they all playing catch up?

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[bjwest]

Sorry, neither of the products you mentioned fit in the conversation. The Netgear Stora is a NAS device - hell it doesn't even have video output, while the Pandora is a handhold game system on par with the Gameboy's and such. No way is that thing going to replace a tablet, much less a computer. With enough hacking, I'm sure you could put linux on a Gameboy DS, that doesn't mean you can use it in place of your laptop.

The OC was talking about the difficulty in changing the OS on the current line of tablets with the OS installed in firmware insted of rewritable storage (micro SD or an ssd drive) and the lack of storage (16 or 32 gig micro SD), and I was pointing him to the more powerful slates (or tablets, because yes, the terms have become interchangeable) like the HP Slate 500 or Acer Iconia Tab.

OK, I'll be generous and give you this link because it's interesting that they use the words "slate" and "tablet" almost interchangeably - which actually proves that you accept the limitations of your tablet device by virtue of having to invent some new category of device that isn't any different.

OK, you're going to have to explain your logic on this. What in that (poorly written and hard to understand) article proves anything? What category of device have I invented? The terms tablet and slate have been around since the beginning of the technology. Originally, tablets were convertible laptops (revolvable keyboard or a screen that spun around and folded back on top of the keyboard) and slates were less powerful devices and had no keyboard. Now, however, they are beginning to reverse, and tablets are now becoming the low powered dedicated devices and slates the "laptop replacing" power devices with a full blown OS.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[tomtomtom]

I don't want to buy a "product" that I can't tinker with.

Unfortunately the vast majority of consumers don't. Why should companies spend R&D and expend effort to serve a small minority of the population instead of a larger one?

I think you've got that backwards. They've spent R&D money/effort in locking down their devices which otherwise would have been open for tinkerers. Now, that's not to say that doesn't have a financial return (Apple making 30% of revenue for everything sold on the App Store only holds up because of the lack of competition), but it's got nothing to do with what consumers want.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[narcc]

Between iPod Touches, iPhones and iPads, there are more iOS devices than android devices. What you've proven is that Android vendors are perpetually a year and a half behind Apple.

That doesn't make any sense at all. The first sentence not only has nothing to do with the parent, but it is completely unrelated to your second sentence. It looks like you're trying to make some kind of argument, but it's too incoherent for me to be certain.

These aren't new players in the electronIcs field either. Why are they all playing catch up?

Catch up to who? RIM? Apple has yet to catch up to RIM* in smart phones, despite RIM being "dead" and Apple "in the lead" (which has never been true, BTW).

So ... get over it.

*source

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Actually, listening *all* iOS devices versus *all* Android devices defeats the point of pointing out that there are more Android devices than iPhones. There are more iOS devices than Android devices.

Basically, in the last year and a half, the only thing Android OEMs have done is just crap out more phones and Google hasn't been doing much on the OS side(In fact, some people are perpetually stuck on old versions of the OS software).

what about this?

This is worldwide share of phones and iPod Touch/iPad devices aren't included.

RIM's playbook is a goddamned joke. It hasn't sold well and they're losing market share every quarter.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[metallurge]

Actually, you are wrong about the Pandora. It's a general-purpose handheld linux computer that happens to also have gaming controls. Kinda like the Nokia N900 is a general-purpose handheld linux computer that is also a phone.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[Anonymous Coward]

We want products that work first. Unfortunately this means locking down. We also outnumber you by a wide margin.

I guess all the PCs out there just don't work?

Right, they don't work. Go up to a person who has to use a computer for real work, and who doesn't see understanding the compter as an interesting hobby. It is truly painful to watch.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[pandrijeczko]

No, they are relevant examples because you implied that in order to tinker with a system and to install on the software that you want, you need more powerful CPUs, more memory, etc. Yet those two devices are relatively low powered and exceptionally configurable. Those examples show your statement to be incorrect.

The OC was talking about the difficulty in changing the OS on the current line of tablets with the OS installed in firmware insted of rewritable storage (micro SD or an ssd drive) and the lack of storage (16 or 32 gig micro SD), and I was pointing him to the more powerful slates (or tablets, because yes, the terms have become interchangeable) like the HP Slate 500 [amazon.com] or Acer Iconia Tab [amazon.com].

Yes, but your point is precisely what? Since I have demonstrated (as above) that customisability is not a factor of system power (by providing those two example devices as proof of that), then it simply comes down to the fact that the iPad (and, to be fair, some other tablets) are deliberately locked down to not be expandable or tweakable.

In other words, it has nothing to do with the type of device (as you were implying) but more about how it has been designed or not designed to be accessible by the user.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[pandrijeczko]

It serves as a perfect example of a low-power device that is highly user-configurable - it runs an OS and is a computing device, other than that it matters not what type of device it is.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[bjwest]

I did not imply that in order to tinker with a system or to install the software that you want, you need more powerful CPUs, more memory, etc. I told the OC that in order to do what he wanted, he needed a more powerful system than a current generation iOS/Android tablet.

Look at the subject of this threat Dear Companies making tablets and then the OCs final paragraph:

Give me a tablet form factor with an SSD drive and Ubuntu on it. I can actually USE this to do my homework. No, a text app doesn't replace OpenOffice functionality. I want to be able to install my own stuff on it. I want to program on it. I want to ACTUALLY USE the tablet as my MAIN computer. Give me HDMI out and a real USB port... I'll plug in a seperate monitor, mouse, and keyboard when I need to do my homework. I just also want to read on the bus, or in the park, or check a map when I'm in a new place, which the tablet form factor is great for.

This thread was about tablets powerful enough to replace at least a midrange laptop and the OC is specifically asking for a tablet form factor with the processing power and storage of a laptop. I pointed him in that direction and along comes you talking about a dedicated NAS and hand held game system.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[brantondaveperson]

His point, obviously, is that PCs don't work for many people because they're a pain in the arse to set up, and they break in a software sense easily.

Neither of these things are true for an iPad.

Physical durability was not under discussion.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear technogeek,

We want products that work first. Unfortunately this means locking down.

... like Android phones, for example? They're selling well, and they work, so they must be locked down ...

oh. wait.

Price Performance

[dlinear]

But what about the price performance? These devices are all priced at the same level or even above than the iPad. All things being equal, the larger market of the has a network effort bonus that maks the iPad appear more valuable. Even the summary states these tablets are, "every bit as capable", in the technology sense, meaning the tech between the two is basically even. Once these Android tablets can offer a device cheaper than an iPad, then we can talk about serious competition.

Re:Price Performance

[symbolset]

The transformer is $100 less than the cheapest iPad2. It's got MicroSDHC slot for up to 32GB of additional storage, 10.1" widescreen display, and Android 3.1 - all of which are a step up from the iPad2 to some people. It's thin and light, goes all day on a battery. There's even an optional keyboard dock with extra battery and genuine USB slots. Performance on the dual-core 1GHz Tegra 2 processor with 1GB RAM is really sweet. There are some games on here I didn't expect to fare well on a tablet, but they're beautiful. They're flying off the shelves.

So those entry conditions that needed to be met before we could talk about serious competition: they're met now. Let's talk. Apple makes a good bit of money on every iPad2, and a little more after the sale with iTunes and the App Store and accessories and whatnot. Other vendors not really as much. They will ramp production of their products as fast as they can, but that won't be as fast as Apple can, probably. It will be a while before the iPad botherers actually take significant share. Eventually though, Apple can't out-compete and out-design every tech company on Earth and they don't intend to try. They will continue to make good money on a limited range of products while exploring even more new realms to conquer.

The fall brings quad-core Android versions with more advanced graphics, and dedicated gaming tablets, so the platform seems to have legs. The phones go well with the tablets - the ecosystem of apps and services is what adds the most value to the end user, not the widget itself. This means that folks who have iPhones are likely to choose the iPad, and Android phone people are likely to go with the Android tablets when they can get them.

How about the Acer Iconia Tab?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone have any comments about the Acer Iconia Tab? Seems similar to the Asus Transformer, but includes a real USB 2.0 port. Also has Micro SD slot - not sure if this Galaxy Tab has it. Cons are that it's not as thin as Galaxy Tab and not on 3.1 yet. Costco has the 32GB version for $489, so it's also $100 cheaper than Galaxy Tab.

You have a limited view (naturally)

[Anonymous Coward]

Outside the US, there is generally only one model of iPhone sold. All the networks in the UK use the same tech. The same applies to Europe.
my iPhone will work on ALL Carriers. This is not new. pretty well every phone sold in this part of the world will work (when unlocked) on all carriers, end of.
I often feel sorry for the terrible state of the US mobile phone system. Your Data packages are **** compared to here.

Re:You have a limited view (naturally)

[bedouin]

Thank you for writing **** instead of shit, because I would have been really offended otherwise.

Tegra2 is not every bit as capable as A5

[Anonymous Coward]

The Galaxy Tab's Tegra2 is not every bit as capable as the iPad's A5. They have similar integer performance, but the similarity ends there. The Cortex-A9 design, on which they're both based, has an optional FPU/SIMD extension called NEON, which Apple chose to include while Nvidia did not, so the A5 is substantially faster on floating point tasks. And while Nvidia's GPU compares well to the single Imagination GPU equivalents on the market right now, Apple also spent a bunch of transistors to give themselves a lead by including two GPU cores on the A5.

These are actually both fairly remarkable facts, in that while Apple is historically a bit of a cheapskate when it comes to the chips they use, the A5 is a good deal larger (and thus more expensive) than it's competition. It makes me give a good deal more weight than I might otherwise to the rumors that Intel will be taking on the fabrication of Apple designed chips at 32 or even 22nm in the near future.

Re:Tegra2 is not every bit as capable as A5

[Anonymous Coward]

The Galaxy Tab's Tegra2 is not every bit as capable as the iPad's A5. They have similar integer performance, but the similarity ends there. The Cortex-A9 design, on which they're both based, has an optional FPU/SIMD extension called NEON, which Apple chose to include while Nvidia did not, so the A5 is substantially faster on floating point tasks. And while Nvidia's GPU compares well to the single Imagination GPU equivalents on the market right now, Apple also spent a bunch of transistors to give themselves a lead by including two GPU cores on the A5.

  iPad has the NEON extension and dual GPU cores and the Tab doesn't? If true, this is significant and I'm surprised it hasn't been +1'd "Informative" by now.

So, dear lazyweb, are there are any benchmarks that directly compare the iPad2 and the Tab 10.1? And do they validate the claim above?

*cough*advert!*cough*

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Another Slashvertisement! Ready pitchforks!!!!

Re:*cough*advert!*cough*

[ColdWetDog]

Another Slashvertisement! Ready pitchforks!!!!

You seem like an angry young man. Perhaps this article has touched an unmet need that you are unconsciously rebelling against.

Would you like some Kool-Aid?

I don't see the point of the A4 size.

[Deus.1.01]

The reason why i got the first Samsung Tab was because it was basically a large PDA that i can fit inside my jacket.

The size is a good compromise, Its even suitable to watch movies on it, I've gone through every episode of DS9 on it(youtube ssshh).

Now I just need a head mounted display(with camera for AR) and frogpad AND ITS GARGOYLE CITY BABY!

Not Apples to apples he he

[TheBrutalTruth]

Stupid joke aside, I own multiple iOS devices (wife & I have iPads) and have had several Android devices (Evo, currently G2, son has a myTouch) and a 7" Sammy tablet - now that was Froyo, but I returned it in 2 days because it was like a bigger, crappier version of my Evo (which had gingerbread on it at the time). I have not tried a Honeycomb or 3.1 device, optimized for the tablet - and don't know if I will anytime soon. The application support is just too deep on iOS for the iPad. Not much for tablet optimized applications for Android, and I doubt it will catch up. Too much HW fragmentation, on the phones and tabs. I'm not a huge fan of the lock in (I see no need to jailbreak my iOS devices, can't resist getting root on Android - why???) but it has obvious benefits to the consumer from a consistency perspective. I know what I'm getting for the money with iOS - with Android on tablets I just don't yet. Funny that they are taking a different approach with ChromeOS - the new machines are identical spec (yes, built "shinier") to my cr-48 (don't knock it unless you have one - I can do 90% of what I personally use a lappy for on it - and ChromeOS gets better constantly).

TouchWiz

[Anonymous Coward]

The article is missing one of the more important issues with the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and that's the current uncertainty state of the OS. Samsung has already said they are bringing touchWiz to the Galaxy Tab but decided to release it with Honeycomb 3.1 "near" stock because they wouldn't be able to adapt the OS with touchWiz in time for release however they said that touchWiz is coming in an update soon.

This is the biggest issue with the tablet because in a few months time you may end up getting something completely different than what you paid for which is what will hinder a lot of people from buying it. If they decide to allow people to keep the stock version (And support it with future stock updates) then this will indeed become the best tablet on the market otherwise I fear I will have to pass on it.

It's funny that they have proven exactly the point of not having android customisations (bloat and slow updates) by releasing the stock version of it and yet companies keep adding customisations to android which only make it worse. It is sad to see that there has yet to be a real good Android tablet in the Market which users can feel comfortable with (The Galaxy Tab does come damn close though).

the fly in the ointment

[samjam]

stupid lack of USB and HDMI connectors.

Lack of HDMI stops me properly showing off at a friends house in plugging it into his TV cos I left my magic Samsung cable at home.

So that's not going to help my friend want to buy one.

And as I read through the review I thought "yes! at last! One I can buy! Yahoo!" until I saw that stupid cable business. I went through magic vendor proprietary cables with HTC and it's a pain and I'm not doing it again.

Bad luck Samsung, maybe one of your competitors won't be so dumb, I'll wait for them.

Re:the fly in the ointment

[UBfusion]

How do you know your friend has a spare HDMI cable? And if he doesn't, is it really easy to detach it from the back of his DVD/Bluray player to connect it to your tablet?

If my intention was to show off my new bling device, I'd make sure I brought with me a suitable cable anyway.

Re:the fly in the ointment

[mjwx]

stupid lack of USB and HDMI connectors.

Bad luck Samsung, maybe one of your competitors won't be so dumb, I'll wait for them.

Why wait,

The Acer Iconia is already released, granted not with a 3G version yet, I have this tablet and it has a mini HDMI and full size USB port.

I have it all

[pbjones]

I have both device type, as for competition, that doesn't rely on just hardware, the average person is buying iOS for the total package, because they are lazy, the same reason people buy windows. Android is cheap, but with may flavours, and only few devices getting upgrades, it will only ever compete on price.

Got a Xoom this week.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice hardware apart from the thin power connector, but honeycomb still suffers from a lack of tablet optimized apps and also web sites trying to redirect me to the "mobile" version because they don't write their browser sniffers properly (Slashdot gets it right). But it has nice things like widgets and live wallpapers. Despite all the hype, most "flash" out there is adverts and many websites already detect the iPad and give out HTML5 versions.

Now I own devices from both sides I can enjoy the best of both. There is no more time for fanboys, just enjoy the great hardware that is pushing tech companies to innovate against other.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab range looks good too and it's good that there is a choice of hardware so you don't have to be bound by one design.

itunes it's the deal breaker

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

most of the people i know who owns android devices bought them for 2 reasons:

- price
- don't need itunes

thing is, itunes on windows doesn't HAVE bugs. IT IS a bug. my friends and coworkers that own iphones dislikes it and would ditch it at the first oportunity. up until now, since itunes was necessary so you could just use the damn phones as phones was a deal breaker for most people.

but even now that apple partially caught up with times and made it possible to activate the phones without using that POS application, you still need it to put music on it, the alternative being paying 25 bucks to use their "cloud" service.

meanwhile, with my milestone and my xoom, i can just plug the thing on any USB port and just copy whatever it is to them using standard tools available in any linux distro or windows box. and in the odd case i don't have a micro-USB cable at hand (the standard is new, so the cables still aren't as widespread as mini-USB), i can just copy stuff from a file share via wifi.

this kind of freedom and use of standards is what makes android the choice for me. if some day apple adopts a similar atitude, maybe i'll give them a chance.

Is now a good time to mention...

[pandrijeczko]

...that Apple wouldn't be making iPads today had Microsoft not bailed Apple out of bankruptcy to the tune of $150M in 1997?

Re:Is now a good time to mention...

[UnknowingFool]

Now would be a good time to put history in perspective. The money was not much as important to Apple as the guarantee that MS not to stop producing software for Mac OS. For MS they needed to get the US government off their backs about the whole antitrust and monopoly thing. Well it didn't work as they sued a year later. But you're right, let's only see things from a pro-MS/anti-Apple perspective.

Re:Is now a good time to mention...

[pandrijeczko]

So therefore why didn't Apple say "Thanks anyway but we don't need your money, Microsoft".

If anything, that would have made Microsoft's claims about not being a monopoly a lot more shaky, and as a competitor to Apple would have weakened Microsoft somewhat.

Incidentally, as a Linux person who has never, in 30 years of computing never come across one Apple product that I've considered buying, would you not welcome the pragmatic views of an outsider to both the Microsoft and Apple camps? You fanbois have a very blinkered view of reality - i.e. being anti-Apple means pro-Microsoft.

Re:Is now a good time to mention...

[UnknowingFool]

So therefore why didn't Apple say "Thanks anyway but we don't need your money, Microsoft".

Did you actually read what I wrote? Apple needed MS to promise to keep making software for them like Office. They didn't need the money. An agreement is a contract especially when money changes hands. They didn't need the money. At the time, Apple was sitting on $1.163 B in cash. Cash not accounting for other assets. The wired article didn't seem to take that into account that while Apple was not profitable that year, they were still solvent.

Incidentally, as a Linux person who has never, in 30 years of computing never come across one Apple product that I've considered buying, would you not welcome the pragmatic views of an outsider to both the Microsoft and Apple camps? You fanbois have a very blinkered view of reality - i.e. being anti-Apple means pro-Microsoft.

In a thread that has nothing to do with the 1997 agreement, Apple, or MS, you mention about how MS "saved" Apple. Who's self-delusional here? As someone who works with Windows, OS X, Linux, and non-Apple Unix, I would say you have a funny perspective of "outsider".

Re:Is now a good time to mention...

[pandrijeczko]

I don't claim to be an accountant but "revenue" is not the same as "profit" and it's the profit (i.e. after every employee has been paid and every supplier been paid) that equates to the actual money you have in your coffers. You yourself admit they were not profitable that year, therefore that $1.163B and more was eaten up in outgoings.

And as I said already, why take the money from Microsoft unless you truly need it? I remember there being a huge fanboi backlash at the time this was reported, any company does not risk the wrath of its customers unless it has no choice.

It was a bailout - but plastered in corporate rhetoric to make it look like each party was doing the other a favour.

Re:Is now a good time to mention...

[UnknowingFool]

Cash != revenue. Apple had revenue of $1.5B which is a different number. Cash means the same to a corporation as it does for a person; how much in liquid assets. Apple at the end of the 1997 had $1.193B (I mistyped earlier) in just cash with total assets of $4.126B. Yes they were unprofitable and at the rate of loss of $120M, Apple could have operated for 8 more years at that rate before exhausting their cash. However they still had $3B in other assets that they might have sold off.

In the simplest terms, revenue would be your income or salary for the year. It does not account for assets that you hold like a savings account, CDs, stocks, etc. You can be in the red for one year but still be positive on net worth. Apple had assets that exceeded their debt; this is something that wired was not looking at when predicting doom. I agree that Apple was in trouble because it didn't have a sense of direction, but it was still in the black.

And as I said already, why take the money from Microsoft unless you truly need it? I remember there being a huge fanboi backlash at the time this was reported, any company does not risk the wrath of its customers unless it has no choice.

Again you miss the point. They needed a promise from MS to continue to develop software. How much would Apple trust only MS' word that they would do so? With an agreement and money changing hands, it was a legal contract. As for customers, it might have angered their fan base but as a company, it helped their customers by guaranteeing that a popular and well selling software (Office) would continue. Also from agreement, MS agreed to develop IE for Mac. Of course they wouldn't update it very often and Apple had to develop Safari themselves, but for customers it was a good move. Also it was a good for the shareholders of the company.

It was a bailout - but plastered in corporate rhetoric to make it look like each party was doing the other a favour.

You can think what you want about the motivations of each company. In terms of simple finances, Apple didn't need the $150 to stay afloat. I wouldn't call that a bailout.

Re:Is now a good time to mention...

[pandrijeczko]

Clearly the financial report is open to interpretation - I DO consider it a bailout.

Re:Is now a good time to mention...

[UnknowingFool]

The numbers of the financial report are not subject to interpretation. They were numbers Apple had to report to the SEC and their shareholders. In accounting "cash" and "revenue" have specific meanings. Saying that is open to interpretation is as ludricrous as saying to me while I am holding a $100 bill that it's open to interpretation as to whether I have $100 or $10 in my hand. Even when presented with unambiguous facts, you still refuse to admit that you're completely wrong about the financial status of Apple back in 1997. $150M was little to their bottom line; they were comfortably in the black. How can it possibly considered a bailout?

Missing some parts.

[DJCouchyCouch]

he iPad 2 finally has solid competition in terms of both hardware and OS performance."

But not breadth and depth of software, ecosystem and firmware support.

But it's almost the same thing, right? right?

Acer a500

[Anonymous Coward]

I just got the 16g iconia tablet, and I'm definitely happy. (and that's without the system update that fixes some things)

It's hard to beat a full size usb socket for utility. I just hope Acer comes through with continued support and unlocking of the system.

Most users

[chinmaya]

Lot of interesting comments, but most of them are having high expections. I think tablet is good replacement for your daily and travel needs. Apps like News, eReader, Maps and Angry Birds are good enough reasons for Christmas shopping for most. When you have 2 good options, at the end of the day you will buy the one which feels good in your hands.

  Read Canon vs Nikon debates !

Another Apple advantage

[PapayaSF]

One advantage that Apple has over their competitors is the vertical integration.

True, and another is massive economies of scale: the iPad comes in a few similar configurations, and they are selling tens of millions of them. They can get unbeatable deals from suppliers with volumes like that.

OpenMoko

[bug1]

Meanwhile, with hundreds of mobile devices all trying to differentiate themselves, there is still no open source device or tablet to replace an openmoko.

Re:Well, that's wrong.

[mjwx]

Now, if the Tab had come $100 cheaper and offered me something MORE than what the iPad2 does, I would be all over it. But for the same price it's just not worth it to lose the ease of use, interoperability, and application support.

Exactly. It's not enough to match the ipad, it has to be CHEAPER than the ipad to be worthwhile for normal people.

Not meant as flamebait, but I believe Android would never have gotten as popular as now if the iphone hadn't been limited to one carrier and priced higher than the android phones in the USA.

I hate to break this to you, but in other parts of the world like Europe the Iphone was not limited to one carrier, yet Android managed to become more popular in Europe faster then it did in the US. So your theory does not hold water, Especially as the US is far from the forefront of mobile technology (for that, you need to look at Asia where the Galaxy Tab 10.1 Wifi is already a mere 15,000 Baht).

Also, as far as price goes, wait a month or two, you'll see the price of Android tablets drop as there is more competition, you wont see this with Apple. So the early adopters will pick it up for $750 (BTW, that's at the cheap end of Ipads in Oz) and the early majority will pick it up for $675 in a month or two. The late majority will get it for $625 and laggards will get it for about $500 when Samsung are preparing to release the next model. Just like what happened with the original Galaxy Tab.

I picked up an Acer Iconia tab for A$421 (16 GB, wifi-only) a few weeks back, the nearest competing Ipad was A$579 and the Ipad is nowhere near as flexible as the Iconia. Toshiba are looking at releasing their tablet at US$480. In the end, the same thing will happen with tablets as happened with phones, it's not about shininess or snappiness, it's about do or not do and Iphones "not do" a lot, Android became popular because it can do things, not because it was cheaper, that was merely a nice side effect.

Open platforms always win, DOS won over locked down desktop OS's, Linux has almost killed proprietary Unix.

Transcode

[tepples]

You do realize you can encode the same movies for iPad, using handbrake

Except a lot of people on various forums have become rawther superstitious about transcoding from one lossy codec to another. How much noise does a transcode add to the video?

Re:Transcode

[DJRumpy]

Transcoding generally makes a video softer. It doesn't introduce conventional 'noise'. Your probably thinking of macroblocking and that would only happen if you ran it on too low of a bitrate. Properly encoded, there is very little loss.

My two cents on tabs

[arisvega]

I understand the point into giving a phone a bigger screen, and more computing capabilities. The idea has been around for ages. But stripping the keyboard from a netbook? Admit it, it is not HALF as useful as a netbook is- you only want it because it LOOKS cool, and they use it on Star Trek. It is very, very expensive for what it does.

I don't know that cheaper matters

[brokeninside]

Before I bought an iPad last summer, I looked at quite a few netbooks. Spec wise, app wise, price wise, the netbooks seemed better. But where they fell short was mostly in weight and battery life. (Toshiba had an offering that fell short in software, it ran Android that I was looking forward to but they ended up crippling it.)

Or, look at it another way, the iPhone came to dominate the smartphone market even though it was far more expensive than many other offerings.

Android doesn't need to meet the iPhone/iPad on price. It needs to meet it at getting the job done in a way that most people prefer.

No

[brokeninside]

The video out cables for an iPad/iPhone will only work with video display from A/V apps like iTunes. There are apps out there that will capture the screen output and send it through the display cable but those apps will only work on a device that's been jailbroken.

Limitations aside, it sounds like an improvement over the HTC situation you describe.

Ya but

[pubwvj]

Ya but it don't do what I want ta do. To paraphrase Fred Flintstone.

What's a bit of a turn off for me

[Anonymous Coward]

What's a bit of a turn off for me and it's probably the same with the other platforms: if you haven't got an internet connection, most of what you get is pants.

Almost ALL the things I got on the Android 2.2 system were "make an account on www.someguff.com and you have this application". Not even what the blasted application is supposed to do. Sorry, if you can't even be bothered to tell me what the application is about, I can't be arsed to sign up for spamming, m'kay?

It was bought mostly as a portable computer to drive a telescope, so I would have kept it except that there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY to get the development tools installed without an internet connection. You can download the framework, but you CANNOT download the tools that allow you to develop on the platform. The framework appears to only give you the GUI and a way to download the tools and libraries.

So it went back.