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Toys R Us Unveils Android Tablet For Kids
puddingebola writes "Can Toys R Us provide the iPad killer? The 'Tabeo' s a 7 inch Android tablet running ICS with a micro-SD card slot. From the article, 'Powered by a 1GHz processor, the multitouch device comes with 4GB of built-in storage but can handle up to 32GB with a micro SDHC card. The device comes with 50 preloaded games, books, and educational apps and offers access to 6,000 more apps through the Tabeo Store.'"
Boooya!
Seriously, why would anyone pay $150 for this cheap thing when you can get much better. I'd rather pay $150 for the kindle fire, or even the nook. Unless this tablet is childproof from breaking, its not going to sell.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
All they need is for hipster to buy it ironically.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
"now that my desktop is slower than an Android toy tablet, I finally have justification for an upgrade to Haswell next year."
... or maybe Hasbro?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
my first thought is of someone yelling "developers, developers, developers!" (the success of the platform will be directly related to the amount of useful work that can be accomplished using it)
this has the potential to carve out a niche - but has zero chance of "killing" the iPad - i.e. fundamentally different markets...
It ain't what they call you. It's what you answer to. http://mylyceum.us/
Why do you thinks these products fail. Is because they are trying to kill the competition vs. Find their own niche where the competition fails to thrive.
The iPad is here and it will stay as long as Apple Deems fit. Now that doesn't mean it need to be the only tablet on the block, but apple has left gaps for areas to success.
1. Low End Market (The Kindle Fire area) Low end Tablet, for those who don't need the fancy iPad.
2. Business Market. Businesses really don't care for the iPad closed nature. They need to do their own trusted tweaks to them.
3. High End Market. (Microsoft?) We want a full featured PC but just an optional keyboard.
Android had seemed to stay in the Me Too area. Its success in the phones wasn't as much as the success in the OS but because Apple stuck only on AT&T for too long and people didn't want to switch to AT&T for whatever reason (often good one), the tablets which had less success was because they are less tied to a carrier thus people make a choice. So you have an iPad or something else that is priced the same as an iPad and equal specs... You might as well go with the iPad.
I am NOT saying Android is a bad OS or your tablet or phone is second par to the iPhone. But Apple got the image first, the rest are trying to takes its place in an area where Apple already has that place.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If you want to get something educational for your children, why not just buy the simplest Kindle and load it with books? Sure, you won't have a color screen and flashy games, but for younger children the various electronic features will probably be enough to satisfy their desire to explore. People often overestimate what it takes to keep a child staring at a screen for hours on end. Tthey could actually read something edifying and there wouldn't be quite the same distractions as an Android tablet.
As a nerd, but also as someone in the mobile games business, I'd say there's definitely potential here. All they need is a big sticker saying "No accidental app purchases!"
Mobile games on an iPad run the risk of Junior buying $500 worth of virtual currency. The same moms who aren't tech-savvy enough to disable that feature are the same ones who'd more than happily spend $150 on a kid-proof Tabeo. There's also a dollar value on the fact that Mom doesn't need to spend any time or energy ensuring Junior doesn't download anything objectionable.
Those are just two examples- there are plenty of others.
Removes tinfoil hat
On second thoughts, forget that.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
All well and good, until Tabio dies in a freak accident. Next thing you know, they're building a super-powerful robot made in Tabio's image with Tabio's memories.
It's a good idea, but $150 is too much. Generic 7 inch tablets are now down to $40-75 on Alibaba. This thing will probably drop below $100 on December 26th.
The future of computing is $79.95 tablets in blister packs at the convenience store. Intel, Microsoft, and Apple are desperately trying to stop this.
According to Engadget this is a rebranded Archos Child Pad.
You mean Toys U+1D19 Us. This isn't Soviet Russia yet!
The way Slashdot filters out most non-ASCII characters in posts is lame. It dates back to before they started used UTF8 encoding and long since stopped making sense.
There's already other products on the market in this space. But I guess this one is interesting because it runs android?
So I'm not a shill, but my kids both have a Leappad. http://www.leapfrog.com/leappad2/ They are very nice...run off 4 AAs for a week or two, and seem pretty indestructible. And its only $100. PRoprietary walled garden, I know, but the apps come either downloadable or via a dedicated SIM-like card. Works well enough for me.
I guess my point is...I don't know what my point is. Maybe the Toysrus one is interesting because its Android? So it can run any android app? But although my kids prefer my iPad I much rather they use a kid-proofed tablet.
"You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design
If a company writes an internal application, you can get a distribution license that allows it to be installed on devices for that company. It is part of the enterprise distribution. You basically need to identify and authorize each device individually, but it isn't that hard a job to do.
Just as a developer you get to install your stuff on 100 devices without doing anything extra. I believe there are few restrictions on the enterprise distribution and that lets you distribute to a lot more than 100 devices. I believe the only restriction is that you cannot put your app on devices without some kind of business relationship. It is intended to prevent bypassing the Apple App Store for generic consumer applications.