the main argument against tablets (bad software that actively interferes with usability) is going away. The market for tablets that are basically just laptops with a different form factor remains what it was before the ipad: small. the market for a tablet that is easy to hop on the couch with and surf for casual content is huge.
Assuming you count iTunes and Microsoft Office as part of the browser, which isn't really that much of a stretch. (However, he iTunes Store is a browser (possibly still using their proprietary/strange markup language), and for many (if not most) tasks Google Docs or Microsoft's offering is good enough.)
That seems a bit too optimistic (pessimistic?) to me. I would predict that more than two-thirds of households will have a tablet in five years. I can see tablets replacing kitchen or living room laptops that have become so common in the last years, I can’t see them replacing the office PC, at least not in five years. PCs (~ $800) and tablets (~ $500) are cheap enough to co-exist. I don’t think it was that long ago when you paid $1300 for one desktop PC.
I think a $199 wifi iPad 1 is a few months away. The user experience on such a device will knock the socks off a similarly priced net book.
I believe you're right about the desktop in the office though. The fact that XP is still commonplace in offices goes to show the staying power of the form factor in that setting. I mean, the design of most cubicle farms alone is more suited for desktops than tablets.
How much input do you actually do on these websites? Facebook, for a major example, is just a sentence or two for each status update, and a word or two for the chat messages.
Funny, I spend the majority of my time on the couch using an iPad (and happily tapping away on my lap, if I have to use the keyboard, which I usually don't).
Removing the abstraction of a pointing device and interacting directly with the GUI is a big deal. If you watch most people use a computer they spend the vast majority of their time tracking a pointing device and occasionally typing some text. Laptops are designed around the idea that most users are going to spend the vast majority of their time entering text and occasionally using a pointing device to track on-screen. Of course for some people this is perfectly appropriate because they do spend the vast majority of their time entering text.
I've got a touchscreen laptop. It lets my 3-year old muck around with Tux Paint and educational Flash games but it's not much more useful than that. You'd really need both a transformable hardware setup, and two entirely different UI paradigms for it to make sense. And it would still be hard to compete with a netbook plus a tablet for most folks.
I assume you (reasonably) count webmail as "not leaving the browser". Typing emails (or Facebook messages or whatever) is much more pleasant on a real keyboard than on a virtual touch-screen keyboard. Seems unlikely people are going to give up typing in droves.
What does seem quite plausible is tablet + peripherals - the tablet basically assuming the role of the old mini-tower computer, angled upright on a stand for desktop use, with keyboard and mouse hanging off it. (In fact if you also hung a monitor off it there's no reason you couldn't do that with a regular phone.) I think tablet + dock + keyboard may well become a popular home computer setup in the next few years.
Almost every single Facebook comment and status update made in the past two years has been from an iPhone or iPad. Every comment made in this thread has been from my iPad.
Almost all of my email is sent from my iPad, and I write a lot of email. I send vastly more email from iOS than OSX/XP/W7. I use all four operating systems between my personal and work machines, and prefer iOS for almost all tasks.
Touchscreen typing is weird at first, but, just like using a physical keyboard you start slow and eventually become proficient and comfortable.
(Unless you claim that Android is "bad software that actively interferes with usability" (because it doesn't officially support tablets yet, or has custom skins, or isn't integrated, or whatever), which the author seems to be, in a sense, saying. I'm not sure if I agree or not.)
I would argue that Android is currently not in a position to dominate the tablet market in the short term. It’s worse for tablets than Windows was for PCs and it has to (and undoubtedly will) improve in that respect this year. (It was not supposed to run on tablets so you can’t really hold that against Google.)
All Android tablets I tried felt like upscaled phones, they use more or less the same phone UI on a bigger screen. That’s just unattractive, why carry around that huge device when using a phone is approximately as comfortable? Tablets have to be more comfortable to use than phones. iOS makes better use of the additional real estate and using it is more fun than using a phone. It’s not just a huge iPod touch.
Yes, it is. The only difference you're seeing is that developers for iOS apps have accommodated for the additional screen real estate after its release. Developers of Android apps haven't yet because the OS isn't officially ready for tablets until Honeycomb. Once an official Android tablet is released post-Honeycomb can you actually start to make comparisons.
I don’t understand why you are contradicting me. I think we agree. I was talking about the state of Android tablets – specifically their UI – right now, even saying that I expect Android to improve this year. I don’t expect Android to remain as bad a fit for tablets as it is right now in the future but iOS has undoubtedly had a head start. (You could argue that Google has already demonstrated that they can catch up with the iPhone so I’m not sure how predictive such a head start is.) That seems to me to be exactly the same you are saying.
I’m not sure how you then arrive at the conclusion that the iPad is just a huge iPod touch. Its apps have a different UI, making use of the larger screen (as you said), so it is different, at least in that respect (and I wasn’t claiming anything more).
I would agree that the iPad is essentially a giant iPod touch. Owning both an iPhone and an iPad, i see this as a massive compliment.
I disagree that you can't compare an iPad to a Galaxy Tab. Of course you can. They are both tablets. If Android 'isn't ready' ready for tablets then they shouldn't be selling them. But they are. Which means you can make comparisons and draw conclusions about iOS vs Android in regards to tablets.
Android is an open-source operating system for smartphones. Some manufacturers have taken this smartphone OS and released tablets using it, and you're certainly free to compare them with the iPad. Any such comparison is likely to demonstrate that Apple did well in getting a usable tablet to market well before the competition, but it's fairly pointless to a discussion of the future of the tablet market, however.
Within the next 2-3 months, Android 2.4 (or maybe 3.0; codenamed Honeycomb, in any case) will be released, and at that point it will be an OS designed for both smartphones AND tablets. We're expecting to find out more about this version of Android (and the Motorola tablet Google engineers are designing it for, possibly called the XOOM) at CES in a few days. What little we know so far makes it look that high-end Android tablets will be very competitive with the iPad once a version of Android exists that is designed for tablets.
In summary: kudos to Apple for getting to market first, but things are about to get interesting once we can compare Android-for-tablets with iOS-for-tablets.
Really? You really believe that? I've been using an Android phone exclusively for the last year. I love it. I'm hardly alone. I find it a superior experience to the iPhone in a lot of ways.
One example: Android still doesn't use the GPU for the interface, so the scrolling on a brand-new Nexus S still isn't as smooth as on a three-plus year old iPhone 2G. Plus, the lists don't bounce at the end, so not only is it choppier but it's (slightly) disconcerting to hit the end of a list as well (maybe the Gingerbread green flashes will help here, but a bounce just is more natural).
(This is not to say I only like Apple things. I think that Windows Phone 7 has the best and most consistent UI/UX of them all, currently, and webOS is quite nice as well.)
The thing is not many people care about how smoothly their lists scroll unless it actively hampers what they are doing. The people who care are mostly the paranoid ones - I know several people who use Android phone (one an $29 Optimus) and I bet you they will have a puzzled face if you told them anything about list scrolling! Good enough is good to go for them.
No reasons why? No examples? No comparisons between it and what you would consider "good software"?
You might be getting upvoted because the HackerNews hivemind has a giant hard-on for all things Apple, but don't think for a second that you're actually making a valid point. If you want to start an intelligent discussion then go right ahead, but keep the obvious fanboy flamebait out of this.
Certainly valid points, but that isn't even a fraction of what it would take for me to blanket label something as "bad software."
Apple definitely took more time polishing the edges of iOS than Google did with Android. Game creation is also a bit lacking with regards to features that developers have access to. That's really the only criticism I can make towards Android having used and developed for both extensively. My list towards iOS on the other hand is much lengthier.
I think the issue is that for me, the edges are what make or break it. I can't stand one little thing that bugs me every time I use it (for example, the iOS monstrosity of a notification system).
I'm sure Google can make polished and smooth experiences -- just look at Chrome for a great example -- they just haven't done so yet with Android. (Another issue is the embarrassing lack of actual upgrades (likely due to the sheer number of devices) on Android: any improvements won't help if I'm locked into a 2-year contract on a device they won't update.)
I try not to conflate my personal experience with Android to the world at large, but after owning two Android phones, I can't imagine ever buying another one (where "ever" is defined as the next few years).
The first (a MyTouch 3G) was mediocre software marred by lackluster and underperforming hardware.
The second (the T-Mobile version of the Galaxy S) was fairly nice hardware marred by really shitty software (I blame the completely non-functional GPS on the software, as Samsung alleges that it can fix it with a software update).
From my perspective, there is one thing Android does better than iOS (notifications), a bunch of things that are approximately equal, and a bunch of things that are terrible.
Relative to iOS there is a much, much higher ratio of shitty apps to killer apps.
It is too customizable in that non-technical users have a hard time with many features (my girlfriend had no idea how to install, setup or in any way manage widgets, and she is by no means whatsoever computer stupid.). The install procedure for NoLED is a great example of Android's failure to be 'good software' IMO.
The devices are various and the vast majority are poorly designed. Battery life, shitty button placement, etc. Yes this is not a software issue but Google allows the software to be licensed to shitty hardware, so they are ultimately culpable.
Android allows vendors to include their own forced, uninstallalble software. This is complete bullshit.
You are able to install apps that just don't work due to a lack of curation, fragmentation of hardware, and multiple, conflicting app stores.
Also, i would argue that your comment is more flame bait than mine was.
There's an infinite ratio between the killer apps that Android has on its system that Apple doesn't let into its walled garden App Store because it would compete with some included software.
Long-presses are a key interactive element of the Android system. The fact that your girlfriend didn't know about it is no more the fault of Google than Apple's for people who don't know that you can swipe with multiple fingers as actions on iOS.
You're locked into one device. You can't have a physical keyboard with it, you can't use it on any other carrier, it has the same battery life as Android phones, which ends up becoming worse battery life since you can't carry an extra around with you on long trips. There's no cheaper models either. If you're outside of the US you basically have to dump an entire paycheck or two in order to purchase one.
You're forced to spend thousands of dollars on more Mac equipment if you want to develop for iOS. You're forced to use iTunes to sync to it. You're forced to continue to pay Apple a subscription if you want your app to still be available for sale. Developers can sink tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment and employee time into developing an app that will just end up being rejected from the App Store. This is complete bullshit.
There is no real notification system. An alert box that you have to immediately react to is horrible UI design. You can't glance to see notifications in summary, and theres no indication that an app needs your attention after the initial alert box unless you happen to browse to its shortcut. And even then the quantity badge does nothing to inform you of what kind of notification it is. It lumps everything into a vague, undefinable number that could mean any combination of things.
There's no ecosystem nurturing inter-app communication, which is a nasty bi-product of their half-baked multi-tasking implementation. On Android apps can hook into actions menus that are used by other apps. I can attach media from other apps or send data to be used or edited by another app instantly. This doesn't exist on iOS at all.
I can keep going if you'd like. Or you can admit that both products are good on their own merit and at this point it's just a matter of nitpicking and personal taste.
If you were talking from 1999 that statement might be true. Not in 2010. Even the biggest Apple fan Walt Mossberg says Windows 7 is as good if not better than OSX. That's what I am happily running on my 17" MBP as OS X has no working high DPI support and that kills my eyes @1920x1200.
I don't know which nook he is referring to, but the Nook Color is an Android tablet basically with their e-reader software installed. Its not quite as clear cut as all that.
I've never played with another Android device to compare, but I think that the Nook is actually somewhere in-between.
From what I can tell, the Nook runs a customized version of Android. The most important customizations are the home screen (the desktop that can only show Nook books purchased from BN), the overall UI, and the fact that you can't install apps on it without rooting it.
If you count the Nook Color, I know more people that got Nook Color than iPads for XMas. Nook Colors were crazy sellers from what I can see anecdotally.
The tablet market is too young to be regarded as miniscule. Software-wise, we have only started to think about touch input seriously. There still so much that can be done.
This strikes me as the right answer. We're not really sure yet. What if you can do input via brainwave headsets at 100 wpm in 5 years? Not impossible; you can type via brainwaves, right now.
Tablets could become nearly magical in less than a decade.
Well, no, there isn't really much of a tablet market. It's an emerging market; a year ago it didn't even exist until the iPad single-handedly created it. Everybody else is still trying to catch up. Right now your choices are basically, an iPad, or something else that probably isn't nowhere near as good (unless you count Kindles and Nooks which are much more specialized devices).
However, in a few years or so, I can totally see casual users ditching their (in their eyes) complicated PCs and netbooks in favor of a tablet of some kind, as long as it does what they want (watch a video, send email, go on Facebook, listen to music, play a game, etc).
The problem is tablet PCs, Nokia Internet Tablets and iPads are all different concepts of a 'tablet', confusingly called the same thing. Compare to Macs and PCs which are both clearly 'personal computers'.
Technically yes, but they were all considered failures. I recall that before it became clear what Apple was making (somewhere late 2009), there was a lot of speculation along the lines of, "well it can't possibly be a tablet PC, because nobody has ever had success with that".
I know about five (non-techies) that got Nook Colors and a few people that got Tabs (3 to be exact). It´s probably partially because of the stronghold Verizon holds in my area so AT&T isn´t worth it... there is literally no AT&T service within a 10 mile radius of my house and school. I only know one person who got an iPad; well someone that posted on Facebook. I´m not sure I get the original argument.
I know many more people who have Kindles or iPads and nobody who own a Nook or a Tab... I live in the SF Bay Area but still, it's an oddly different market where you are... where are you?
I am in a suburb a good ways south of Atlanta, Georgia. Apple seems to have a relatively low market in general in my immediate vicinity except for iPods.
Marco Arment, John Gruber and company are so obnoxiously biased against anything that is not Apple that it isn't worth clicking on any links pointing to their sites. It's deja vu all the times if you do - no one can compete with Apple, everyone other than Apple is doomed. Ad-nauseum. With implausible or otherwise manufactured/subjective beliefs sometimes sprinkled in there to make them feel like logical reasons. There isn't anything insightful there - just bigotry.
"Neither Google nor Microsoft will ever be able to tailor their software to other manufacturers’ specific (and varied) hardware devices as well as Apple can (and does) with theirs."
Really? Marco Arment can predict the future? Do we lose all hope that people will do anything better than Apple? Even in Marco's little part of the world it sounds outrageously short sighted. You can say what you want against everything non-Apple and that would of course be your opinion (as opposed to universally accepted truth) - but this is going too far, even for Marco Arment class of people.
He goes preaching about Apple's integrated experience, "superior everything" and ponies - but you know what the whole world is not buying the iPad universally - Samsung sold a million Galaxy Tabs, Androids are already outselling Apple worldwide and reason for that is not that the people buying them are stupid - people just have different needs and tastes. Banging on the "teh superior AAPL drum" with a sad tune of everyone else's suckiness for ever is not going to change that.
"""Marco Arment, John Gruber and company are so obnoxiously biased against anything that is not Apple that it isn't worth clicking on any links pointing to their sites. It's deja vu all the times if you do - no one can compete with Apple, everyone other than Apple is doomed. Ad-nauseum. """
I know how you feel.
And the most annoying thing is how they always come out right: first the renaissance of Apple and the Mac, the iPod, then iTunes, then the iPhone, then the App Store now the iPad.
All of these getting great sales, redefining industry, and gathering higher market share, while tens of competitors sink or at best manage to offer knock-offs a couple of years later.
Why don't Gruber and company write more like enlightened pundits like Paul Thurrot, Rob Enderle and John Dvorak?
Yep - Microsoft has closed shop, Android is not selling at all, Amazon hasn't continued to gain more music selling share, no one is buying Kindles as there is the iPad. And Adobe was going to be in serious trouble too - http://mosspuppet.com/2010/12/21/clearly-adobes-in-real-trou... . I get it yes - for my non-reasoned definition of right I can be always right. Doesn't mean much though.
Oh yeah and market share is not the success criteria - I know that as well. What I "feel" is the criteria.
Yes. In the portable music and mobile market it has tried to compete with Apple and closed shop many times --only in MS case it is called "canceled a project" or "closed a department".
As for the OS/API space, it has slided into irrelevance. Do you really need me to bring out the big guns and quote Paul Graham on this one?
"""Android is not selling at all"""
You seemed to have missed the "manage to offer knock-offs a couple of years later", part.
"""Amazon hasn't continued to gain more music selling share"""
You seemed to have missed the "manage to offer knock-offs a couple of years later", part.
"""no one is buying Kindles as there is the iPad"""
The two are not really in the same market. The Kindle is an ebook reader. The iPad is a tablet computing platform with ebook reading capability thrown in. There is a Kindle app FOR the iPad, for heaven's sake.
"""And Adobe was going to be in serious trouble too"""
With regards to Flash dominance in the future of the web (the only relevant metric, i.e. pertaining to Apple, in this discussion)? You betsa.
Yes, I am not sure why you are continuing to argue - I got it already. Will it help if I admitted that Apple invented sliced bread? We agree that you are convinced of everything you said and we also agree not to investigate anything objectively - we are good to get over this as long as we stick to subjective opinions ;)
> Yes, I am not sure why you are continuing to argue - I got it already.
No, you sure didn't.
> Will it help if I admitted that Apple invented sliced bread?
It sure would. That kind of "irony" would place you firmly in the delusional group thinking there are "Apple fanboys" and that you and them are at war. You reeealllly think I think somewhat like that, huh?
> We agree that you are convinced of everything you said and we also agree not to investigate anything objectively
I never agreed to the second --but you seem hell bent on it. Notice how beside ad hominens you don't provide any arguments in this "reply"?
> Notice how beside ad hominens you don't provide any arguments in this "reply"?
I provided my arguments in my original reply. You then switched to saying Gruber and Arment are always right. I then asked you the definition of right you and me can accept. You did not give one explicitly but it sounded like your definition of right was "whatever Apple does and whatever I perceive" - just like Gruber and Arment. Which to me isn't objective. So I did the next logical thing - agreed that you agree to your convictions about Apple.
It's hard to argue with people who invariably talk only positively and mostly subjectively (it just 'feels' right) about even somewhat complex subjects which require actually defining things, having a lack of bias and use of analytical skills.
For the Apple camp - the simplistic rule is "What Apple does is right - if what they do changes, so does what is right". So for example when Apple gets market share - market share is the king and when they start losing it, suddenly that is no longer worth discussing - profits are. Shifting goal posts. You don't hear the Apple fans complain about anything Apple - the ridiculous positioning of USB ports on MBP for e.g. - for a company and its fans that pride themselves with superior usability - this apparently is no problem at all. That's biased and you can't really argue with biased people other than to say - ok, to you your own.
That is not to say Apple hasn't done great things - but it is also non-sensical to say everything they have done is right and everything anyone else is doing and will do in future will end up being crap - that's essentially what Arment says in that post. And you will get no further discussion from me if that's what you want to subscribe to.
I've been surprised by the number of times I've seen the Galaxy Tab listed on best tech of 2010 lists. Often by people who also own iPads.
I've not had a chance to play with one myself (though I've held one in my hand, turned off) but since some (but not all) of the early reviews were particularly scathing, this seems a bit odd to me.
I think the possibilities are a) Android fanboys lying about the Tab and how good it is b) Apple fanboys lying about the Tab and how bad it is, c) that, for some people, with certain needs the Galaxy Tab is already better than Apple's iPad, due to size, weight, hotspot capabilities, built in cameras, network availability or whatever and that the things that Arment and Gruber value aren't universal values.
I actually wondered about the mixed Tab reviews too. Andy Ihnatko's review gave me a clue - the Apple fan reviewers who compared the Tab against iPad almost invariably did not like it. But those who looked at it independent of the iPad, like Ihnatko does in this review - http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnatko/2680861-452/tab-i... - liked it ( a lot in Andy's case).
Bottom line my take is that it is a good device in its own right and the price over iPad is at least somewhat justified given the additions of 2 cameras, more RAM, SD Card, better GPU etc. and the 7" size is definitely a good one.
Allegedly Samsung have sold 1 million Tabs within 2 months of putting it on sale. [0] This isn't as fast as the ipad, but it does demonstrate that there's a market for non-ipad tablets. One of the things thats quite important in this market is that Android 3 is meant to be rather tablet oriented, and I think that will address his concerns. There certainly are a lot of cheap, poor quality, android tablets on the market at the moment but if you look at the Android phone market it also went this way. Initially people thought it would be loads of cheap asian cloners and it turned out that the best selling android phones were actually the high quality devices.
Now I don't want to start some 'Android vs iOS' discussion, buy whatever product suits your taste - thats your choice, but I do think its a little bit hasty to write off tablets from other manufacturers at this moment in time. Perhaps I've misunderstood and he is only talking about the present - but it seems like the author thinks there will never be a serious competitor.
Have actual consumers purchased a million galaxy tabs or is some portion of that million unit figure inventory that carriers have purchased but not necessarily sold to end users?
Apple sold a bit more than 4 million iPads the most recent quarter that they released sales reports for.
Samsung's Galaxy Tab has sold well over 1 million this past quarter thus far. The Android OS also does not officially support Tablets until the upcoming Honeycomb release.
By that comparison there isn't a PC market either. Macs certainly aren't even close to selling at a rate of one-third of the Windows machines right now.
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[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 136 ms ] threadI believe you're right about the desktop in the office though. The fact that XP is still commonplace in offices goes to show the staying power of the form factor in that setting. I mean, the design of most cubicle farms alone is more suited for desktops than tablets.
I'm not seeing why a tablet is so massively better than a netbook/laptop.
I don't see it going mainstream, or replacing laptops.
I'm not gonna hold a tablet in my hands while I try and use it.
(I spend the vast majority of my time sat on a sofa with a laptop).
A tablet is just irritating because it cant stand up on its own.
What does seem quite plausible is tablet + peripherals - the tablet basically assuming the role of the old mini-tower computer, angled upright on a stand for desktop use, with keyboard and mouse hanging off it. (In fact if you also hung a monitor off it there's no reason you couldn't do that with a regular phone.) I think tablet + dock + keyboard may well become a popular home computer setup in the next few years.
Almost all of my email is sent from my iPad, and I write a lot of email. I send vastly more email from iOS than OSX/XP/W7. I use all four operating systems between my personal and work machines, and prefer iOS for almost all tasks.
Touchscreen typing is weird at first, but, just like using a physical keyboard you start slow and eventually become proficient and comfortable.
All Android tablets I tried felt like upscaled phones, they use more or less the same phone UI on a bigger screen. That’s just unattractive, why carry around that huge device when using a phone is approximately as comfortable? Tablets have to be more comfortable to use than phones. iOS makes better use of the additional real estate and using it is more fun than using a phone. It’s not just a huge iPod touch.
*edit: native support for native interfaces doesn't make any sense:)
Yes, it is. The only difference you're seeing is that developers for iOS apps have accommodated for the additional screen real estate after its release. Developers of Android apps haven't yet because the OS isn't officially ready for tablets until Honeycomb. Once an official Android tablet is released post-Honeycomb can you actually start to make comparisons.
I’m not sure how you then arrive at the conclusion that the iPad is just a huge iPod touch. Its apps have a different UI, making use of the larger screen (as you said), so it is different, at least in that respect (and I wasn’t claiming anything more).
I disagree that you can't compare an iPad to a Galaxy Tab. Of course you can. They are both tablets. If Android 'isn't ready' ready for tablets then they shouldn't be selling them. But they are. Which means you can make comparisons and draw conclusions about iOS vs Android in regards to tablets.
Android is an open-source operating system for smartphones. Some manufacturers have taken this smartphone OS and released tablets using it, and you're certainly free to compare them with the iPad. Any such comparison is likely to demonstrate that Apple did well in getting a usable tablet to market well before the competition, but it's fairly pointless to a discussion of the future of the tablet market, however.
Within the next 2-3 months, Android 2.4 (or maybe 3.0; codenamed Honeycomb, in any case) will be released, and at that point it will be an OS designed for both smartphones AND tablets. We're expecting to find out more about this version of Android (and the Motorola tablet Google engineers are designing it for, possibly called the XOOM) at CES in a few days. What little we know so far makes it look that high-end Android tablets will be very competitive with the iPad once a version of Android exists that is designed for tablets.
In summary: kudos to Apple for getting to market first, but things are about to get interesting once we can compare Android-for-tablets with iOS-for-tablets.
(This is not to say I only like Apple things. I think that Windows Phone 7 has the best and most consistent UI/UX of them all, currently, and webOS is quite nice as well.)
You might be getting upvoted because the HackerNews hivemind has a giant hard-on for all things Apple, but don't think for a second that you're actually making a valid point. If you want to start an intelligent discussion then go right ahead, but keep the obvious fanboy flamebait out of this.
Apple definitely took more time polishing the edges of iOS than Google did with Android. Game creation is also a bit lacking with regards to features that developers have access to. That's really the only criticism I can make towards Android having used and developed for both extensively. My list towards iOS on the other hand is much lengthier.
I'm sure Google can make polished and smooth experiences -- just look at Chrome for a great example -- they just haven't done so yet with Android. (Another issue is the embarrassing lack of actual upgrades (likely due to the sheer number of devices) on Android: any improvements won't help if I'm locked into a 2-year contract on a device they won't update.)
The first (a MyTouch 3G) was mediocre software marred by lackluster and underperforming hardware.
The second (the T-Mobile version of the Galaxy S) was fairly nice hardware marred by really shitty software (I blame the completely non-functional GPS on the software, as Samsung alleges that it can fix it with a software update).
From my perspective, there is one thing Android does better than iOS (notifications), a bunch of things that are approximately equal, and a bunch of things that are terrible.
Relative to iOS there is a much, much higher ratio of shitty apps to killer apps.
It is too customizable in that non-technical users have a hard time with many features (my girlfriend had no idea how to install, setup or in any way manage widgets, and she is by no means whatsoever computer stupid.). The install procedure for NoLED is a great example of Android's failure to be 'good software' IMO.
The devices are various and the vast majority are poorly designed. Battery life, shitty button placement, etc. Yes this is not a software issue but Google allows the software to be licensed to shitty hardware, so they are ultimately culpable.
Android allows vendors to include their own forced, uninstallalble software. This is complete bullshit.
You are able to install apps that just don't work due to a lack of curation, fragmentation of hardware, and multiple, conflicting app stores.
Also, i would argue that your comment is more flame bait than mine was.
Long-presses are a key interactive element of the Android system. The fact that your girlfriend didn't know about it is no more the fault of Google than Apple's for people who don't know that you can swipe with multiple fingers as actions on iOS.
You're locked into one device. You can't have a physical keyboard with it, you can't use it on any other carrier, it has the same battery life as Android phones, which ends up becoming worse battery life since you can't carry an extra around with you on long trips. There's no cheaper models either. If you're outside of the US you basically have to dump an entire paycheck or two in order to purchase one.
You're forced to spend thousands of dollars on more Mac equipment if you want to develop for iOS. You're forced to use iTunes to sync to it. You're forced to continue to pay Apple a subscription if you want your app to still be available for sale. Developers can sink tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment and employee time into developing an app that will just end up being rejected from the App Store. This is complete bullshit.
There is no real notification system. An alert box that you have to immediately react to is horrible UI design. You can't glance to see notifications in summary, and theres no indication that an app needs your attention after the initial alert box unless you happen to browse to its shortcut. And even then the quantity badge does nothing to inform you of what kind of notification it is. It lumps everything into a vague, undefinable number that could mean any combination of things.
There's no ecosystem nurturing inter-app communication, which is a nasty bi-product of their half-baked multi-tasking implementation. On Android apps can hook into actions menus that are used by other apps. I can attach media from other apps or send data to be used or edited by another app instantly. This doesn't exist on iOS at all.
I can keep going if you'd like. Or you can admit that both products are good on their own merit and at this point it's just a matter of nitpicking and personal taste.
Would like to see some data backing up the author's claims.
From what I can tell, the Nook runs a customized version of Android. The most important customizations are the home screen (the desktop that can only show Nook books purchased from BN), the overall UI, and the fact that you can't install apps on it without rooting it.
Tablets could become nearly magical in less than a decade.
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Gold autumn, personality Mes clothing + Shoes, Travel bag that grabs an eye coat + Chao packet Free transport
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However, in a few years or so, I can totally see casual users ditching their (in their eyes) complicated PCs and netbooks in favor of a tablet of some kind, as long as it does what they want (watch a video, send email, go on Facebook, listen to music, play a game, etc).
A market of 10 people is not much of a market at all.
"Neither Google nor Microsoft will ever be able to tailor their software to other manufacturers’ specific (and varied) hardware devices as well as Apple can (and does) with theirs."
Really? Marco Arment can predict the future? Do we lose all hope that people will do anything better than Apple? Even in Marco's little part of the world it sounds outrageously short sighted. You can say what you want against everything non-Apple and that would of course be your opinion (as opposed to universally accepted truth) - but this is going too far, even for Marco Arment class of people.
He goes preaching about Apple's integrated experience, "superior everything" and ponies - but you know what the whole world is not buying the iPad universally - Samsung sold a million Galaxy Tabs, Androids are already outselling Apple worldwide and reason for that is not that the people buying them are stupid - people just have different needs and tastes. Banging on the "teh superior AAPL drum" with a sad tune of everyone else's suckiness for ever is not going to change that.
I know how you feel.
And the most annoying thing is how they always come out right: first the renaissance of Apple and the Mac, the iPod, then iTunes, then the iPhone, then the App Store now the iPad.
All of these getting great sales, redefining industry, and gathering higher market share, while tens of competitors sink or at best manage to offer knock-offs a couple of years later.
Why don't Gruber and company write more like enlightened pundits like Paul Thurrot, Rob Enderle and John Dvorak?
Oh yeah and market share is not the success criteria - I know that as well. What I "feel" is the criteria.
Yes. In the portable music and mobile market it has tried to compete with Apple and closed shop many times --only in MS case it is called "canceled a project" or "closed a department".
As for the OS/API space, it has slided into irrelevance. Do you really need me to bring out the big guns and quote Paul Graham on this one?
"""Android is not selling at all"""
You seemed to have missed the "manage to offer knock-offs a couple of years later", part.
"""Amazon hasn't continued to gain more music selling share"""
You seemed to have missed the "manage to offer knock-offs a couple of years later", part.
"""no one is buying Kindles as there is the iPad"""
The two are not really in the same market. The Kindle is an ebook reader. The iPad is a tablet computing platform with ebook reading capability thrown in. There is a Kindle app FOR the iPad, for heaven's sake.
"""And Adobe was going to be in serious trouble too"""
With regards to Flash dominance in the future of the web (the only relevant metric, i.e. pertaining to Apple, in this discussion)? You betsa.
No, you sure didn't.
> Will it help if I admitted that Apple invented sliced bread?
It sure would. That kind of "irony" would place you firmly in the delusional group thinking there are "Apple fanboys" and that you and them are at war. You reeealllly think I think somewhat like that, huh?
> We agree that you are convinced of everything you said and we also agree not to investigate anything objectively
I never agreed to the second --but you seem hell bent on it. Notice how beside ad hominens you don't provide any arguments in this "reply"?
I provided my arguments in my original reply. You then switched to saying Gruber and Arment are always right. I then asked you the definition of right you and me can accept. You did not give one explicitly but it sounded like your definition of right was "whatever Apple does and whatever I perceive" - just like Gruber and Arment. Which to me isn't objective. So I did the next logical thing - agreed that you agree to your convictions about Apple.
It's hard to argue with people who invariably talk only positively and mostly subjectively (it just 'feels' right) about even somewhat complex subjects which require actually defining things, having a lack of bias and use of analytical skills.
For the Apple camp - the simplistic rule is "What Apple does is right - if what they do changes, so does what is right". So for example when Apple gets market share - market share is the king and when they start losing it, suddenly that is no longer worth discussing - profits are. Shifting goal posts. You don't hear the Apple fans complain about anything Apple - the ridiculous positioning of USB ports on MBP for e.g. - for a company and its fans that pride themselves with superior usability - this apparently is no problem at all. That's biased and you can't really argue with biased people other than to say - ok, to you your own.
That is not to say Apple hasn't done great things - but it is also non-sensical to say everything they have done is right and everything anyone else is doing and will do in future will end up being crap - that's essentially what Arment says in that post. And you will get no further discussion from me if that's what you want to subscribe to.
I've not had a chance to play with one myself (though I've held one in my hand, turned off) but since some (but not all) of the early reviews were particularly scathing, this seems a bit odd to me.
I think the possibilities are a) Android fanboys lying about the Tab and how good it is b) Apple fanboys lying about the Tab and how bad it is, c) that, for some people, with certain needs the Galaxy Tab is already better than Apple's iPad, due to size, weight, hotspot capabilities, built in cameras, network availability or whatever and that the things that Arment and Gruber value aren't universal values.
Bottom line my take is that it is a good device in its own right and the price over iPad is at least somewhat justified given the additions of 2 cameras, more RAM, SD Card, better GPU etc. and the 7" size is definitely a good one.
Now I don't want to start some 'Android vs iOS' discussion, buy whatever product suits your taste - thats your choice, but I do think its a little bit hasty to write off tablets from other manufacturers at this moment in time. Perhaps I've misunderstood and he is only talking about the present - but it seems like the author thinks there will never be a serious competitor.
[0] http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9199678/Update_Galaxy...
Samsung's Galaxy Tab has sold well over 1 million this past quarter thus far. The Android OS also does not officially support Tablets until the upcoming Honeycomb release.
By that comparison there isn't a PC market either. Macs certainly aren't even close to selling at a rate of one-third of the Windows machines right now.