Game over, Man. Game over...

[vrDrew]

RIM chose a particularly bad day yesterday to show off their upcoming Playbook tablet. In the words of ARS Technica (in a post titled "a bit rough around the edges") the writer noted:

Some apps seemed not to register certain kinds of taps; at least one of the PlayBooks refused to recognize the "clear entire field" X at the end of the URL field in the browser, so the URL had to be deleted manually. As shown in the video below, Flash-heavy pages loaded, but they weren't in any hurry. .... Also visible in the video are some glaring fingerprint smudges on the screen; it doesn't look like the test PlayBooks' screens had any kind of oleophobic coating

And in Android news, Google conceded that they'd had to pull a bunch of Apps from their (barely curated) Android store as they contained particularly malicious malware.

The apps contained malware called DroidDream hidden in seemingly legitimate apps and were pulled on Tuesday, mobile security company Lookout said in a blog post on Wednesday. Between 50,000 and 200,000 users downloaded the infected apps, said the company.

So from a hardware side, you've got manufacturers who can't meet Apple's price point, and probably wouldn't be able to purchase sufficient touchscreens even if they could.

From the software side Android seems "unfinished", with features that appeal more to scammers and criminals than to customers. An App store experience that is an unpleasant, poorly stocked mess.

From the retail side, Xooms and Playbooks are going to be sold in Best Buys and Verizon mall kiosks. With all the delightful associations THOSE experiences bring up.

It seems that Apple's competitors are basing their entire business plan on Flash. A fifteen year-old video format that is buggy, resource hungry, virus-plagued, and used mainly to annoy the viewer with advertisements of dancing hamsters.

I don't think this is going to end well for them.

 

[troop231]

What about the JooJoo tablet?

 

[kutsushita]

From the software side Android seems "unfinished", with features that appeal more to scammers and criminals than to customers. An App store experience that is an unpleasant, poorly stocked mess.

GOD. THIS. when i got my first android phone i was a bit excited and tried to shop the android market... BIG mistake! that thing is a mess and an overpopulated scam market. the market itself is a giant cluster of headaches and frustration trying to skim through the 50,000+ peter griffin sound boards or "sexy college girls" wallpaper apps.

 

[darngooddesign]

It seems that Apple's competitors are basing their entire business plan on Flash. A fifteen year-old video format that is buggy, resource hungry, virus-plagued, and used mainly to annoy the viewer with advertisements of dancing hamsters.

1. Flash is not a video format. In the case of video its merely a container which holds the video file.

2. Flash was originally designed as a way of compressing full screen graphics and animations for a very slow, dial-up web.

3. Over the years Flash has changed and increased its capabilities. The mere age of a format is no reason to leave it behind otherwise you would be championing the end of HTML and JPG.

4. Its resource hungry when programmers make it do complex multimedia and video. When its used for regular site design, which is the majority of its use on the web, its not very resource hungry at all.

5. If you set it to "on Demand" the only adverts the user will be annoyed by are those they asked for it to play.

6. Apple's competitors are basing their strategy on the strengths of Android, namely its openness which allows for a freer range of apps and sources for apps. Not to mention they can build as many versions with different styles and features as they want.

Keep on spreading that misinformation.

 

[Tailpike1153]

Nah. Game on. Just because Apple is up on the market 90 to 10, doesn't mean that it can fall asleep. At some point int the future I want the hologram computing from the Minority Report. I want my product manufacture to put everything and one more thing in order to keep my loyalty.

 

[blackNBUK]

GOD. THIS. when i got my first android phone i was a bit excited and tried to shop the android market... BIG mistake! that thing is a mess and an overpopulated scam market. the market itself is a giant cluster of headaches and frustration trying to skim through the 50,000+ peter griffin sound boards or "sexy college girls" wallpaper apps.

I really don't get why Google is letting the Android Marketplace get like this. They could actually be more restrictive than the App Store as there is always side-loading as an option. Even a minimal amount of vetting (Do you own the copyright to the content in the App?) would help enormously.

 

[Dorkington]

To be fair, the apps that were removed from the Google market weren't necessarily from the tablet specific part.