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Tablets: Battle of the OS - FIGHT! (Now with poll!)
- Thread starter Mad Mac Maniac
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except the iPod wasn't the first MP3 player.. the iPhone wasn't the first phone, smartphone, or even touchscreen phone. And the iPad wasn't the first tablet... Sure Apple really shook things up with these products and managed to dominate the mindshare, but that can change with a new shakeup.
and I didn't watch CES, but that doesn't matter. I know MS is really pushing win7 as the way to go with tablets, and that will never change... untill they unveil their own tablet OS. Microsoft is being foolish if they really think a desktop OS works on a tablet, they have been trying that for a decade. And I think you are a bit niave if you don't think that MS is at least toying with developing some new OS (probably just major adjustments to either WP7 or Win7), even if the new OS version never comes to fruition (i.e. Win7 manages to hold its own to MS's content)
concur. Just like every MP3 is an "iPod", every tablet is becoming an "iPad". ("Oh look a new iPad. made by motorola")
Another example, my wife doesn't seem to get it either. I've been explaining to her in my geek talk about all the other tablets that are coming out this year. And she doesn't understand why everybody else needs to copy Apple. She actually gets kind of frusterated saying things like "I wish it were just Apple. Why does everybody else have to do that" (side note: she's "a PC", we married 4 months ago, and she is becoming "a Mac" with her next computer and phone purchases
)I don't think he actually thinks they are pretenders. But the consensus of the average person. Like how all MP3's are iPods... any other non iPod MP3 is just pretending to be an iPod.
huh?
Yes, Apple wasn't the first in either of those categories, but they were the first to make those categories(mp3 player, smartphone and tablet) popular with the average consumer. It was techies and early adopters only beforehand.
New shakeups don't seem to be targetting this crucial demographic specifically. Instead, they're continuing with their usual spec-list loving, techie target, whilst hoping to pick up some consumer crumbs from Apple in the process.
kdarling said:
What tiny icons with no labels? Just curious. Also, what sites is she trying to access that require Flash? I use mine for all my web surfing since day one and I can count on one hand the amount of times a site was flash only. However, I'm probably surfing different websites.
I do find it a bit odd though as my 2 year old daughter uses my iPad daily and navigates it quite easily.
What kind of device were you thinking? TouchPad? I'd imagine that would be the best alternative.
EDIT: Are there any videos and reviews of Flash on tablets? I know all the reviews for phones have been mixed so I'm wondering if the experience has been improved.
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The webOS event showed a flash video. I also seem to remember seeing a playbook demo with a flash video. I'm not sure about any android tablets... I think I may have seen/read about one on the Xoom.
In any regard, all I have seen/heard is positive. Flash video seems to work just as well as HTML5. Now I'm not sure about animations or battery life.
Quintessential Kool-Aid drinking Steve Jobs zombie !!!! You don't need it because Steve says you don't need it.
Yeah but no product is going to advertise that the implementation is slightly buggy.
All of the reviews I've seen for mobile Flash have indicated it had some issues (content randomly wouldn't load or crash) but I have not checked it out in some time.
What is mobile Flash used for beyond videos? Does it work well for whole websites where everything is Flash (menu's and all)? Just curious as I have no Android devices.
Flash needs to be decoded in software, making it all but impossible not to seriously diminish battery life.
The other big issue with Flash on Tablet devices is this (the little secret behind the "full web" illusion): A lot of Flash sites rely on "mouseover" events.
Most "pure video" content (ie. YouTube, etc.) is now available in H.264. A very large proportion of the Flash-only sites are games - which use the exact rollover method NO tablet or smartphone can supply.
By 'pretenders' I don't mean that they are rubbish. Just that the iPad is the gold standard. It is the tablet that others will be compared to. None geeks the thing that they'll look at is whether it is cheaper than the iPad or they'll get the 'real thing', most don't really care/understand about spec.
By the way platinum is more valueable than gold, but people still talk about the gold standard.
I echo Manic's words when I post Huh
Yes, and I think everyone who tried to "pretend" on the MP3 front failed. Just look at how people are competing with the iPhone. They have their own unique design, features and advantages. MP3 makers were caught completely off guard with apple's strategy and approach. That won't happen again.
To a point I agree, but only so far as this Gold standard will be used by apple fans. While some of the tech sites will compare the tablets against the iPad that will start to wane. Just look at the iphone and its competitors. While there are reviews that compare a given phone against the iPhone, its becoming more rare as each phone is strong enough to stand on its own.
Once the tablet makers start hitting their stride and producing multiple units, apple will be just one of many, albeit a very popular unit, but the tablet field is going to get crowded.
I don't think that it is only apple fans that do it, and if touchscreen smart phones are being compared, almost definitely one of the phones will be the iPhone. Nearly five years later the iPhone is still the phone others are compared to. The last iPhone release made national news in the UK. No other phone does. I can't see it being different for the iPad. The iPhone is the biggest selling phone in the world, I'm sure that the iPad will continue to be the biggest selling tablet in the world. I'm not sure whether it will always be the best tablet in the world.
So do a lot of HTML sites
The written-for-a-mouse problem affects both Flash and HTML, with HTML actually a little bit worse off, since holding down a finger on a "fire" button in mobile Flash works, whilst on HTML it usually brings up a browser context menu.
The reason I used the word "PLAYSTATION" was in response to some comments here that are taking things for granted.
I hear that the iPad has become the name any tablet is called, hence it is the defacto standard for a tablet.
In the same way, Playstation WAS the games console a few years ago, after the PS1 got very established and in the "common mans" mind, if your kiddie wanted a games console, they wanted a Playstation. that was it.
Also the Playstation was totally untouchable. It was the king, it sold in giant numbers, with a massive software library. It was simply unthinkable for anything to come close to the Playstation.
These are two two exact same things some people are saying about Apple and the iPad, it's so far ahead, it's untouchable, The name iPad is synonymous with any tablet. "See than man over there with a tablet? Oh, you mean the iPad?"
Also the software apps are way out ahead of anyone else.
And yet.............
It all changed didn't it, and History can repeat itself if companies, even seemingly untouchable companies with untouchable products get lazy and over confident in their position.
Who knows what the future will hold, but one thing if for sure, Apple are going to have one hell of a battle on their hands if they want to compete with the world of manufacturers on these devices, or perhaps they will decide to just sit happily in their nice little quality corner and let others take over the main market eventually.
We shall see, but it won't be for many years.
I hear that the iPad has become the name any tablet is called, hence it is the defacto standard for a tablet.
In the same way, Playstation WAS the games console a few years ago, after the PS1 got very established and in the "common mans" mind, if your kiddie wanted a games console, they wanted a Playstation. that was it.
Also the Playstation was totally untouchable. It was the king, it sold in giant numbers, with a massive software library. It was simply unthinkable for anything to come close to the Playstation.
These are two two exact same things some people are saying about Apple and the iPad, it's so far ahead, it's untouchable, The name iPad is synonymous with any tablet. "See than man over there with a tablet? Oh, you mean the iPad?"
Also the software apps are way out ahead of anyone else.
And yet.............
It all changed didn't it, and History can repeat itself if companies, even seemingly untouchable companies with untouchable products get lazy and over confident in their position.
Who knows what the future will hold, but one thing if for sure, Apple are going to have one hell of a battle on their hands if they want to compete with the world of manufacturers on these devices, or perhaps they will decide to just sit happily in their nice little quality corner and let others take over the main market eventually.
We shall see, but it won't be for many years.
said the man who has an amiga, N64, dreamcast, 360, and gamecube.
All of those consoles were released during the ERA of playstation (PS1 and PS2) where the word playstation equated to "video game console" and now the playstation has apparently gone to ***** and you decided to finally get a ps3??Your whole analogy really doesn't win my heart, because I was always a nintendo man growing up, and I really can't say that I ever equated playstation as any kind of standard. "Nintendo" meant video game to me before playstation was even invented.
But that aside, who in here said anything about the iPad being untouchable? we were talking about current mindset among the average person is that iPad=tablet, just as iPod=MP3 player, so it will be difficult for competitors to overcome Apple's lead, especially when the iPad has such a marketshare lead. And that's true. But I definitely agree with you that apple can't be lazy, and I sure hope they won't be. Because attacking you have android with over a dozen honeycomb tablets before the year is out... and you have webOS, which is currently a far superior OS to iOS. Apple better look out!
said the man who has an amiga, N64, dreamcast, 360, and gamecube.
Your whole analogy really doesn't win my heart, because I was always a nintendo man growing up, and I really can't say that I ever equated playstation as any kind of standard. "Nintendo" meant video game to me before playstation was even invented.
But that aside, who in here said anything about the iPad being untouchable? we were talking about current mindset among the average person is that iPad=tablet, just as iPod=MP3 player, so it will be difficult for competitors to overcome Apple's lead, especially when the iPad has such a marketshare lead. And that's true. But I definitely agree with you that apple can't be lazy, and I sure hope they won't be. Because attacking you have android with over a dozen honeycomb tablets before the year is out... and you have webOS, which is currently a far superior OS to iOS. Apple better look out!
Glad you liked my list. I put it there as a bit of light heartedness and variety as I get fed up seeing people put:
"ipod, iPad, Macbook pro, iMac 27" etc etc....
It's just that I see some, not many perhaps, but some people with a "the tablet battle has been won" and "apple can do no wrong ever" attitude, which is the saddest part of Apple ownership.
Apple make some great stuff, with superb designs. Almost faultless in some ways, but a total nightmare of locked down control in other ways.
I can't see myself ever being anything other than a PC person. Not that I especially like PC's, it's just that I want to do what I want to do. It's really as simple as that I suppose.
As for tablets, well who knows, one things for sure, the Battle is only just about to begin.
Websites like Best Buy, Future Shop, and Radio Shack, to name only three big ones, have in their navigation lists 'iPods and MP3 players'. Not 'MP3 Players', not 'iPods and Archos and Sansa' (or whatever), but 'iPods and The Rest Of It.'
I've never seen a website that ever listed 'Playstation and other gaming consoles'.
But yes, it is completely true that Apple may (or may not) gain (or lose) marketshare (or sales), and that it may be just like (or nothing like) the Playstation. Sage words indeed, they certainly give pause for reflection.
fake edit: LOL I just checked Future Shop and they list 'iPad and Tablets'.
I've never seen a website that ever listed 'Playstation and other gaming consoles'.
But yes, it is completely true that Apple may (or may not) gain (or lose) marketshare (or sales), and that it may be just like (or nothing like) the Playstation. Sage words indeed, they certainly give pause for reflection.
fake edit: LOL I just checked Future Shop and they list 'iPad and Tablets'.
You can quote me now. apple will lose marketshare! They have nowhere else to go but down! They have like 90% of the market, and now playbook, honeycomb, and webOS are about to hit!
Here's another question. Do you think Microsoft should put their Windows Phone 7 on tablets? Especially now that this year they are creating a version of multitasking very similar to the cards on WebOS.
Obviously they would have to do a lot of tweaking to make it optimized for such a big screen.
Obviously they would have to do a lot of tweaking to make it optimized for such a big screen.
That's probably true.
But I'm fairly confident that Apple will remain the dominant player (ie. comfortably north of 50% marketshare) in the Tablet world.
Manufacturers have found it impossible to undercut Apple on pricing. Most of the early entrants are making a (IMHO mistaken) bet that consumers will fall for the carrier-subsidized 3G models. Most "real world" consumers - as opposed to tech-blog windbags - don't want another fixed monthly expense.
Android is - and will continue to BE - horribly fragmented. The only way the me-too tablet manufacturers can hope to differentiate themselves is by "customizing" Android. With the result that no two tablets are going to work the same.
If Android or WebOS tablet makers were previewing a bunch of wi-fi only devices with 9-10" screens, that retailed for $400 or so - I think Apple might be in trouble. But they aren't.
At best, Android and webOS tablets will fill out a niche for the rabid Apple-haters, and those deluded enough to think their "full web experience" is somehow shortchanged by an absence of annoying animated banner ads.
So what. Please tell us in detail how you think it affects people any more than iOS fragmentation does.
In reality, many apps are written to be back compatible to Android 1.6, just as many iOS apps are written to use the most common APIs, and/or each OS developer checks for what their app is running on.
That part is nice. It means that some tablets have extra-cool features to woo customers. For example, Samsung includes handy buttons for WiFi, GPS and orientation lock in their notification pulldown. HTC is integrating pen technology so you can do stuff like write a comment on a web page and mail it to someone. It all advances the general state of the art.
The most common customization is the homescreen launcher, and you can replace that with any of the favorite ones available.
Each version of Android has a test suite it must pass. Apps written for a specific version work the same across all devices with that version.
I miss Flash on iOS every day when looking at news websites.
And I'm far more annoyed iwth HTML popup ads, because I (like most people) have mobile Flash set to display only on-demand when I say.
I knew exactly what you meant when you said PLAYSTATION.
Now, little kids say they want a Wii and slightly older kids say they want an XBox 360.
Honestly I think no flash on a phone is fine. I don't really need to be using it and I can see it making the phone sluggish and have poor battery life.
But on a tablet, I feel like the option really is a necessity. Especially at this point in the game where everyone else is playing with flash. Apple can't use the slow, buggy, and battery hog excuse if it works on all the other tablets just fine...
Sure they can, the iSheep buy it hook, line and sinker. If Apple doesn't offer it, you don't need it.
I remember when computers had these things called "floppy disk drives". Let me see, what happened to those?
I also remember seeing some CPU design hype. So often, the demo benchmark was (Adobe) Photoshop. I could swear I heard people suggest that certain design features were all but dictated by Adobe. I even wonder if Steve Jobs blames the failure of PPC (Altivec) in part on Adobe and thus wants his pound of flesh. Flash will not come to the iPad.
I also remember seeing some CPU design hype. So often, the demo benchmark was (Adobe) Photoshop. I could swear I heard people suggest that certain design features were all but dictated by Adobe. I even wonder if Steve Jobs blames the failure of PPC (Altivec) in part on Adobe and thus wants his pound of flesh. Flash will not come to the iPad.