Take that, iPad! - Page 3

$350 for a 10", memory-expandable 16GB tablet (presumably w/ comparable software/specs/performance) sounds nice -- and there probably shouldn't be any buyer's remorse if one decides later to jump ship and go all iOS instead.  I guess Archos decided not to offer the hard drive option for the 10" in order to keep the weight as close to 1lb as possible (even though it only adds ~3oz to the 7" version).  Hmmm...  Maybe they're also trying to avoid any potential battery life issues by not combining a 10" screen w/ a harddrive -- wonder what's battery life like on these tablets.

 

Hmmm...  I wonder when J&R will start stocking these new Archos tablets (and what kind of discounts one can expect).  Would like to try them out in store -- and J&R is so close by where I work although they're not always the most demo-friendly of stores.  Hmmm...  Best Buy (and B&H also) is listed as a retailer for Archos tablets...

 

_Man_

Roffailwaffles:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/21/hp-slate-finally-finally-official-rings-up-at-799/

 

Are you kidding me?

http://www.engadget.com/photos/hp-slate-hands-on/#3494156

Didn't realize the Tab's screen was lower res and not the AMOLED they use on their phones. Interesting that they're selling essentially the same thing as the Archos, but for 50% more.

 

Thanks for the link on the HP Slate, Sam. Both DF and Engadget's link to the offending image went to a generic shot of the screen, and I couldn't figure out what they were talking about.

 

That's simply crazy. People talk about Apple's snobbery and extreme design focus, but Apple doesn't clutter their computers with stickers, like a sugar-crazed fifth grader, and they would never waste space or design effort on something so stupid as a pull-out licensing tab. That's the type of design cue that I can make a simple "no buy" decision on. If something so obvious is so wrong, then there's no need to look farther.

The use of a stylus is interesting for some environments. 

This is definitely not geared at the end user.   But too many stupid end-user features.  Why is it that we're down to only IBM who's really making business smart equipment for the environment this could be aimed at.  It's idiocy to design something like this and yep, no model that doesn't have a camera.   You have to have a no-camera model, or the ability to be disabled via firmware.  If they can show me that is possible, and can be locked from the end user to be compliant, they might have an audience.

Bigger problem.   This unit has a place to go in the marketplace, and so I thought about it and looked at what that client did last.   HP already has this covered.  The TouchSmart TM2 is a significantly faster, better product.. that also has the digital pen support.. 12.1" screen.. and it is what they use now..

 

http://www.warehousedeals.com/HP-TouchSmart-TM21070US-12.1Inch-Riptide-Argento/M/B0031ESWPC.htm?traffic_src=froogle&utm_medium=organic&utm_source=froogle

 

Here's the tricky bit.. HP's TM2 is within $150 of this slate (about $950) ..

$130, to be precise, based on iPad pricing
 

FWIW, Archos, et al. charged even less for their older Android tablets, eg. the Archos 7 (predecessor of Archos 70) running Android 1.5 has MSRP of $200, so they are already tacking on an extra ~$100 (or 50% price hike) for this new version.  Of course, you probably don't want the old version, especially since the new one is coming soon.

 

According to B&H, they have ETA set for December.  Wonder how buggy it will be since Archos will likely push the release through in order to make it in time for the holidays.

 

_Man_

When was the old Archos 7 released?  Maybe the various new and/or improved parts added to the Archos 70 have come down a lot in cost to easily fit w/in the $75 price bump (for them to still make some $).

 

Yeah, I'm really considering either Archos 70 or Archos 101 now unless it actually bombs upon release circa December.  The $275-350 price point is low enough to not worry too much about commitment to the platform as long as the device works well as is.  And I'm not an app hound who requires a huge app store anyway.  Truth is I don't even want to have access to so many games since those can be huge time consumers that my family doesn't need -- we "waste" enough time (and $) on movies, etc. in our HT setup already, and we also have other platforms for games anyhow.    Just a reasonable selection of quality, classic games would be enough me thinks -- though it sounds like I'd need to root the Archos in order to add almost any kind of app at all.

 

Would be nice to have VPN client, etc. though, but that's definitely not a dealbreaker for me (at least at this price point).

 

BTW, it's not too clear to me, but can it handle "digital copies" (from BD/DVD) targeted for iTunes/iOS playback?  Since I had an iPod Touch before, I transfered most of them for iTunes/iOS, instead of Windows Media, and I'm not sure I can redo them for Windows Media -- and whether these Android devices can play those either.  No, the digital copies were not for me, but for my kids, but would be nice to have the option anyhow, especially for the 10" tablet.

 

_Man_

Review of the Tab at Engadget

 

http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/01/samsung-galaxy-tab-review/

 

It is what it is: a 7" Android 2.2 device. If that revs your motor, this is the tablet for you.

http://www.bgr.com/2010/11/08/samsung-galaxy-tab-impressions/

 

Boy Genius Report gives pre-review thoughts: they think 7" is too small.

This.  A thousand times THIS.

http://www.marco.org/1483805627

 

Missed this when first posted but I think the Marco link addresses what I believe about platforms more so than simply saying Android's achilles heal is Fragmentation.

 

Android misses all three of the criteria that Marco lists about the kinds of developers I care about.

 

Hell, almost all non Apple OSes have issues that cut to the same chase.

 

Sure there are great developers on the Windows platform.  How many of them make elegant solutions because they care about hand crafted software that is delightful to use?

I guess there are some great unix / Linux devs out there, but how many apps for the entire 40 year history of it can you say EVER elicited a delight in it's non greybeard users (you emacs geeks can pipe down now)

 

So what other platforms have that delight factor that comes from developers who drink the milkshake of the platform they are writing for wholesale?  I can think of maybe two.

Xbox (wintel without the bullshit)

Wii (maybe)

 

Thinking back, what OSes elicited this from developers?  Be.  Palm.  AmigaOS.  Commodore 64 for sure.

 

The windows world certainly had the numbers but was there PASSION in Win 3.1, 95, xp and 7?  Was it a passionate dropping out in the Vista timeframe or something else?  Wasn't it simply that the user base was there and there wasn't any other good alternatives?  And those that came up with alternatives (OS2) couldnt budge that user base or marketing behemoth?

 

Windows Phone 7 MIGHT be able to do this.  There wasn't much of a rush out there to be an early adopter but it's a marathon not a sprint.

 

But the numbers AND passion are on Apple's side right now.  Anything else that comes out has to deal with BOTH.  Palm Pre had passionate developers but no customer numbers.  Rim has numbers but not much passion.  Nokia wouldnt know passion if it bit them on the ass.  Microsoft might be able to do it but Android?  I don't know about that.

 

Here's the bottom line, since Android has great marketshare now.  Can you inject passion into Android?  I don't see how but I would love to be wrong.

FWIW, at this point, I have no plans to write any software for any PDA/smartphone I may buy -- I'm just waaaay pass that phase now.   I do work on backend software that ends up being used/accessed on Blackberries (and maybe eventually iPhones/iPads) though, which was one of the business reasons we gave when our small dev team requested BBs, but yeah, I'm already getting paid for that (and have the "free" BB).

 

Actually, check that.  I'm sorta a fantasy baseball nut (amongst other things ), and I've been toying w/ the idea (on-and-off for years) of creating a web app specfically for the purpose of hosting dynasty FBB leagues as a labor of love sorta thing (w/ extremely long odds potential for more ).  And if I were to finally do that, I would probably also want to create some sort of PDA/smartphone client for it as well.  But no, it would not be the kind of thing your average consumer would care about.  Just another geeky app for another kind of geek.

 

As for emacs geeks, I guess I don't qualify since I don't have a beard -- and even if I have one, it wouldn't be grey (yet).   VisualStudio has come a long way, but there are still some very simple things I miss about emacs (and even its lesser DOS clone, Brief), eg. keyboard macros (unless it's hidden somewhere I never looked).

 

RE: beloved OS/platforms, how 'bout GEOS?  I had an HP Omnigo 100 (and even installed GEOS 3.x? on my PC), but the Palm Pilot was just too strong back then.  Apple Newton?  Another partial victim of the Palm Pilot.  BTW, whatever happened to Motorola's handwriting/voice(?) recognition software that they targeted for the Chinese market way back when Apple gave up on Newton (since the heavily Romanized standard keyboard remains to this day a difficult thing to use for Asian languages)?

 

How 'bout NeXTStep (w/ Objective C and whatever the NeXT dev framework was called back to which .NET and C# tends to harken a bit for me)?  Another of Steve Jobs' abandoned-and-long-forgotten offsprings that probably got out-muscled by the whole NT vaporware phenomenon -- and yeah, I actually installed the first available Intel-friendly version on my PC (that required a SCSI CDROM drive) too.  Actually, doesn't the current Mac OS employ some aspects of OpenStep, which was NeXTStep's heir-apparent offspring?

 

I'm sure there are plenty more that elude me just now...

 

Anyway, no idea if Android will actually get very far w/ freelance app dev, but that's not why I'd choose a device that runs it (or something else) anyway...

 

_Man_

Dude, GEOS for the PC? Pshaw it was amazing on the c64 10 years before that!

http://www.c64-wiki.com/index.php/GEOS

And if we want to mourn the best dead unix variant start and stop at IRIX Indigo Magic suite by SGI.

But android misses the core lesson of the SGI flameout: you can have the prettiest is out there and even the most elegant, but profitability is not a layer you can add in later. It has to be a core component along with the tech.

Unfortunately, by the time, GEOS arrived for the C64, et al, everyone was already too wowed by the Mac.  I actually had a C64, but GEOS was never on my radar back then.  I guess the PDA/smartphone was basically its last real shot at succeeding commercially.  I still remember lusting after one of the earliest smartphones made by Nokia that ran GEOS back in the mid-90's around the time when Palm introduced their first Pilot device w/ mobile data service capability (and Apple pulled the plug on Newton).

 

RE: SGI, their business model and target market was so completely different from Google/Android's (or Apple/iOS) though -- and more different than some of the other Unix variants.  Hard to make much of anything of that although I guess you could say similarly about most Unix variants other than Linux, FreeBSD and the BSD/NeXT/OpenStep variant underneath the Mac OS perhaps...

 

_Man_

So furious.. spent an hour writing up a really thoughtful response, about the gung-ho attitude of Apple II developers who really had ferver; the IIGS, with MIDI sound and high-res graphics,  the disaster that was MacOS7 which let Windows95 really step in and become the developer "WOW" platform, NeXT ending up taking over the mindset at apple, changes on both ends, developers and gamers woo'd by a cohesive platform on MS that caught on and stuck, and why Sony's PS3 marketplace shut out external developers and killed it while Apple's open end on the iPhone helped them.

To end with the gamble that MS is making on XNA 4.0 a cross development platform which makes XBOX360 Community app to WP7 phone and vice versa more viable and less expensive..

I don't know, I can't put back together three pages and tons of links.

 

So I'll just say: there is ferver for every platform where there is money, but there are some moments where you really drive developers out of the woodwork because your product is unique enough to make them real money while providing them the opportunity to grow.

That's all.   GRRRRR

Sounds like MS is aiming to avoid the fragmentation issue:

http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/10/windows-phone-android-fragmentation/

 

If this is true the question becomes can Android put the genie back in the bottle and get the same deal that MS and Apple are apparently able to command wrt bloatware and other carrier shenanigans?

Who is "Android" to re-box Pandora? That's the problem: there is no "Android" in the same control sense of MS and Apple.

 

Can Google do direct updates? No. Because noone uses stock Android; Sense and Motoblur and etc. must all be updated before being pushed to users' phones.

 

Can Samsung and Motorola and HTC and etc. each have the clout to do direct updates to the users, regardless of the carrier(s)?

 

Does Google even care?

I'm not talking about the bundles so much as the inability to put major OS releases on to existing phones.

 

Does Google care that a significant chunk of their user base will have to wait until they get to their 'new every two' contract renewal period to get the latest OS firmware in their hands?  I would think they should!

OUCH

http://gizmodo.com/5686161/samsung-galaxy-tab-review-a-pocketable-train-wreck

 

So am I.

 

Can Google do direct updates? I don't think so, because e.g. HTC won't roll out their version of Android 2.3 until Sense 2.3 is available. Is this not so?

 

So does e.g. HTC take control to push its Android / Sense 2.3 update to its users, independent of carrier desires?

 

And as you ask, does Google even care?

 

For that matter: will all Androd phones released in the past 12 months get Android 2.3? Will phones from 24 months ago get any portion of 2.3? Will today's phones get next year's 3.0? I have complete confidence my iPhone 4 will get most of iOS 5 next summer. But if I just bought a Droid DuperSuper, I don't know if I should expect a major OS upgrade in a year?

 

(Aside: I'm interested in how this goes, having talked about iOS upgrades with a friend. He's quite annoyed with Apple's approach to do partial OS upgrades to older phones -- like no multitasking to the iPhone 3, even though it can do it, as seen on JB'd phones. So he's increasingly attracked to to Android. Except, as I see it, Apple kills Google on this. So far, any Android phone older than 9 months old is SOL, yet Apple upgrades 24-month old phones. And you can still buy a new Android phone locked to 1.6! Apple, any new phone runs iOS 4. This might change with the new, powerful Android phones and Android 2.3 and forward. But as of today, Apple sets the standard, and is far and away the leader in providing upgrades for users.)

That's about the worst-written review I've read. Was it scrawled out on the bus by a third-grader on the way to school, knowing if this homework assignment was late, he'd have to take a note home to be signed by his mom and then get grounded from the Wii for a week?

Granted, Giz IS proudly the most yellow of yellow tech journalism out there, and even Engadget's Topolsky called them on lame writing today....   But still, that review's gonna leave a mark even if it isn't 100% true, that will by a big perception to overcome.

It was an interesting review. But terribly, terribly written. Not even yellow journalism: I'm talking grammatical errors, lousy formatting. It was very slapdash.

Hey is that the new iPad?

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/11/11/technology/personaltech/1248069317901/a-new-star-in-the-tablet-space.html

 

 

best.  acting.  ever.