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.
(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 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.
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).
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.
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.
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 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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
