Which Tablet do you like?

[ukcatfan]

I saw yesterday that Samsung likely has outsold Apple on smart phones in Q2. We all know that Android collectively passed Apple in the past six months, but for Samsung to do it alone has Apple REALLY nervous. That is why they have so many lawsuits out against them right now. They have Apple's number. The Galaxy S II comes out on Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile in the next month. People are saying that it is a better phone than the expected next iPhone and it is beating it to the market by months. I am not some Samsung fanboy, but I seriously think that they are going to be the number one phone and tablet manufacturer in the next couple years. As for tabs alone, the Apple market share also took a big hit in Q2. It was bigger than analysts expected. That was before the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Thrive even came out, so Q3 will likely see Apple really losing ground. I do not know how accurate the info was, but the salesman at our Best Buy told use that iPad 2 sales practically stopped at their store when the Galaxy Tab and Asus Transformer got stocked.

 

[WilsonFlyer]

Not sure what you saw on that link about the iPad being a "bad web browsing experience". Certainly, that issue has been argued ad-nauseum within my industry. At the end of the day, the numbers don't lie. Do you realize how SIGNIFICANT that in less than a year, iPads account for 1% of the total GLOBAL web experience? Jesus freakin' Christ!

Again, I don't care for Jobs' tactics sometimes, but he's a brilliant visionary and a great mind, and he produces great products (swallows pride).

If you want to buy another manufacturer's device in protest against Jobs and his company and tactics, then by all means, knock yourself out. I don't want to rain on your parade but you're not the first. As a matter of fact, I personally believe the TEMPORARY up-shot in sales of competitive products actually is a lot of consumers slapping Apple.

Sometimes, it's not the best product that wins. It's the best marketing strategy, best word-of-mouth advertisement, and many times in this industry, it's the ship that can lay legitimate claim to first out of port to the largest fanfare. Doesn't mean it was the best ship. Just that it got out first.

The classic example in my industry (and I was somewhat of a big-wig in my industry when all of this was going down) I always use is the OS/2 v. Windows war that ensued in the late 80's when Microsoft and IBM's code-sharing agreement expired. By 1988 to late '89, OS/2 was a VASTLY superior operating system to Windows (at that time, the top of the Windows world was a product called Windows 386) and many in the position I was in would argue that it was better that Windows is even now. Doesn't matter. Market saturation and penetration won because people were already familiar with the Windows modus operandi because of early bundlings of Windows runtimes with products like Aldus Pagemaker. Instead of IBM doing the smart thing and working with Microsoft as the original agreement intended, they decided they swung a bigger ____ , so they went to war with Microsoft on the OS front. In what would be considered ironic today, IBM did swing the bigger stick back then. Microsoft couldn't hold a candle size-wise and in terms of capitilization to Big Blue. But guess what? IBM lost (and so did consumers but that's another story). HUGE. They were sent back to Armonk and Boca with their tails between their legs and I don't mean proverbially either really.

I've fought in this industry for a long time. I've even been somewhat of a player in it at times. I don't care for Apple and I don't care for Jobs, but I have the utmost respect for both of them. I'll probably have 10 other tablets in the next 90 days. It's what I do, but I can tell you this with absolute certainty, the Apple iPad will be my personal go to tablet certainly for the forseeable future (which in my industry is about 6-18 months). I learned a long time ago in my industry to never bet on anything outside 12-18 months (try to explain that to the accounting and fixed asset people! LOL) but if a tablet comes along (same generation at the same time) that beats the iPad, I can assure you this; I won't be able to get my hands on one fast enough.

I'm not holding out hope, though. Innovation drives my industry and income, and is good for everybody. Actually, I hope I'm wrong about the iPad remaining on its throne for a long time to come, but I sincerely doubt I will be. With all the modesty in the world, I haven't been wrong about many predictions in the tech industry over the years and I've made a lot of predictions, many of them under a professional alias and VERY much in the public eye.

-bob

 

[ukcatfan]

I learned a long time ago in my industry to never bet on anything outside 12-18 months (try to explain that to the accounting and fixed asset people! LOL) but if a tablet comes along (same generation at the same time) that beats the iPad, I can assure you this; I won't be able to get my hands on one fast enough.

I'm not holding out hope, though. Innovation drives my industry and income, and is good for everybody. Actually, I hope I'm wrong about the iPad remaining on its throne for a long time to come, but I sincerely doubt I will be. With all the modesty in the world, I haven't been wrong about many predictions in the tech industry over the years and I've made a lot of predictions, many of them under a professional alias and VERY much in the public eye.

That first one is easy... EXPENSE!!! I am a fixed asset accountant BTW!

I seriously think the tide has turned a little on the tablet market. The phone market is already decided and Apple lost. They will still remain a big player, but they will never again see a top spot. One thing to really pay attention to is later this year when Ice Cream Sandwich comes out. It is going to merge the smart phone a tablet OSes. That way it will be extremely easy for a developer to make an Android app that will work well on any device running it. That will solve the debate that there are not enough native apps for Honeycomb. To tell the truth though, that has not affected my wife very much on her tab. There has been only one app that didn't display right and it was just one of the cheesy Amazon free apps of the day. She also wanted a native Facebook app, but the website works just like on a pc, so she got over that really quick. It is no computing powerhouse, but no tablet is. The hardware is on par with the iPad and the screen looked better IMO.

 

[YOUDS123215]

I didn't notice you mentioning the HP earlier. I would probably avoid it because the WebOS is not likely to survive another year. Same with the BlackBerry tab. Android and Apple are the only true viable options right now. I think Microsoft will surprise some people once they get in the market though.

I 'm wondering why your message is wondering in my email````````

 

[ukcatfan]

I 'm wondering why your message is wondering in my email````````

Say what? Are you talking about an automated message from the Disboards? You might have opted for all replies to a thread you joined to be sent to your e-mail. If that is not what you mean, then I am totally lost.

 

[YOUDS123215]

Say what? Are you talking about an automated message from the Disboards? You might have opted for all replies to a thread you joined to be sent to your e-mail. If that is not what you mean, then I am totally lost.

Just a friendly joke~~

 

[ukcatfan]

Alright. You lost me when replying to my post that was not towards you.

 

[YOUDS123215]

Alright. You lost me when replying to my post that was not towards you.

If my post counts 10````

 

[WilsonFlyer]

That first one is easy... EXPENSE!!! I am a fixed asset accountant BTW!

<snip>I seriously think the tide has turned a little on the tablet market. The phone market is already decided and Apple lost.

What press rags are you reading? With all due respect, if you think Apple has lost the phone wars, you need to find a new source for your information. Apple owns the GLOBAL smartphone market. A month or two of close calls because of new competition being introduced doesn't change the overall numbers.

It also owns the tablet market. Look at the market research. The ship has sailed, partner. The numbers don't lie.

 

[ukcatfan]

What press rags are you reading? With all due respect, if you think Apple has lost the phone wars, you need to find a new source for your information. Apple owns the GLOBAL smartphone market. A month or two of close calls because of new competition being introduced doesn't change the overall numbers.

It also owns the tablet market. Look at the market research. The ship has sailed, partner. The numbers don't lie.

Rags like CNN, NYT, WSJ... Need I go on? Seriously you have not seen that Android is blowing Apple away this year? The single highest "unit" is still the iPhone, but that is because there are probably over 1K different Android models worldwide from probably well over 200 different manufacturers. That does not mean that they are better phones, but they are selling more than anyone. The Galaxy S II could overtake the iPhone for top unit though. I don't think it actually will, but some do. Given that it goes by more than a few different names worldwide though, they will probably be reported separately anyway.

Up until recently Nokia was still the top dog. I think Apple only overtook them like one quarter and then fell to Android. The last I saw was like 550K daily new Android activations compared to the high 200's to low 300's for Apple. The information supporting this is literally EVERYWHERE. Apple pulled another Mac fiasco on themselves. They refused to license their software out and it is going to hurt them yet again. They could have owned the home pc market back in the '80s, but didn't license and so now Microsoft owns that segment. They will not fall as hard this time and will remain a big player, but multiple research firms have them pegged as the number 3 mobile OS spot by '14.

Apple still has a chance to keep control of the tab market, but their strategy is to sue the competition and try to lock up raw parts in contracts instead of trying to win customers. I don't think they will keep it either. They already took a hit this year and the most popular Android tablets didn't come to the market until the very end of Q2 or just in this first month of Q3, which will not be reported until October. The Amazon Android tab is coming out by then as well. I guarantee they will sell a ton of them during the holiday season. The short and simple part of it is that Apple is on the ropes right now.

 

[ukcatfan]

I just realized how bad we hijacked this thread, so back to our regularly scheduled programming...

 

[photo_chick]

The iPad is not the number one tablet because it's the best, it is number one because Apple has great marketing. Marketing is how they got the iPod it's place in the market even though there were far superior devices when it came out. That doesn't make it a bad tablet, but it doesn't make it the best either. And the iPhone has lost a good bit of it's market share.

I've used an iPad and the web browsing does leave something to be desired, as do many things. But I can say the same for all the tablets I've been able to play with.

You could go round and round on the debate. It's like Coke or Pepsi, no one is going to win. In the end just use whatever works for you. Except the Windows 7 phones. They suck.

 

[handicap18]

I LOVE my iPad. I have not had a problem with not being able to view flash on web sites because of it. There aren't that many web sites I go to that have flash. Sure it happens occasionally, but its really no big deal.

I also have an iPhone 3Gs. The fact that everything can sync between the 2 devices is great. I use the Kindle app on my iPad a lot and every once and a while I'll be out without the iPad and have some time to kill and I'll take out my iPhone and continue reading on the Kindle app where I left off on the iPad. It sync's automatically on all the devices you have the Kindle app. Same thing for our family calendar. Its synched between the computer, phone and iPad. VERY simple to do too.

The kids love using the iPad for both games and watching movies. We have 2 iPads. Its very easy to copy all your music, movies and apps from your iPhone to the iPad. Once you set up your account on the iPad you don't even need a computer to transfer your purchased stuff from iTunes from the iPhone to the iPad. Then in the future anything you buy on iTunes on one device will automatically be added to your other devices with the same iTunes account. It is beyond easy. It shows you everything you've purchased, then tells you which purchased items are not yet on that device.

As for photo editing, you wouldn't want to use any tablet at this point to edit the photos you took with your main camera. Video's are a different story. iMovie on the iPad is great. The iPad takes very good video. Then you can easily edit it and upload it to youtube or Facebook for instant sharing (so long as your connected to the internet).

My oldest DS uses the iPad during the school year to do his nightly reading (gives him an incentive to read and there are more than enough books to read on the iPad) and he also does his math facts on the iPad. Some great educational games and tools for kids. My youngest DS is learning to read on the iPad using the Teach Me Kindergarten app. My DD uses an iPad at school for speech therapy. We've taken some of those apps and use them at home too.

DW keeps her journal on the iPad. There are lots of great writing apps. She bought an iPad pen to write easier.

We haven't experienced any issues with it failing or not working properly or anything. There is also a new iOS coming out in the fall that will make it even better. Its a free upgrade. Check out the apple web site and watch the keynote on iOS 5. http://www.apple.com/ios/ios5/gallery.html#video-ios

 

[handicap18]

Oh, one App I love for both my iPhone and iPad is Smugwallet. If you have a smugmug account you can add select galleries, rather than everything, to your device very easily. On the iPad the images look stunning. I think its a $2 and very worth it if you use smugmug. I don't know if zenfolio has something similar.

 

[ukcatfan]

I think its a $2 and very worth it if you use smugmug. I don't know if zenfolio has something similar.

That is my number one problem with iOS. It seems like every decent app has a price. I have had my Android for seven months and have only bought two apps for a total of $10. I see some apps on both platforms where it is free for Android and not for iOS. Apple wants a piece of everyone's pie! Seems really greedy to me.

 

[WilsonFlyer]

That is my number one problem with iOS. It seems like every decent app has a price. I have had my Android for seven months and have only bought two apps for a total of $10. I see some apps on both platforms where it is free for Android and not for iOS. Apple wants a piece of everyone's pie! Seems really greedy to me.

There are plenty of free apps at the App Store (ableit it some ARE bait and switch). The App Store users have accepted that intellectual property has a price and as long as it's kept reasonable, people are willing to pay for it. Arguably, you get better apps when they are commercially supported.

That's part of the problem facing Android right now. The days of peace, love and tranquility and Donnie and Marie are passed. There's no free love in the streets anymore like there was in the 70s when I grew up. The Android marketplace seems determined to turn back the clock. As long as there is money to be made, that is where the smart developers will develop.

 

[ukcatfan]

There are plenty of free apps at the App Store (ableit it some ARE bait and switch). The App Store users have accepted that intellectual property has a price and as long as it's kept reasonable, people are willing to pay for it. Arguably, you get better apps when they are commercially supported.

That's part of the problem facing Android right now. The days of peace, love and tranquility and Donnie and Marie are passed. There's no free love in the streets anymore like there was in the 70s when I grew up. The Android marketplace seems determined to turn back the clock. As long as there is money to be made, that is where the smart developers will develop.

There is plenty of money to still be made and I have yet to hear of any incredible iOS app that doesn't have an Android equivalent. Some Android apps are making money with advertising. I really don't mind seeing a 1/8" ad bar if it saves me $5 on an app that I probably only use a few times a month.

 

[zackiedawg]

To the OP, so as to avoid all of the Apple vs the World segue threads...

Are you SURE you want a tablet? That's the only thing I'd throw out there. They are excellent as visual media devices - watching movies, viewing slideshows, pulling up YouTube, and of course playing with a million apps. But they aren't necessarily always the best device for some of the more basic, traditional uses you mention. Such as e-mail. Or simple internet browsing/message boards/etc. And they're not really quite as efficient and capable for things like storage/backup for things like photos. And then there's the cost-factor - whether bang-for-your-buck will be best - again, depending on HOW you intend to use the device.

I may someday have a tablet, but I don't yet. When I was considering such a device, for much the same reasons you mentioned, it became apparent that a tablet just wasn't the best device for those basic jobs. The areas in which the tablet excelled was more for visual media and entertainment, or app-based specific conveniences, games, or features. So I ended up getting a netbook, because what I needed was a lot less movie watching, YouTubing, and app using, and a lot more e-mailing, message-boarding, and storing. I found I work much better and faster with a real keyboard, compared to a virtual one - so right away, e-mail and other forms of typing were just much more natural and pleasing with netbooks for me. I also wanted a way to store and backup photos while traveling...netbooks have standard USB ports right on them, built-in card readers right on them, and usually minimums of 160GB or more of harddrive space...many tablets don't have readers, some don't have basic ports like USB, and most have much smaller harddrives. Cost-wise, the completely loaded netbooks are under $300 with 10 hour batteries and 160-250GB harddrives, and folded up they are small, light, and portable.

Just something to consider. Inarguably there are things a tablet does better than a netbook, and they look cool too. But there are things that you might find a netbook can do better too, and if those are the key reasons you are looking for such a device to begin with, they might be worth considering as they also cost considerably less.

 

[DisFam95]

To the OP, so as to avoid all of the Apple vs the World segue threads...

Are you SURE you want a tablet? That's the only thing I'd throw out there. They are excellent as visual media devices - watching movies, viewing slideshows, pulling up YouTube, and of course playing with a million apps. But they aren't necessarily always the best device for some of the more basic, traditional uses you mention. Such as e-mail. Or simple internet browsing/message boards/etc. And they're not really quite as efficient and capable for things like storage/backup for things like photos. And then there's the cost-factor - whether bang-for-your-buck will be best - again, depending on HOW you intend to use the device.

I may someday have a tablet, but I don't yet. When I was considering such a device, for much the same reasons you mentioned, it became apparent that a tablet just wasn't the best device for those basic jobs. The areas in which the tablet excelled was more for visual media and entertainment, or app-based specific conveniences, games, or features. So I ended up getting a netbook, because what I needed was a lot less movie watching, YouTubing, and app using, and a lot more e-mailing, message-boarding, and storing. I found I work much better and faster with a real keyboard, compared to a virtual one - so right away, e-mail and other forms of typing were just much more natural and pleasing with netbooks for me. I also wanted a way to store and backup photos while traveling...netbooks have standard USB ports right on them, built-in card readers right on them, and usually minimums of 160GB or more of harddrive space...many tablets don't have readers, some don't have basic ports like USB, and most have much smaller harddrives. Cost-wise, the completely loaded netbooks are under $300 with 10 hour batteries and 160-250GB harddrives, and folded up they are small, light, and portable.

Just something to consider. Inarguably there are things a tablet does better than a netbook, and they look cool too. But there are things that you might find a netbook can do better too, and if those are the key reasons you are looking for such a device to begin with, they might be worth considering as they also cost considerably less.

I don;t actually mind all the back and forth - I love to see all opinions and boy are there lots out there

I've actually considered what you mention w/ the netbook. Being a family w/ young kids I like media aspects of the entertinment. But looking at the tablets and the ports and getting photos on there I think the netbook would be better. Just more for me to think about. I checked out the Thrive w/ the ports but felt really thick and Best Buy was having a lot of trouble getting it to run properly.

No one was touching i-pads last night at the store but they were all over the other tablets . I think people are thrilled to have some decent options out there - although I'm learning none are perfect.

Some cheeky monkey did set up on both the i-pads so when you picked them up the "this device does not support flash" thing appears

The battle rages on!

 

[photo_chick]

Just a random thought.....

If you're thinking about using a tablet as a reader (I mean heavy, daily novel or textbook reading) make sure your eyes can handle a backlit screen. If you have problems reading at length from a computer you might want to consider an eink reader (insert plug for Kindle here)-- eink is the awesomest thing for those of us who get tired eyes easily on the computer... I don't even need my glasses to read on it which made it totally worth having to carry an extra device for me.

back to something that was said earlier....

iPad/ iPhone apps cost because Apple says they have to. They won't let you give stuff away easily. Android has no restrictions like that. Apple also has a more stringent review process too and as a result it's really hard to get a virus from a legitimately purchased iPad app. Were as with Android viruses are starting to pop up here and there. But with Android you have the Amazon app store where they give away a free app a day. There's pros and cons to both approaches.