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I'm not surprised. A tablet requires software that manufacturers are unable to write (except for HP, now) and their traditional software partner has nothing rem

I'm not surprised. A tablet requires software that manufacturers are unable to write (except for HP, now) and their traditional software partner has nothing remotely ready for them. So they turn to Google. Apple added a number of new APIs and UI extensions in order to make the iPhone OS suitable for a large screen. Until Google does the same with Android we'll be stuck with nothing but big Android cell phones.

protomyth 16y ago
add to the software edge, the base price of $499 doesn't leave a lot of room for other companies to build one at a decent profit.
ZeroGravitas 16y ago
There's plenty of footage of Android tablets running everything from 1.5 to 2.2 and nothing obvious is missing from casual inspection of people playing games, surfing the web etc. What do you think is missing, or to say it another way, why is the iPad not just a big cell phone (minus the ability to make calls)?.
- thought_alarm 16y ago
  The deficiencies look quite obvious to me: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/05/android-tablet-prototypes-not-yet-ready-for-prime-time.ars http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/05/android-tablet-p... I'll put it this way: The iPad would not be a compelling device if it merely ran iPhone software at a higher resolution. Hardware-wise, the iPad is nothing but an iPod Touch with a giant screen and a giant battery. Software-wise, it's everything but an iPod or iPhone; the use cases are very different. A touch-surface that's 5 times larger than an iPhone enables a much richer and more sophisticated UI, and this is evident in the iPad SDK, Apple's iPad software, and the successful 3rd-party iPad software. Google needs to define their tablet HIG, they need to update their SDK to implement their HIG, they need to update their built-in apps to take advantage of the new SDK, and they need to get their 3rd party developers on board. All of this takes time, and I would not expect it to take shape before the spring or summer of 2011 (they're still "feverishly working" to get Android 2.2 out the door). Anything less will result in a product that's not as compelling as the iPad. That said, I have no doubt that manufacturers will try to sell Android tablets before the Android OS is ready, and I have every confidence that those tablets will fail in the marketplace. But eventually there will be compelling Android tablets.
  - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
    The linked article, and you, seem to be suggesting that Google needs to add capabilities to Android to support different resolutions and pixel densities. I'm saying that they already have. In fact they're already talking about developing Android apps for Google TV, a 3rd entirely different form factor. Having to update Android apps to take full advantage of newer form factors, is entirely different from having to fix Android itself to work with different form factors, and even if the apps are not updated they'll probably still generally work better than iPhone apps on iPads because of Android's inherent multiplicity of devices.
anigbrowl 16y ago
(scratches head) Android isn't the only other other option for controlling a tablet. I know desktop Windows and Linux are unsuitable from a UI point of view, but there's plenty of middleware around to bridge touchscreens to software, and there are plenty of self-contained UI paradigms: game consoles rarely use the desktop metaphor. Not the exact same thing, I know, but waving the Nintendo Wii controller around feels a lot closer to interacting with a touchscreen than it does my desktop, and there's a vast pool of UI design knowledge in the gaming market. Not instantly accessible to likes of us, but companies like Asus and their technology partners have the resources, developer infrastructure and motivation to open up alternative platforms.
- chc 16y ago
  Few dedicated software companies can even compete with Apple. I mean, at the moment it's just Apple and Google in the smartphone space, and Google's barely competitive despite Apple only having one phone on one provider. To assume Asus can somehow just will a brilliant new software platform into existence to compete with Apple's in a matter of months makes no sense to me. The hardware companies have always depended on the software companies for things to run on their devices, and right now the software companies just don't have anything to compete with the iPad.
  - anigbrowl 16y ago
    I see your point, but disagree about the 'matter of months' part; we were discussing the Apple tablet here last year, iPhones have been out for a few years (as have some other niche multitouch products), and the tablet + stylus concept has been on the market for a decade. So I had expected other players to offer up something even if it was only to stake a claim on behalf of their brands. In other words, not to be compete or beat with apple technically in the short term, but to deny them marketing hegemony. Perhaps they'd rather wait for the initial iPad thunder to subside, than risk being tagged as 'a poor second best' in the first lap of the race. I suppose it depends on whether one feels engineering or brand positioning is the biggest determinant of long-term success.
- PidGin128 16y ago

protomyth 16y ago

add to the software edge, the base price of $499 doesn't leave a lot of room for other companies to build one at a decent profit.

ZeroGravitas 16y ago

There's plenty of footage of Android tablets running everything from 1.5 to 2.2 and nothing obvious is missing from casual inspection of people playing games, surfing the web etc. What do you think is missing, or to say it another way, why is the iPad not just a big cell phone (minus the ability to make calls)?.

thought_alarm 16y ago
The deficiencies look quite obvious to me: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/05/android-tablet-prototypes-not-yet-ready-for-prime-time.ars http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/05/android-tablet-p... I'll put it this way: The iPad would not be a compelling device if it merely ran iPhone software at a higher resolution. Hardware-wise, the iPad is nothing but an iPod Touch with a giant screen and a giant battery. Software-wise, it's everything but an iPod or iPhone; the use cases are very different. A touch-surface that's 5 times larger than an iPhone enables a much richer and more sophisticated UI, and this is evident in the iPad SDK, Apple's iPad software, and the successful 3rd-party iPad software. Google needs to define their tablet HIG, they need to update their SDK to implement their HIG, they need to update their built-in apps to take advantage of the new SDK, and they need to get their 3rd party developers on board. All of this takes time, and I would not expect it to take shape before the spring or summer of 2011 (they're still "feverishly working" to get Android 2.2 out the door). Anything less will result in a product that's not as compelling as the iPad. That said, I have no doubt that manufacturers will try to sell Android tablets before the Android OS is ready, and I have every confidence that those tablets will fail in the marketplace. But eventually there will be compelling Android tablets.
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  The linked article, and you, seem to be suggesting that Google needs to add capabilities to Android to support different resolutions and pixel densities. I'm saying that they already have. In fact they're already talking about developing Android apps for Google TV, a 3rd entirely different form factor. Having to update Android apps to take full advantage of newer form factors, is entirely different from having to fix Android itself to work with different form factors, and even if the apps are not updated they'll probably still generally work better than iPhone apps on iPads because of Android's inherent multiplicity of devices.

anigbrowl 16y ago

(scratches head) Android isn't the only other other option for controlling a tablet. I know desktop Windows and Linux are unsuitable from a UI point of view, but there's plenty of middleware around to bridge touchscreens to software, and there are plenty of self-contained UI paradigms: game consoles rarely use the desktop metaphor. Not the exact same thing, I know, but waving the Nintendo Wii controller around feels a lot closer to interacting with a touchscreen than it does my desktop, and there's a vast pool of UI design knowledge in the gaming market. Not instantly accessible to likes of us, but companies like Asus and their technology partners have the resources, developer infrastructure and motivation to open up alternative platforms.

chc 16y ago
Few dedicated software companies can even compete with Apple. I mean, at the moment it's just Apple and Google in the smartphone space, and Google's barely competitive despite Apple only having one phone on one provider. To assume Asus can somehow just will a brilliant new software platform into existence to compete with Apple's in a matter of months makes no sense to me. The hardware companies have always depended on the software companies for things to run on their devices, and right now the software companies just don't have anything to compete with the iPad.
- anigbrowl 16y ago
  I see your point, but disagree about the 'matter of months' part; we were discussing the Apple tablet here last year, iPhones have been out for a few years (as have some other niche multitouch products), and the tablet + stylus concept has been on the market for a decade. So I had expected other players to offer up something even if it was only to stake a claim on behalf of their brands. In other words, not to be compete or beat with apple technically in the short term, but to deny them marketing hegemony. Perhaps they'd rather wait for the initial iPad thunder to subside, than risk being tagged as 'a poor second best' in the first lap of the race. I suppose it depends on whether one feels engineering or brand positioning is the biggest determinant of long-term success.
PidGin128 16y ago