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You're seriously trying to claim that blown up android phone apps, many of which don't even rescale properly, are competition to the dedicated iPad designs? Ha

You're seriously trying to claim that blown up android phone apps, many of which don't even rescale properly, are competition to the dedicated iPad designs? Have you looked at iPad apps lately? Even if you don't include iMove and GarageBand that were just announced, how about OmniGraffle, Sketchbook, Inkpad, the Korg Apps, Reeder, Osmos, iWork, etc.

jrockway 16y ago
A more interesting benchmark would be "time spent in each app". Sure, there are eight trillion apps for the iPad. But I bet most people spend 95% of their time in the browser (or an ebook reader), and the other 5% of their time in the email app. Guess what, you can do that with a 386 laptop from 1995. Apple's success comes from convincing people, through marketing, that they want to do that on an iPad and not on something else.
- rbarooah 16y ago
  I think that's probably true for some parts of the user base - particularly the more tech savvy - it's effectively true for me - I'll concede twitter and reeder as not much more than an extension of the browser or an ebook reader. However I think you're underestimating how many non-tech savvy users find appliance-like apps much easier to understand than the web. Yesterday my wife borrowed my iPad to use with her mother to look at furniture on Craigslist. She got me to buy a $2 craigslist app that I'd never dream of buying for myself which turned the iPad into a light-table of photos of stuff for sale linked to a map. Suddenly her mother could use Craigslist. At a certain point the screen blanked and she had a moment of panic of not knowing what to do - but then she realized there was only one button to press and everything was ok again. That 386 laptop from 1995, or for that matter an iMac from 2011 requires a vastly more developed mental model in order to do anything. Even if most people can eventually learn this, it's work, whereas the ease of the app model on the iPad makes it relaxing and fun. The apps matter a lot.
  - Andys 16y ago
    Is there any reason this Craiglist app couldn't be a web app?
    - v21 16y ago
      Who'd pay $2 to use a reskinned Craigslist on the web?
    - rbarooah 16y ago
      From a technical standpoint, probably not. But those we apps don't exist today, and people are buying tablets now based on what apps can do for them.
- Wientje 16y ago
  I wouldn't try browsing with a 386 laptop. I highly doubt you could still buy one in '95. Funny as historical comparisons are, some accuracy would be appreciated.
- heyvince 16y ago
  I agree "time spent in each app" is a better benchmark. In the event that Apple held an event in April 2010 announcing, among other things, iAds it was announced that the average user spends 30 minutes a day in apps. Again, this is the average user. I spend far more time than that, and I would also say that I probably spend, at least, 90% of my time in non-Apple apps. Apps matter. More than any other consideration, including brand.
- bonch 16y ago
  "Guess what, you can do that with a 386 laptop from 1995. Apple's success comes from convincing people, through marketing, that they want to do that on an iPad and not on something else." Ah, the old meme that people are just brainwashed by marketing into being happy with their Apple products, complete with made-up "95%" statistics.
- muhfuhkuh 16y ago
  "Guess what, you can do that with a 386 laptop from 1995" Then why do I want to do that on a 2011 Android clone tablet that costs more than the baseline Apple one (as of 3/2/11 more than $100 more)? "Apple's success comes from convincing people, through marketing, that they want to do that on an iPad and not on something else." They convince people that the things that they normally did on their desktop or notebook propped on their lap, they can now do on the couch curled up leaning against the arm of their favorite chair, perhaps with the TV on, as they pinch and zoom and tap and slide freely around a large, bright touchscreen instead of a tiny glidepad.
blinkingled 16y ago
Where did I claim that? The existing apps do work so there is no lack of apps to start with and Honeycomb has been out for only few weeks - it won't be long before more tablet optimized apps appear.
- rbarooah 16y ago
  Right - I said in my original comment that the situation would change over the year, but for now an average user would be silly to buy a Xoom and only have blown up phone apps and hope that stuff they like gets developed in future, when they can buy an iPad 2 and have great dedicated apps today.
  - orangecat 16y ago
    for now an average user would be silly to buy a Xoom and only have blown up phone apps "Blown up phone apps" are much better on Android than the pixel doubling that the iPad does for iPhone apps. Android apps aren't hardcoded for a specific resolution, so most of them work well on tablets even without being specifically designed to.
    - rbarooah 16y ago
      But that's irrelevant because people aren't using pixel doubled apps on the iPad. They are using specially designed apps. Are you seriously claiming that apps developed for android phones are as good as the dedicated iPad apps?
      - barrkel 16y ago
        That's not true. Ipad apps are usually gratuitously more expensive and if you buy them, you won't be able to use the app on your iPhone and iPod too. For most apps I stick with the standard version. Mind you, I only use my iPad rarely, usually for distraction on plane journeys; not recharged more than once a month.
        16y ago
jsz0 16y ago
I think the Apple mind control conspiracy theory stuff is a bit outdated these days. You can 'convince' a small number of people to choose one product over another for superficial reasons through clever marketing but that's not a very good explanation when you're talking about tens of millions of people. If Apple had these secret mind control talents they would have 'convinced' people not to buy Android phones or Windows PCs. For now it just happens that they have a big head start and consumers simply don't know (or care) about the alternatives yet or just aren't sold on them.
Tycho 16y ago
I think Art Rage 2 is the killer app, so far
RyanMcGreal 16y ago
> You're seriously trying to claim that blown up android phone apps, many of which don't even rescale properly, are competition to the dedicated iPad designs? I believe the parent is trying to claim that blown up android phone apps on Xoom are no worse than blown up iPhone apps were when the iPad first came out.
- rbarooah 16y ago
  Which is irrelevant because when the iPad came out there are more than 3,000 dedicated apps, many of them from household brands, and there was no competition. I'm not saying the Android tablets aren't competitive with how the iPad was at launch. I'm asking why a regular consumer would choose an unproven tablet with a tiny number of apps over a proven tablet with 65,000 apps today.
  - blinkingled 16y ago
    Well because Apps aren't everything and not everyone needs the Sketchbook app for example.

jrockway 16y ago

A more interesting benchmark would be "time spent in each app". Sure, there are eight trillion apps for the iPad. But I bet most people spend 95% of their time in the browser (or an ebook reader), and the other 5% of their time in the email app. Guess what, you can do that with a 386 laptop from 1995. Apple's success comes from convincing people, through marketing, that they want to do that on an iPad and not on something else.

rbarooah 16y ago
I think that's probably true for some parts of the user base - particularly the more tech savvy - it's effectively true for me - I'll concede twitter and reeder as not much more than an extension of the browser or an ebook reader. However I think you're underestimating how many non-tech savvy users find appliance-like apps much easier to understand than the web. Yesterday my wife borrowed my iPad to use with her mother to look at furniture on Craigslist. She got me to buy a $2 craigslist app that I'd never dream of buying for myself which turned the iPad into a light-table of photos of stuff for sale linked to a map. Suddenly her mother could use Craigslist. At a certain point the screen blanked and she had a moment of panic of not knowing what to do - but then she realized there was only one button to press and everything was ok again. That 386 laptop from 1995, or for that matter an iMac from 2011 requires a vastly more developed mental model in order to do anything. Even if most people can eventually learn this, it's work, whereas the ease of the app model on the iPad makes it relaxing and fun. The apps matter a lot.
- Andys 16y ago
  Is there any reason this Craiglist app couldn't be a web app?
  - v21 16y ago
    Who'd pay $2 to use a reskinned Craigslist on the web?
  - rbarooah 16y ago
    From a technical standpoint, probably not. But those we apps don't exist today, and people are buying tablets now based on what apps can do for them.
Wientje 16y ago
I wouldn't try browsing with a 386 laptop. I highly doubt you could still buy one in '95. Funny as historical comparisons are, some accuracy would be appreciated.
heyvince 16y ago
I agree "time spent in each app" is a better benchmark. In the event that Apple held an event in April 2010 announcing, among other things, iAds it was announced that the average user spends 30 minutes a day in apps. Again, this is the average user. I spend far more time than that, and I would also say that I probably spend, at least, 90% of my time in non-Apple apps. Apps matter. More than any other consideration, including brand.
bonch 16y ago
"Guess what, you can do that with a 386 laptop from 1995. Apple's success comes from convincing people, through marketing, that they want to do that on an iPad and not on something else." Ah, the old meme that people are just brainwashed by marketing into being happy with their Apple products, complete with made-up "95%" statistics.
muhfuhkuh 16y ago
"Guess what, you can do that with a 386 laptop from 1995" Then why do I want to do that on a 2011 Android clone tablet that costs more than the baseline Apple one (as of 3/2/11 more than $100 more)? "Apple's success comes from convincing people, through marketing, that they want to do that on an iPad and not on something else." They convince people that the things that they normally did on their desktop or notebook propped on their lap, they can now do on the couch curled up leaning against the arm of their favorite chair, perhaps with the TV on, as they pinch and zoom and tap and slide freely around a large, bright touchscreen instead of a tiny glidepad.

blinkingled 16y ago

Where did I claim that? The existing apps do work so there is no lack of apps to start with and Honeycomb has been out for only few weeks - it won't be long before more tablet optimized apps appear.

rbarooah 16y ago
Right - I said in my original comment that the situation would change over the year, but for now an average user would be silly to buy a Xoom and only have blown up phone apps and hope that stuff they like gets developed in future, when they can buy an iPad 2 and have great dedicated apps today.
- orangecat 16y ago
  for now an average user would be silly to buy a Xoom and only have blown up phone apps "Blown up phone apps" are much better on Android than the pixel doubling that the iPad does for iPhone apps. Android apps aren't hardcoded for a specific resolution, so most of them work well on tablets even without being specifically designed to.
  - rbarooah 16y ago
    But that's irrelevant because people aren't using pixel doubled apps on the iPad. They are using specially designed apps. Are you seriously claiming that apps developed for android phones are as good as the dedicated iPad apps?
    - barrkel 16y ago
      That's not true. Ipad apps are usually gratuitously more expensive and if you buy them, you won't be able to use the app on your iPhone and iPod too. For most apps I stick with the standard version. Mind you, I only use my iPad rarely, usually for distraction on plane journeys; not recharged more than once a month.
      - 16y ago

jsz0 16y ago

I think the Apple mind control conspiracy theory stuff is a bit outdated these days. You can 'convince' a small number of people to choose one product over another for superficial reasons through clever marketing but that's not a very good explanation when you're talking about tens of millions of people. If Apple had these secret mind control talents they would have 'convinced' people not to buy Android phones or Windows PCs. For now it just happens that they have a big head start and consumers simply don't know (or care) about the alternatives yet or just aren't sold on them.

Tycho 16y ago

I think Art Rage 2 is the killer app, so far

RyanMcGreal 16y ago

> You're seriously trying to claim that blown up android phone apps, many of which don't even rescale properly, are competition to the dedicated iPad designs? I believe the parent is trying to claim that blown up android phone apps on Xoom are no worse than blown up iPhone apps were when the iPad first came out.

rbarooah 16y ago
Which is irrelevant because when the iPad came out there are more than 3,000 dedicated apps, many of them from household brands, and there was no competition. I'm not saying the Android tablets aren't competitive with how the iPad was at launch. I'm asking why a regular consumer would choose an unproven tablet with a tiny number of apps over a proven tablet with 65,000 apps today.
- blinkingled 16y ago
  Well because Apps aren't everything and not everyone needs the Sketchbook app for example.