But “Open” is Better!
PC Mag wanted to find out if iOS really has better tablet apps than Android. Well…
So I assembled my own list of potential app providers. To create a list of top brands, I looked at Nielsen’s top 10 global Web companies, online video destinations, and U.S. TV networks; Alexa’s top 10 U.S. websites; the top 10 retail banks as measured by the Federal Reserve; 10 top online game publishing houses; Nielsen’s top 20 Android apps by usage; and Apple’s top 10 paid and top 10 free iPad apps by usage. I looked for official apps from each of these companies.
Finding tablet-oriented apps for Android is a hunt, a chore, and a grind. You can find some by looking in the very small Suggested for Tablets area on Google Play, using search terms like “Tablet” or “HD” in Google Play, or using the Tablified Market third-party directory ($1.49).
Things get even worse when you realize Google Play shows different apps on its website and on individual tablets; even though the Google Play website claims some apps run on an Asus Transformer Prime, the apps didn’t show up on Google Play on the Prime.
And just because an app claims to run on tablets doesn’t mean it was designed for tablets. Often, after you download an app you’ll discover that it’s ugly or nearly useless because it was designed for a 4-inch screen
How do Android tablet owners put up with this crap?
NOT RELATED: But very funny.
It’ll all be over when Moto boasts that its latest is “ribbed for her pleasure.”
Android users put up with it because using using an Android powered tablet, even with the clear faults, is far superior to the solution offered by Microsoft.
Microsoft’s (real, that is, “not just Windows 7 on a flat PC”) tablet solution isn’t even for sale yet.
It’s always easy for a shipping product to be better than something that hasn’t shipped.
(I’ve seen Windows Phone in the wild, and it’s actually good. Not “sell your Apple stock” good, but “at least as good as Android, and more consistent and actually innovative in the UI” good.
Microsoft is great at tools and platforms and documentation (oh MSDN, how I love thee). That helps, a lot.)
At Fry’s over the holidays, I saw this scene:
Rows of Desktops, Rows of Laptops, Rows of Netbooks.
Empty, bereft of customers.
And the row with the Tablets?
Full of customers, you couldnt walk down the row.
I went into the ATT store at about the same time. It looked more like traditional PC store than a phone store. And the key to me was that there wasn’t any device of note in the store that ran on Windows. Again, the store was packed with people buying tablets, and those tablets didn’t use Windows.
And no one seemed bothered by that idea. People who used to buy a cheap Desktop with windows now buy tablets. Those tablets use apps or browser based applications. The justification for Windows and the price you must pay to use it gets smaller every day. A license for a Windows OS costs more than my Kindle Fire.
Frank, how many times are you going to flog the same story?
For the slow learners: anecdotes do not equal data.
“Everybody I know voted for McGovern!”
When I see a market leader collapse, I pay attention. Microsoft is dead, we should mourn its passing.
Again, the actual Tablet-targeted version of Windows is not out yet, so it’s no surprise you didn’t see it over the Holiday season. That is not the same as a reason to believe it must be a failure when it ships, especially since the reviews of Metro and of Windows Phone (which is the same UI) suggest that it’s quite nice.
(And “the market leader is dead”? Which market?
Microsoft never lead in phones, and “tablets” are, as a real category, new*.
Microsoft still leads, in terms of sales, the OS market, and that’s not changing anytime soon – and in “Office” software.
Might they be heading for failure? Sure! Is it obvious that they are and must be? No.
* Tablets have existed for years, but always, really, as “a flat notebook with a touchscreen, way overpriced”. People sold ‘em with Windows, and with OSX.
They all sucked, so nobody means that when they say “tablet” today.)
I’ve been an Android user since November 2009. I like the price, I like the selection of apps (only twice was I disappointed that I couldn’t get something I wanted, and both of those were games… and one of those issues was fixed, too) and I like how I can edit and program it, or tweak it if I so desire. Most importantly, I like how I own the phone, and I will never wake up to find out Google just made it a SmartBrick for the HERESY of DARING to put one’s own app on the phone. I was actually in the market for an iPhone when that happened. Definitely sold me a Droid.
Apple charges too much for what is, for most people, a toy. I’ll take a few quirks and a less shiny package if it saves me a few hundred. I have a kindle fire, which I realize isn’t open, but since I read more than watch, I prefer the smaller size as well.
I love the “toy” insult. It dates back to 1984 and the original Mac. Funny though, how everybody else’s tools always end up looking and working just like Apple’s toys.
While I think you overstate the case in this post (I don’t find the PCMag article very reliable, but I stopped listening to those guys about 20 years ago), I am reminded that the eternal C64 suffered from the same slings & arrows of outrageous fortune.
Waaay back in the day when I ran a FidoNet BBS, my first regular 2400bps caller was my buddy Tom. Who owned a C64. With sound & video that laughed (in an insulting manner) at PCs. And his C64 modem was economically available before affordable Hayes-compatible 2400bps units for the PC…
I remember back then, when “game machine” was an insult, and not a nod to a powerful, highly-modded custom rig.
That said, I still think that you’ve become the equivalent of the 80′s Wintel crusader, bragging about market share & so on. Yeah, the original Mac sucked in a lot of ways, but so did MicroSoft. Or IBM.
Jobs is dead (God rest his soul), and look what happened the last time he left Apple.
Cycles turn; the low are raised on high, while the mighty perish.
Sure, if all you want is to read a book and occasionally look at a video, a Fire is a great tool for that.
But it’s ludicrous to say that “Apple charges too much” on the assumption that everyone only wants a Fire; it’s like saying that an Accord costs too much in itself because you’re happy with your Smart Car.
The Fire suits a biggish niche very well, and is deservedly selling very nicely.
But that $300 you saved shouldn’t be presented as not having compromises other than “less shiny” and “a few quirks”.
(Half the storage of the base iPad. Less than a quarter the pixels and significantly less display density. Significantly lower battery life (8 hours when reading on the Fire vs. 10 on the iPad doing Any Old Thing; 20% is significant, no?)
None of those make the Fire a bad device – but they do point out what you didn’t get by not paying for. It’s almost like that $300 base price difference vs. the new iPad is getting you something for the money.)
(Stephen: Note that Ulysses is apparently calling all tablets toys, though – including the one he purchased. It’s not the old “Apple stuff is just toys unlike my big beige box!” line.
That one, thankfully, is mostly extinguished; anyone still holding on to it is welcome to do a spec comparison against my 27″ iMac with the 3.4GHz i7.
Part of that “tablets are toys” thing, of course, is that the Fire is much less useful for general Computing Tool use than the iPad is, and part of it is that honestly most people really do just use tablets, no matter what kind, as a way to play some games and watch a video, and maybe check Facebook.
Calling ‘em all “toys” in general is not incredibly unfair.)
I bought an android capable tablet at Big Lots for $95.00. I put android on it and it serves as a nice serviceable platform, certainly not great, but not bad either. Most of the time it hangs on my wall and runs an android app called “Chumby”. I am constantly amazed by what I can do and do very easily with what is at best, a throwaway platform.
My first tablet was an Acer Andriod.
I switched to the “new iPad” for the following reasons:
1. I can read WSJ and Barron’s much faster on the app than I could on the Acer. It works very well.
2. I like the retina screen.
3. My whole family is undergoing a Windows/andriod to Apple migration. One platform for all media is working so much better. Mac.iPod.iPad.iPhone.
4. Our daughter led the way. She wanted a Mac four years ago to take to college. I bought her one to shut her up. As a dedicated windows man, it hurt to write the big check. Four years later the Mac still works really well and I have yet to get three years out of a laptop.
In short, “buy the best and you cry once.”
Jimbo
Point #4
I’ve had exactly the opposite experience. My Dell laptop is going strong after five years of somewhat rough use. The 15″ MacBook Pro belonging to the lady of the house just got back from Apple for it’s second $400 repair in two years. Last year it was a new “top case” because the ZXCV line of the keyboard stopped working. This year it was the mainboard because the processor fried. It is definitely pretty and the service tech’s are the easiest I’ve ever dealt with, but I’m just not seeing the reliability.
I been happy with my fire, it is a nice toy for reading and the odd video, but I don’t see it as much more than a toy. I gather the Ipad is much more capable, but it’s a capability that I can’t fathom using. I’m assuming portability is the key, but for me I don’t see anything i could do with a tablet that I wouldn’t rather do with a full desktop.
Put me firmly in the Tablet = Toy category. That goes for the Droid tablets, Kindle Fires, and mighty iPads. Love my iPad for what it does, but the screen is too small for me to do real work beyond the occasional email.