I don't understand why Android tablet manufacturers are failing

[vi edit]

Look, widgets are useful. Perhaps to you they aren't if the only thing you try to use them for is news headlines. That's fine, that's your choice. All I know is that I can take a glance at my phone and see what the weather is like. I can turn wifi, bluetooth, hotspot on and off with a simple tap on the main screen, as well as a host of other things are incredibly useful to me, and I'm not alone.

Notification center helped with the weather thing.

But that's a major gripe I have about the included weather icon for iOS. You can update the calendar icon to have the current date but you can't update the weather to the current temp every hour or so and display that on the button? Boooo!

 

[Brian Stirling]

Apple may have lost the market share battle in the smart phone segment but they make more money than anybody from them. I seem to recall that Toyota sells many times as many cars as BMW but BMW makes about as much money in total. Apple makes more per phone before AND after the sale and that applies to tablets as well.

It's going to be nearly impossible to make money with Android tablets given the hold Apple has at the top and the unit numbers hold the Fire and Kindle have at the bottom. I do hope the Android tablet makers get there act together soon because if Apple were smart and expanded there smart phone and tablet line up to include larger smart phones and smaller tablets they could squeeze all the profit out of the industry.

If Apple would spend more time and money on expanding there product lines and less on lawyers they'd own both markets beyond any argument.


Brian

 

[Red Storm]

i have a droid pro with the turn features on/off widget. in that case it's usefull because its buggy and won't connect to some wifi networks automatically

but my iphone, i don't fiddle with it to make widgets any useful. same with most iphone owners i see. it's a phone, it has applications. you use the apps. simple. worst case double tap the home button and open the app from the multi tasking bar if you don't want to search for it.

the few widgets i use on my droid pro are buggy and more trouble than they are worth

I guess there's no hope in having a reasonable discussion with you over this. My point was that with iOS I had to go into the settings menu to turn these things on and off, whereas Android gives me the option to skip that altogether with a much faster and more efficient method. The same applies to things like weather conditions.

Back on topic... and I've pretty much said all I needed to already.

 

[theeedude]

i played with them when i had an android phone last year and didn't like them. even at 4.3" the screen is too small for a lot of things. i found that 90% of the data they pulled was useless and annoyed me about battery life. a lot of them are buggy

for news on my iphone and ipad i use feedly, zite, flipboard, and news360. i open the app and get a lot more news in a snapshot than having a widget there the whole time. breaking news i get push notifications to my idevices. no need for widgets

That's the difference though. You have to decide to want to open the news app before knowing if there is anything interesting on the news at all. I wake up in the morning and I see widgets: gmail, calendar, and google reader/news headlines, redfin RSS feed with new houses on sale. I don't have to decide to click on anything to see any of that, and if nothing interests me, I don't need to click on anything at all before finding that out. It's like a menu outside of a restaurant. Sure I could go in, sit down, get the menu and then decide if anything interest me. Or I could look at the menu outside and decide if I want to go in at all, and if nothing is appealing, that will save me time. You also have to take into account the higher resolutions of the newer tablets. If all the OS is using it for is higher res icons and sharper text, it's really not utilizing the new tech to its fullest extent.

 

[Dulanic]

i have a droid pro with the turn features on/off widget. in that case it's usefull because its buggy and won't connect to some wifi networks automatically

but my iphone, i don't fiddle with it to make widgets any useful. same with most iphone owners i see. it's a phone, it has applications. you use the apps. simple. worst case double tap the home button and open the app from the multi tasking bar if you don't want to search for it.

the few widgets i use on my droid pro are buggy and more trouble than they are worth

and not widget related, but android phones need to learn to play music over USB ports like idevices

Seriously... the only widget that is useful is a wifi toggle because your wifi doesnt work? Really? Seeing my voicemails right on the screen is useless, seeing most recent texts is useless, seeing stock tickers is useless. To control my music /w a widget is useless too. If Apple had widgets they would be gods gift to man...

BTW my phone plays it over wifi and/or bluetooth, why do I need it to play over USB?

Both Apple and Google have +s and -s, but to say widgets are useless just shows your true blindness and bias.

 

[Doboji]

And the number 1,2,3 smartphones in the US by sales? iP4s. iP4, and iP3GS

The iP3GS outsells the hottest Android phone.

The average Joe on the flipping street knows the iPad 3 is coming FFS!!!

I honestly freak out on how popular Apple products are.

Yeah the popularity is crazy. But Android is catching up... everyone knows what an Android phone is now. And average Joe thinks it's just as good as the iPhone... Thats major progress.

You will never have a single blockbuster Android phone like you do with iPhones... there's too much variety of essentially the same thing. Why would everyone buy a RazR when you have the choice between the RazR, Nexus, Rezound etc... you won't... whereas if you want an iOS device you buy an iPhone period... only variety is White and Black.

 

[bearxor]

but to say widgets are useless just shows your true blindness and bias.

Widgets are useless to him. Just as I could say they're useless to me.

It's an opinion, not a rule, which is what most Android v iOS threads really come down to and why there's at least two great device OS's. (RIM and Microsoft are just looking in the window right now

 

[alent1234]

Seriously... the only widget that is useful is a wifi toggle because your wifi doesnt work? Really? Seeing my voicemails right on the screen is useless, seeing most recent texts is useless, seeing stock tickers is useless. To control my music /w a widget is useless too. If Apple had widgets they would be gods gift to man...

BTW my phone plays it over wifi and/or bluetooth, why do I need it to play over USB?

Both Apple and Google have +s and -s, but to say widgets are useless just shows your true blindness and bias.

i get that with the iOS 5 notification center and there is an iOS music control widget. been there for over a year now. on the ipad it also controls the brightness

 

[vi edit]

i get that with the iOS 5 notification center

Yeh but Apple still has a draconian lockdown of the lock screen. A weather widget (or calendendar, or whatever) would be nice to have there.

 

[alent1234]

there is a calendar icon on the home screen and the notification center has the day's calendar data locked at the top

 

[Red Storm]

i get that with the iOS 5 notification center and there is an iOS music control widget. been there for over a year now. on the ipad it also controls the brightness

I don't think you get it. All that info is right there on your main screen. You don't have to tap, swipe, or make any kind of gesture to get to some other place to see it. It's right there on your home screen.

 

[alent1234]

so you never leave the home screen? what if you lock your phone on one of the end screens? you have to swipe a few times to get back to the time and weather and other widgets

 

[Red Storm]

so you never leave the home screen? what if you lock your phone on one of the end screens? you have to swipe a few times to get back to the time and weather and other widgets

No, I don't, because thanks to having a dedicated app drawer, I only need to use one home screen.

I have time (tap for alarms), date (tap for calendar), weather (tap for weather and news), wifi (tap to toggle, hold to go straight to the wifi menu), bluetooth (same as wifi), hotspot (again, same options), and a flashlight toggle as well. Below that I have my calendar events listed. That's what makes widgets useful to me, I can bring everything together onto one screen so I can avoid having to jump through menus and apps to do basic things that shouldn't involve launching a new app window.

 

[QueBert]

Yeah the popularity is crazy. But Android is catching up... everyone knows what an Android phone is now. And average Joe thinks it's just as good as the iPhone... Thats major progress.

No, just no, the average Joe still doesn't even know what Android is. My cousin thinks Droid and Android are 2 different things. He's representative of an average joe imho. I'm sure there are a number of smart non techie consumers who do know what Android is. But I'd bet you $100 if you asked 100 random people with Android phones what OS their phone ran, less than 10% would be able to answer. My cousin bought his Samsung phone because he liked the screen, he had absolutely zero idea it was Android. He even called to ask me why it was asking for his Google account when he 1st was setting it up. "I don't have a Google account, how do I make it use my Yahoo!" He was ready to take it back until I explained it to him it was a Google phone that ran Google's OS. Next to no people I know with Android phones outside of the geeky interweb ones made any sort of educated decision when buying their phone. It wasn't "ohh I love Android!" the typical extent of their thinking is "damn this screen's big and really bright!" Android sells well because when you go into a Verizon or T-Mobile store they'll have 9 different Android devices on display. If there were only 3 Android devices on the market to compete with the 3 iPhones at an AT&T store how do you think Android would be doing?

 

[Nintendesert]

I think it really comes down to how easy it is to buy an iPad vs. the million choices in Android tablets. Consumers are mostly dumb, a simply choice is easier to make than one that involves researching and figuring out what you want and need to buy.

 

[vi edit]

I know we are moving away from a "tablet" conversation...but I would guess that if you polled a recent Android buyer why they bought their phone you'd get one of the following 4 answers back as an overwhelming response...

1) It had a bigger screen
2) It had LTE
3) It was cheap/free/promotion item
4) It's not Apple (which is not the same as "because it's Android")

The first two are serious threats to Apple if the next iPhone doesn't move up in size and to LTE.

When it comes to non-iPads sales the responses would likely be just...

1) Because it was cheap (Kindle Fire, Nook, fire sale Touchpad & Playbook)
2) Because it's not Apple (Which again is not the same as "Because it's Android")

There's just not much to fear other than the bottom end of the market in the cheap sales. It's too early to tell if the Fires are erroding away sales of the iPad or simply pulling in people that otherwise wouldn't have bought in the first place and just filling in the market share rather than stealing it.

 

[theeedude]

No, just no, the average Joe still doesn't even know what Android is. My cousin thinks Droid and Android are 2 different things. He's representative of an average joe imho. I'm sure there are a number of smart non techie consumers who do know what Android is. But I'd bet you $100 if you asked 100 random people with Android phones what OS their phone ran, less than 10% would be able to answer. My cousin bought his Samsung phone because he liked the screen, he had absolutely zero idea it was Android. He even called to ask me why it was asking for his Google account when he 1st was setting it up. "I don't have a Google account, how do I make it use my Yahoo!" He was ready to take it back until I explained it to him it was a Google phone that ran Google's OS. Next to no people I know with Android phones outside of the geeky interweb ones made any sort of educated decision when buying their phone. It wasn't "ohh I love Android!" the typical extent of their thinking is "damn this screen's big and really bright!" Android sells well because when you go into a Verizon or T-Mobile store they'll have 9 different Android devices on display. If there were only 3 Android devices on the market to compete with the 3 iPhones at an AT&T store how do you think Android would be doing?

I think that's a good thing for Android and not so good for Apple. Means there isn't that strong of a preference for Apple's app ecosystem if the average Joe goes into a store and buys a smartphone without even checking what app ecosystem it belongs to and just evaluates it on the merits of the device.

 

[QueBert]

I think that's a good thing for Android and not so good for Apple. Means there isn't that strong of a preference for Apple's app ecosystem if the average Joe goes into a store and buys a smartphone without even checking what app ecosystem it belongs to and just evaluates it on the merits of the device.

strength in numbers will just about always wins the war. I wouldn't say it's a good thing that many uninformed people are probably only buying an Android phone because of the sheer numbers any store will have. My theory is, if Verizon were to carry 10 Android phone and 10 WP7 phones, and an even number had the same size screen. WP7 would sell about as well as Android. That's just my opinion, but most people I know definitely aren't buying Android phones based off any actual device knowledge or anything involving intelligence. They fall into one of these categories

1. OOOH THE SCREENS HUGE!
2. OOOH THE PHONES FREE!

 

[MrX8503]

I think widgets are very useful, hopefully Apple incorporates them in a future iOS sometime. Maybe widgets on iOS will be like the dashboard on Mac OSX.

Regardless of widgets or not, a 10" retina screen is going to be stunning. I'll most likely be getting an iPad3 if it has a retina screen. The iPad3 is going to be a guaranteed knockout success.

 

[Red Storm]

Regardless of widgets or not, a 10" retina screen is going to be stunning. I'll most likely be getting an iPad3 if it has a retina screen. The iPad3 is going to be a guaranteed knockout success.

It would be a knockout success even if it had the same screen as the iPad 2.

 

[MrX8503]

In my case, hopefully it doesn't have the same screen. I've held out on tablets mainly because the screens out now are terrible. It hurts my eyes. This will be my first tablet if the rumors are true.

 

[Red Storm]

I think resolution bumps are going to be the "killer feature" of 2012 tablets. We've seen it with the Transformer, we'll see it with the iPad, and I expect others to follow suit.

 

[zerocool84]

I think widgets are very useful, hopefully Apple incorporates them in a future iOS sometime. Maybe widgets on iOS will be like the dashboard on Mac OSX.

Regardless of widgets or not, a 10" retina screen is going to be stunning. I'll most likely be getting an iPad3 if it has a retina screen. The iPad3 is going to be a guaranteed knockout success.

I can't wait to see that screen in person if true. It'll be so damn sexy.

 

[Oyeve]

I can't wait to see that screen in person if true. It'll be so damn sexy.

Hell yeah. Shit, even I would buy an ipad 3 if it had a retina display. Wish they would come in colors like the old nanos did a few years ago. Would look awesome in metallic orange.

 

[theeedude]

strength in numbers will just about always wins the war. I wouldn't say it's a good thing that many uninformed people are probably only buying an Android phone because of the sheer numbers any store will have. My theory is, if Verizon were to carry 10 Android phone and 10 WP7 phones, and an even number had the same size screen. WP7 would sell about as well as Android. That's just my opinion, but most people I know definitely aren't buying Android phones based off any actual device knowledge or anything involving intelligence. They fall into one of these categories

1. OOOH THE SCREENS HUGE!
2. OOOH THE PHONES FREE!

So Android isn't stopping them if the device is nice and/or the price is right. There are a lot of nice and right priced Android devices out there, so they are golden.