iPad Alternatives: The difference between Vaporware and a real competitor

[DivideBYZero]

The Cliq, the one that sold a lot better.



Multiple RSS feeds, sports score streaming, weather streaming, social network streaming- all available without launching any app.



Widgets being the biggest example. I find it highly amusing because Macs popularized widgets to start with, now it is one of the biggest selling points the Android has over the iPhone(although Apple wisely allows them on the iPad).



You have an interesting assortment of friends from a statistical basis. Almost every dumb phone, Android, WinMo, Symbian and BB have a uSD card shipped with them. That's close to ~85% of the total cell market(not sure on the WebOS devices, and not sure on the exact breakdown of dumb to smartphones).



Given that it is an absolute no brainer to have one from day one, they clearly decided not to have one for a reason.



Build quality? Of what models that they have come out with lately? In their price bracket, Falcon Northwest tends to be significantly better. Sure, if you compare a Mac Pro to a $300 Dell it has an edge(which is what most people do). When you put it up against something in its' price range, the build quality really is pretty far behind. OSX, OTOH, is something that the others can't directly compete with.



I'm not saying that at all. This thread is about the tablet market. Apple had a 30mph perfect pitch with the tripple crown winner at the plate and they bunted. They didn't hit a home run, they didn't even come close. They could have easily hit a home run, but they decided against it. A well placed bunt isn't going to lose you the game, but when the oppurtunity is there to completely dominate a market, why wouldn't you take it? Apple did precisely that with the iPod and most Apple fans hold that up as their crowning achievement. My critique is strictly that they could have done the exact same thing in the tablet and phone market, and decided not to. They are doing everything they can to hand the larger tablet market to someone else, much like the did with the smartphone market. I'm betting they will get their way.



Have you done a lot of work on Macs? How many times have you tried to repair say an iMac with a burnt out analog board? Dealt with a lot of the Mac Pros that shipped with faulty EFIs? Or the constant graphics crashes on the same machines? Bad optical drives too?

Of course, you can say the same sort of things about Dell, but when paying a fairly huge price premium, you don't expect to deal with these things.



CR, really?



Which magazines? Using CR as an example is akin to talking to an 85 year old woman about what 800hp car you should be buying Most of the time the Mac scores major points for OSX. As a hardware company, they aren't good at all.



Do you recall the life time warranty that Apple offered that required a class action lawsuit for them to live up to? If that one is too old for you how about them shipping millions of phones that were shorted out if held as displayed by their CEO and their refusing to do anything until the PR was overwhelming. Have you tried getting replacement parts for Macs when they go bad? Shortly after the launch of the GeForce I had to pay $300 to replace a RageIIc graphics card on a Mac(proprietary build, of course). If you recall that era, it was akin to being forced to pay $30K for a ten year old left over Yugo.



I have, several, in fact I was pretty much an Apple guy from the late 70s until the mid 90s(had other machines here and there, buy my main machine was Apple ][ until right around the launch of NT). For many years after that I was taking care of all family/friends Macs. You truly can't appreciate how many issues they have until you spend a few years with them dealing with what is acceptable in that world(three year old machines, Apple charges $600 for a mobo replacement and you can only get it through them and they won't sell it to you......).



How can I get it running on an iPhone? Motorola went to Swype and got it on their platform. HTC went to Swype and got it on their platform. GVoice is an entirely different level, but in terms of being a consumer device, it is a touch screen phone without Swype in 2H 2010, that is a fairly basic core functionality for a modern cell phone to be missing.



How does setting up time sensitive call forwarding work? How do you make outgoing calls using your custom GVoice number? How about texting directly through GVoice? These things may all work now on the webapp, didn't last time I tried it.

Your posting style sucks. Learn to answer questions in one block rather than quoting a post 15 times.

 

[TheStu]

Your posting style sucks.

I actually was preferring it.

Learn to answer questions in one block rather than quoting a post 15 times.

When having to address multiple points, it allows you to break each one out and address it. Or, if you don't want to address a point, either because it is null or to do so would be to beat a dead horse, then you can remove it.

 

[DivideBYZero]

I actually was preferring it.



When having to address multiple points, it allows you to break each one out and address it. Or, if you don't want to address a point, either because it is null or to do so would be to beat a dead horse, then you can remove it.

To each his own, but for me it strings out a post to epic and unnecessary length. IMHO selected bolded text or numbering point in an OP then addressing them is better.

 

[MrX8503]

I actually don't mind addressing specific points, but good grief that's long.

If the responses were shorter/concise I wouldn't mind the specific points.