iPad Alternatives: The difference between Vaporware and a real competitor

[theeedude]

A sloppy prototype in January vs a full fledged production iPad released in April?

I don't think we'll see a viable tablet for a while either. I think the problem with that is manufacturers can't make a tablet that quick because more than likely they didn't start development until the iPad was released.

January is before April. Your logic is shot.

 

[akugami]

If it was in development for so long, whey did they just use the exact same OS they have on the iPhone??? Just because they STARTED to tinker around with it, doesn't mean it's been in development for all this time. You can plainly tell they've only been working on it for a year or two at most. They hardly customized the OS at all. It still is just a larger iPod Touch.

Cause the iOS was originally made for a tablet device and then was shrunken down and used as a phone operating system. The UI of iOS was built for touch screen devices which is why it works well on the iPhone and iTouch as well as the iPad. It is not a UI built for desktop or laptops.

It's pretty much why the same exact Android OS that's used on phones will be used on tablet devices. Now, I know there are going to be some UI differences to account for the different size displays. There are also companies with their own "skinned" version of Android but they'll likely use the same UI elements on Android whether it's a phone or tablet if it's from the same company.

And I believe Apple made a conscious decision to keep the iPad experience as similar to the iPhone and iTouch as possible. It really ties all three devices into a single ecosystem that is anchored to iTunes. I mean, the touch based UI of iOS works well. It's arguably the best touch based UI for small computing devices. Why mess with it if it works?

January is before April. Your logic is shot.

Strangely enough, depending on how you look at things, April is before January.

I think the point MrX8503 is trying to make is that the iPad has been baking for years. Everyone else might have had a few projects in the backburner but since tablets have failed for years no one was seriously investing in tablets until the iPad. Now everyone's scrambling to get an iPad competitor out.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Which one had the keyboard?

The Cliq, the one that sold a lot better.

What are the widgets doing?

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

Example? Orientation locking is in iOS 4 as something that went from iPad to iPhone.

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).

This is assuming that both you and the friend have devices with MicroSD slots. Which amongst me and my friends is about 50/50.

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).

The iPad 2 or 3 very well might have an SD slot, and other features.

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

Not very overpriced, and they do have real merit. Namely build quality and OS X.

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.

And thank god for choice! I am NOT arguing against it, I am simply saying that the choices Apple has made has not ruined the company as you seem to imply.

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.

Apple as a hardware company isn't "flat out poor" - it's almost ludicrous that you would say that.

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.

In Consumer Reports

CR, really?

Beyond just CR, in other magazines that look as computers as a whole (rather than just Windows or just Mac), they always score consistently at the top as well. Not just near the top, but pretty much always right at the top of the list.

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.

And then beyond usability and reliability, they are consistently ranked number #1 in customer service - usually by a fairly large percentage.

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'll admit that I have never owned a Mac in my life, but I would never say that their computers are poor.

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......).

You can say that they haven't bothered because it will be rejected, and that may be true (or not) but until it's submitted you can't say that Apple doesn't offer it as a choice.

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.

While a "real" Google Voice app would be nice, just making an icon that links to the Google Voice webapp works fine too and looks and acts almost as nice as the Android version.

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.

 

[TheStu]

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

And since neither of us will likely ever know that reason... why keep bringing it up. They will either release an iPad with an SD slot, or they won't. Either way, what they almost certainly won't do is release iOS with file system access.

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.

Falcon Northwest? Really? I am talking about my MacBook that is still going strong after 4 years of daily use, versus roughly the same cost (I think they were $1000 even, mine was $1200 at the time) and spec Dells and Toshibas and Sonys all falling apart within 6 months (school required us to have laptops). I am saying that a MacBook Pro is a better built laptop than an equivalent PC.

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.

You hold up the iPod as an example of them taking control of a market. ANd that's fair, I think at one point I did the same thing. However, something that I am not sure of, and it is hard for me to find data on, is how long it took them to get to a majority share of the market. When the first iPod came out, it was $400 and only worked on Macs. That is not the version that took 8- percent of the market. The next version was a little better, worked on Windows, but only over firewire, which not many PCs had/have. So I don't think that was the winner either. So now we are in 2003, 2 years later. This one has the 30 pin dock connector, iTunes Music Store is released, and I think the price has dropped, or at least the capacity is up.

I do not know the answer to this, but is this when they started getting popular? Or was it the next year when they started selling the Mini in colors? I know that the Mini was the best selling iPod ever, and right in the middle of its life, while it was still popular, Apple killed it off and introduced the Nano, and it is now the most popular iPod (Actually the Touch might be, but they don't hash out sales numbers for the Shuffle/Nano/Classic/Touch). It took them years to get a large market share with the iPod.

Another thing to consider is this. Let's say that Apple made your ideal iPad, one that you and millions of other people were guaranteed to buy. It wouldn't matter because they can't even meet the current demand, let alone the magical unknown demand if they hand 'swung at the pitch' and 'gone for the home run'. That was something that I saw somewhere else, what is Apple going to do, production wise, when they are moving 100s of millions of devices in a year?

 

[MrX8503]

January is before April. Your logic is shot.

January is before April but what I'm saying is that they had a prototype in Jan while Apple has a finished product in April.

Finished product > prototype

Apple's lead and success is proof of Apple spending more development time. If this wasn't the case than we would have a competitor, but we don't.

For example HP just bought Palm, you really think a webOS tablet would be in development all these years? No, and I suspect a lot of tablet makers are in the same boat.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Falcon Northwest? Really?

Very seriously. You brought up laptops so let's compare laptops

Both systems- i5 2.4GHZ, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, the Mac with a 15" screen, the FNW with a 15.6" screen. Price? FNW $1701.85, Mac $1799. That is my point. Sure, when you compare the Mac to something that is half the price it has an edge in build quality, but when you put it up against something with a comparable price and specs- still cheaper mind you, but comparable, it really doesn't look good at all.

I am saying that a MacBook Pro is a better built laptop than an equivalent PC.

I'm saying that is wrong in no uncertain terms. When you compare them dollar for dollar and spec to spec, Macs are just vastly overpriced. Too many people want to compare them by specs instead of by dollar or by dollar amount where the "typical" PCs have a big edge in specs. When you compare them using both criteria you have to use FNW to get a comparably priced machine and FNW's build quality far exceeds Apple's, while still being cheaper.

Another thing to consider is this. Let's say that Apple made your ideal iPad, one that you and millions of other people were guaranteed to buy. It wouldn't matter because they can't even meet the current demand, let alone the magical unknown demand if they hand 'swung at the pitch' and 'gone for the home run'.

They could certainly meet demand if they were willing to reduce their insane profit margins. Start using plants oustide of second world countries as an example. This is an option they have, I'm sure Japan and Taiwan could significantly outproduce Foxconn's slave camps if Apple were willing to have something like a miniscule 50% profit margin 🙂

 

[MrX8503]

Mac laptops aren't overpriced, if they were then the adamo, hp envy line would be overpriced too. Not many laptops are metal and 1" thin

 

[TheStu]

Very seriously. You brought up laptops so let's compare laptops

Both systems- i5 2.4GHZ, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, the Mac with a 15" screen, the FNW with a 15.6" screen. Price? FNW $1701.85, Mac $1799. That is my point. Sure, when you compare the Mac to something that is half the price it has an edge in build quality, but when you put it up against something with a comparable price and specs- still cheaper mind you, but comparable, it really doesn't look good at all.

Why did you choose a Falcon? Do you have one? Do you also have a unibody Mac? Which one is lighter? Which one has better battery life? I saw that the Falcon has a 1080p screen, which is a nice touch.

Does it only come in yellow?

I'm saying that is wrong in no uncertain terms. When you compare them dollar for dollar and spec to spec, Macs are just vastly overpriced. Too many people want to compare them by specs instead of by dollar or by dollar amount where the "typical" PCs have a big edge in specs. When you compare them using both criteria you have to use FNW to get a comparably priced machine and FNW's build quality far exceeds Apple's, while still being cheaper.

I have never had hands on a Falcon, so I couldn't speak to their build quality. All that I know is that I have two 6 year old PowerBooks, one that basically only sat on a desk (and therefore has very few scratches/dents) and the other that went through 3 years of daily use at college. Both are still running, the latest OS, and doing 'ok'. They can't really keep up in terms of CPU, but they are still running just fine. I mentioned my 4 year old MacBook as well. It is anecdotal evidence, but that is what I have to go off of. And all I have is anecdotal evidence about PC laptops, namely that it is only business class machines (the ones that usually cost more) that last that long.

They could certainly meet demand if they were willing to reduce their insane profit margins. Start using plants oustide of second world countries as an example. This is an option they have, I'm sure Japan and Taiwan could significantly outproduce Foxconn's slave camps if Apple were willing to have something like a miniscule 50% profit margin 🙂

I think that their profit margin already is at around 50%. The iSuppli numbers are nice and all, but don't tell the whole story.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Not many laptops are metal and 1" thin

Well, if you want thin and light FNW has a 0.75" 3 pound laptop, nowhere near as obnoxiously huge and heavy as the current Mac laptops 😉 For me there is a line that divides 'fits in the pocket' and 'doesn't fit in the pocket'; as long as it falls into category 2, all I really care about is the weight.

Why did you choose a Falcon?

I was picking the most obscenely overbuilt PC laptop I could think of that I have ever actually had hands on time with. The build quality is completely over the top, and still less then a comparably specced Mac.

Which one is lighter?

The Mac is lighter by a couple of ounces(5.6lbs vs 6lbs).

Which one has better battery life?

Doing what? That's a bit of a generic question, much like phones it can change quite a bit. OSX seems to handle certain tasks better then Windows in terms of power management, and the opposite is also true. I would imagine that the Mac would have a slight edge overall thanks to its' smaller/lower resolution screen.

Does it only come in yellow?

Heh, FNW is well known for their paint options, noone is remotely close- http://www.falcon-nw.com/custom-painting - The company is highly specialized builders which is why they cost so much more then any remotely reasonable priced machine with comparable specs. Or slightly less then a Mac 🙂

All that I know is that I have two 6 year old PowerBooks, one that basically only sat on a desk (and therefore has very few scratches/dents) and the other that went through 3 years of daily use at college. Both are still running, the latest OS, and doing 'ok'.

I have a 7 year old Dell laptop here that was a complete POS when new and it still works just fine. It was a cheap Celeron laptop, not even when one of the higher end consumer models.

And all I have is anecdotal evidence about PC laptops, namely that it is only business class machines (the ones that usually cost more) that last that long.

http://smidgenpc.com/2010/05/07/laptop-reliability-ratings-which-laptop-is-really-most-reliable/

20% of all laptops fail within 3 years, Apple was at 17.4% which put them in fourth place. Not terrible, better then average, but still behind 3 other mainstream PC laptop builders(this doesn't include companies like FNW or Voodoo).

I think that their profit margin already is at around 50%. The iSuppli numbers are nice and all, but don't tell the whole story.

Looking at what comparable tablets sell for in China is a better gauge then iSuppli.

 

[MrX8503]

Well, if you want thin and light FNW has a 0.75" 3 pound laptop, nowhere near as obnoxiously huge and heavy as the current Mac laptops 😉 For me there is a line that divides 'fits in the pocket' and 'doesn't fit in the pocket'; as long as it falls into category 2, all I really care about is the weight.

Nice try, but try again. The FNW has a ULV, integrated GPU, and an external disc drive. It's not even the same laptop as a MBP 13. What is the FNW made of? The mbp 13 is cheaper too.

I really don't understand your concept of overpriced, but alas I don't know what any of that has to do with tablets.

 

[slackerinabox]

Nice try, but try again. The FNW has a ULV, integrated GPU, and an external disc drive. It's not even the same laptop as a MBP 13. What is the FNW made of? The mbp 13 is cheaper too.

I really don't understand your concept of overpriced, but alas I don't know what any of that has to do with tablets.

Yikes, let's not forget that that FNW laptop is HIDEOUS too.

Mac laptop's aren't really over priced - they're build very well (I can't say they have the best build quality since I love thinkpads, but that's sorta Apples to Oranges), full of top notch productivity components, and have very good battery life. Sure, there are other pcs that are as good, but they cost similar feature for feature. Heck, I just realized today that my notebook PC doesn't have HELVETICA which I needed for a creative project (free on my iMac upstairs). I was just going to fonts.com and ... well, i'll let you see the sticker price 🙂 That's the thing - add on all the value added software (iLife in particular) and you have a great out of the box experience, vs. trying to get crappy open source alternatives on your pc. Shit, I haven't even found a simple Apple Photobooth style program that doesn't look like it was designed by kindergarten.

Let's also remember that the resale value is awesome - I could sell my 3 year old iMac for $1200-1500 or so, I doubt I can sell my 3 year old Dell for that much 🙂

Though I'm a die hard windows junky at heart since I find some aspects of OS X maddening and prefer the simplicity of Windows 7. Hardware wise, however, I don't think it's fair to knock apple or honest to say equivalent pcs are significantly cheaper.

(And I'd really like well built and capacitive android tablet, or will wait for the iPad to have a price cut)

 

[tatteredpotato]

I thought I accidentally stumbled into the wrong sub-forum for a sec here lol.

 

[Pliablemoose]

I thought I accidentally stumbled into the wrong sub-forum for a sec here lol.

Shut up you, I love my cheap Dells :awe:

Srsly, yeah, pretty off topic & pointless.

 

[TheStu]

I thought I accidentally stumbled into the wrong sub-forum for a sec here lol.

Yea we have kind of wandered off the topic of iPad and iPad alternatives... Oops.

On topic, the NotionInk Adam looks interesting, but I will reserve judgement until it actually ships. Regardless of how many prototypes they show, it is still tantamount to vaporware until it ships. I would also be interested in seeing the reviewers take on widescreen vs 4:3 on the iPad.

 

[rudeguy]

Yea we have kind of wandered off the topic of iPad and iPad alternatives... Oops.

On topic, the NotionInk Adam looks interesting, but I will reserve judgement until it actually ships. Regardless of how many prototypes they show, it is still tantamount to vaporware until it ships. I would also be interested in seeing the reviewers take on widescreen vs 4:3 on the iPad.

That's been my point in this thread.... How can you judge something that doesn't exist?

 

[preslove]

Yea we have kind of wandered off the topic of iPad and iPad alternatives... Oops.

On topic, the NotionInk Adam looks interesting, but I will reserve judgement until it actually ships. Regardless of how many prototypes they show, it is still tantamount to vaporware until it ships. I would also be interested in seeing the reviewers take on widescreen vs 4:3 on the iPad.

Again, to call something "vaporware" when a release date has never been set and its first-to-market competitor is only 4 months old is a ridiculous misuse of the term. Give it a year, at least, before you start throwing it around.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Again, to call something "vaporware" when a release date has never been set and its first-to-market competitor is only 4 months old is a ridiculous misuse of the term. Give it a year, at least, before you start throwing it around.

Or before there's official support from the platform manager.

 

[preslove]

Or before there's official support from the platform manager.

srsly.

Calling it vaporware is basically just trolling.

 

[TheStu]

srsly.

Calling it vaporware is basically just trolling.

Well, I am certainly not trying to troll, however here is a question, part of what is supposed to make the Adam so awesome (to my understanding) is the special Pixel Qi screen. Has that actually shown up anywhere else yet?

 

[preslove]

Well, I am certainly not trying to troll, however here is a question, part of what is supposed to make the Adam so awesome (to my understanding) is the special Pixel Qi screen. Has that actually shown up anywhere else yet?

They already have DIY kits out and came in on schedule: http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MKPQ01&Click=37845


In January, Pixel Qi's founder said that a screen with their tech will be put out by a major US manufacturer in 2010. We have almost 4 months left in 2010, so it's still early.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/08/pixelqi-screens-to-be-used-by-major-manufacturer-in-2010/

Keep in mind, they only were founded in 2008 as an OLPC spin off. It's really premature to criticize them for taking too long to bring a product to market. They're making screens, but now working with manufacturers to actually get them in finished devices. That takes time, and there is no evidence that they're being too slow, let alone vaporware.

 

[MrX8503]

Again, to call something "vaporware" when a release date has never been set and its first-to-market competitor is only 4 months old is a ridiculous misuse of the term. Give it a year, at least, before you start throwing it around.

If a prototype was canned then it is vaporware. The courier and hp slate are examples of this. I'm also positive that half of those prototypes will never see the light of day or will fail miserably.

Anyway, the newly announced motorola android 3.0 tablet sounds interesting.

 

[rudeguy]

Well, I am certainly not trying to troll, however here is a question, part of what is supposed to make the Adam so awesome (to my understanding) is the special Pixel Qi screen. Has that actually shown up anywhere else yet?

I don't think you're trolling in the least.

Until something actually can be purchased, call it whatver you want. Vaporware, rumor, myth, Elenor....the fact is that it doesn't exist. And nothing exists currently to compete with the iPad. Its just a fact.

 

[cheezy321]

Again, to call something "vaporware" when a release date has never been set and its first-to-market competitor is only 4 months old is a ridiculous misuse of the term. Give it a year, at least, before you start throwing it around.

1 year is an insanely long amount of time when it comes to cutting edge hardware...

There will be 7 different refreshes of the ipad by then 😉

 

[JS80]

wtf is going on in here?

 

[cbn]

They already have DIY kits out and came in on schedule: http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MKPQ01&Click=37845


In January, Pixel Qi's founder said that a screen with their tech will be put out by a major US manufacturer in 2010. We have almost 4 months left in 2010, so it's still early.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/08/pixelqi-screens-to-be-used-by-major-manufacturer-in-2010/

Keep in mind, they only were founded in 2008 as an OLPC spin off. It's really premature to criticize them for taking too long to bring a product to market. They're making screens, but now working with manufacturers to actually get them in finished devices. That takes time, and there is no evidence that they're being too slow, let alone vaporware.

Yep, that screen does look interesting.

After that article Engadget actually bought one and installed it. You can see the video here (after scrolling down)