... when I say form factor of the Xoom, I'm referring to the dimensions of the rectangle, and the thickness of the bezel.
That's not form factor. Examples of form factors are the SFF or small form factor computer cases such as those made by shuttle. Then there are the candybar form factor for cell phones. The iPhone and Droid are examples of the slate form factor. Actual dimensions and design may differ but it follows a general size and shape. And from that standpoint, the original iPad was a very nice feeling device and the iPad 2 is said to be sleeker and lighter. I'd chalk design up to user preference. No advantage to either device.
I think you're confusing the issue here... the question is not... "Which tablet is best for the lowest common denominator?"... in terms of that there's no question the iPad is best. The question is "Which tablet is best for ME?"... I am not the lowest common denominator, and for me the Xoom in terms of hardware is Superior... not vastly superior... but it is Superior... the UI is vastly superior... the Apps are a wash... and the Media capabilities is vastly inferior.
Actually, I'm not confusing the issue. No matter how you look at it, the Xoom has only a
slight edge in terms of hardware and physical specs at best. In terms of software the iPad 2 has a huge advantage. You yourself (not to mention others) talk about your devices hanging or crashing. That's not being superior. I know it's mincing words but superior implies the Xoom would be heads and tails better than the iPad 2. Meaning there is no question everyone but idiots should be buying the Xoom over the iPad 2. That is not even close to being the case.
The iPad 2 is at best only slightly lower in hardware and I do mean slightly while being ahead in software. In many cases, having better software can alleviate weaker hardware. Case in point, all of those higher clocked and higher benchmarking Android phones didn't mean the user interface was as smooth as that of an "inferior" iPhone. Not to mention I already showed why the lower RAM present in iOS devices actually is as good as having more RAM in Android devices. This is not saying iOS or Android is superior or inferior to the other, they just work differently. In this case, the way Android works necessitates more RAM than iOS for app switching.
Incidentally I looked at Anand's review of the Xoom and apparently the screen, while larger, is inferior to the original ipad's screen. I know you mentioned the larger panel size and higher resolution as a plus but the screen is not as good as an iPad 1's screen and presumably not as good as the iPad 2's screen. Now, it goes without saying that we need to see an actual review of the iPad 2's screen before we can make a judgment. Considering the similarity in size of the Xoom and iPad's screen, enough that it's difficult as I've said to notice without having them side by side, it comes down to who has the better quality screen rather than size.
Also of note is that while I've stated in the past that Flash is irrelevant on a phone to me, on a tablet device this is more important. This weighs in favor of Android since the iPad doesn't have Flash except if you jailbreak it and install a hacked version of Flash.
The iPad can multitask. What's with the implication that it can't?
You exit the app normally, then you go back and it's finished the task you left it with, or it picks up where you left off. If you keep it playing music, it'll keep playing music as you work in other things. If you leave it to downloading stuffs, it'll download stuffs while you work on other things.
For the most part, it's not true multitasking. Outside of a few special functions, when you switch to a different app, the ones in the background are completely halted. This is fine on a phone but not as good on a tablet. With a Honeycomb device, you can have tasks performing in the background while you do something else in the foreground.
Honestly, it's not that bad.
The push notification system Apple implements is top notch. I don't see webOS or Android making much use of the push notifications. Without push notifications, Android keeps apps open. While this works fine for powerhouse devices like 512mb+ RAM phones, I can see it failing on my 256mb Droid. For example I've seen Meebo just quit on its own.
Apple's push notification is functional. That's about it. It needs some improvement. I am not a fan of Apple's current notification system.
Apple has already pointed out that you only need multitasking in certain situations. While you may call this restrictive, it's pretty true. The multitasking you see on Android is roughly the same, and the only differences I see are that apps like SetCPU can run in the background.
The problem is in this case we're talking about tablets. It's ok on phones and I don't mind it. I think it's fine on my iPhone. But when we're talking about tablets, I think it needs full blown multi-tasking. Different device types, different design needs.
Facebook
Twitter