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The Chair

daringfireball.net

171–180 of 186 posts

Re: The Chair

#171
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I've tried a Xoom today, I also have bought an iPad a while back. Have you tried a Xoom yourself? I don't really see the relevance of the number of applications to the the UI experience.

I have tried one myself otherwise I wouldn't have asked. The relevance is that the apps are what provide the UI. For the iPad there are 65,000 of them customized to utilize the full screen. For the Xoom, there are 16 customized for the full screen, and the rest are literally just blown up phone apps, many of which don't even rescale properly.

Actually, I have been pretty disappointed with iPad apps. Many, many iPhone apps haven't been ported over, and the iPhone app experience on the iPad is pretty shoddy, not even using the Retina graphics.

Re: The Chair

#172

Regardless of whether you feel Gruber is a fan boy or not, you gotta admit he's a great writer. Always look forward to his pieces.

I agree. I've been following him for a long time (before he quit his day job!), and he is absolutely a great writer. Daringfireball, along with HN, are truly my only daily reads. However, while I think he's generally spot on with his Apple analysis, I can see how his detractors are turned off by the smidgeon of smugness in some of his articles.

And his links, OMG. SO SMUG! Half his posts seem to be about digging up the bad sentences from iPad competitor reviews.

Re: The Chair

#173
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people for sure - like the 20% who buy MP3 players other than iPods, but most people bought Android in tbe beginnig because they couldn't buy apple or because apple was more expensive. Now, Android phones are genuinely competitive with the iPhone, but they got there because they had real advantages in availability and price from day one. Android tablets don't have those advantages.

Where did you get these stats? There are a lot of people who prefer other products over Apple's in the same way that there are still a lot of people who still prefer a feature phone over a smartphone.

http://www.businessinsider.com/through-may-apples-ipod-had-7...

Ok - so I was off by 4% - 24% of people pick non-Apple mp3 players.

Re: The Chair

#174
post #77
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I've tried a Xoom today, I also have bought an iPad a while back. Have you tried a Xoom yourself? I don't really see the relevance of the number of applications to the the UI experience.

>> I don't really see the relevance of the number of applications to the the UI experience. This is silly, without apps what value does it offer?

Even with no apps at all, for me it'd trump Apple with this one feature: I can program my own tablet without begging anyone's permission.

Re: The Chair

#175
post #2

The tech press needs to play up the competition to the iPad as much as possible, because drama drives clicks. But the reality is that Apple's iPad is so far ahead of everything else that it's almost out of sight. Have you used one of the 'iPad killers'? That is not competition. It's a joke. You can't even buy any of them, except for Samsung's Galaxy Tab. [And the Motorola Xoom, but only at retail Best Buy in America,…

I am posting this from a nook color running honeycomb smoothly... it is on sale for 200 bucks.

Re: The Chair

#176
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I don't really see the relevance of the number of applications to the the UI experience. This is silly, without apps what value does it offer?

Even with no apps at all, for me it'd trump Apple with this one feature: I can program my own tablet without begging anyone's permission.

That's a reason for some geeks to buy one. It's the reason I looked at buying one - not so much for Android, but for something to build a DIY dynabook on. I still probably will when someone makes something closer to Apple's industrial design, but I don't think that's going to help a whole lot with market share.

Re: The Chair

#177
post #64
post #2

The tech press needs to play up the competition to the iPad as much as possible, because drama drives clicks. But the reality is that Apple's iPad is so far ahead of everything else that it's almost out of sight. Have you used one of the 'iPad killers'? That is not competition. It's a joke. You can't even buy any of them, except for Samsung's Galaxy Tab. [And the Motorola Xoom, but only at retail Best Buy in America,…

Ah, I still remember when the 1st Android phone came out (G1). A lot of people were dismissing it because the IPhone had a 2-year head start. Interface was ugly, phone is thick like a brick, only on 1 carrier, the smallest of the Big 4 at that. Well, how did that turn out? Android is selling more than the IPhone. A proper tablet OS didn't arrive until last month and people are already saying it's almost too late for…

Not sure you can lump all Android phones together against the iPhone. To me it seems Android is now the new baseline. All phones to come out from now on have to be at least this level or they won't sell. Google has now given each carrier the possibility to hit this baseline with relative ease compared to the past.

A fair comparison would be if Apple licensed iOS for any manufacture to put on their phones. Then it would be an apples to apples comparison.

Right now people are comparing a licensed OS with an unlicensed one.

Re: The Chair

#178
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2007, if you said you were going to download an app to edit a high definition movie on your smartphone you'd be institutionalized. Why? I don't recall the first time I saw a phone that came with video editing software, but I'm pretty sure it was before 2007. So if someone had said "in a few years this software will be easier to use and can edit even higher resolution video than it can today", I would have replied,…

Sony Ericsson featurephones have had video editing built-in since 2005.

Being first doesn't matter anymore. Doing it right is everything.

Re: The Chair

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xoom can be bought online at Verizon or Moto websites. That nitpick aside it isn't anywhere near as bad as you are making it out to be. I am typing this post on one. The browser is far better. The OS is far more usable than the iPad, the higher screen resolution is great - I can RDP into my work PC and use it all day. The hardware is top notch, and battery life is plenty. I haven't connected it to a PC yet - have my…

the higher screen resolution is great - I can RDP into my work PC and use it all day. The hardware is top notch, and battery life is plenty. I worked out a way to do this with my iPad. And you know what made me say "wow"? The way a triple head 1920x1280(ish) 24" desktop was so usable on a 10" 1024x768 iPad because I could zoom out . You're not going to get desktop resolution on a tablet any time soon, and not properl…

The way a triple head 1920x1280(ish) 24" desktop was so usable on a 10" 1024x768 iPad because I could zoom out.

Years ago I remember playing around with a proof of concept for Archy[1], a new user-interface concept by Jef Raskin. The basic idea was that all the contents of the computer were on a great big canvas, which you could zoom in and out of. One "folder" of pictures, might be little specks up in this corner, which you could then zoom in on and browse. Then you would zoom out, pan to the side and zoom in on something else. The browser's "links" were really tiny pages, so if you wanted to follow a link you would just zoom in on it and the new page would take up the screen.

It was a very interesting concept, although it was difficult to use at the time. But with pinch and zoom multitouch, I'm sure the whole experience would be worlds different.

I unfortunately can't seem now to find the demo I played with. :-(

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy

Re: The Chair

#180
When was the last time that Gruber disagreed with anything Apple did, and didn't have a long list of reasons about why it was good for you, all consumers, and society?

I can't even read his posts. They are simply too propaganda-like.

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