iPad vs "the rest"

Plastic Logic shutters US offices, gets out of making its own e-readers -- Engadget

I saw one of their early units at CES before the iPad was introduced in January 2010. For some earlier posts about them, see Plasticlogic -- Engadget. Once the iPad was introduced, that threw a monkey wrench in their plans.

 

I was checking new posts today on my phone and came accross http://priuschat.com/forums/freds-house-pancakes/109439-baby-mama-drama.html Normally I use Opera Mini because it formats it into a single column for easier reading and it's server based so it saves data. For the site TN Man “Fathers†30 Kids But Can’t Support Any It is formatted as desk top version. The video box said "Adobe Flash Player is required to view this content. Please click here to install" Opera Mini neither supports Flash nor HTML5. I opened the site with the native brower, Dolphin browser, Maxthon broswer, and Opera Mobile. All these browsers showed the embedded video playback in desktop mode. When I tapped the video, it change to full screen. Firefox displayed desktop version doesn't support Flash. Skyfire showed mobile site and won't load the desktop version and no video.
I tried the same site on a friend's 3GS with iOS 5.1. The page loaded in desktop version but won't play the video as embedded. When he tapped the video, it played in full screen. He said that alot of the sites won't play the video as embedded, only full screen.

 

I have a hp touchpad, got during the firesale ,
It started out good, then I could not open up 1/2 sites
Like this site, most of the threads would not open
my wife got me a iPad 3, it just works, there are things I still can not work, but that just after using windows since the mid 80's, it hard to change os

 

I think that what happens is that tapping the embedded video (Flash) launches the YouTube app and plays the HTML 5 version on YouTube.

 

So exactly how small do you want your video playback to be? I fully desire and expect video played on my iPhone, regardless of the source of the video, to be full screen... otherwise you might as well carry a magnifying glass around with you so you can see whats going on. This isn't a 20" computer screen where you can see everything on an embedded video just fine... it's a 3.5" screen.

If you enjoy viewing video the size of a postage stamp, then go right ahead and do so on another device.

 

Full screen video is easy for the OS to handle. Embedded video is what makes it hard for the OS to handle. It's not about should it, it's about would it and could it. Flash is not all about videos, it's about interactions from the website. I'm using embedded video as an example.
Flash may be dying but if Apple released an iPad that can handle both Flash and HTML5 and another iPad that will only do HTML5, are you gonna tell me that you's still choose the iPad that can't handle Flash?

 

So you want to be able to view a video on your phone the size of my thumb, just because it's more "difficult" for the OS to handle?

First, get a clue. It's not about the OS. In that case, the OS has nothing to do with it. It's about the specific app that's being used. There are multiple browsers you can use on the iPhone, and they can handle content (like videos) differently. The difference in displaying full screen versus embedded video really aren't that much. In one case, you're drawing the the entire screen. In another, you're drawing to a small portion of it. The GPU does all the heavy lifting and takes care of the details for you.

Second, Flash support is not exactly a question of hardware. Yes, when Apple released the first iPhone, they determined that Flash requires too many system resources to make it viable - it would run too slowly. From other phones that then came out with flash support, that determination as shown to be pretty accurate... flash ran very slowly and chewed up the battery. However, the question of including Flash is one of software support. No company would have two semi-identical devices whose only difference was support of Flash. They would simply release an app that supported Flash.

As it is, people have supported Flash in jailbroken apps. The only reason you can't use Flash in a 3rd party browser from the App store is because Apple doesn't allow it. If they changed their minds, you'd be able to download it for any device you wanted. It's all about the software, not the hardware.

 

Thanks for making my point. It is about the OS not allowing the official Flash to be installed. Why should I use a 3rd party browser just to see Flash. Also How do I know that its native flash and not the app converting Flash to HTML5 on the fly? Why should one jailbreak their iPad just to unlock features that should have been there in the first place? I'm using embedded flash video as an example. If you want me to use something else I'll do that.

You're right, there isn't. However, there are several headset makers that release several semi identical phones with different physical and/or software features. HTC's One X does not have a microsd slot while the EVO One for Sprint has microSD slot. It is enough difference for some people to jump ship from their current carrier to hop over to Sprint just to get the phone with MicroSD slot.
Galaxy SII for AT&T has different screen size, CPU, 4G speed, battery capacity, Google Talk video support, Android version, and camera features than T-Mobile's version. If I live in an area with no 3G coverage, I'd buy the T-Mobile's SII instead of the AT&T's SII.

iOS as a whole is flawed because of the control freaks behind it. To unlock the iPad's full potential, you have to jailbreak it and install a ton of apps to do what other tablets can do out of the box. Even then, you're still limited to its hardware or the lack of.
Sure there are a lot of hardware accessories out there for the iOS devices but they all have to be approved by Apple. Moneto
is releasing a MicroSD memory card with embedded NFC chip for payment transaction similar to Google wallet. When I ask the engineers about the card, the guy told me that they offer 1GB for now and will go to 32GB capacity in the futuer. They show me a case designed for the iPhone. I got my hopes up thinking that it will add storage capacity to the iphone. The engineer said that Apple does not allow external storage so they have no choice but to disable the storage portion of the MicroSD card.

Google has always been behind it's developers and manufacturers. They innovate new technologies while Apple sits and watches. When will the iphone support NFC or make sharing files more easily between 2 devices?

It's good for Apple because they're playing it safe. It's also bad because many tech junkies won't sit and wait for Apple to catch up.

If you Google "things that iOS can do that Android can't" You'll be flooded with pages and pages of how the iOS can't keep up with Android.

iPhone can't complete with everyone so it completes with itself. Notice how at the end of some iphone commercial the narrator say "It's the most amazing iPhone yet"

I fell the same way as this guy A Die-Hard Mac and iPhone Evangelist Changes His Tune | ClickZ.asia

 

If you are a computer geek apple is not for you , if you want to just work get an iPad

I have a touchpad, and got tried of just not working and had an iPad now

It the same as modding a car, either you want to or you do not see the point

Get the one that works for you

One think I do know, like car designs, app design do not know what the general public want , they always make the simple thing hard to do or understand

 

cproaudio, you gave plenty of examples of hardware differentiation... yeah, there are different sets of hardware out there. Right now, Apple has many different versions of the iPhone available... there's the technology difference for different networks. There's version differences between the 3Gs, 4 and 4S. They have quite a few different versions of the iPad available - the new iPad, the iPad2, ones with wifi only, ones with 3G support, ones with 4G support.

They aren't as widely differentiated as Android devices... but they're just one company, while many companies make Android devices and need to differentiate themselves from each other.

What about software differentiation between the different Android devices? I know there's some, and frankly, it sucks. It means that a new version of Android comes out, and you have to sit there and wait for your manufacturer to work in their specific customizations before you can use it. Sounds like fun... I'd rather just download the new iOS the day it's available.

You say install a "ton of apps" to do what others can do. Like what? An Android device might come out of the box with twitter and facebook integration... but who really cares? If you don't use those (and I don't use twitter), then you don't want them. If you want them... it takes all of 30 seconds to find and download the app on the iPhone. It's free. What's the big deal?

Jailbreaking doesn't really get you much, as I found out when I played around with it. You can customize your experience if you want (but honestly, you don't really need to), you can add Flash and ripped programs that are available without the consent of the original authors. What else can you do jailbreaking that you can't do normally? Jailbreaking simply doesn't interest most of the public because it's not that useful.

I really don't see the point of external storage. My phone is plenty big enough to hold everything I want on it, with room to spare. If there's something else I want, I can download it (for free!) from the cloud straight to my device. If it's something new, I purchase it and it downloads automatically to both my phone and computer. Why do I need the ability to carry a dozen SD cards around with me just so I can have a terabyte of storage for my Phone? Even the iPad is a stretch... In what situation would I need more than the hundreds of hours of audio or video it can hold? There's wifi or 3G/4G everywhere.

 

How 100 iPads saved Greece $140 billion - Apple 2.0 - Fortune Tech

 

They should send over 10,000 more.

 

Cius is dead

Cisco to end Cius business tablet - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal
Cisco Says See Ya to Cius Tablet - Digits - WSJ - one may need to Google for Cisco Says See Ya to Cius Tablet to read the entire article

 

I just got back from a short trip. Threw the iPad and a bluetooth keyboard in the bag with the weighs-nothing charger, I was good to go; no need to lug the heavy Macbook Air around anymore!

 

Dell executive: 'Shiny' iPads are not good for business | ZDNet - funny how they're throwing stones despite their tablet failures...

 

Well that's a pretty generic column. I could see that some businesses who are stuck on Windows would like a Windows 8 tablet. However, there are other businesses that don't need to be tied to syncing with PC software. I saw some survey on what mobile platform medical doctors are using in their practice. Most are using iPhones for calanders/notes/etc...half of that number are using iPad.....then rounding the corner is Android. It used to be that you had to invest in a particular Unix or Windows machine for particular medical record keeping software. Now that many organizations are archiving digitally with PDF, and databases are becoming web based, the there's less of a need to be tied to one particular proprietary software.

 

Of course the iPad isn't good for business... his business! Needless to say, he has a vested interest in bringing down Apple and Apple's success. the iPod, iPhone, and iPad have all had a well documented "halo effect" over the past decade of bringing up Mac sales. Further, the iPad has been cannibalizing low-end PC sales to some extent. Once you've invested in an ecosystem (be it Apple, Android, or Windows), you're pretty much stuck there - you'd have to purchase all new apps if you switched, as there's really no way to transfer them between systems (IMO, this is something that is very bad for consumers, but I don't see the industry changing any time soon). At least with Android or Windows devices, Dell can sell their own version and hope to woo those users to buy them. They can't sell iOS compatible devices.

 

Cisco should have killed Cius earlier, CEO John Chambers says - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal

 

Microsoft Announces Surface: New Family of PCs for Windows

Currently there's a bunch of coverage at Microsoft -- Engadget and most reputable tech news sites.

From Microsoft Surface tablets: the differences between Windows RT and Windows 8 Pro models -- Engadget, weird... one version has an ARM-based processor and the other is Intel i5 based. There's a lot of missing info like price and battery life.

 

The RT is like an iPad which can't run full OSX programs and the RT won't run full Windows programs.

The Windows 8 Pro will be he big Kahuna, Window 8. Gotta get me one of those. Finally dump my HP Netbook.