Verizon leak shows Motorola's iPad challenger priced at $799 - Page 3

Zero evidence, really? Then how is it that right now, with all the Android devices shipped, every serious software producer that makes applications or games that really have to push the hardware, make their software for iOS? If there is no fragmentation, why is Angry Birds for Android so shitty that Rovio even had to apologize for it and made a 'Lite version' so all the handsets except a few of the most high-end ones could also run it? Why is are the Rage and Unreal engines only on iOS you think? Both Rovio and John Carmack have publicly stated that iOS will remain the dominant platform for games because it simply is so much easier and cheaper do develop for, and has much better sales outlook. Why do you think the app store now has 10 billion downloads and iOS users, the most applications in any category compared to Androd except for 'system utilities' you need to dick around with you phone internals to make it suck less?

Android fragmentation *is* real. Just because it's not an issue for simple applications doesn't mean that for developers who need to be able to target sufficiently capable baseline hardware and software, Android is a nightmare. Either you develop for Android and target a small minority of high-end handsets, or you develop for iOS and you immediately have 120 million devices on the market that are capable of running your software. Developers choose iOS by the hordes, which is the best evidence that fragmentation is an issue. The fact that so many Android phones are being sold is irrelevant, or maybe even goes to show what is causing the fragmentation problems.

At least you now admit it

Was the Zoom demoed like the iPad ?
Cost and availability announced on the presentation day ?
Was it given to Journalists to try ?
I'm not sure, and I may stand corrected, but I think NO.
So to me its still vapour and should be treated as such until Motorolla furnishes some hard details.
Again the the android worshipers fall into the spec trap, yes anything looks good on paper, even crummy Chinese $99 tablets.
Another shard in the android fragmentation universe.

Name one. Aside from Angry Birds (an issue that appeared to be due to sloppy code), I haven't heard of any.

I think you left out a few words: a (frustrating, buggy, badly-multitasking, bluescreening, productivity-killing, non-standards-compliant) experience. \

I thought Android 3.0 was doing away with that utterly shite update model?

Plus, with the source code copying issue hanging over Android's head, there's anything but a certain future for anyone using Android.

And regardless of the fact that most of copied code is from "unit testing source code", all the LAW cares about with regard to copyright infringement is whether unauthorised "copying" occured. The law doesn't care if that source code was used in a shipping product or not.

The iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4 didnt increase storage capacity yet the IPSWs doubled in size so I no reason Apple would have to increase the storage to accommodate the large IPSWs on the iPad.

That said, I think the 64GB 3G model may be popular enough that Apple could offer a more expensive premium model in the next revision.

Ehhhrrr.... no, no they don't. Most people buy their computers and then just use it. Most people *don't care* about OS versions. Most people don't even *know* their OS version if you ask them.

Wow! I'd be in line today except we have TWO IPADS AND LOVE THEM.

The biggest mistake these companies are making is using the phone companies as a retail outlet.

What's your evidence that people don't upgrade?

And if that's the case, then it's an argument against the alleged horrors of fragmentation.

You are not representative of the market, clearly. Stop pretending that you are.

Lol, no it wasn't. The demo consisted of showing a series of videos of the functionality on the device. Smoke and mirrors!


Nope


Seeing as the demos was a series of videos, I highly doubt it, at least not that would have given the journo's anything meaningful.

People upgrade if they open iTunes and then a small box tells them "Install new version, Great stuff awaits you, free of charge, ease of install". They will *not* install a new OS if that requires them to go to the shop, buy Windows XXX, go home, back the entirety of their hard drive, format the hard disk, and install all the apps all over again.

It has to do with ease of use. People don't *want* to worry about OSes. They want to spend zero seconds in the configuration of their systems and 100% of their time in their own business.

That's a good point, and rarely mentioned. Very astute.

So, again, aside from sweeping generalities, do you have any evidence to back up your claims? People do actually upgrade to newer versions of Windows (and Mac OS X) on their PCs. IIRC, Mr. Jobs regularly touts this during the WWDC keynote.

No, no they don't. I'm not saying anything amazing, perhaps you'll ask me evidence that 2 and 2 is 4, eh. This should be basic knowledge, but I guess that there are people here completely unaware of this thing called "real world". Yes, sure, there are a lot of OS boxes being bought, but they are nowhere near the same order of magnitude of the number of PCs being bought. Make the math. (Use the calculator if having troubles)

Typical fanboy response: Provide no data and call other people names. Ok, I'm done. It's not worth my time talking to you.

Who even cares? It's not like anyone who wants a tablet even knows what a Xoom is.

People don't even know what they want is a "tablet". They think iPad is a category.

People do not upgrade their windows os. Why? Because they can't click a button to do so. I know dozens of people personally with XP and Vista on their boxes, for no other reason than that's what came with it when they bought it. Once it completely dies, they'll buy a new box that they will never upgrade.

Mac owners are mostly different however. many will upgrade. Few will not. I know plenty of people with 2006 macs that have tiger on them.

I don't think you get it. When apple is selling these by the million, they are selling to ordinary consumers. They just want the thing to work. They plug it in to apple for updates and software and other content. They just want it to work.

The Android market on the other hand is filled with techno-geeks who don't mind going all over the Internet getting apps, updates, and content. Some of it works, some doesn't.

What I don't get is who, other than the anti-apple crowd, would buy an android pad. At best, they might be as good, they might be as cheap, they might have some apps. Key word - might. Sorry, but I'm going with the real deal. This is why apple will dominate in this market for years to come.

I dont get it either. If Android offered a considerably lower price for equivalent HW, OS and and experience then I could understand it, but its in Apples favor on all all counts except for HW and thats only until you actually see how the OS can utilize the HW and then Apple pushes ahead with better code. (Ill refrain from posting the AnandTech image of Androids 802.11n WiFi having worse performance than the old iPhone with 802.11g).

There was a time when Apple was premium in price, but that day is no longer with us on equivalent CE. Cornering the NAND market was a primary step and I think the display market might be the next. Can monopolizing and "strong arming a component be considered illegal?

Curious fanboy that I am, using an hp laptop, a sony ericsson phone while listening to an iPod, while getting my feeds from google reader.

Just out of curiosity, from which mega-corporation are you accusing me of being a "fanboy"?

And thanks for stopping the trolling. It's quite tiresome.

No, competition is not inherently good. It can be good or bad, and how one views the results often depends on how wide a view one takes on those results.

Yeah, HaHaWhatever is almost certainly tekstud. You can't fake the complete lack of reasoning abilities, the mistaken facts, the backpedaling and claims that one said the opposite of what one did, 3 posts later. "select * from tekstud_knowledge;" still returns 0 rows.

Honestly, I'll enjoy checking out the Xoom for myself when it ships. Since they're waiting on Android v3, I'm kinda suspecting that won't be until July-August, a few months after iPad 2, but it will be interesting nonetheless. I do like looking at other people's hardware/software and seeing what they come up with.

I'm not expecting it to be compelling enough for me to want to buy one, especially if its $800 for something that is merely interesting. This could be $800 with a contract for all we know? That would be awful if true, but good news for Apple.

I'm really curious to see if v3 of the OS does anything to address their software issues or make it worse. It's possible, however unlikely, that they use this opportunity to build in more legacy support somehow or make the app buying and using experience better overall. That's what this is really gonna come down to: if the software ecosystem is there then people will buy it because that is the greatest possible selling point. Windows dominated the computer industry for the longest time because of the availability of software, even though Windows itself was expensive and clunky, people didn't care. You don't sit around staring at the shell of your OS, its all about the software you run in it's environment.

It's probably not too late for them to solve this and bring some real competition to Apple. Regardless, I'll be paying attention.

Actually... that's Xoom... just think of Exhumed....

(actually there's a money transfer company named Xoom)

Does the Xoom ship with a sarcoph-a-case?


edit: A variation of that isn’t a bad name for a quality case maker. The eye of Horus or some other Eyptian symbol would be easy advertising.

Are people that paranoid that not only do they not think I own anything Apple, but now that I'm someone else in disguise? Seriously? Guess what, I'm not. I own many Apple products, and just because I'm not someone who isn't blindly obsessed by them and trash every other product on the market, I'm not a "true" Apple fan? And guess what else, Android is selling well so they must be doing something right. But fanboys will only believe that's becausse they've been "copying" Apple. The people on this website are so arrogant, from the authors of the articles to the blinded commentors. Why do you think so many people dislike Apple? It's not the products, it's the terrible behavior of the people who use them. Ever think of that? But no, people on this website always have something arrogant or rude to add and they think everybody else is wrong. It's disgusting.

But I'm okay with all these consipricies. Because I do realize that the people doing so have nothing better to do.

Android users can't use Itunes. How do you get your content on it?

I guess his parents still haven't let him out of their basement. Lot's of pent-up frustration.

Answer: you root it

Sloth love Chunk!

Compared to $729 for the equivalent iPad? Not so fast.

This is the first reasonable competition for the iPad. I agree that a 7" slate for $999 would be DOA, but this one is 10" and appears to be a very nice unit - and at 9% over Apple's price, it's in the same ballpark (given that Apple never discounts and everyone else does, the actual difference is likely to be even less - I wouldn't be surprised to see it on sale at $729).

There are people who don't like Apple's iPad. This is the first decent option for them. I predict it will sell reasonably well. Not as well as the iPad, but well enough to be a success.


$799 is $500 more than the iPad? You really need to go back to 2nd grade to learn how to do simple math.


BS. Funny how the Google fans are so eager to bury their heads in the sand.

Even developers are complaining about fragmentation on Android systems. Not to mention that you can still buy systems today running about 6 different versions of Android, many of which have major app compatibility problems. And that's not to mention all the different product features, screen sizes, etc.

Read what developers have to say. There was a big article not to long ago where an Android developer referred to it as a nightmare.

Oh yeah man. Let's train joe consumer on rooting and we'll get right on that.

Get real.

I'm not sure how successful a 3G unit really is at this time due to availability of hotspot capabilities now on Verizon and ATT which would bleed into Android device capabilities too I imagine.

There's a good reason why a WiFi iPad exists at a $499 price point. You really should get around to acknowledging it, but I think the sales numbers will speak for themselves.

As also pointed out its also $30 less than the 64GB iPad WiFi+3G model. That additional $70 isnt looking like a great deal to me.

We can only compare it to the current iPad but I know people who Id not call technical in any way that are waiting for the 2nd iPad to arrive. There seem to be a lot of people who think the next model will be arriving with few months. It could easily be months before the Xoom ships as Honeycomb looks like it wont hit until at least the Summer. On top of that well have a HW demo of the next gen iPad so well know what to expect weeks before it ships. Does anyone here really think Apple wont be able to get Cortex-A9 for its iPad 2?


I havent seen anything regarding the display type. Asus prominently announced that all their tablets would be IPS. Thats a big deal and an important feature even if you dont know what they are. If you see a tablet display with a 178° viewing angle next to one with 160° having a little more RAM or or being 1oz lighter might become pointless, and probably arent going to spend an additional 70 quid for the worse experience.

it will probably look more attractive when it's priced with a 2 year contract.

remember, the 3G ipad costs $629 for just a 16GB model. without expandable memory it's hard to recommend spending less than $729 on a 3G ipad.

what the hell, this is all laptop territory. Why don't you all just consider the incredibly powerful HP dm1z with the dual core athlon II neo. Configured at $500 for a 11 inch netbook, 3 GB ram, athlon ii neo k325, this thing can run recent PC games.i guess the ipad is really that much fun to use, which is something that i don't think android devices will be able to compete with. somehow the interface on the iOS was always so much fun to use, and android still feels like a chore.

The sales numbers suggest that all 6 ipads sell in similar numbers. So the Xoom is somewhere in the middle.


As I said, I don't expect it to sell well compared to the iPad. But it's not as ridiculous as people claim. Heck when 7" tablets were priced up to $900 or more, THAT was ridiculous. But 9% more (or less, if it goes on sale) puts it well within the range that it will be considered.

There are people who hate Apple - and would be happy to pay 9% more for a non-Apple product. Or people who want Flash. Or people who are fans of some of the other features that this tablet has that the iPad does not. When you were looking at considerably more money for half the screen area, calling it DOA wasn't unreasonable. But looking at the same screen area (slightly larger, IIRC) with some features that the iPad doesn't have for 9% more is well within the range that you can't reject it out of hand.

Do you mean sloppy OS?