Hardware Did Something Launch Today?

Nope, I think anybody queueing for any tech is generally a stupid arse but I'm quite happy for them to do it as I need them to beta test the stuff for me first.

 

Company i work for sold a lot of these. A lot being all their stock. And within a few hours...

 

Tegra 2 on android is slower in virtually every test I've been able to find. Every android tablet worth having is more expensive. Android is most certainly not ready to be handed to my 15 month old girl. If smartphones are anything to go by, android tablets will be playing catch-up for at least 3 years - both on price and on functionality. Samsung has already admitted they've screwed up - the 10.1" galaxy tab will be thicker, heavier, slower and more expensive.

Yes I could probably get an android tablet to do what I want it to, but why would I waste my time when it doesn't cost any less. The whole point of the iPad in my case was to make it easier for my partner and daughter to interact with technology. If my daughter gets a head start in using and understanding the trappings of the modern age the I will consider it an absolute bargain.

 

Any place near SW16 4TG UK from where i can get ipad2 ...

 

The amount of blind hatred for Apple on these forums is amazing.

I would have thought people appreciate the industrial design and the sleek look? Nope.
The OS that revolutionised the smartphone sector (although now looking very slightly long in the teeth maybe)? Nope.
The device that made it's own market sector successful and made competitors rush to play catch up? Nope

The iPad isn't a perfect device, nor is it an essential device, but the competition hasn't yet launched anything that gets near it as a complete product in it's market niche. The fact that you could actually buy one day 1 is a bonus tbh, compared to many devices soft-launched nowadays.

eddtox is right, no Android device yet comes close. I am fully expecting one or more to be out in the summer, but am still sceptical as to whether they will create anything near to iPad (1/2). Honeycomb is buggy from all the reports I've seen, although it has some very exciting features and potential.

Apple are control freaks and yes they are more closed than Android. However, that enables them to deliver a superb user experience married to top quality hardware that is generally massively reliable, simple to use and sleek.

If you can't appreciate the worth of iOS and the Apple devices associated with it, you don't deserve to call yourself remotely interested in technology.

Android has bags of potential and the smartphone market is now fully showing that, but Google/manufacturers haven't caught Apple up on tablets....yet.

Come on guys, try to balance your ridiculously biased points of view with a modicum of evidence, intelligence, research, facts and a general interest in technology.

No Apple fanboy here, but love all types of technology and have been impressed with Apple over the last few years.

 

I don't think there's one 'correct' decision. It is a matter of how much freedom you are ready to give up for convenience. Apple are bad, but no worse than Amazon with the Kindle. If you listen to Richard Stallman over at the Free Software Foundation then we are all pretty bad for buying Windows when we could be more free and richer by using Linux.

Much like lotteries, from the perspective of the level-headed, value-seeking PC enthusiast the ipad isn't a good buy, but if you get a kick out of owning one then be my guest. When I see you I'll rotate it a few times, make an 'ooh' noise, and then get back to my equally extravagant robot.

 

Let's dispense with the Apple myths:

Apple users are elitist sheep.
No Apple user has ever proselytised about Apple to me. I have never read a thread in a forum eulogising Apple. But there appear to be plenty of people priding themselves on hating Apple because they think that makes them more tech-savvy, informed consumers. To wit, this thread.

It's all just marketing, man!
The people who argue this, of course, think nothing of spending +£300,-- on a marginally faster graphics card, because it can play Crysis, you know?

It's overpriced crap.
As opposed to, say, overheating X-Boxes, any Sony product, your GAP khaki's? Still, found a cheaper, better tablet yet?

Anything you can do on an iPad you can do better somewhere else.
But not easier. Kind of important for people who are not geeks.

People who queue for iPads are pathetic.
People who queue for soccer games and pay £300,-- for a season ticket only to kick each others' heads in on the pitch for supporting the opposing team are. Fanboys of any description are.

It's a closed garden and restricts freedom!
So is any game console --unless I've missed a trick and you can play Little Big Planet on an X-Box. And try hack the PS3 region restriction or make any modification and watch Sony get kittens. Nintendo does empathically not support homebrew. You cannot upgrade many Android phones because they are locked to their version of Android, or simply not compatible with the upgrade, and Google still has not released the source code for Honeycomb. Newsflash, consumer: they are all closed systems. Android app store is open, of course --including to malware. Again, some people don't want more choice, they want ease and security. Some like to drive stick, some like automatics.

Apple does not support Flash because it wants to restrict games distribution to the App store so it can profiteer.
Yeah, that's why there aren't any HTML5 game sites. Or free games in the App store. No, wait...

It kind of feels like arguing with creationists. Next someone will say that Apple users have no moral center. I'm sure that's next.

 

+rep. Excelent points

 

QFT.

 

I agree with the rest of your points but not this. This is just your experience. So what...? Well that wouldn't get you a slot on mythbusters. I have read hundreds of threads, eulogising Apple, in fact half the bandwidth of Ars Technica must be taken up with these every day.

There was a pack of loons on the PC Pro forum, one notably was called Marklar77, anyone who ever read one of this threads could dislike Apple on the strength of the complete bollocks he wrote. He was one of those people that couldn't believe that anyone could use a pc for more than 30 seconds without it crashing, because that is what Apple said.

Also some unfortunate individuals devote a whole Youtube channel to Eulogising Apple.

http://www.youtube.com/user/AppleSoldier

 

Isn't queing a kind of UK tradition anyway, soup, ipads, train tickets etc

 

yeah I'm in that camp that believes apple users kinda are sheep.. not that they don't make good hardware, but for the money it's a pretty big rip off

no flash is a pretty bold step too considering all the flash apps that exist, I can see they want to limit the experience to make it seem the hardware is faster than it actually is- not really a bad thing marketing wise, but looking at it from a users standpoint lame

and your not any safer, if someone wants that information you have on your phone/netbook/tablet, they will get it.. considering the people who buy apple, it's easy as wipin ya hiney (stole that quote from ralph on survivor lol)

can't argue they've sold units though.. it's like console gaming.. we can bitch and moan, money talks.. the devs aren't out to please the minority

 

If Apple products are such a rip-off, how come nobody can make a cheaper tablet?

Meanwhile Android Froyo has huge problems with Flash and they still haven't worked out the kinks in Honeycomb. Seems to me there's no added value.

 

First of all, I am a die hard PC fan. I love building/overclocking/upgrading/tweaking my custom PC.

I had really high hopes for the Xoom, Samsung 10.1 and Honeycomb in general but every review I have read/watched has said that it just isn't ready. It is pretty damning when every review video I have watched features a force close on either the Marketplace or the browser. Also the videos cleary show intermittent lag and jitter on animation and scrolling.

Recently, through work, I spent a week with an an iPad 1 and the experience blew me away. It really is very slick and the hardware just oozes quality. And in the case of the iPad, I actually think the price is reasonable and has not been subjected to the "Apple Tax". The competition can't touch Apple at the minute in terms of both performance and price. I am sure Android's day will come but at the moment I'm afraid to say the iPad is where it is at.

The iPad is never going to replace the PC for serious work and serious gaming, but it certainly does have a place in our increasingly digital lives.

I hate Apple and their closed walled garden business model and as such vowed never to buy one of their products.

I am writing this comment on my new iPad 2...

 

I completely agree with all of your points, except this one which I only partially agree with. I agree that they aren't elitist sheep, but of the 5 people I know who have an iProduct 4 won't stop telling me to get one too and keep harping on about how their iWoopDeDoo excretes rainbows and boobs.

I know that not all Apple product owners are the same but it shows you how experiences can vary. I'm also not surprised about the anti-Apple sentiment shown in this thread, this is after all a tech forum and anything you can do on an ipad you can pretty much do on a laptop of equivalent price. Even if it is harder or more complicated we are techy geeky people, we enjoy complicated! (At least I do ) Anyway if I had the money I'd probably get an iPad to play with, mostly out of curiosity. Ahh, consumerism win.

Really? Never noticed any issues myself.

 

I actually prefer Honeycomb to iOS for the iPad (and I own and use an iPad 1). It's just far more functional. At this stage in the game, iOS is slick, easy to use, very, very smooth (unlike Android which can't seem to kick the jitters) but it's a bit long in the tooth for what the hardware is capable of. Also, what is with the iPad's RAM always lagging behind the iPhone's?

The iPad 2 would kick ass with a gig of RAM but they had to leave it at 512MB for some reason. Just odd.

My dream combination - iPad 2 hardware package (specifically the SoC, battery, screen, milled aluminum case) + Honeycomb. If someone can hack Honeycomb to run on the iPad 2, it will be my next purchase.

Something that ticks me off about competing non-Apple tablets is the cheap construction. When you're paying ~$800 for a device, it had damn well better feel like an $800 device. The Xoom doesn't (comes close though) and the Galaxy is just rubbish. Gaping joints and creaky body.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USiaeXzYkOE

LOL!

Not very strong is it?

 

Economies of scale and exclusive supply contracts.
Samsung, being one of the few companys large enough to stand toe-to-toe with apple around the negotiating table, are releasing the (higher spec) Galaxy Tab 10.1 at the same price as the iPad 2

 

well the hardware is not bad at all.. played with an ipad and thought it was great in terms of what it could do.. that's one of it's selling points is the software is written to run well on the hardware

they even filter the apps that can be run in the store to keep that experience

let's say you write websites.. you write some flash over html5.. that work isn't even able to be seen because ipad users have no possible way to view it..

I know, people just want something that works, and could care less.. frustrating (for me at least) when there's a limit on something so widely used and no way to go around it.. asking for advanced options to let the user add flash would go a long way in swaying a purchase

 

It's couldn't care less.
e.g. I couldn't care less about about the Apple iPad