Rather short and lacking in details for a "review" isn't this? Anandtech and Engadget have already reviewed the Xoom in more detail and I have to say, this reads very much like someone wanting to validate their own opinion instead of offering a fair critique. I have observed the iPhone 3gs/3g (I have little experience with the 4) lagging significantly when many apps are installed (not just running, but merely installed) so UI lag is not something unique to Android.
The power button placement and heavy weight seem to be, admittedly, poor decisions. As far as battery life goes, this review is very inconsistent with Anandtech's review which states that the Xoom's battery life is comparable with the iPad[1]. Not sure what exactly he is complaining about wrt widgets; I have several widgets working well on my phone and I'm sure they're fully compatible with Honeycomb. It is a shame that neither Flash or the micro-sd card slot are functional at release. I can only hope Motorola is working to remedy both of those issues.
I agree 100% on the power button placement. I stopped by the Verizon store today to try it out and it literally took me several minutes to figure out how to turn it on. Of course, once you know where it is isn't not an issue, but it's not the best first impression. I imagine most people will fumble around the sides for a few seconds before they just give up and move on to the iPad.
Scoble keeps making the "only 16 apps" claim, but it's absolutely false. To be fair, there are currently 16 featured tablet apps in the Market. But if you search for "HD", "THD" or "Tablet", you'll find a great many more, including a Hacker News reader that I'm currently working on. :-)
What's my take on the Xoom, as an owner and developer?
- The weight and size don't bother me at all, but I've got big hands. I can hold it for hours when reading. The power button, however, is definitely weird.
- Honeycomb and the Google apps are just amazing. I love the application switcher, the notification system, the tabbed browser, the Google Calendar client, the large, interactive widgets, etc.
- There is a shortage of good tablet apps. To be fair, this will be true of any two-week-old tablet platform that tries to compete with the iPad. If we want a two-player tablet market, somebody's got to go through the "no apps" stage.
- The lack of Flash and Netflix is painful, because it means there's very little video content to consume on the Xoom. And the Xoom would be a killer device for watching video. Flash will be fixed Real Soon Now, and Netflix is making very vague noises.
All in all, I love my Xoom, and I enjoy writing software for it. I think that once Flash arrives, and more apps become available, that the inevitable 87 Android tablets launched in 2011 will stand a decent chance at making up some ground against the iPad. And this would be a good thing; even for iPad owners—Apple needs credible competition. And the Xoom is definitely a more credible device than the Android 1.5 phones ever were.
How are you supposed to know to search for "HD", etc? What makes the iOS store easy is that there are completely separate tabs for iPhone and iPad apps. And when you do search, it displays results for both in separate boxes on the results screen. These things make it incredibly easy to find iPad specific apps.
If the android market does these things, that's awesome, I legitimately don't know.
The Motorola Droid has slightly more pixels than other Android phones. This led to a bunch of apps coming out in a "Droid" edition which put those extra pixels to good use. The new tablets have 1280 x 800, 1024 x 768, 1024 x 600 etc. resolutions, so should each one have its own tab?
If tablets are going to be a big part of the Android ecosystem, then I would still argue that they would need some kind of special section in the market.
Would the market app be able to read your devices resolution and then denote which apps are optimized for that? I have an older Android phone (Sprint HTC Hero) with a smaller resolution, can I see/install tablet apps from the market? If yes, that's a bad experience, if no, then it would seem that they can do some sort of detection.
I'm just spitballing here, so this might not even be half baked.
> Would the market app be able to read your devices resolution and then denote which apps are optimized for that? I have an older Android phone (Sprint HTC Hero) with a smaller resolution, can I see/install tablet apps from the market? If yes, that's a bad experience, if no, then it would seem that they can do some sort of detection.
The Android Market already has the ability to hide or filter apps based on the capabilities of your device (eg, features, OS version, etc), and the feature requirements defined by the applications' manifests. If your device doesn't have an accelerometer, you aren't shown any applications that require use of the accelerometers. [1]
For your specific example, you won't see any apps made for Honeycomb on your phone's market just for the simple reason that you aren't running Honeycomb. As for resolution, any application can (and should) be designed with multiple screen resolutions in mind, and the Android API's give developers ample help with this task. [2]
So in all honesty, you shouldn't even have to distinguish between a "tablet app" versus a "phone app"; developers should be making apps that have both segments in mind.
I feel like Netflix is being strangely unproductive on the Android platform. They have clients for both iOS and Windows Mobile 7, but nothing for Android. Honeycomb has built-in support for DRM, yet no Honeycomb announcements.
Now seems like an excellent time for Amazon/Redbox/Blockbuster to throw the doors open on a Netflix competitor (and not just the streaming part) and scoop up the Android market.
Ultimately everyone who wants a tablet will have to make a private decision of what they want for themselves. I have both an iPad (well I got it for my three year old daughter) and a Galaxy Tab and I have to say I love them both and they both have been life changing. If you get a Xoom, I doubt you'll be disappointed, because going from not having a tablet to getting one is going to be an amazing experience. I don't imagine the Xoom is being marketed to people who already have an iPad so there you go. Get an iPad for the many (wonderful) apps and media or get an android tablet because despite the many flaws in Android, it is a kick ass operating system and because you can actually purchase kindle, nook and epub titles directly from the e-reader apps. Listen to all the pundits and reviews, and then make a thoughtful decision and be happy with the one you made.
Steve Jobs and John Gruber might not see it this way, but despite that there is some truth in the 'copy cat' nature of Android, it is a good thing that iOS has competition. It's not just lackluster competition either, Android is awesome.
I seriously think that Android is the best thing to happen to iOS. Despite the design flaws, fragmentation, issues and every other bug, Android is the nearest thing to a competitor that iOS has. Yes, I am aware there is something called Windows Mobile 7.
The very fragmentation and ubiquity of Android is its strength. While for US, I do not know how the economics work, but for a country like India, not everyone can or would afford to buy a phone for Rs. 30,000 (~USD 666.7). What Android is great at is tapping THAT market who are looking for a better than average experience with mobile. I mean if every one was going for the premium buyer who would make good experiences for the not so affluent.
I have an iPhone, an MBP and will now be spending on the iPad 2. But then I look around and feel so happy that my friends, my juniors from college can afford a decent enough phone without sacrificing on the joys of modern technology and design in mobile OS.
What does the average unlocked Android device cost there? In Thailand, most Android phones are still USD $400+. Oddly enough, last-gen Blackberry devices are the most popular smartphones (semi-smartphone) here since they're often USD $150-$200 unlocked. The HTC tattoo is cheaper, as are a couple others, but for the most part, Android is nearly as premium as iOS here.
More than the iPad 2 I think the price cut on the iPad 1 Hurts the xoom. Because while the specs might be better on the Xoom you can't deny that the cheapest iPad is now half the price of the cheapest xoom.
I think we're now to the point where other hardware manufactures have to decide whether they want to cede this market to Apple. If they don't they're going to have to take some short-term losses to keep up. That means cutting the hardware price to the point where you're not making a profit but where your prices are at least competitive with Apple.
If they aren't willing to do that their only strategy is to wait and hope Apple slips up.
You might have said the same thing about the Altair or, ironically, the Apple II a few decades ago.
This is still early days in the market, nobody has a lock on it. How old was the mobile MP3 player industry when Apple introduced the iPod?
the iPad is a good device, for now. But it's not the end-all-be-all of tablets, it's just generation 1.5. In 5 years the iPad2 will look as limited and outdated as a flip-phone does today. Apple will need to continue innovating in order to maintain the advantage they have right now. They may very well do so, but it's silly to imagine that this horse race is won, it's only just started.
> This is still early days in the market, nobody has a lock on it. How old was the mobile MP3 player industry when Apple introduced the iPod?
And now that there is an iPod, how many credible challengers have we seen? None, really. So Apple is able to lock down a market. The question is whether or not the competition is catching up or falling farther behind. Android is a great platform in principle, but the high price of hardware may be a barrier to entry for mainstream buyers.
You make the mistake of thinking that the iPad is the iPod of tablet computers. While MP3 players require only a minimal featureset this is not the case for tablet computers, there is still a lot of room left and a lot of market left. Apple could lock down this market, but the market has not even fully developed yet so it's silly to imagine that they have done so yet.
The portable media player industry was a still a relatively small market when Apple introduced the iPod, and the iPod itself was in its third iteration or so before it really became a runaway hit.
It's not the early days of the tablet market at all. Tablets have been around for a very long time—Microsoft, Archos, et al—it's a much older market than the portable media player was when the iPod was introduced. There just hadn't been any hit tablet products until the iPad.
We're still in the early days of the iPad-style tablet market, true. But the key advantage for Android in the mobile phone market is/was carrier lock-in, and that's not a factor with the iPad. They have to compete on product and price. And Apple is extremely competitive in both those areas.
It's also worth mentioning that, in this market anyway, Apple has a major advantage in its excellent retail channel.
1. A crappier product (in terms of what iPad customers value); which targets non-iPad consumers; and that is better in other ways (that iPad customers don't value). e.g. kindle; or can run any apps; or any language is allowed; or is open; or is completely customizable; etc etc etc.
2. Over time, it gets better (read: slightly less crappy).
3. If it becomes good enough for iPad customers and also retains those other features which the iPad lacks, they will switch.
The big questions are: "Is there a limit to how good this crappy product can become?"; "Will it ever become good enough for the iPad customers?"; and "Is it somehow difficult/impossible for the iPad to suddenly acquire those other features?"
NB: it doesn't need to become better than, or even as good as the future iPad - just good enough. Microprocessors, screens, memory etc usually become faster, cheaper, use less energy. So, competitors will get better in these respects. In terms of user experience, they will also get better (even Windows improved). It might take a while.
People think of the iPad itself as a disruptor (which it is); but it can be disrupted in turn. Unfortunately, the competitors are presently confronting it head-on... and they will lose, because the iPad is an incredibly great product in every respect that matters to its customers.
"That means cutting the hardware price to the point where you're not making a profit but where your prices are at least competitive with Apple."
Microsoft has the funds to take a loss for a while (like the 360) and push Windows/Xbox Live Marketplace in place of the App Store. Since I doubt they'll release hardware on their own, I could see them subsidizing hardware partners when they try to enter the market.
The problem for Microsoft is that when they do that the third generation of iPads and the second generation of Android tablets will probably already be shipping or shipping soon. It at least doesn’t look like there will be a tablet with a Microsoft OS in the first half of 2011 and I’m highly doubtful that there will be one in the second half — early 2012 seems more realistic.
Microsoft has demonstrated that it can deliver a very competitive touch OS with Windows Phone 7 but it’s at this point still doubtful whether Windows phones will capture any meaningful slice of the smartphone market. A tablet OS from Microsoft would be similarly late to the game.
I genuinely wonder why companies can't get this right. I know Apple is good at what they do, but if you can't play in this game, why bother?
I understand, on one hand, if you're making a budget knock off at 2/3rd the price. Then the lack of polish is forgivable from a business standpoint - the price is your biggest mover.
But if you're competing with the iPad for top of the line why even bother? Why bother overpromising on battery, when the first reviews will prove that false. How does a corporation even assume they will have any success in the market with this type of strategy?
I think these companies are looking at this from a long term perspective. This and the smartphones are the only growth markets post-PC. Almost everyone will own a smartphone and/or tablet sooner than you think, and just a small portion of that market justifies the current slaughtering they will incur to gain entrance to the market and establish a beachhead. At this point it's a battle to the death for the #2 spot.
Apple has a massive lead by both defining the market and being almost 100% vertically integrated. Where they weren't vertically integrated, they guessed right on the opportunity factor and cut deals for components while the rest of the market was asleep.
Production will eventually level out, and competitive software will get better, and other tablet will eventually be able to turn 90s era PC-like margins on their products. Depending on how smart Apple plays the game (and I am betting on very smart), this may take a few years to over a decade.
Here's what boggles my mind. Motorola was never in the PC business.
Why are Motorola and Nokia following Apple in this direction? If you look at it as a question of where historically these companies have been competitive, they are chasing Apple right into their home turf. I mean, let's say that whatever degree of success Apple has in the smartphone market is due to software/hardware design, marketing, and vertical integration. Isn't software even more of an issue with a larger, more powerful form factor? Isn't vertical integration even more of a factor when there's no "subsidized" phone to buff your margins?
I don't totally believe what I'm saying here to be honest (Android tablets will probably beat Apple in price at some point, for example), but I still find the process odd - 1. Apple enters the cell phone companies' market, 2. Apple creates the tablet market using its cell phone operating system, 3. the cell phone companies follow Apple to the tablet market. Somebody's being led around.
For all the criticism he gets, I think much of this can be laid at Steve Jobs' feet. He has a clear sense of what he wants, he doesn't tolerate not getting it, and while it pisses people off, it shows in the final product. At Sun it became an in house joke after the launch of the "portable" lunch box that Sun can make any type of computer as long as it starts with a workstation. There is weird sort of entrenched notional design and diverging from it is hit by internal anti-bodies. I saw it at Google with some of the strange (and silly) Android vs ChromeOS battles. You can see Dell 'streak' as a similar example.
Apple learned a lot from doing the iPod touch which made the iPad possible, Google never did an Android Touch, so take what you have, hack it to some new requirements and then try to make it work.
I think your comments are a bit too strong for being based on this one review. For example, his battery complaints are not inline with what the rest of the world is seeing.
While Apple certainly has a big lead, I wouldn't conclude from this review that Motorola can't "play in this game". Many of his concerns are things that will be addressed with time (lack of Apps, lack of flash, micro-sd support).
The price is definitely too high, but Motorola needed to start somewhere and a tablet isn't a loss-leader type device.
I think they know that a lot of people will buy something based on specs alone. Many people will look at the numbers and believe they're getting something great, without realizing that the experience will be pretty lousy.
I'm certain the Android tablets will get better quickly, as the phones seem to be, but it obviously just isn't there yet. At this point it seems like Motorola wanted to capitalize on all the uninformed consumers, and those who don't want to buy an Apple product.
> I think they know that a lot of people will buy something based on specs alone.
Actually, I think the opposite is true in the mobile space, after many years of that being the case in the desktop/laptop space.
Consumers just don't care what the processor is or how much memory is in their phone. They _do_ care about whether it is fast, responsive, and has nice and/or flashy experience. Also unlike desktops, they care about how it looks.
Is it surprising the apple is cleaning up, for a change?
> I think they know that a lot of people will buy something based on specs alone.
Really? I don't know anyone besides geeks and neo-philiacs (ie, folks like me) that behave that way.
Most folks (ie, the mass-market) treat tech like they'd treat appliances or cars or other stuff they don't fully understand. They ask folks who do know, visit review sites, and play with what's on the showroom floors.
When there is a large contingent of these that infer that the iPad is the best, the mass market buys it (as sales numbers show).
Well, there is a funny and sad at the same time case: cameras. My impression is that for a large portion of population the only thing that matters is megapixels.
That's because for most of the population, they don't understand photography. They have to make some kind of comparison, and megapixels are the easiest - a linear number that presumably indicates more of whatever the camera is doing.
I lamely predicted the iPad's failure when it first came out.
But now the same factors make me imagine the iPad might stay the top selling longer than the iPhone.
Tablets are an awkward, difficult form. They have lots of ergonomic and UI problems. But if Apple has somewhat solved these problems, duplicating its solutions could turn out to be harder than throwing features and hardware at the problem.
A too-heavy tablet is a much worse problem than a too-heavy laptop or even a too-heavy phone. And similarly for all the other trade-offs. UI problems
The argument about 16 available apps is shoddy at best. The release SDK for Honeycomb has only been out for about a week; It's being compared to a platform that has been around for over a year now. The only iPad apps that were available when it launched were by the few lucky companies that got pre-release access to its SDK. In 3 months the number of available honeycomb apps will be a different story and in 6 months it will be a non-issue.
Shoddy at best? iPad 2 ships on the 11th, with an enormous portfolio of apps. Do you think that's worth nothing?
I'm betting the average consumer cares about four things:
- How the product feels in the store. (Is it solid and how responsive is it?)
- What they can do with it. (What apps can I run?)
- Who's recommending the product. (What does the NYT say? What do my friends say?)
- Price. (Can I afford this?)
On which of those things does Xoom beat iPad or iPad 2? Who will walk into a store and see the Xoom next to an iPad or iPad 2 and say: I'm gonna buy the Xoom, even though it costs more, doesn't run the apps my friends are talking about, and isn't recommended by anyone I know! Hell, I'll go out on a limb and just guess, since I've held neither a Xoom or iPad 2, that the iPad 2 feels better in my hands. Past performance being a future predictor, I bet Apple nailed that experience.
So, given that, is the argument that there's only 16 apps shoddy? By your post, it's an argument that there's no unique content for Honeycomb for the next 6 months – that there's no unique content vs. iPad or iPad 2 for the next 6 months. And don't forget that those 6 months are not a vacuum of development for either Apple or 3rd party devs. Apple's likely to announce a new iOS release, and there will be tens of thousands of new, unique apps posted to the iOS App Store.
I think that's a pretty solid argument against Xoom, especially since Xoom loses on every other factor (I think consumers care about) right off the bat.
I agree with your list, but I think the 'What can I do with it?' question is more like 'What's the potential for me being able to do new things with this in the future?' - apps, and the likelihood of more of them being available in the future, translate into people valuing the device for more than just what it will do when they first get it out of the box.
With iOS there's a reasonable expectation that the consumer will be able to choose from a growing selection of applications in the future, based on the past performance of the App Store and Apple's marketing around it. This translates into extra value, in that the device has the potential to increase in capability over time.
I think you could argue the case that the Android platform could also be perceived this way by consumers, although I suspect the mainstream consumer is maybe less certain of the future availability of applications on Android. (That's based on the limited marketing of Android, and specifically of it as a platform for apps, that I've seen in the UK, so may be different in other markets.)
But I do think it places the other platforms (HP's WebOS, RIM's QNX) at a distinct disadvantage. I think many consumers will consider them to be worse value purely because they don't expect they'll be able to choose from a growing selection of applications in the future.
There were way more than 16 iPad apps available at launch, and the ones that were available were also top-notch quality (especially the Apple Pages/Numbers/Keynote suite).
3 months is an eternity in this industry. No one's going to pass on an iPad or iPad 2 in favour of a Xoom on the vague promise of more apps coming in 3 months.
You sound like you are lamenting what ought to be, instead of what actually is, today.
You could've said the same about the G1. It was a piece of crap compared to the competition. Yes, if you're a consumer who really needs a tablet this month, you'd be a fool to buy anything but the iPad 2.
But if you're a developer, Android is only just now a viable platform for tablet-sized apps. I don't think the market will explode quite like what's happened with Android phones, but the Motorola Xoom is the first legitimate Android tablet. There will be many more.
I don't see any compelling reason to buy a Xoom unless you're an enthusiastic developer or tinkerer. Personally, I'm happy to continue using my first-gen iPad until the iPad 3 comes along. But if you're talking about the Android platform rather than this one device right now, of course the future matters.
"the few lucky companies that got pre-release access to its SDK?" The iPad SDK was available to anybody willing to pay the 100 bucks to get into the iPhone dev program. I myself had an iPad app available on the same day the public was allowed to buy the hardware.
I had an app for iPad day one as well and I was competing against a hell of a lot more iPad apps than Honeycomb developers are currently competing against.
And despite being outside the Top 100 paid apps in the iPad app store, I still made a few hundred dollars per day for the opening month. I wonder how many Honeycomb developers will be able to say the same.
Agreed, and even today plenty of apps that weren't specifically designed for tablets scale just fine. Of the several apps I've downloaded for my rooted Nook, at least half have perfect functionality and appearance (including "major" apps like Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja), and almost all the others are fully functional and could just use minor tweaks to improve the interface. It's a much better experience than running iPhone apps on an iPad with pixel doubling.
I don't understand why anyone would call the XOOM heavy in comparison to the iPad. The comparisons I have seen list them both at 730g.
I have them both, and I would say that the XOOM is more comfortable to hold. The two big factors are the texture of the back and the fact that I so often hold them in portrait mode. The widescreen form factor of the XOOM makes it easier to handle in portrait mode.
To argue about the price/features of the Xoom vs iPad is to miss the point (in my opinion). The point is: Do you want to drink the Apple Kool-Aid or have similar functionality but much more freedom with Andriod.
Personally I just won't buy Apple, no matter how much I recognize how good Apple are. I just do not want to be locked into 1 company.
I imagine your feelings run deep enough re: vendor lock-in that you certainly don't own a PS3, Xbox 360 or Wii, right? If you really don't want to be tied to one vendor and you're not also thinking about the biggest "locked-in" platforms on the planet then you're being hypocritical.
The difference, at least for me is that games and gaming isn't really that important, it's a fun indulgence and not much more. If I can't play a certain game or use a certain controller on my PS3, then, so what. If on the other hand my productivity is hampered by the fact that I can't open a specific document, do a particular task or connect a particular peripheral to something I hope to use as a general purpose computing then that is a real problem. So it's not so much vendor lock-in as such, as vendor lock in that adversely affects me and gets in my way.
Consoles aren't attempting to replace general purpose PCs, while Apple has made it clear that they expect and want the majority of users to be using an iOS-like platform in the future. Having personal computing devices switch from open by default to closed by default would be a substantial change for the worse.
Actually I am pleased to admit I do not own a PS3, Xbox 360 or Wii. I play all my games on my PC. Although possibly I am being a bit hypocritical in that I generally use Windows.
The power button placement and heavy weight seem to be, admittedly, poor decisions. As far as battery life goes, this review is very inconsistent with Anandtech's review which states that the Xoom's battery life is comparable with the iPad[1]. Not sure what exactly he is complaining about wrt widgets; I have several widgets working well on my phone and I'm sure they're fully compatible with Honeycomb. It is a shame that neither Flash or the micro-sd card slot are functional at release. I can only hope Motorola is working to remedy both of those issues.
[1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/4191/motorola-xoom-review-firs...