the tablet war is heating up

[Fast Learner]

Loving the battery life on the iPad 2 so far.

Hate that I need to plug it in to the wall to charge it.

You can plug it into a USB port: even if it's not the high-power USB that will charge the iPad quickly, the lower-power ones work fine, albeit a bit more slowly. The iPad will indicate that it's not charging but if the screen is off it will indeed charge.

 

[IronWolf]

Loving the battery life on the iPad 2 so far.

Hate that I need to plug it in to the wall to charge it.

I like being able to wall charge mine as an option. I have the plug on my nightstand, so nice and easy to do before bed and it will be ready in the morning!

 

[falcarrion]

It looks like some interesting stuf is coming out of the Google I/o today.
There will be a new os called ice cream sandwich . It will run on tablets and smart phones. Those attending the I/o each received a samsung limited edition tab 10.1. This is the new sleeker one. They also talked about having a smart house where android tablets or phones can turn on and off lights. Communicate with washing machines... Basically some of your electronics. I have seen this done with the iPad and soon you will be able to use your android as well.

 

[Fast Learner]

Some cool-looking features. I was surprised that the release date was so far in the future, "end of the year." I figured they'd push hard to get it all in place before some of the same features came out from Apple, likely announced in June and released soon thereafter.

Still, good to see them pushing forward in new directions.

 

[Relique du Madde]

Ice Cream Sandwich (3.1) is basically going to push the features that Android promised before being acquired by Google (interconnectability with multiple devices). The one thing that I'm majorly stoked about is the "Andruino" component. That is, the Android Arduino microprocessor. That's going to be HUGE in robotics and diy community. Not only is it capable building anything you can with an arduino, but giving it the ability to connect it to your android device natively so that you can control or monitor it's status is a plus.

I suspect that the reason why Ice Cream Sandwich is coming out so late is because google wants to force the updates and conversions. That is, get all the 2.3 updates out, and then to go over every phone and decide which devices are capable of pushing to 3.1 and to lock down all the up coming devices so that we don't have 20 more 2.2 devices.

 

[John Crichton]

I prefer what Google/Android is doing right now with waiting to get it right. Their reputation with tablets is bad but excellent in other areas so there really should be no massive rush to get another tablet released that is iffy at best. Put all your resources into a late fall (pre-Holiday) launch and watch the money roll in if they have a competitive product.

 

[Relique du Madde]

You forget, Google/Android only makes the software so it's up to them and their partners to make a good device. Sadly, if anyone of them fails, the device and platform fails as a whole.

Right now I'm a little cheesed that Xoom WiFi's aren't getting any love with 3.1 ike their version 3g brethren, but I figure it's probably easier to upgrade through a carrier then through the wilds of ad havoc wifi.

However, with the new widget functionality, I can't wait for charactersheet widgets to start appearing. (Damn by liking Mutants and Masterminds... aking a full db to hold all those options is time consuming.)

 

[falcarrion]

Just saw one of the Galaxy tab 10.1 limited edition( the one given away free today) on Ebay it is up to $1,250 with 23 bids.

 

[John Crichton]

You forget

I really don't.

 

[Fast Learner]

I prefer what Google/Android is doing right now with waiting to get it right. Their reputation with tablets is bad but excellent in other areas so there really should be no massive rush to get another tablet released that is iffy at best. Put all your resources into a late fall (pre-Holiday) launch and watch the money roll in if they have a competitive product.

Dunno, two years in a row of iPad at 75% or so of the tablet market will make it even tougher to overcome going forward. Convincing a lot of people of grab unfinished Android tablets now is likely to drive Android tablet app development and, by default, Google ad impressions, which is the only way Google makes money off of Android.

Worse will be if HP's PalmOS-based tablet is any good this summer: Apple and HP could end up with the bulk of the enterprise market, and once you've got your enterprise devs writing software for one or two platforms, you sure don't want to add a third.