the tablet war is heating up

[Janx]

Why would someone rent physical media that they'd have to return when they could save themselves the trip with digital rentals?

You speak of "better terms", but the only better term you're going to get is Redbox, which offer a limited selection. Plus, it's a crap shoot if any popular titles will be available at the particular Redbox you visit. Add that into that the aforementioned travel time, and I don't see this as being a hands-down superior alternative.

better terms being, when I rent a movie, I fully expect to watch it right then. If life intervenes partway through, a digital rental screws me in 24 hours. Whereas the DVD gives me a week.

Furthermore, I object to the fact that a digital rental costs the same as a physicial rental. I expect a reduction in cost by removing the physical medium expense.

Plus, with physical media, you probably get the extras. No dice on the digital version.

I use netflix. $10 and I can churn 8 disks a month which beats the rental cost at a normal rental place or for digital. Prior to that, I rented movies maybe twice a year.

And to reroute this back to tablets, I can watch the instant stuff on my iPad.

 

[catsclaw227]

better terms being, when I rent a movie, I fully expect to watch it right then. If life intervenes partway through, a digital rental screws me in 24 hours. Whereas the DVD gives me a week.

Furthermore, I object to the fact that a digital rental costs the same as a physicial rental. I expect a reduction in cost by removing the physical medium expense.

Plus, with physical media, you probably get the extras. No dice on the digital version.

I use netflix. $10 and I can churn 8 disks a month which beats the rental cost at a normal rental place or for digital. Prior to that, I rented movies maybe twice a year.

And to reroute this back to tablets, I can watch the instant stuff on my iPad.

I was talking about a person on an airplane renting a tablet to watch an in-flight movie from a list of available titles. Your comment about the inconvenience of renting has nothing to do with this situation.

I was responding to this statement:

Well, no offense to your mom, but I wouldn't pay $4-5 to rent a digitally delivered movie at the same price you could have rented physical media on better terms.

There's no disc, no returning a physical item, and since you are on a plane (say for 4 hours) and you don't want to watch on your phone, it is actually more convenient.

As you said, when you rent a movie, you expect to watch it then and there. The same for renting a tablet in-flight.

FYI, my $4-$5 figure was for use of the tablet (which would have movies installed or available via wireless on the place from network storage).

 

[Relique du Madde]

Interesting.


There was just a stealth Android Honeycomb Market update for my Xoom Wifi. I now have access to "Google Movies." Or what ever Google calls the movie rental service. Also Google Videos app updated (funny... I never knew I had that app). The app lets me rent movies as well as watch the movies I'm able to view.

I'm asking people I know with the Asus Transformer to see if they also got the Movies update.

Current offerings*^:
Action/Adventure: 100
Animation: 65
Comedy: 600
Drama: 100
Documentary/Biography: 304
Family: 59
Horror 308

*I noticed some movies listed in multiple categories.
^ Some movies were oddly placed (CGI animation not placed in animation).

Sadly there seems to be no rhyme or reason to how the movies are displayed.

 

[Janx]

I was talking about a person on an airplane renting a tablet to watch an in-flight movie from a list of available titles. Your comment about the inconvenience of renting has nothing to do with this situation.

I was not the one saying renting was inconvenient. I found it trivial to visit the Hollywood Video that was next to the grocery store that I was next to every other day or so. I simply chose not to enter. I argue that digital rentals SHOULD be CHEAPER.

To sum up, I think paying $4-5 is too much to rent a movie.

I think paying $10 is too much to watch a movie at the theatre.

Just as I think that cheaper to produce CDs should have cost less than cassettes, but the industry kept the prices high so they could get a better margin.

Just as I think SMS cost schedule is a wallet rape scheme by the telcos to use what is significantly less drain on their network than the typical voice call. Let alone that someone is attacking your bank account with every text they SEND to you.

I also think tethering fees are another form of wallet rape as technically, you paid for the data plan, so whether you watch porn on your phone or on your laptop via tethering is the same quantity of bytes transferred across their network.

As such, I don't use SMS (I made AT&T block them arriving). I don't generally rent videos (barring Netflix which is basically $10 for 8 discs). And I recommend others do the same.

Because these companies charge what the Market Will Bear, so the Market needs to say No to force a lower price.

Does my reasoning make sense? Probably not. If I think something is wallet rape or stupid, I am not obligated to participate. Since this is a forum, it is the forum for voicing why I think something is wallet rape or stupid. If you sit down on the plane next to me and pay for your tablet movie, I should keep my mouth shut because that's polite.

Incidentally, you probably own a tablet. Why wouldn't you use yours? And in 2 years time, why wouldn't you give your mom your old tablet when you replace it with a new model?* I'm not talking literally here, maybe your wife called dibs on it. But the principal with smartphones and tablets is, this stuff is moving in and the % of Haves will grow rapidly. Many of the Have Nots will settle for late model stuff.

 

[Janx]

For Android this could be a major game changer for them. As it was for Apple when they first did it. Apples advantage was they came out with the first popular tablet. They where not the first tablet. But they are the ones who created a tablet that has really gone main stream. There tablet changed the computer market more than most people expected. Not to mention the number of companies that have come about because of it. If apple failed with there tablet, the odds are there wouldn't be android tablets at all. Tablets in general are the major game changer. We are seeing history in the making and us Tablet owners are part of that history. Android is as important to us as is Apple. It is the compatition between the two that will bring us greater tablets in the future.

There's some important nuggets here.

While the multi-touch technology opened up some UI possibilities, consider that on a tablet sized screen, you need "stretching" less than on an iPhone.

My point being, a tablet with a UI like iOS could have been done in 1997 with comparable tech like my Compaq PC Companion running Windows CE. Well, not literally, but close enough.

It ain't that hard to code the home screen of iOS. Or the basic UI effects. barring the multi-touch stuff (which stretching is handy and cool).

but MS had their head up their arse. From my PC Companion to the WinCE 5/6 that was running on the Tilt we owned for a month, MS clung to the Windows metaphor. A box, with a min/max/close button, Start button/task bar, and each application's MenuBar.

On a PC, I love these things. On a small screen like a smart phone or tablet. These things take up serious real estate.

Apple wasn't the only or first to trim the fat. Small screens need less stuff, but they need a consistent UI look. Apple is really good at that stuff. Ultimately, thats why they're on top right now.

Even now, Windows8 is being previewed. The first videos of it, make it look like Windows Mobile 7 on your PC. There's no "windows" anymore, unless you run a legacy app. The mouse is a "secondary" interface, based on a comment heard in the video. Why? Because MS is assuming that the next gen PC will be a touch screen computer, not a traditional screen.

And with the way MS works, manufacturers will conform to MS's hardware requirements on all new PCs certified to run Windows8.

The gist is, the big mobile OS brands have been refining how a touch screen interface should work (where WinCE failed) and now MS is taking that concept to the big PC OS. You can expect then that the next desktop PCs and laptops (and even some tablet-like PCs) will look and act like tablets. Rather than the current fair of "it's Windows. On a very flat computer running very slowly"

I can already by a cover for my ipad with a bluetooth keyboard. Kind of like making it a laptop. And Dell and HP have already done flavors of laptops with twisty screens, so they flip into a fat touch screen. So a PC/Mac that is as thin as a Macbook Air with a twisty screen and Win8 or comparable touchscreen intended UI will be the next competition for tablets.

 

[catsclaw227]

I was not the one saying renting was inconvenient. I found it trivial to visit the Hollywood Video that was next to the grocery store that I was next to every other day or so. I simply chose not to enter. I argue that digital rentals SHOULD be CHEAPER.

My point was that, if you are on a plane, it's more convenient to rent a tablet and watch from a selection of movies than to plan on bringing a physical media rental along with you.

We were talking about my mom on a plane and you said:

Well, no offense to your mom, but I wouldn't pay $4-5 to rent a digitally delivered movie at the same price you could have rented physical media on better terms.

... which didn't seem to make sense in light of the fact that she was cruising at altitude.

To sum up, I think paying $4-5 is too much to rent a movie.

I think paying $10 is too much to watch a movie at the theatre.

Just as I think that cheaper to produce CDs should have cost less than cassettes, but the industry kept the prices high so they could get a better margin.[/janx]
Not that I disagree, but figuring in inflation, I think these items are actually cheaper than they were in the past.

Just as I think SMS cost schedule is a wallet rape scheme by the telcos to use what is significantly less drain on their network than the typical voice call. Let alone that someone is attacking your bank account with every text they SEND to you.

I wouldn't know, I have an unlimited data and text plan. Pretty standard when your employer is paying for it, but if a regular consumer has a smartphone, why wouldn't they have a data plan? And aren't most major carriers giving free sms with their data plans?

I also think tethering fees are another form of wallet rape as technically, you paid for the data plan, so whether you watch porn on your phone or on your laptop via tethering is the same quantity of bytes transferred across their network.

I agree... I despise the fact that, for me to use my phone as a mobile hotspot, I have to pay an extra $20/month. That is wallet rape.

Incidentally, you probably own a tablet. Why wouldn't you use yours? And in 2 years time, why wouldn't you give your mom your old tablet when you replace it with a new model?* I'm not talking literally here, maybe your wife called dibs on it. But the principal with smartphones and tablets is, this stuff is moving in and the % of Haves will grow rapidly. Many of the Have Nots will settle for late model stuff.

I actually don't own one yet, and I am normally an early adopter. I had an iPhone and I started disliking it after a while over my "regular cell phone" because of a few minor quibbles. email was tougher, I misspelled constantly, and web browsing was a fight with fat-fingers on sensitive touch screens.

But then dropped AT&T because it sucks where I live and went back to Verizon. No iPhone at the time, so I got an android phone. I prefer the OS and generally "how things work", so I am waiting on the tablet for about six more months. By then the android tablets will be more stable, the apps available will be much better and I can get the tablet in an OS I prefer.

I have no problem waiting. My PC, laptop and Droid X phone keep me plenty busy in the meantime.

 

[Janx]

As you said, when you rent a movie, you expect to watch it then and there. The same for renting a tablet in-flight.

I probably should have said "hope" to watch it then and there.

I get interrupted a lot. I don't watch TV live anymore. I doubt I'd ever be able to catch a show if I didn't have a DVR.

And I can't count how many times I start a movie, and something comes up and I got to finish it the next day or so.

Granted, a plane is a box that your stuck in. But then I bring my own entertainment like a book, an ipad, iPhone, PSP with games or movies on it. Most people do. I don't think I'd want to get stuck paying for hoping that their movies the airline has on tablet don't suck like the ones they show on the overhead screen.

 

[Janx]

My point was that, if you are on a plane, it's more convenient to rent a tablet and watch from a selection of movies than to plan on bringing a physical media rental along with you.

We were talking about my mom on a plane and you said:

I see where I didn't make sense.

And for the record, I was talking about people I don't know in the abstractest sense. You were talking about yer mom..

$4-5 bucks is what itunes, xbox live/zune, and PSN charge for digital rentals. I think that price is BS for a 24 hour artificially constrained and having no physical media costs compared to what Block Buster charges.

The airplane part wasn't part of my logic.

Though i hate paying for things on airplanes. I also hate the stupid trolly runs they make up and down the plane to hand out food and stuff.

my anti-airplane rental logic is founded on the concept that they are paying money for a technology that will increasingly already be in the hands of their target market. I don't know what the growth rate is, but each person who owns a tablet will bring it on a trip, and be unlikely to rent one from the airline.

I already see that folks doing business travel, are more inclined to just bring a tablet, than a full laptop (I bring both). It's pretty much impossible to work on a laptop on a full plane, so the tablet is what gets played with.

 

[Janx]

snippet about CD prices vs. tapes:

Not that I disagree, but figuring in inflation, I think these items are actually cheaper than they were in the past.

there'd been a report on the topic that I'd read articles about. When CDs first hit the market, prices were higher. The industry claimed it was because of initial conversion costs for production and that it would drop. Because consumers kept buying, when costs actually did drop, prices did not actually follow. What's probably changed the game now, is iTunes $1 songs or full album for $10. That starts forcing CD makers to drop prices, since nobody's gonna pay $15-20 for an album they can get for $10.

Excepting for that I like physical media and mp3 format for all my devices, rather than iTunes format...

I wouldn't know, I have an unlimited data and text plan. Pretty standard when your employer is paying for it, but if a regular consumer has a smartphone, why wouldn't they have a data plan? And aren't most major carriers giving free sms with their data plans?

AT&T most certainly does not bundle SMS with Dataplan. at least not in the family plans.

Dataplan is $30/month for unlimited (now unavailable for new subs). SMS is like $15/month for 1500 texts. $30 for unlimited. Very seperate.

Despite the fact that SMS is effectively using the same hardware bits and network bits as your dataplan. (more wallet rape)

Sprint is the only vendor I know who has an everything unlimited plan.

There may be some special plans with it all bundled, but in plain english, they just charge you a crapton of money for all the unlimited in each category.

As for coporate phone plans, that too depends on your company. My company has a plan with Verizon. It feels like a family plan with a shared # of minutes and 200 texts. We go over minutes limit a lot (something's not right with that). Its free to me, in the sense that my company will pay for the ammo I need to kill a problem. But it's costing my company, because for some reason, we don't have a large enough plan. Heck, we had to add "Friends and Family" to the plan (didn't come with it already) so we could add some concall #s and thus save some minutes.

We've segued into phones too much. If nothing else, the relevance may be that tablets have complications due to DataPlan pricing and carrier availability as well.

Here in Houston, my AT&T phones are just as good as Verizon. Out on the east coast, all I hear is complaining about AT&T. But I've had no trouble when I've been out that way. I suspect it is cell network density vs. population density. Houston is 5 million people sprawled out over 4 counties or so, so the carriers have saturated the area with towers. NYC is like 5 million people packed into 4 blocks with 1 cell tower.

 

[Fast Learner]

(Not related to the topic but to wording: I'd like to request that y'all stop using the word "rape", even with the "wallet" qualifier. First, the word has some serious power that shouldn't be watered down like this, in my opinion, and second, in every example so far you had a choice about paying, so it sure as hell wasn't rape.)