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I'm not surprised. A tablet requires software that manufacturers are unable to write (except for HP, now) and their traditional software partner has nothing remotely ready for them. So they turn to Google.

Apple added a number of new APIs and UI extensions in order to make the iPhone OS suitable for a large screen. Until Google does the same with Android we'll be stuck with nothing but big Android cell phones.

add to the software edge, the base price of $499 doesn't leave a lot of room for other companies to build one at a decent profit.

There's plenty of footage of Android tablets running everything from 1.5 to 2.2 and nothing obvious is missing from casual inspection of people playing games, surfing the web etc.

What do you think is missing, or to say it another way, why is the iPad not just a big cell phone (minus the ability to make calls)?.

The deficiencies look quite obvious to me: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/05/android-tablet-p...

I'll put it this way: The iPad would not be a compelling device if it merely ran iPhone software at a higher resolution.

Hardware-wise, the iPad is nothing but an iPod Touch with a giant screen and a giant battery. Software-wise, it's everything but an iPod or iPhone; the use cases are very different. A touch-surface that's 5 times larger than an iPhone enables a much richer and more sophisticated UI, and this is evident in the iPad SDK, Apple's iPad software, and the successful 3rd-party iPad software.

Google needs to define their tablet HIG, they need to update their SDK to implement their HIG, they need to update their built-in apps to take advantage of the new SDK, and they need to get their 3rd party developers on board. All of this takes time, and I would not expect it to take shape before the spring or summer of 2011 (they're still "feverishly working" to get Android 2.2 out the door). Anything less will result in a product that's not as compelling as the iPad.

That said, I have no doubt that manufacturers will try to sell Android tablets before the Android OS is ready, and I have every confidence that those tablets will fail in the marketplace. But eventually there will be compelling Android tablets.

The linked article, and you, seem to be suggesting that Google needs to add capabilities to Android to support different resolutions and pixel densities. I'm saying that they already have. In fact they're already talking about developing Android apps for Google TV, a 3rd entirely different form factor.

Having to update Android apps to take full advantage of newer form factors, is entirely different from having to fix Android itself to work with different form factors, and even if the apps are not updated they'll probably still generally work better than iPhone apps on iPads because of Android's inherent multiplicity of devices.

(scratches head) Android isn't the only other other option for controlling a tablet. I know desktop Windows and Linux are unsuitable from a UI point of view, but there's plenty of middleware around to bridge touchscreens to software, and there are plenty of self-contained UI paradigms: game consoles rarely use the desktop metaphor.

Not the exact same thing, I know, but waving the Nintendo Wii controller around feels a lot closer to interacting with a touchscreen than it does my desktop, and there's a vast pool of UI design knowledge in the gaming market. Not instantly accessible to likes of us, but companies like Asus and their technology partners have the resources, developer infrastructure and motivation to open up alternative platforms.

Few dedicated software companies can even compete with Apple. I mean, at the moment it's just Apple and Google in the smartphone space, and Google's barely competitive despite Apple only having one phone on one provider. To assume Asus can somehow just will a brilliant new software platform into existence to compete with Apple's in a matter of months makes no sense to me.

The hardware companies have always depended on the software companies for things to run on their devices, and right now the software companies just don't have anything to compete with the iPad.

I see your point, but disagree about the 'matter of months' part; we were discussing the Apple tablet here last year, iPhones have been out for a few years (as have some other niche multitouch products), and the tablet + stylus concept has been on the market for a decade. So I had expected other players to offer up something even if it was only to stake a claim on behalf of their brands.

In other words, not to be compete or beat with apple technically in the short term, but to deny them marketing hegemony. Perhaps they'd rather wait for the initial iPad thunder to subside, than risk being tagged as 'a poor second best' in the first lap of the race. I suppose it depends on whether one feels engineering or brand positioning is the biggest determinant of long-term success.

I don't know why the above was downed, but I tryed upvoting it, an I'm not sure I succeeded from my phone. (Takes more than one to raise from 0?)

Could someone explain what stuck out in the above?

Insta-edit: I see it's -1 now, and I don't have that strength yet, so it wasn't a mis-click.

Yeah, I don't get it either. I find it odd they did not see the iPad coming. I guess I'm looking at it with hindsight but an device running the iPhone OS was rumored way before the release. An android tablet could have been out and running before the iPad. It seems they were just waiting to see if apple could sell any and then start building one.

Pretty crappy way to tag along on another companies research and marketing.

I just want a damn tablet with android with decent specs. I don't care if it's flat like a pancake. Make it 720p with a front facing camera and at least 32gb of flash memory. Then ew nvidia chip and BLAM, I'll buy it so will all the real computer users. :)

> I'll buy it so will all the real computer users. :)

There are considerably fewer “real computer users” than non computer users.

Let's face it: “real computer users” are a niche.

Yep. The ones who had computers in the 80s, and bemoan that you can't program on windows out-of-box.

I think everybody was assuming: "There's no way they'll just release a big iPod touch." Nobody thought the formula for a successful tablet could be defined so simply.

If you look at the UI changes they made for the bigger screen, it isn't just a big iPod touch.

different device entirely. - big screen is a big part of it, but the refined email application, and substantial improvement in speed is equally as relevant.

Though it's not really, they introduced new controls and chromes which don't make sense on a phone's screen (but do on a tablet's) and the device to screen ratio is completely different.

It looks like a big ipod touch (which means people are rapidly familiar with it), but it feels very differently.

And of course, even if it were just a big ipod touch none of Apple's (potential) competitors in the field have such a platform.

The problem is that hardware is becoming somewhat easier, but the software is not there yet. Apple definitely did a lot of work on iOS and it shows.

Maybe you need an aPad?

http://www.ipmart.com/main/product/APad,China,iPad,,7,0,Inch...

I'm a little bit wondering why Microsoft hasn't surprised us yet. Yea Microsoft. They had this Surface thing for years, which is allegedly pretty cool, why not turn it into a tablet? They also showed a pretty slick prototype, that later got canceled, despite the positive impressions. And It's not like it's a small company with no resources or money.

This will explain everything.

> Real artists ship, dabblers create concept products

> But there does appear to be a weak correlation between a company’s ability to churn out concept products and its ability to design, manufacture and profitably sell products based on those.

http://counternotions.com/2008/08/12/concept-products/

Cached: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?oe=UTF-8&hl...

There have been commercial windows tablet computers out for years now. From a number of different manufacturers. I think their problem was that they went with the stylus interface instead of fingers. That and they don't have that 'reality distortion/influence field' of Apple to make everyone believe that whatever new computing paradigm they introduce is the way of the future.

Yes, Windows tablet computers relied on the stylus. I've used a couple.

Did you read the article? The article is not about the relative minor success of Windows-based tablets; it is about how the lack of constraints on price (how much it will cost to manufacture) and manufacturing (how you will make it on a mass scale) can make prototype concepts alluringly too easy.

For example, Apple had to develop state-of-the-art manufacturing technology to produce the Aluminum unibody MacBook.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fe800C2CU&feature=relat...

> Yes, Windows tablet computers relied on the stylus. I've used a couple.

So this was not an example of them creating a concept product. Right? That was the point I was making. However valid and insightful the article you linked to may be, it doesn't seem to address this specific case and neither does the video.

"state-of-the-art manufacturing technology"

According to the video, Ives said the unibody is fabricated from an extruded piece of aluminum, then CNC'd using various jigs and fixtures. He then states how the most difficult part of the process was "developing" the various jigs and fixtures to produce the desired final results.

But he goes into no detail regarding this aspect.

Why do you consider this "state-of-the-art"? CNCing aluminum extrusions in jigs and fixtures in nothing new.

I was actually disappointed when a saw a unibody being manufactured and thought, "They're milling these?"

So, I really don't believe that other manufacturers barrier to entry in the tablet space is lack of CNC capabilities (but maybe fixture design?).

I've done some woodworking. The proper jig makes all the difference. I think what holds other tablet companies back is the software.

> As a pure consumer device, tablets - preferably slightly larger ones - are just begging for deployment as a family boardgame platform.

http://gametableapp.com/

A generic constrained board is interesting.

Exactly - I was just envisioning something big enough to fit in 2 kids at the side too.I think once you hit ~8.5 x 11" screen area it become practical to play monopoly or scrabble, but not so big as to be unwieldy.

In Brazilian TV networks we are starting to see them in the hands of news anchors and talk show hosts all the time.

Several channels that are covering the Word Cup (in Brazil that is almost all of them :-) have the hosts reading information off iPads.

Jake Humphrey has been lugging an iPad around during the BBC coverage of F1 since they were released. It's fairly prominent and I was wondering if Apple put it there.

if it's on the BBC there's no way Apple put it there. There are very strict rules about that. Is the Apple logo even visible? They'll usually blank it out.

I have never seen the logo as he's usually holding it in such a way that it's not visible but it's clearly and iPad. They may have put a silver "sticker" over the Apple logo on the back.

Recently they were also used to read speeches off, as seen two weeks ago in the German parliament: http://webtv.bundestag.de/iptv/player/macros/_v_f_514_de/od_... :)

(More background information: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,702119,00...)

the iPad sells because it's an apple product, everyone gotta have..not because it's a tablet.