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Comment by blinkingled | Hacker News Reader

Xoom can be bought online at Verizon or Moto websites. That nitpick aside it isn't anywhere near as bad as you are making it out to be. I am typing this post on one.

The browser is far better. The OS is far more usable than the iPad, the higher screen resolution is great - I can RDP into my work PC and use it all day. The hardware is top notch, and battery life is plenty. I haven't connected it to a PC yet - have my apps, music and video wirelessly synced! Once Flash is out and Moto ships SD Card enabling update I have everything I need from a PC replacement tablet.

People sadly have just decided to exclusively fall for whatever Apple markets them and there is no convincing them to drop their prejudices.

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We got a Xoom delivered to the office yesterday and the first-time experience was terrible. It locked up 10 seconds after turning it on and displayed the keyboard and nothing else on the screen. 6 engineers played with it for a few minutes trying to get the home screen to show up but we couldn't so we forced a hard restart. That seemed to work and we got into the setup process which forces you to pick wireless connectivity. In our case, the Xoom had extreme trouble finding one of the three networks set up at the office and was unresponsive for long periods of time. Finally after it did find the network we used the browser for 2 minutes and it froze and then that managed to freeze the recent-apps sidebar listing panel as well.

This all happened in the first 15 minutes of us pulling it out of the box. If this thing is supposed to compete with the iPad and now the iPad 2, I'd say Motorola already blew it with most consumers. I'm a geek, and so are my coworkers, so we have more patience than many, but at the end of yesterday the consensus in engineering was that the Xoom is a hunk of junk compared to the iPad, and even the Apple-haters at work admitted so.

Ugh. That's a nasty experience. Did you get the Verizon plan, or did you try to activate it without configuring 3G first? Up until launch day, everybody believed you needed to activate it on Verizon before WiFi would work.

My Xoom had greasy fingerprints all over the protective plastic film, which was gross. But once I peeled the plastic off, everything worked great. It found my password-protected wifi network without any configuration at all, which means that Google must somehow have copied the access credentials from my phone. Freaky but convenient.

I've seen a couple of the built-in apps force close in about a week of very heavy use, and the OS rebooted once after I did something unkind to it.

It's definitely a 1.0-quality product, with some rough edges, but my experience has been vastly better than what you went through. If it weren't so pricey, I'd happily give one to a non-technical family member. Oh, and if it had decent video-watching options: The biggest problem right now is the lack of Flash and Netflix.

I think Motorola's problem is quality control, and perhaps releasing too early.

I had a Droid 2 that had all sorts of problems (I've been complaining about it on HN for a few months). Finally the camera stopped focusing, and I took it to Verizon. They gave me a brand new unit on warranty (which I was impressed with, it took two minutes for the Vz guy to suggest that. Or maybe they have a lot of problems with these?).

This phone is so much better than the one I had before. The problems I had with my original Droid - home screen weirdness, four different camera problems, locking up on the unlock screen, etc. are not present in this phone. I don't know if it's new firmware, or that the hardware on my old one was bad, or a combination.

So you might just have a flaky individual tablet. That wouldn't really be excusable, of course... Motorola needs to step up their game if they are going to challenge Apple.

Yes but for most non geeks, the Xoom doesn't do much beyond the built in apps, whereas the iPad has 65,000 apps they can use today. That might be different in a year's time but the average user would be crazy to choose a Xoom over an iPad 2 now for that reason alone.

Maybe I'm the weird one, but in nearly a year of using my iPad every day, I've simply found that apps don't matter nearly as much (for me) as they do on a phone. There are a handful of really popular apps like Kindle and Twitter, but those are also the ones that run everywhere. Looking at my iPad usage, there are only about 10-12 apps I use regularly. Most of them have equal or better Android versions (browser, mail, kindle, zinio, etc.). The one app I use that has no good replacement is Papers.

Like I said, I use my iPad constantly. But the things I hate about the first one, I hate about the second one too (notifications, no filesystem access, low-res screen). It's smaller, lighter, and faster, but the first one was small, fast, and light enough.

Meanwhile, I have an Android phone and there's a lot of stuff I like there. Especially on a large screen like the iPad/Xoom, the iOS notification system and static grid of icons on the home screen are just criminal. I'm going to buy a Xoom and give it a shot.

Don't forget games, though. You might not use them, but many people do. Gaming is still way superior on iOS in comparison to Android.

Although, for non-gamers, I fully agree with your argument.

Umm no - most existing Android apps work and look good on the Xoom. Better than the iPhone apps looked on the iPad. I gave it to my wife who has an iPod touch and she has yet to complain about lack of apps - I found most of what is needed for her. So lack of apps is not really a burning problem.

You're seriously trying to claim that blown up android phone apps, many of which don't even rescale properly, are competition to the dedicated iPad designs?

Have you looked at iPad apps lately? Even if you don't include iMove and GarageBand that were just announced, how about OmniGraffle, Sketchbook, Inkpad, the Korg Apps, Reeder, Osmos, iWork, etc.

I think the Apple mind control conspiracy theory stuff is a bit outdated these days. You can 'convince' a small number of people to choose one product over another for superficial reasons through clever marketing but that's not a very good explanation when you're talking about tens of millions of people. If Apple had these secret mind control talents they would have 'convinced' people not to buy Android phones or Windows PCs. For now it just happens that they have a big head start and consumers simply don't know (or care) about the alternatives yet or just aren't sold on them.

> You're seriously trying to claim that blown up android phone apps, many of which don't even rescale properly, are competition to the dedicated iPad designs?

I believe the parent is trying to claim that blown up android phone apps on Xoom are no worse than blown up iPhone apps were when the iPad first came out.

Which is irrelevant because when the iPad came out there are more than 3,000 dedicated apps, many of them from household brands, and there was no competition.

I'm not saying the Android tablets aren't competitive with how the iPad was at launch. I'm asking why a regular consumer would choose an unproven tablet with a tiny number of apps over a proven tablet with 65,000 apps today.

Well because Apps aren't everything and not everyone needs the Sketchbook app for example.

A more interesting benchmark would be "time spent in each app". Sure, there are eight trillion apps for the iPad. But I bet most people spend 95% of their time in the browser (or an ebook reader), and the other 5% of their time in the email app.

Guess what, you can do that with a 386 laptop from 1995. Apple's success comes from convincing people, through marketing, that they want to do that on an iPad and not on something else.

I think that's probably true for some parts of the user base - particularly the more tech savvy - it's effectively true for me - I'll concede twitter and reeder as not much more than an extension of the browser or an ebook reader.

However I think you're underestimating how many non-tech savvy users find appliance-like apps much easier to understand than the web. Yesterday my wife borrowed my iPad to use with her mother to look at furniture on Craigslist.

She got me to buy a $2 craigslist app that I'd never dream of buying for myself which turned the iPad into a light-table of photos of stuff for sale linked to a map. Suddenly her mother could use Craigslist. At a certain point the screen blanked and she had a moment of panic of not knowing what to do - but then she realized there was only one button to press and everything was ok again.

That 386 laptop from 1995, or for that matter an iMac from 2011 requires a vastly more developed mental model in order to do anything. Even if most people can eventually learn this, it's work, whereas the ease of the app model on the iPad makes it relaxing and fun.

The apps matter a lot.

Is there any reason this Craiglist app couldn't be a web app?

Who'd pay $2 to use a reskinned Craigslist on the web?

From a technical standpoint, probably not. But those we apps don't exist today, and people are buying tablets now based on what apps can do for them.

"Guess what, you can do that with a 386 laptop from 1995"

Then why do I want to do that on a 2011 Android clone tablet that costs more than the baseline Apple one (as of 3/2/11 more than $100 more)?

"Apple's success comes from convincing people, through marketing, that they want to do that on an iPad and not on something else."

They convince people that the things that they normally did on their desktop or notebook propped on their lap, they can now do on the couch curled up leaning against the arm of their favorite chair, perhaps with the TV on, as they pinch and zoom and tap and slide freely around a large, bright touchscreen instead of a tiny glidepad.

I agree "time spent in each app" is a better benchmark. In the event that Apple held an event in April 2010 announcing, among other things, iAds it was announced that the average user spends 30 minutes a day in apps. Again, this is the average user. I spend far more time than that, and I would also say that I probably spend, at least, 90% of my time in non-Apple apps.

Apps matter. More than any other consideration, including brand.

I wouldn't try browsing with a 386 laptop. I highly doubt you could still buy one in '95. Funny as historical comparisons are, some accuracy would be appreciated.

"Guess what, you can do that with a 386 laptop from 1995. Apple's success comes from convincing people, through marketing, that they want to do that on an iPad and not on something else."

Ah, the old meme that people are just brainwashed by marketing into being happy with their Apple products, complete with made-up "95%" statistics.

Where did I claim that? The existing apps do work so there is no lack of apps to start with and Honeycomb has been out for only few weeks - it won't be long before more tablet optimized apps appear.

Right - I said in my original comment that the situation would change over the year, but for now an average user would be silly to buy a Xoom and only have blown up phone apps and hope that stuff they like gets developed in future, when they can buy an iPad 2 and have great dedicated apps today.

for now an average user would be silly to buy a Xoom and only have blown up phone apps

"Blown up phone apps" are much better on Android than the pixel doubling that the iPad does for iPhone apps. Android apps aren't hardcoded for a specific resolution, so most of them work well on tablets even without being specifically designed to.

But that's irrelevant because people aren't using pixel doubled apps on the iPad. They are using specially designed apps.

Are you seriously claiming that apps developed for android phones are as good as the dedicated iPad apps?

That's not true. Ipad apps are usually gratuitously more expensive and if you buy them, you won't be able to use the app on your iPhone and iPod too. For most apps I stick with the standard version. Mind you, I only use my iPad rarely, usually for distraction on plane journeys; not recharged more than once a month.

So you're saying that people who buy iPads buy mostly iPhone apps to run pixel doubled in order to save money?

No, I'm saying that I personally have bought relatively few apps that are specific to the iPad, and where there was a choice between an iPad and an iPhone app, the difference was not often compelling enough to get me to both pay extra and forego access to the same app on other devices. The killer app category for the iPad in my experience is distractions and games, and they don't lose much being scaled up.

Are you seriously claiming that apps developed for android phones are as good as the dedicated iPad apps?

In many cases, yes. Especially fullscreen games; Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja and several others look as if they were designed specifically for my Nook Color, even though they weren't.

I think Art Rage 2 is the killer app, so far

> So lack of apps is not really a burning problem.

The converse of above statement is a richer ecosystem is not really an advantage or incentive for developers!

Replace "Xoom" with "G1"/"Android" and "IPad"/"IPad 2" with "IPhone". Pretty much exactly what people said more than 2 years ago.

True, but with the phones there were lots of people who couldn't buy an iPhone to use on their carrier or wanted something cheap.

Android phones had a captive market.

iPads are more useful, cheaper and not limited by carrier. Why would a non-enthusiast buy an Android tablet based on the idea they they might get better over time, when iPads are good now?

"Why would a non-enthusiast buy an Android tablet based on the idea they they might get better over time, when iPads are good now?"

The same way that people bought Android phones when it first came out. Not everybody wants Apple.

Some people for sure - like the 20% who buy MP3 players other than iPods, but most people bought Android in tbe beginnig because they couldn't buy apple or because apple was more expensive.

Now, Android phones are genuinely competitive with the iPhone, but they got there because they had real advantages in availability and price from day one. Android tablets don't have those advantages.

Where did you get these stats?

There are a lot of people who prefer other products over Apple's in the same way that there are still a lot of people who still prefer a feature phone over a smartphone.

http://www.businessinsider.com/through-may-apples-ipod-had-7...

Ok - so I was off by 4% - 24% of people pick non-Apple mp3 players.

24% of people will not buy an IPad.

So what's your point again?

I don't understand this argument at all.

Why did anyone buy an iPad when they came out? There were no iPad specific apps when it came out, and yet it sold well.

Clearly, Android has a good web browser and email client, and that's enough for many. Just as clearly there are a huge number of non-tablet specific apps that will run fine on the Android tablets, and Android developers are desperately releasing tablet apps as fast as they can to try and take advantage of the "gold rush" when a new platform launches.

I thought there were quite a lot of apps for the iPad at launch, thanks to an early SDK release. At least there was talk of another app-store gold rush, stories of non-US developers flying to the US for the launch day just so that they could immediately check whether their already published app worked on the real device, etc.

There were more than 3,000 tablet specific apps on day 1, and there was no competition.

New platforms don't automatically lead to a gold rush. There hasn't been one for the palm pre.

The argument you are making is that normal consumers will pick a more expensive android tablet with very few apps over an iPad 2 with thousands of apps, some of then mind-blowing on the basis that there will surely be a developer gold-rush.

Even if there is a developer gold-rush, people will still have to wait a year for then software to be written.

I can see enthusiasts doing that by but why on earth would a regular consumer?

Even if you were to ignore the iPad apps that were available from the early SDK release, you'd still be comparing "devices with no platform-specific apps" to "devices with no apps".

Carrier argument doesn’t really come into it - we’re in the same situation in the UK but the iPhone’s been available on every major carrier since the 3GS.

Yes, but all those carriers have had the prices jacked up to the roof. The US gets a $49 3GS, UK prices range from £59 ($95) to £189 (some offer it free on a very expensive monthly contract over two years). For an out-of-date handset.

Compare the Android phones, where you get HTC Desires for free, on 12 or 18-month contracts with monthly charges in the £20s.

Apple has a big price problem competing in the UK in phones. It gets away with $1:£1 in computing, just, but it won't when Android is "good enough".

the higher screen resolution is great - I can RDP into my work PC and use it all day. The hardware is top notch, and battery life is plenty.

I worked out a way to do this with my iPad. And you know what made me say "wow"?

The way a triple head 1920x1280(ish) 24" desktop was so usable on a 10" 1024x768 iPad because I could zoom out.

You're not going to get desktop resolution on a tablet any time soon, and not properly without it being the same size. A few hundred pixels here or there is not much of an advantage really, good software is the advantage. It Feels good. iOS has it. Has Android? Has webOS? Has Windows phone 7?

The way a triple head 1920x1280(ish) 24" desktop was so usable on a 10" 1024x768 iPad because I could zoom out.

Years ago I remember playing around with a proof of concept for Archy[1], a new user-interface concept by Jef Raskin. The basic idea was that all the contents of the computer were on a great big canvas, which you could zoom in and out of. One "folder" of pictures, might be little specks up in this corner, which you could then zoom in on and browse. Then you would zoom out, pan to the side and zoom in on something else. The browser's "links" were really tiny pages, so if you wanted to follow a link you would just zoom in on it and the new page would take up the screen.

It was a very interesting concept, although it was difficult to use at the time. But with pinch and zoom multitouch, I'm sure the whole experience would be worlds different.

I unfortunately can't seem now to find the demo I played with. :-(

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy

I know that idea, does it now go by the name The Humane Interface (THE)? I haven't played with it in practice, but the way OS X does spaces+expose is similar.

THE is actually the original name and Archy the new one. I hadn't considered spaces and expose as a similar idea; interesting, thanks.

I don't know what software you use for RDP on iPad but I use Wyse Pocketcloud Pro and it is available for ipad too.

Honeycomb does have the good feel although it is different obviously from iOS feel.

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