iPad over Xoom

[jocampo]

So, for those new iPad owners, please share your thoughts and let us know why the scale moved to Apple's side.

Xoom owners who faced same dilemma are welcome as well! ... and hopefully we all can keep the discussion in a civilized and healthy way.

I liked the Xoom and checked it before buying the iPad 2 wifi model. Played with the Xoom for several hours in store and even made lot of research. Finally decided for the iPad when taking these into consideration:

• Price (no wifi model for the Xoom at the time iPad 2 came out)

• 4G not working (but paying tag price for it anyway)

• SD not working (but paying tag price for it anyway)

• Heavier

• Just a few Honeycomb apps for Xoom

So at the end, I was getting a product with features I was paying, but were not ready yet, not even working! I wanted something that for what I was paying, was working out of the box, without "coming soon" features, because my check account is being deducted now ... not six month laters when the SD card driver is available.

Lot of nice and ready applications for iPad 2 was also an important factor! Netflix, B&N, Kindle were a "must" to me.

If you are a new iPad owner, share your experience and let us know why you bought it instead of the Xoom.

[RainingLemur]

Not being an Apple fan (and even less of a Motorola fan), I would get an iPad/iPad 2 before I got a Xoom. I'd LIKE for a solid Android tablet to come out that has specs similar to the Xoom, but be from a better manufacturer and be sold at a better price. Having missing features just really disappoints me, regardless of the manufacturer.

I'm not an Apple fan either, mostly because I hate what Steve Jobs is, and I hate the Applephile attitude that whatever Apple does is great. Meh! But I dislike Google and Android even more, mostly because Android is too clunky and the apps are mainly developed by non-professional developers and have no quality control mechanisms required. The result is that anyone can create an app, the app can be terrbly written, yet Google could care less. So to this date I've not met an Android tablet I like.

At least the iPad apps have to pass quality controls to be included in iTunes. And the iPad does what it does very elegantly. It is a long ways from being a true enterprise capable tablet with standardized ports and file system though.

As far as the Xoom having few apps, when the iPhone and iPod touch were first released there were few apps for them too. It took a while for developers to create them, but eventually they came along. As memory serves, it took at least 6 months after the touch was released before Apple even allowed apps to be developed for it and released the SDK. Even now with the new iPad 2 released there are still quite a few iPhone apps that have not been optimized for iPads.

[soondai]

the 300 buck Verizon special swayed me to a first gen. I like the wide screen as well. Don't really dig the Xoom's dimensions for reading PDFs in landscape.

Still not a fan of Apple's business style: not letting retina iphone apps scale up well so you have to buy the "HD" iPad version for just one example. Little surprised that crossword app that works like Shortyz android app costs 10 bucks (where Shortyz is free). etc.

But the hardware is great. Very happy with it as a reader, to play games, and read rss and browse.

Nifty little machine. I'll bet I hang on to it until it goes kaput (or apple quits letting you exchange it when the battery dies.)

[Noah98]

I wanted a Xoom, but I opted for an ipad 2 instead. My reasons:

1. I like the 4:3 aspect ratio better for portrait web browsing
2. I didn't like the way the Xoom felt in my hands (the weight and balance were weird, and it didn't feel right in portrait mode)
3. The colors on the Xoom screen were dull compared to the ipad 2
4. Netflix
5. Much better selection of tablet specific apps. Overall, higher quality apps as well
6. I felt like the Asus Transformer, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, and the Toshiba tablet would all be better devices than the Xoom
7. I got 5% off buying it at Target with my red card
8. At the time, the wifi only model of the Xoom didn't exist, and when it did arrive, there was no 16 gb $500 model
9. I think that the combination of Skyfire and the Atomic Browser help the ipad 2 match some of the browsing advantages of Honeycomb (tab browsing, user agent switching, ad blocking, full screen mode, and flash video workaround--although it did cost me $4.99 and .99)
10. When I tested my favorite sites on the ipad 2, flash video didn't matter. They were either ipad friendly, or Skyfire rendered the video just fine. It would be nice to play flash games however, and I'm sure I'll come across a situation where flash will be necessary.
11. I don't use widgets in android, so that wasn't a big advantage for Honeycomb (I do miss live wallpapers though!)
12. Xvid and avi videos work great with CineXplayer on the ipad 2. I had a hard time with Rockplayer, but that was on my nook color. I have no clue how the video player works on Honeycomb.

[MsAstoria]

agreed. I bought the ipad 2 and am very happy with it. I noticed a big difference in performance on Netflix (no hesitation or dropping signal in 3G mode) from the ipad 1. I checked out a Xoom at our local Staples and frankly, not impressed. Heavy, bulky feeling and next to none apps, and afterall, isn't that what we want? The ability to browse the net, mail, games, etc? Sorry, Xoom, it's just not your time, yet.

[David Munch]

Originally Posted by soondai

Still not a fan of Apple's business style: not letting retina iphone apps scale up well so you have to buy the "HD" iPad version for just one example. Little surprised that crossword app that works like Shortyz android app costs 10 bucks (where Shortyz is free). etc.

Apple has nothing to do with those decisions. They are solely something the developers choose.

[soondai]

incorrect Munch.
retina iphone apps look like HD apps on jailbroken iPads with an easy tweak that Apple is not gonna do or allow.

[benham]

It appears that most new apps you see these days are for Apple or Android. Yay? Nay?

[CyGuy]

I am going to purchase a Xoom as soon as the SDHC card reader issue is resolved. A non-working card reader is a show-stopper for me (and of course a missing card reader even more so). I saw that there is now a fix for this Xoom issue if you jail break but I am waiting for the official fix...

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

I am going to purchase a Xoom as soon as the SDHC card reader issue is resolved. A non-working card reader is a show-stopper for me (and of course a missing card reader even more so). I saw that there is now a fix for this Xoom issue if you jail break but I am waiting for the official fix...

Well there is a $29 adapter that fixes both lack of an SD card and the lack of a USB port. I wouldn't want an iPad with this fix.

Dale

[cavi]

After owning a iPad, then a samsung gaxaly, I went back to a ipad2 the lack of decent functioning apps for the android tab was too much...

[GlennD]

It's all about which apps you use. There's a ton of apps for android, if the ones you need are the ones that are available then it's a great device. I like my iPad but I've seen plenty of cases where Apple's control is a real turnoff. I don't blame people for going with a more open platform.

There's lots of happy folks over in the Android forum.

[athlonkmf]

Originally Posted by GlennD

It's all about which apps you use. There's a ton of apps for android, if the ones you need are the ones that are available then it's a great device.

There isn't exactly a ton of tablet-apps for android...

[=X=]

Originally Posted by athlonkmf

There isn't exactly a ton of tablet-apps for android...

Well technically there is...

I'm not sure if you aware, but Android OS handled apps differently than iOS. The iOS devices really only have two screen sizes, iPhones/iTouch and iPads. For the iPad to run iPhone apps it runs them in a compatibility mode where the screen size is fixed, they also have a 2x zoom factor. Therefore it's very important for iPad users to have iPad apps made so they can take advantage of the real estate.

For the Android OS apps are dynamically scalable. With the exception of a few apps most apps scale up to fill the screen size just fine. There are many apps that dynamically detect whether the device is a tablet or mobile device and initialize the app accordingly. For instance I purchased Moon+ an ebook reader, that one purchase gives me an app that has logic to determine whether it is running on a tablet device or a phone and optimizes it's layout based accordingly. The Kindle, nook, and Opera is yet more examples.


Point is most apps are tablet ready, there will be very few apps that are tablet only. So the "tablet specific" apps for Android will always be very low.

=X=