why would anyone want Android OS on a tablet?

[jgaiser]

I'm done. Thanks for playing...

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by ApK

Here's another key observation point: If Linux is every bit as simple to setup, use and maintain on the home desktop as Windows, why is is not quickly killing Windows on the home desktop, like Android is killing Windows on mobile devices? It's FREE for goodness sake? Manufacturers should be falling over themselves to save MS license fees on new machines. What do you think is holding the market back?

I can install my Linux distribution in 15 minutes or less, from booting the installation media to arriving at the newly installed desktop. From what I've heard, that's a little better than installing Windows. But that's the point, isn't it? It doesn't come pre-installed. If it did then it might be "killing" Windows the way the pre-installed Android is.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

I can install my Linux distribution in 15 minutes or less, from booting the installation media to arriving at the newly installed desktop. From what I've heard, that's a little better than installing Windows. But that's the point, isn't it? It doesn't come pre-installed. If it did then it might be "killing" Windows the way the pre-installed Android is.

Manufactures have and do offer Linux systems. My point is that the reason preinstalled Linux systems have not become the runaway best sellers that everyone is clamoring for, like Android tablets have, is PARTIALLY because Linux is still harder to to learn and use than Windows or Mac.
If it was "just as good" and "just as easy" on top of taking $100 or so off the cost of a system, there should be a iPhone-esque crowds lined up to buy them.

The fact is, there is too much disparity between distros and tools, some important apps are not as compatible or as polished as their Windows or Mac equivalents, and user training and support is....well, let's say variable, and at it's worst, subject to the worst kind of rude geek-fanboy forum online support.

Are there other reasons that have nothing to do with ease of use? Certainly. But that does not make anything I'm saying untrue.

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by ApK

Manufactures have and do offer Linux systems. My point is that the reason preinstalled Linux systems have not become the runaway best sellers that everyone is clamoring for, like Android tablets have, is PARTIALLY because Linux is still harder to to learn and use than Windows or Mac.

More hokum. I find Windows difficult and Apple is nearly opaque to me. Why? Because I don't use them. I could learn if I made the effort, but I have no reason to try. I can't justify spending the money and then spending months getting back to where I am now.

As for the paucity of pre-installed Linux systems, I'm sure that will change once computers become appliances like phones and tablets.

rjb

[Ntsimp]

Originally Posted by HarryT

There are far more apps available for Android (and iOS too, for that matter) than for Linux.

I don't know the definition of "app" that would make this true.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

Apple is nearly opaque to me.

I find that hard to believe (at least at the end user level we are talking about).

One of the reasons I had no problem getting the hang of my Mac this past week, having never before used one, is that the desktop experience is almost identical to my Ubuntu Unity desktop. OSX is, after all, *ix under the hood, as I understand it.
But the other reason is that EVERYTHING I needed to do to get it set up and usable on my home network and decked out with all the apps I needed was doable through a mostly-intuitive GUI with clear consistent online help and documentation for the stuff that wasn't intuitive, and a consistent user experience across the entire user community, so if I did need to look something up on line (like how to make the secondary display primary) there were clear, GUI-based answers easily found. No command lines*, no bash scripts, no .tar.gz files.

I cannot say the same for getting any of my Linux boxes set up.

At a deeper level, Apple WANTS the Mac to be opaque, of course. And end users like that.

Can Windows be difficult? Harder than Linux, when it comes to advanced tasks and troubleshooting? Heck yeah. That's why I have a job.

As for the paucity of pre-installed Linux systems, I'm sure that will change once computers become appliances like phones and tablets.

You don't see the inherent irony in that statement?
Reduced to it's tautological essence, I agree: When Linux is as easy to use as a consumer appliance, then it will be as easy to use as a consumer appliance.

ApK

*I did need to go to the command line once to work around a bug in the not-officially-supported Synergy+ utility.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by ApK

When Linux is as easy to use as a consumer appliance, then it will be as easy to use as a consumer appliance.

That pretty much sums up ChromeOS.

Graham

[bbpo8]

I sympathize with what Sgt.Stuby was getting at. I think he is right that the Android OS on tablets really isn't open the way that Linux is open.

Does it matter? As other posters have said, most users don't care, and would rather have a controlled, reliable system. Well, at least they *think* they don't care ... until something goes wrong and the closed nature of the OS means they are out of luck.

For example, there will soon be a lot of obsolete tablets and e-readers around. Wouldn't it be nice to use an open OS to re-purpose these devices, instead of throwing them on the scrap heap?

Yes, one can root the device, but wouldn't it be nice if this sort of experimentation were out in the open ... and even *encouraged*? Who knows what creative applications people would come up with?

I see that Ubuntu on tablets is coming next year. Maybe that will satisfy the need some of us feel for more open systems.

[supermighty]

Originally Posted by ApK

Manufactures have and do offer Linux systems. My point is that the reason preinstalled Linux systems have not become the runaway best sellers that everyone is clamoring for, like Android tablets have, is PARTIALLY because Linux is still harder to to learn and use than Windows or Mac.
If it was "just as good" and "just as easy" on top of taking $100 or so off the cost of a system, there should be a iPhone-esque crowds lined up to buy them....

There is more to it than that. Microsoft has leveraged it's massive influence to force OEMs to bundle Windows even (at one point) with systems that shipped with Linux. The Windows Tax. We never saw prime-time Dell commercials showing off Linux because of OEMs, while offering Linux, wanted to stay in Microsoft's good graces. They were not about to lose favorable license terms for Windows by pissing off Microsoft.

Linux hasn't always been as easy to use as it is today, but saying that alone is responsible for it's lack of market share is not looking at the whole picture.

Originally Posted by bbpo8

I sympathize with what Sgt.Stuby was getting at. I think he is right that the Android OS on tablets really isn't open the way that Linux is open.

Does it matter?

No, they target different audiences.

Saying "Linux" is too broad. Linux runs on everything, Serves and Mainframes to phones and watches. AndroidOS, ChromeOS, these are consumer, computer illiterate, tools. Ubuntu is a desktop OS designed to compete with Windows. I would be comfortable running it, but most people are not. And it's not because it's too different, it's because they are scared of anything different. I've seen Windows users freak out and not be able to drag and drop files in Mac simply because they were too scared to try. But they're not that different.

It would be nice if Android were more open, and older devices could be easily unlocked and updated to a new, 3rd party, version. Maybe one day.

[jshoughton]

Something that is also worth bearing in mind is that Linux (and by extension Android) is much more difficult to set up and run on ARM powered devices (which the vast majority of tablets are) due to the number of different SoCs than with the relatively stable x86 flavours, due to the lack of standardisation. It's only recently that there has been any movement on getting better ARM support in the Linux Kernel. This means there's a whole host of propriety drivers written by the manufacturers that only support the flavour of SoC they are using in a particular device. Which doesn't help with the openess of any Linux or Android ditribution on Tablet.

It's as much the SoC manufacturers fault for not releasing documentation to allow the FOSS community to develop drivers for their hardware, as it is Google for making Android appear very "closed".

If a Linux (or Android) distribution becomes easier to recompile for different ARM based SoCs I think we'd find Android would become more open. Unfortunately, currently as far as I'm aware, the amount of effort required to set up a distribution is vast, as the platform changes with each new piece of hardware.

Just my ruminations!

[MarekGibek]

Originally Posted by HarryT

(...) hacking the 3G service on the 3G device, then using it to provide Internet tethering for a PC. It only takes a small number of people like that to spoil things for everyone.

If you buy a device - it's yours - you should be able to do whatever you want to do with it. I don't understand the way of thinking that you cannot or even worse - that this is a shame. It's not. It's otherwise. It's a shame that producers put effort to limit the number of ways you can use your device! This is what is really bad for consumers.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by MarekGibek

If you buy a device - it's yours - you should be able to do whatever you want to do with it. I don't understand the way of thinking that you cannot or even worse - that this is a shame. It's not. It's otherwise. It's a shame that producers put effort to limit the number of ways you can use your device! This is what is really bad for consumers.

The device certainly IS yours. Hack away. The 3G network that was being subverted for purposes never intended, however, was very much NOT 'yours.' Not even remotely. There's a difference. The free 3G service was for THAT device's limited use ... not for every Tom, Dick, and seedbox people were tethering to them.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Graham

That pretty much sums up ChromeOS.

Graham

Quite a step in that direction, yes, as is the iPad, and most Android tablets, really.

But I was thinking more along the lines of the computers in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Ask it how to bake a cake, and a holographic Julia Child appears to give you a cooking lesson. THAT will be the computing appliance.
I wonder if LCARS runs on Linux?*

ApK

*Anyone read the "Seafort saga" books by David Feintuch? "Horatio Hornblower in space" stuff. The artificially intellegent computer systems that control the starships run, under the AI layer, an OS apparently reminiscent of MS-DOS. The techs that support them are called "dosmen." SPOILER ALERT:

Spoiler:

In one book, the AI on a ship goes insane because a dosman messed up an end-of-file marker in a config text file....

[Graham]

Originally Posted by ApK

Quite a step in that direction, yes, as is the iPad, and most Android tablets, really.

But I was thinking more along the lines of the computers in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Ask it how to bake a cake, and a holographic Julia Child appears to give you a cooking lesson. THAT will be the commuting appliance.

We're getting there. That's pretty much the way Google Now is heading. Albeit without the holograms, yet.

I just asked my Android phone (out loud) "How do I bake a cake?". The fourth result in the list was a 17 minute video:



I just tried it on the Chromebook. The voice search gave the same results there.

Edit: I tried again with "Show me how to bake a cake" and got videos as the first results.

Graham

[Lemurion]

To answer the original question: because it lets me do the things I bought the tablet to do.