| |
DaffyDuck
|
Do Android tablet apps really suck? Yes. Yes, they do. We take a close look, and provide examples.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2401676,00.asp
The iPad Wins Because Android Tablet Apps Suck: An Illustrated Guide
I just gave the new iPad an Editors' Choice award for large tablets, but frankly it was a foregone conclusion. The iPad doesn't get the award because of its hardware, lovely as the hardware is. It gets the award because its apps are generally better than the apps available for Android tablets.
That's the conventional wisdom, at least. The assertion is hard to test, but I wanted to try. Comparing app availability is difficult. You can't just compare the number of apps available, especially when Google won't give a number for Android tablet apps.
So I assembled my own list of potential app providers. To create a list of top brands, I looked at Nielsen's top 10 global Web companies, online video destinations, and U.S. TV networks; Alexa's top 10 U.S. websites; the top 10 retail banks as measured by the Federal Reserve; 10 top online game publishing houses; Nielsen's top 20 Android apps by usage; and Apple's top 10 paid and top 10 free iPad apps by usage. I looked for official apps from each of these companies.
The First Problem: Finding Android Tablet Apps
Finding tablet-oriented apps for Android is a hunt, a chore, and a grind. You can find some by looking in the very small Suggested for Tablets area on Google Play, using search terms like "Tablet" or "HD" in Google Play, or using the Tablified Market third-party directory ($1.49).
Things get even worse when you realize Google Play shows different apps on its website and on individual tablets; even though the Google Play website claims some apps run on an Asus Transformer Prime, the apps didn't show up on Google Play on the Prime.
And just because an app claims to run on tablets doesn't mean it was designed for tablets. Often, after you download an app you'll discover that it's ugly or nearly useless because it was designed for a 4-inch screen. The frustrating discovery process is one reason our software desk was able to come up with a list of The 100 Best iPad Apps but only 12 great Android tablet apps.
There's a slice of geeks who won't care, generally tech types who want to experiment and aren't afraid of some trial and error. They'll be rewarded with unique Android app categories like widgets, BitTorrent clients, and game emulators. But for the mainstream consumer, hunting down and puzzling out Android tablet apps is just too complex and frustrating.
Still, though, I wanted to collect a list of popular brands and see how they compared on the Transformer Prime versus the iPad.
Android vs. iOS: The Apps
Superficially, the picture doesn't look so bad for Android tablets; almost all of the brands are at least represented on Google Play, and some display more apps per brand on Android than on the iPad.
The problem is that the Android apps are often formatted for phones. They'll work on tablets - barely - but they'll be ugly, with less functionality than their iPad counterparts. Items that could be pop-down menus or swipeable content require screen reloads. Little information is displayed per page, for instance, on the eBay app. Graphics sometimes appear low-resolution, distorted (as on the CBS Sports Football app), or are overlapped by ads. The number of clicks to do things increases dramatically.
I was wrong to say about Android tablets, "competing tablets don't have apps." Rather, competing tablets have apps that usually suck. Not all of them suck. CNN's Android tablet app is gorgeous. But most of them do.
Android was weak on apps from TV brands, with only one app from ABC compared to the iPad's 12 and nine from Disney compared to the iPad's 32. But it did well with dominant Web brands, offering 14 Yahoo apps to the iPad's five and seven Amazon apps to the iPad's 4. There are 20 Google apps for the Transformer Prime and only eight for the iPad; Google+, most notably, is missing on the iPad. Google's tablet apps look great on both platforms. Apple, Nielsen's number-nine Web brand, offers no Android apps.
Each OS is missing some major brands. The iPad has no official Wikipedia app, although there are several third-party versions. The Android Wikipedia app looks so bad, though, that it's not really competition. It's a reformatted WAP site on a tablet capable of displaying the full Web.
There's no LinkedIn app on the iPad, but once again the Android app is uglier and less functional than LinkedIn's website. Apps are supposed to provide more or faster functionality than their corresponding Web sites, but those Android apps don't deliver.
It wasn't hard to find apps that ran on the iPad but not on the Prime. In my initial search Hulu+ came up, along with ABC and USA TV apps. All of those iPad apps look gorgeous.
The Android platform has all of the top 20 iPad apps except for the game Tiny Wings. The iPad lacks three of the top 20 Android apps: Advanced Task Killer, the Amazon Appstore, and Google+. But I'd assert that for categories other than games, Android tablets' problem isn't app availability but app quality.
Continue Reading: Android vs. iOS: Games and Geek Apps>
Still the finest large-screen tablet on the market, the third-generation Apple iPad ($499-$829) delivers an unmatched array of excellent apps on a truly gorgeous screen. The high-res display and fast 4G LTE are the best of what's changed from the wildly popular iPad 2 ($399, 4.5 stars), and the little improvements like a better rear camera and a new dictation feature only help sweeten the deal. The biggest reason to recommend the new iPad, though, isn't its hardware, fine as that is. It's the software. And I don't mean Apple's software, either, although iOS 5.1 is certainly no slouch. The collection of third-party apps for the iPad is far better than on any other platform, including Android, delivering a superior experience—and making it our Editors' Choice for large-screen tablets.
Pricing, Physical Features
The new iPad comes in nine different models. There are 16, 32 and 64GB sizes in Wi-Fi-only ($499, $599, and $699) and 4G LTE variants on AT&T and Verizon Wireless ($629, $729, and $829). The AT&T and Verizon models don't work on each others' LTE networks, but the Verizon model works on AT&T's 3G network and T-Mobile's 2G EDGE network with the appropriate SIM card. The Verizon iPad also comes with a free wireless hotspot feature; AT&T hasn't announced its hotspot plan yet. If you want to be able to keep apps, movies, and music on your tablet, I advise getting at least 32GB, which runs $599 for Wi-Fi-only and $729 for 4G on either carrier. For this review, I tested the $829 64GB Verizon Wireless model.
The new iPad looks just like the old iPad: a 9.7-inch screen surrounded by a black (or white) bezel, with a curved metal back, and a single Home button. Apple's magnetic Smart Cover Smart Cover (Best Deal: $23.99 at OWC), which was released with the iPad 2, clips on just fine. The tablet still has a sealed-in battery and no ports other than a MicroSIM slot, a standard headphone jack, and an Apple 30-pin dock connector.
If you look closely, you'll notice that at 7.3 by 9.5 by 0.37 inches (HWD) and 23.3 ounces, it's just a hair thicker and a smidge heavier than the iPad 2, but you wouldn't notice if you weren't holding both tablets at once. The additional weight is because of a much larger battery, although the new iPad promises the same battery life as the previous model—the 4G radio and sharper screen are just much more power hungry.
The 2,048-by-1,536-pixel Retina display is as beautiful as you've heard, and colors are more saturated than on the previous model. It's still reflective, which creates some problems outdoors, but at 264 pixels per inch, it's the sharpest tablet screen there is.
Several times during this review, I'd pick up the new iPad, do something, and be afraid I had mistakenly picked up the iPad 2. So then I'd pick up the iPad 2, look at its screen, and be horrified at the comparitive graininess. On the new iPad, things look the way they're supposed to. They look real. No matter how small an element is, it's readable. Diagonal lines are never jaggy; nothing decays into a shower of pixels. Text probably benefits the most, though.
Internet Connectivity
The new iPad offers 4G LTE connections on Verizon Wireless and AT&T, as well as HSPA+ links up to 42Mbps. All but the Wi-Fi-only iPads have unlocked MicroSIM slots, so they'll connect to any compatible network. Both 4G models support HSPA+ 42 on 850/900/1800/1900MHz. The AT&T model supports LTE on the AT&T 700 and AWS bands; the Verizon model supports CDMA EVDO Rev A and LTE on Verizon's own bands. The tablet also integrates 802.11 b/g/n including the 5GHz band, which is useful if you live or work in a place with crowded Wi-Fi networks. Bluetooth 4.0, meanwhile, opens up the option of not just wireless headsets and headphones, but Bluetooth watches and sensor devices. The built-in GPS locked in quickly when using the Maps app on the streets of Manhattan.
Back to that 4G for a second: Using the industry-standard Ookla Speedtest.net app, I compared the new iPad with a Motorola Droid 4 ($199, 4.5 stars), an Editors' Choice Verizon LTE phone. The two devices kept pace over 10 rounds. The iPad got slightly faster results in strong-signal areas and slightly slower results in a weak-signal area, but not enough to matter. With a decent signal, our test iPad pulled down 10-11Mbps, which is about the national average download speed we measured for Verizon in our Fastest Mobile Networks story.
Buying a 4G tablet means signing up for an iPad data plan and staying under your data cap. That's one way iOS falls short. There's a data counter, but it's buried under Settings>General>Usage>Cellular Usage, which is just too deep to monitor regularly. Verizon sends messages when you're about to run out of data, but that's almost too late. Invest instead in Sigterm's 99-cent Data Usage app and stick it on your first home screen; it keeps constant track of how much cellular data you've used by floating a percentage over its icon. I have some more tips for conserving 4G data in a separate story.
Processing Power and Battery Life
The new iPad's A5X processor, a dual-core Cortex-A9 running at 1GHz, is the same CPU as in the previous iPad, with a better GPU to handle the higher-resolution screen. In tests we saw similar performance, with both the Geekbench processor/memory benchmark (at 761) and Rightware's Browsermark benchmark (at 102,096) falling very close to the scores for the iPad 2.
According to Apple, the new GPU offers "four times the performance" of the iPad 2, which turns out to mean that it offers the same performance while pushing four times the pixels. In the GLBenchmark 2.1.2 "Egypt High" test, which creates a simulated 3D game scene, the iPad 2 and new iPad had almost exactly the same frame rate of 28 frames per second—but remember, the new iPad has to work four times as hard to get there. The "Egypt Offscreen" test, which takes displaying actual pixels out of the equation, drew 50 percent more frames on the new iPad than the iPad 2, highlighting the additional graphics power.
But benchmarks have never been a good measure of the iPad user experience, because there's a lot of clever programming involved. Apple prioritizes user input, which means buttons respond quickly and scrolling and zooming are always smooth. That programming, rather than raw CPU speed, is why iPads feel faster than Android tablets.
App developers may be pushing the limits of the A5's power, though. In the Retina-display-enhanced Barefoot Atlas and Real Racing 2 HD apps, I saw occasional stutters when zooming or rotating complex, rendered objects. This didn't occur in on-board apps such as the Safari Web browser or the video player.
Apple estimates the 42.5-watt-hour cell will deliver 10 hours of usage time on Wi-Fi and 9 hours on 4G, which is very good for a large-screen tablet. In our iPad battery tests, I found battery life to be highly dependent on screen brightness; I got only 5 hours, 33 minutes of video playback at full brightness but 10 hours, 54 minutes at half brightness. Also be aware that the big battery takes up to seven hours to fully recharge from zero.
Android vs. iOS: Games and Geek Apps
Android games don't generally suck when played on Android tablets. There are just fewer of them.
To analyze the availability of games on Android versus the iPad, I looked at 10 of the top mobile game publishers as judged by Mark Fidelman of Technorati, with one swapped out: Gameloft, EA, Rovio, ngmoco, Digital Chocolate, Firemint, Glu, Hands-On, BigFish and Namco. I swapped Namco for PopGames, which I couldn't find in the stores because it's too common a search term. And I'm not counting Gameloft titles that aren't in Google Play, because most people don't know how to download those.
The iPad wins, 402 games to 176. Now, a lot of that seems to be Big Fish spewing 166 games into the iTunes store. 166 games! But even with that outlier out of the way, the iPad still wins 236-162. There are more major-label games available for the iPad.
Of course, there are entire categories of apps found on Android tablets but not on the iPad. Real alternate Web browsers. Widgets. Classic game emulators requiring illegally obtained ROMs. BitTorrent clients. Alternative app stores.
What all of those categories have in common, though, is that they're for tweakers. Geeks. Experts. The kinds of people who are likely to be reading this article, to be sure, but not the mainstream consumer.
In other words, an Android tablet might be better for you, reader, because you want to reinstall the OS and emulate a Super Nintendo. But that can't be a general recommendation if the apps from big, popular brands generally suck.
Why Android Apps Are Ugly
Way too many Android apps fall back on a design that looks like a late-20th-century WAP site: a stack of modules designed to look good on narrow screens. Unfortunately, that design is completely inappropriate for a tablet.
On the iPad, on the other hand, apps tend to use multiple panes or columns, which is a much better use of tablet real estate. This is actually a Google design recommendation for tablets. Developers just aren't doing it.
Android partisans argue that Google has given developers the tools to create great tablet apps, and devs aren't using them. They're right. Using a method called "fragments," the Android SBK is perfectly capable of creating multi-format apps that look ideal on differently sized screens.
There's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem here for developers and users. Apple solved it, in a way, by making the iPhone app experience on iPads so bad that developers had no choice but to code for the iPad. The iPad runs iPhone apps, but not in a way in which anyone would be proud.
Most Android apps have always been resolution-independent, though, so developers and publishers could fool themselves into thinking their apps run Just Fine. They run, of course, in the sense that the code executes and they (mostly) fill the screen. So the developers stop there, able to check their "we have an Android tablet app" box. But the apps suck. Of course, it doesn't help at all that the two most-popular Android tablets, the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet, are small-screen devices running an older version of Android (2.3), which doesn't support the Fragment APIs necessary to create truly universal phone-and-tablet apps. The success of these two small tablets is actually holding back rather than advancing the cause of larger Android tablets.
For the slideshow below, I took screen shots of apps from top brands on an Asus Transformer Prime tablet running Android 4.0.3 and an iPad 2 running iOS 5.1. I tried to shoot the apps in landscape mode, but some of the Android apps forced portrait mode.
Yes, I know it's a slideshow. I know you hate slideshows. I can't think of any way to present this other than a slideshow. Go look at it. The captions are important.
The Sad Conclusion
The upcoming round of Android tablets is, hardware-wise, a match for the new iPad. The Asus Transformer TF700, for instance, has a slightly lower-resolution screen (at 1920-by-1200 compared to 2048-by-1536) but a faster, more powerful CPU in Nvidia's Tegra 3. The initial model of the TF700 will lack 4G, but will include expandable memory. It can trade specs with the new iPad blow for blow.
We'll continue to rate such high-quality tablets highly. But until applications from major brands come out in not only similar number, but similar quality for Android tablets, it'll be hard for one of them to beat the iPad to our top award.
http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,3253...
For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.
|
Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 10:00 am on Mar. 28, 2012
|
|
dirty guru
|
It's true..!,
I used to take no notice of the duck.
Even shoot his bitching down.
But where this shit is concerned
He is spot on
I bought an I Pad( 4 weeks ago.)
And they are 100 times better than any other Toy I have seen.
The things they do is mind boggling and it's literally touch finger instant.
I find some ancient track in I tunes for $2 so I buy it....then I gets the idea to down load my naked Thai conquests from days of old to photos.
Make a slide show and add the song.
While I am doing that...I ring the girl that makes porn with me in Bangkok and skype her using pad...
Then I make posters that are totally awesome for my business.....and it gets more responses in $ than I paid for the I pad.
The devils den girls know when I am looking and I sometimes pay one to do stuff.
I have whores from Russia showing me tits while I go fishing off loin island.
You can take this anywhere.
I watch sports and bet on games live.....
I have TV and news from all round the world.
See cams from Thailand.
Play games watch movies....
Let potential Thai pussy prey see waterfalls and shit from my boat and drool.
Suddenly I have more fun am happier...make more money...and have pussy entertainment on tap.
And that's all true.
This is coming from Daffy Ducks biggest ex detractor.
Then one day my oldest daughter talked me into buying one.
He is right!
Apple is the shit that you gotta get.
It's a whore mongers next best friend to the whores and aeroplanes to Asia.
This toy will make being alone and single between trips not so bad.
Addicted Apple I Pad user
: : ::
Ps I think about 7-8 tradesmen have gone and bought one after seeing how awesome mine is......and it just snowballs.
This is cutting edge
|
Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 6:21 pm on Mar. 28, 2012
|
|
koolbreez
|
iPad buyers in Australia to be offered refund
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Apple Inc (AAPL.O) will email all buyers of its new iPad in Australia to offer them a refund, a lawyer for the company said on Wednesday, after the nation's consumer watchdog accused it of misleading advertising over one key aspect of the product.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has taken legal action to ensure Apple makes consumers aware its third-generation iPad cannot connect to a 4G mobile data network in Australia due to technical incompatibility.
Apple agreed to post warnings that its new iPad "is not compatible with current Australian 4G LTE networks and WiMAX networks" over the next week.
In documents lodged with the court, the ACCC says Apple advertised that "iPad with WiFi can with a SIM card, connect to a 4G mobile data network in Australia, which it cannot do".
Apple "seems to accept that there's a lack of compatibility," said Colin Golvan, senior counsel for the ACCC said at the Federal Court in Melbourne. "It's been completely indifferent to the Australian market," he said.
A trial has been set for May 2, with a hearing a preceding that on April 16.
Apple promoted its third-generation tablet as the iPad with Wifi+4G, but Australia has only one 4G network, operated by Telstra Corp (TLS.AX), which operates on a different frequency to the 4G on Apple's new iPad. Rival Optus, the Australian unit of Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (STEL.SI), is due to launch a second 4G network in April but that will not be iPad-compatible either.
Apple barrister Paul Anastassiou told the Federal Court in Melbourne that the company would send emails to all Australian buyers to date, offering the refund.
Apple rolled out the first wave of new iPad tablets on March 16.
While the iPad is the clear market leader, and the new version with its faster chips, fourth-generation wireless and a sharper display is only expected to cement Apple's lead, the company has hit some bumps in the road.
It is waging a battle with a Chinese technology company, Proview, that claims to own the iPad trademark in China, in a long-running dispute that has threatened to disrupt iPad sales in one of its fastest growing markets.
|
Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 10:12 am on Mar. 29, 2012
|
|
|
|
expatchuck
|
Quote: from DaffyDuck on 11:31 pm on Mar. 29, 2012
Ah, so predictable.
...and you are not? 
|
Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 10:09 pm on Mar. 29, 2012
|
|
|
|
dirty guru
|
My daughter ( youngest ) turns 21 on April the 8th.
I have a portrait of her done and framed $600
She knows about it...older sister blabbed.
She also knows I am giving her a return flight to Gold coast and $500
But what she is most excited about is getting this I Pad that's only a month old.
I want the new one.....so she gets this one.
These things are awesome.
And I don't think many people are seeking refunds....they sell hundreds a day here in Australia.
And I bow down to APPLE...I was wrong......their shit is easily number one.
It f***s your sleep up but.
|
Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 1:32 am on Mar. 30, 2012
|
|
bkkz
|
Quote: from dirty guru on 1:32 pm on Mar. 30, 2012
It f***s your sleep up but.
Stop sleeping with it mate.
|
Thai Girls : Meet Active Thai Girls
Posted on: 1:40 am on Mar. 30, 2012
|
|
LastSurvivor
|
I own a Toshiba Thrive Android tablet and have been very happy with it on the whole. Love that it has a battery that can be swapped out if needed by the user, it has hdmi out, usb and also an SD card slot. I'm not an iPad hater but wish they would add a few of these things to the iPad and I might consider getting one. Also do not understand why the latest generation iPad only has a 5mp camera. Granted I'm not using it for taking photos but my little smart phone has an 8mp camera. Just don't understand why Apple charges a premium but skimps on little things. Just my opinion.
LS
|
Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 6:19 am on Mar. 30, 2012
|
|
Broken Leg
|
Quote: from LastSurvivor on 6:19 pm on Mar. 30, 2012
Just don't understand why Apple charges a premium but skimps on little things. Just my opinion.
Because then it would be that much harder to get people to upgrade to the latest model every year...
|
Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 7:01 am on Mar. 30, 2012
|
|
| |
|
