Re: Probably Switching To Ipad2-Editorial Alert
I love my Asus Transformer, but as much as I love my Trans, I sometimes lose patience with the "coming of age" process that is still Honeycomb. My head tells me that Apple is a walled garden, but in my heart, I can't help feeling sometimes that the walled garden sure looks pretty!
What is most frustrating to me is that Google, with all its resources, still seems to make some basic "no brainer" type mistakes when it comes to software development and delivery. Like for instance, Honeycomb 3.0 - which, on a good day, was a half-baked piece of software that was just not ready for prime time. Whatever advantage Google and Motorola thought they were capturing by rushing the Motorola Xoom with that software to the marketplace dissipated into a muddle of ill will because Honeycomb didn't work right and the Xoom had features that didn't work at all.
That shroud of ill will still affects the perception of Android tablets today even though Honeycomb 3.1 and 3.2 addressed a number of issues from 3.0. So to this day, even with some tech pundits and reviewers who ought to know better, Android is roundly criticized for what goes wrong, or is less than optimal, but doesn't get enough credit , in my opinion, for those things it does right or better than iOS.
One of the things Android got right, even before the release of Honeycomb 3.2, is app scaling. Most Android apps scale correctly for tablets running Honeycomb - so this whole argument about the number of apps "optimized" is a bit of a red herring since the majority of Android apps didn't need to be "optimized" for tablets in the first place. iOS apps must be created specifically for tablets or they won't scale correctly and they will look weird on the iPad. This should be an Apple shortcoming, but instead the perception is that Google has the problem. Unfortunately, the Google market bought into this red herring by creating a "featured tablet apps" section with those 130+ apps that were created specifically for tablets. So in the forums there are more than a few postings like those of the OP who say there aren't nearly enough "tablet" apps. Thousands of apps work on Honeycomb tablets without specifically being called "tablet" apps. Really, though, how many apps does any one person need? It's not like I am going to put 100,000 or even 1,000 apps on my tablet. Maybe 50 or 75, if I try really hard.
As an update, 3.2 didn't bring a whole lot to the table, but it really improved scaling, which was already pretty good. I have a couple of solitaire game apps that I really like that only took up a portion of my Transformer screen before 3.2, making them useless as far as I was concerned. After updating to 3.2, these apps look great and now I really enjoy using them on my tablet.
To me, Honeycomb makes my tablet a joy and a pain to use. It is certainly not the seamless, polished experience that iOS seems to provide for the iPad. I really appreciate, however, that Android and Honeycomb exist because we end users desparately need (some semblance of) competition and Honeycomb and Android offer up the best chance to maintain some level of competition with iOS and Apple. As much as I like my Honeycomb tablet and the contributions Google has made to the tablet form factor, however, I also can't ignore the shortcomings . There is still too much lag when it comes to browsers, displays sometimes suffer from artifacting, there are too many hang ups when surfing the web, and too many force closings of apps and processes. I root for the success of Android because it has so much potential as an operating system and because I just naturally root for the underdog. Android has many great features, but its advantages will continue to get short shrift from tech jounalists and end users until Google places more emphasis on creating a complete and enjoyable user experience. That means tying up the loose ends and placing a pretty bow on the package , not unlike what Apple gets credit for doing. I hope I see some evidence of that polish with Ice Cream Sandwich.