Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
The Nexus 7 and The Cloud Commit Conundrum: Google Wins (For Now) http://battellemedia.com/archives/2012/07/the-nexus-7-and-the-cloud-commit-conundrum-google-wins-for-now.php?utm_source=rssutm_medium=rssutm_campaign=the-nexus-7-and-the-cloud-commit-conundrum-google-wins-for-now ...your choice of tablet or phone is about much more than feeds and speeds or features and prices (for all that, see this Engadget review). It becomes a choice about what kind of a company you want as a partner in your digital life. Will the company let you export your data easily to other services? Will it be transparent about how your data is used? Will it have the guts to stand up to bad actors, whether they be governments or other corporations? Will the company create dashboards where you can see, edit, delete, and contest how your data is displayed? In short, will the company be a good partner in your digital life? If you're going to upload your digital doppelganger into this company's servers, can you trust it? I call this choice the Cloud Commit Conundrum,... For now, I'll just say this: while Google is far from perfect on any number of fronts, it comes far closer than any other in embracing a philosophy that I feel I can trust when it comes to the cloud commitment conundrum. [...] I'm not a hardcore tablet user, but I might become one thanks to this device. I found the iPad to be too large and heavy to use comfortably in casual situations (like reading in bed, for example), and too limited to use as a replacement for my laptop. By comparison, the Nexus 7 is just the right size for use anywhere - it's very similar in size to my daughter's Kindle Fire, but lighter. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
Prices are simply a marketing thing. The $400 price to start out is almost a test balloon. They think that at $400 they can successfully sell the Nexus 7. If they price it too low then it may be placed in the same category as the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet. Over the next quarter or two, they will see if their sales meet their target. -- Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id:3BC1EB90 PGP Key fingerprint: 49E2 C52A FC5A A31F 8D66 C0AF 7CEA 30FC 3BC1 EB90 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
I stand corrected. Thanks Stephen. In any case, the point is that it is the market that determines the price of anything. On 07/14/2012 11:02 AM, Stephen Ronan wrote: Not sure if that's a typo, Jerry. The Nexus 7 price is $200 ($199) -s. On Sat, 14 Jul 2012, Jerry Feldman wrote: Prices are simply a marketing thing. The $400 price to start out is almost a test balloon. They think that at $400 they can successfully sell the Nexus 7. If they price it too low then it may be placed in the same category as the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet. Over the next quarter or two, they will see if their sales meet their target. -- Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id:3BC1EB90 PGP Key fingerprint: 49E2 C52A FC5A A31F 8D66 C0AF 7CEA 30FC 3BC1 EB90 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
On 7/11/2012 1:52 PM, Bill Bogstad wrote: Now if we are just talking about JB, I might agree. But longer term (1-2 years), Android can add a lot of functionality while I don't see Apple ever being the price leader. Perhaps relevant to future functionality where Apple may or may not play a leadership role: http://scobleizer.com/2012/07/11/mobile-3-0-arrives-how-qualcom-just-showed-us-the-future-of-the-cell-phone-and-why-iphone-sucks-for-this-new-contextual-age/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
On 7/13/2012 6:14 PM, Stephen Ronan wrote: Perhaps relevant to future functionality where Apple may or may not play a leadership role: Good article, but I don't see Apple as playing a leadership role. I see everyone else playing a follower role. -- Rich P. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
Tom Metro wrote: Available now for pre-order from Google, or it'll be in stores, like Staples, in a few weeks. http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/12/3154733/nexus-7-availability Google has made good on its promise for a mid-July release of the Nexus 7: the company is now shipping orders placed on Google Play and the Asus-manufactured device is starting to appear at authorized resellers. Customers who placed their pre-order with GameStop are being contacted to pick up their new Android 4.1 tablet. ...GameStop location is only receiving enough stock to fill those initial pre-orders on the first wave, with a second wave of shipments expected in August at the earliest. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
Richard Pieri wrote: It doesn't matter how much better Jellybean is to either iOS or prior versions of Android because the technical superiority of the OS has never been a factor in the public's eye. But price *does* matter and Jelly Bean is good enough that someone's Mom will be able to figure it out. (And she might like that it is physically small and light.) Assuming that 7-inch tablets are compelling and useful (an open question to me, but I don't understand 10-inch tablets either), I think Apple is going to lose market share to the Nexus 7, driven by raw price. They will have to compete with an affordable Ipad Mini or continue down the Lawsuits in Motion path and try to get injunctions against the sale of the Nexus 7. Very possibly both. If they do introduce an Ipad Mini to match $200 tablets, Apple will be in two bad places: - Low margins; Apple loves their fat margins, charging 100x their cost for flash (I might be exaggerating here) is a juicy business, and - Aggravated screen size problems; Android has been trying to deal with a splintering of devices all along where Apple has had few devices and fewer screen sizes, but a mini tablet might be a new technical problem for Apple and their app developers. Apple is on top, a nice place, but when you are king of the hill, there is but one direction to go. The Iphone business has started down that path, the Ipad business is at risk. The question is when, how, how fast, and does the Ipad fall at Apple's own hand or that of others? The Ghost of Steve can offer them limited guidance. -kb ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
On Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 04:00:16PM -0400, Richard Pieri wrote: On 7/12/2012 8:36 AM, Kent Borg wrote: But price *does* matter and Jelly Bean is good enough that someone's Mom will be able to figure it out. (And she might like that it is physically small and light.) Base model iPad 3 is $500. Base model Tab 2 10.1 is $400. Samsung has a technically superior OS. It has a comparable or superior device with that superior OS for $100 less than Apple. And it's still getting clobbered by more than 10:1. The consumers have spoken: price is not a determining factor. $400 is a lot of money in this economy. It's groceries for two weeks for a whole family. It's a 36 HDTV for the kids. It's six weekend trips to the movies. It's an XBOX 360, a Kinect, and a game or two. It's new tires. So. Among the people for whom $400 or more on a tablet makes sense, going an extra $100 does not matter much. Now look at the group of people who would like a tablet, but can't justify $400 or $500 at all. Quite a few can justify $200, especially at the holiday season with a bunch of geeky friends who have been raving about the good cheap tablets all fall. -dsr- ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
On 7/12/2012 7:39 PM, Dan Ritter wrote: Now look at the group of people who would like a tablet, but can't justify $400 or $500 at all. Quite a few can justify $200, especially at the holiday season with a bunch of geeky friends who have been raving about the good cheap tablets all fall. I had something about Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet here, but you made a very important point that I think is better to address: but can't justify $400 or $500 at all. Go back to how I describe iPad. It's a media shopping appliance. The big revenue isn't the devices. It's the 30% that Apple takes on every app, every movie and TV show, every book and every song sold. Apple and iOS are very, very good at separating consumers from their disposable income. It prints money. A consumer who can't afford a premium tablet doesn't have much disposable income. The media shopping appliance isn't something that he can afford so the mindset behind the purchase is very different. He doesn't see the necessity of such a thing. All of which is a very convoluted way of saying that iPad is a toy for the wealthy and the well-off. This is why trying to sell iPad-like devices to the rest of us doesn't work. We're simply not interested in dropping $200-$300 on a device that exists to make it easy and convenient for the vendor to soak up what little we have left. The game changes once you get the price down to around $150. That's one of the sweet spots for consumer electronics. Get the price down to that point and you have a shot at sustained middle class buy-in. But you still need a product that they want to buy. -- Rich P. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
And Siri is losing badly to Google Now in most head to head comparisons. People such as Wozniak seem to think that Apple compromised quality by over-accentuating commercial aspects of Siri. A fundamentally flawed comparison. Google Now is a search application, and search is the thing that Google does best. Apple's version of Siri is a personal assistant. It stopped being a search application when Apple cut it away from Wolfram Alpha. They're two very different things despite having similar appearances and sharing some functions. Interesting. I hadn't realized that Apple cut Siri away from Wolfram Alpha... FWIW, I just went to W.A. and asked: How many iPads have been sold and got this: -- Wolfram|Alpha doesn't understand your query Showing instead result for query: how many Input Interpretation How many? Response: Enough. -- One reason I asked... my impression (pls correct me if I'm wrong) is that you think that iPad's dominant position in 10 tablets is quite secure. I don't have a good sense of what percentage of computer owners own an iPad, but I'd guess it's still very small... and Jellybean with better mapping, and better voice search, with features including info about public transportation... impending arrivals of buses trains, etc... would be in good position to compete successfully. If you've still got your crystal ball handy, Richard (or anyone else), how long do you think it'll be before we see a sub-$200 tablet able to do voice to voice language translation, including at least one pair of languages offline. As a monolingual guy living and working in multicultural neighborhoods, that'd be a very appealing app for me. - S ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
On 7/11/2012 9:52 AM, Stephen Ronan wrote: One reason I asked... my impression (pls correct me if I'm wrong) is that you think that iPad's dominant position in 10 tablets is quite secure. I do. I don't think that Jellybean is going to unseat iPad in that space for one simple reason: iOS has never been technically superior to Android. It doesn't matter how much better Jellybean is to either iOS or prior versions of Android because the technical superiority of the OS has never been a factor in the public's eye. Consumers don't care about technical superiority. They care about convenience first and maybe affordability second. Cases in point: VHS vs. Betamax: VHS won for the simple reason that you could get 2-4 times as much recording time per cassette than you got with Betamax. Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD: Streaming beat them both because of the convenience and instant gratification of click and watch within a few seconds. Consoles vs. PCs: Consoles keep beating PCs for gaming because of the convenience that the gaming appliances offer: no need to worry about hardware compatibility or viruses or anything. Just push a button and play. Silly Ungainly Vehicles vs. everything else on the roads: 'nuff said. iOS is doing the same thing in the mobile spaces. Sure, Google activates twice as many Android devices a day as Apple activates iOS devices. That makes for a nice press release but it's not the whole story. The most recent figures I can find (Feb 2012) place HTC at about 16% of all Android activations daily, Samsung at about 11% and Motorola at about 10.5%. Apple is beating the top three Android OEMs combined in terms of activations per day. If you've still got your crystal ball handy, Richard (or anyone else), how long do you think it'll be before we see a sub-$200 tablet able to do voice to voice language translation, including at least one pair of languages offline. As a monolingual guy living and working in multicultural neighborhoods, that'd be a very appealing app for me. Twenty years? Conversational voice recognition is hard. Really, really hard. It's one of the most challenging problems in computer programming. Machine translation isn't much easier. Run this message through Google's translator to the language of your choice and then back to English and you'll see how the best in the world fails. -- Rich P. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
On Wed, Jul 11, 2012 at 12:54 PM, Richard Pieri richard.pi...@gmail.com wrote: On 7/11/2012 9:52 AM, Stephen Ronan wrote: One reason I asked... my impression (pls correct me if I'm wrong) is that you think that iPad's dominant position in 10 tablets is quite secure. I do. I don't think that Jellybean is going to unseat iPad in that space for one simple reason: iOS has never been technically superior to Android. It doesn't matter how much better Jellybean is to either iOS or prior versions of Android because the technical superiority of the OS has never been a factor in the public's eye. Consumers don't care about technical superiority. They care about convenience first and maybe affordability second. Cases in point: VHS vs. Betamax: VHS won for the simple reason that you could get 2-4 times as much recording time per cassette than you got with Betamax. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotape_format_war VHS was cheaper from practically day one in the US and it stayed that way because the format was licensed to multiple manufacturers while Sony kept it in house.Tape length probably would have given VHS the win anyway, but cost was the final nail in the coffin. Apple hasn't shown any inclination to be the low cost provider since probably the Apple II days and their attempt to license their technologies (e.g. PPC clones) always seemed like a very half hearted effort.I'm not sure what the convenience factors are that iOS has that can't be added to Android in what is likely to be a multi-year battle for the tablet market. Now if we are just talking about JB, I might agree. But longer term (1-2 years), Android can add a lot of functionality while I don't see Apple ever being the price leader. ... iOS is doing the same thing in the mobile spaces. Sure, Google activates twice as many Android devices a day as Apple activates iOS devices. That makes for a nice press release but it's not the whole story. The most recent figures I can find (Feb 2012) place HTC at about 16% of all Android activations daily, Samsung at about 11% and Motorola at about 10.5%. Apple is beating the top three Android OEMs combined in terms of activations per day. So what. Manufacturer market share for PCs have gone up and down for decades now. Top tier vendors have literally disappeared, but Windows continues forward. Android IS the dominant OS in the overall mobile device space and now has a credible version for both tablets and smartphones. I'm starting to see ads for no-name 10 tablets for under $200 whose branding is essentially Android ICS. They are literally crap, but people said that about the specs on OLPC's $100 laptop (when laptops were routinely hitting $1000). We never did see a $100 laptop, but netbooks got pretty cheap ($300) and, unless you want an ultra-light, very credible laptops are available for $400. For those parents not in the 1%, a decent $200 Android ICS/JB tablet sounds like a much better deal then even a $399 iPad 2. I bought the HP $100 closeout TouchPad on a lark and am much happier with it then I would have been with a $499 iPad. I got the wireless charging stand and when I'm at home it sits in my living room. While watching TV with the kids, I can pick it up, check my email and do a little web browsing on a screen big enough to handle standard web pages. No way I would have spent $500 to do that. [voice to voice language translation.] Twenty years? Conversational voice recognition is hard. Really, really hard. It's one of the most challenging problems in computer programming. Machine translation isn't much easier. No disagreement with this one. You have speech recognition, machine translation, and then speech generation. Generation is relatively easy. The other two remain hard. Some years back, I talked to some people in the speech recognition (transcription) business and was told that modern CPUs weren't actually helping them much.The problem was that they needed to randomly access large memory datasets to do speech recognition. Their datasets wouldn't fit into CPU caches and random access speeds to main memory weren't keeping up with CPU speeds. Bill Bogstad ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
On 07/11/2012 12:54 PM, Richard Pieri wrote: On 7/11/2012 9:52 AM, Stephen Ronan wrote: One reason I asked... my impression (pls correct me if I'm wrong) is that you think that iPad's dominant position in 10 tablets is quite secure. I do. I don't think that Jellybean is going to unseat iPad in that space for one simple reason: iOS has never been technically superior to Android. It doesn't matter how much better Jellybean is to either iOS or prior versions of Android because the technical superiority of the OS has never been a factor in the public's eye. Consumers don't care about technical superiority. They care about convenience first and maybe affordability second. Cases in point: VHS vs. Betamax: VHS won for the simple reason that you could get 2-4 times as much recording time per cassette than you got with Betamax. Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD: Streaming beat them both because of the convenience and instant gratification of click and watch within a few seconds. Consoles vs. PCs: Consoles keep beating PCs for gaming because of the convenience that the gaming appliances offer: no need to worry about hardware compatibility or viruses or anything. Just push a button and play. Silly Ungainly Vehicles vs. everything else on the roads: 'nuff said. iOS is doing the same thing in the mobile spaces. Sure, Google activates twice as many Android devices a day as Apple activates iOS devices. That makes for a nice press release but it's not the whole story. The most recent figures I can find (Feb 2012) place HTC at about 16% of all Android activations daily, Samsung at about 11% and Motorola at about 10.5%. Apple is beating the top three Android OEMs combined in terms of activations per day. If you've still got your crystal ball handy, Richard (or anyone else), how long do you think it'll be before we see a sub-$200 tablet able to do voice to voice language translation, including at least one pair of languages offline. As a monolingual guy living and working in multicultural neighborhoods, that'd be a very appealing app for me. Twenty years? Conversational voice recognition is hard. Really, really hard. It's one of the most challenging problems in computer programming. Machine translation isn't much easier. Run this message through Google's translator to the language of your choice and then back to English and you'll see how the best in the world fails. Richard, This is where I have to agree with you. It is perception. I bought my mother an iPad, not because it was better, but because she has never owned anything other than a Kindle, and she lives across the street from the Mall at Chestnut Hill where there is an Apple Store, and she can either attend their classes or get personalized tutoring. Her building superintendent's 12-year old daughter is her current tutor. The Android stores, such as ATT, Verizon, T-Mobile usually employ human droids that don't know much about anything, in general although I have been surprised on occasion. -- Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id:3BC1EB90 PGP Key fingerprint: 49E2 C52A FC5A A31F 8D66 C0AF 7CEA 30FC 3BC1 EB90 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
On 7/11/2012 1:52 PM, Bill Bogstad wrote: Now if we are just talking about JB, I might agree. But longer term (1-2 years), Android can add a lot of functionality while I don't see Apple ever being the price leader. Android already does far more than iOS can. Galaxy Tab 10 is technically superior, both hardware and OS, to iPad in every way. Yet Apple is selling 10-15 times as many iPads as Samsung is selling Tab 10s. Technical superiority clearly is an insignificant factor in the consumer decision making process. Making Android even better isn't going to change this simple fact. So what. Manufacturer market share for PCs have gone up and down for decades now. Top tier vendors have literally disappeared, but Windows continues forward. Windows continues on because it isn't tied to any single hardware source. If you want to make valid comparisons then Google is like Microsoft; Samsung is like Dell, HTC is like HP, Eee is like Gateway. Google is on top because many OEMs are using Android, but none of those OEMs can hold a candle to Apple. The three biggest OEMs together can't match Apple. that modern CPUs weren't actually helping them much.The problem was that they needed to randomly access large memory datasets to do speech recognition. Their datasets wouldn't fit into CPU caches and random access speeds to main memory weren't keeping up with CPU speeds. I used to work with a guy who did voice rec programming for one of the big telcos. It's not just the massive datasets that the neural networks need to scan. It's adapting that data for individual speakers and irregular speech patterns just to name one complication. By the way, the hardest word in the English language for a computer to recognize? banana. -- Rich P. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
I have one on order. Personally I think 7in is an ideal tablet size for most of the stuff done on a tablet. If I really need to work then I want a true laptop. If I'm just browsing the web or watching videos then the lighter 7 in seems the way to go. A 4in screen is still to small for god web browsing, and I think the 7 is ideal for my usage. I was tempted by the fire and nook but knew Asus had this on the horizon. The fact that Google took it under its wing was just gravy. As many reviews have been saying value wise you can't beat it. On Jul 9, 2012 10:27 PM, Guy Gold guy1g...@gmail.com wrote: On 07/09/2012 10:12 PM, Richard Pieri wrote: On 7/9/2012 3:25 PM, Tom Metro wrote: Anyone planning to buy the Google's Nexus 7 tablet? Not I. Tablets and I don't get along, in the sense that fingerprints on displays make me want to destroy. It'll be interesting to see if Google can do the impossible. Thus, the big winner of the last years, the smart-phone. Just about the same form-factor of the palm, with the variety of uses of a tablet. Granted that it's the one thing you'll take with you anywhere, along with your wallet (and pretty soon it'll be *the* wallet). The tablet, most of times, feels like a fifth wheel. (Unless one is a big time media/content viewer, I'm not) . I wish the Tech world would have stopped trying to re-invent the wheel - with just-the-best-size-tablet and move on to other hardware breakthroughs. (And on a same note for the adjacent discussion on this list), the great devices are all here, or on their way, we just need the unregulated airwaves to actually use them. __**_ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/**listinfo/discusshttp://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
For years I carried a Frankline Dayplanner. 8.5x5.5 pages. But 1.5 thick. I went with me everywhere, like a good dayplanner should. The new small netbooks are in the same style (but my fat fingers don't do the little keypads on them or even phones well). In many ways the kendal/Google pad are in the same general form factor. Once you get used to it just being 'part of you' and it goes everywhere with you, that is a good size. Until I got over 'retraining me' to carry my dayplanner everywhere, it was 2lbs of nuisance. Being mostly retired, getting a pad would be fun, but not a requirement. Using a dayplanner helped keep my ADD in check, kept me better organized, and I forgot fewer things. Overall it was a win. I did a transition to Palm when they were the rage, and was pretty good at their scribbling dialect. To bad it isn't available on the current wave of tablets. I found it more natural than hunt-peck typing on little screens, even thought it didn't come naturally at first, and was an 'acquired taste'. All that said, a tablet in the 7 form factor, with a nice cover (small think devices are hard for people that are clumsy) would be nice to try. I did find leather cover on the daytimer looked good, and made it easy to carry and felt good holding it. Much better than plastics or even cloth (hard to clean, tore). Because of where I carried it, a zipper that went around the edge was great. Easily kept my stuff in, and dirt/grime out. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
While visiting Hong Kong in April I bought a Samsung Galaxy 7.7 wifi only tablet. I was really impressed with the crisp screen, the sleek and slender design and the low weight. I couldn't resist. The form factor, as well as the custom Galaxy case, are perfect for me and my needs. I use it for reading comics, news stories, and even streaming some netflix here and there. I've never once said I wish this device were bigger! The down side (which is perhaps a topic for another discussion) is that Android 3.1 makes for a pretty lame user experience. I two tablets that run Android 3.x, and both of them without fail suffer laginess, slow downs, lock ups, application crashes, frustrating keyboard experiences, browser problems, etc. I'm highly anticipating ICS being released for my Samsung tablets and hope that ICS will finally make using an Android tablet as smooth as using an iPad. Jelly Bean should make the user experience far better due to Butter, Googles UI improvement initiative. Chris On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 9:12 AM, Jack Coats j...@coats.org wrote: For years I carried a Frankline Dayplanner. 8.5x5.5 pages. But 1.5 thick. I went with me everywhere, like a good dayplanner should. The new small netbooks are in the same style (but my fat fingers don't do the little keypads on them or even phones well). In many ways the kendal/Google pad are in the same general form factor. Once you get used to it just being 'part of you' and it goes everywhere with you, that is a good size. Until I got over 'retraining me' to carry my dayplanner everywhere, it was 2lbs of nuisance. Being mostly retired, getting a pad would be fun, but not a requirement. Using a dayplanner helped keep my ADD in check, kept me better organized, and I forgot fewer things. Overall it was a win. I did a transition to Palm when they were the rage, and was pretty good at their scribbling dialect. To bad it isn't available on the current wave of tablets. I found it more natural than hunt-peck typing on little screens, even thought it didn't come naturally at first, and was an 'acquired taste'. All that said, a tablet in the 7 form factor, with a nice cover (small think devices are hard for people that are clumsy) would be nice to try. I did find leather cover on the daytimer looked good, and made it easy to carry and felt good holding it. Much better than plastics or even cloth (hard to clean, tore). Because of where I carried it, a zipper that went around the edge was great. Easily kept my stuff in, and dirt/grime out. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Chris O'Connell http://outlookoutbox.blogspot.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
Chris O'Connell wrote: I've never once said I wish this device were bigger! The keyboard on an Ipad is certainly nicer for being bigger, but last night I was filling in a web form on the Ipad 2 and the keyboard was in the way!, and the only way I could figure out how to get rid of it was to tap on some non-text field widget (glad there was one). I am sure there is another way, but I couldn't find it. I quit being an Apple fan when their fit-and-finish quit being up to what I thought were Apple standards. Jelly Bean is nice, I have very few complaints. Even for the observations I have I don't pretend to know how to make any rough spots certainly better without opening up some other flaw. -kb ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
On 7/10/2012 8:44 AM, Kent Borg wrote: The form-factor question is a real one. I don't quite understand the Ipad size, yet they are wildly successful. That's because you're not looking at iPad for what it is. You see it as a stripped-down computer. It isn't. It's a content delivery appliance. It's like your cable TV box except portable and with a screen built into it and you can buy books and newspapers as well as TV shows and movies with it. The operative word in that last paragraph is one of the shortest: buy. iPad exists for one purpose: to get consumers to buy stuff. Everything about iPad is designed to make it simple and convenient for consumers to buy stuff and enjoy it immediately so that they want to buy more of it. It's the epitome of instant gratification. This is why it's so wildly successful. A smaller screen would compromise that enjoyment. A 7 tablet is all compromise. Apple doesn't do compromise on the user-facing stuff. -- Rich P. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
Richard Pieri wrote: A smaller screen would compromise that enjoyment. A 7 tablet is all compromise. Apple doesn't do compromise on the user-facing stuff. That is why it will be fun watching Apple watch the Nexus 7 be successful and take market share as Apple fights with the Ghost of Steve Jobs over joining in. -kb P.S. You said buy where rent is closer, even with non-DRM audio recordings. If you want find out whether you really own something, try to resell it. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
On 7/10/2012 11:32 AM, Kent Borg wrote: That is why it will be fun watching Apple watch the Nexus 7 be successful and take market share as Apple fights with the Ghost of Steve Jobs over joining in. That's what many experts are saying. I for one don't believe it. Apple doesn't need to care about Nexus 7. Apple is so far ahead in the tablet market that they could stop selling iPads today and still be ahead of everyone else three years from now. The fact that Google put their name on a 7 tablet says one thing: Google is afraid to go head to head with Apple. If Google wanted an iPad killer then we'd be looking at Nexus 10 at $279. But that's not what we have; we have yet another 7 tablet. The only serious competition are Amazon and BN. For small values of serious: Nexus 7 handily beats Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet which will give Google a solid second place in the tablet market, albeit a distant second behind Apple. -- Rich P. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
On 7/10/2012 12:07 PM, Stephen Ronan wrote: There are reports like Bloomberg's of a forthcoming smaller Apple tablet: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-03/here-comes-nexus-7-nightmare-the-ipad-mini.html I'm not convinced. There are lots of things that can be done with 8 LCD panels. Apple is famous for leading on analysts just to make the reveal that much more surprising. The one place where iPad has not made significant inroads is the educational market. iPad and Kindle DX fail the same way: they're terrible for taking notes. What I expect to see at the reveal is something running iOS on ARM like iPad but with superior note-taking capability, something that works in classrooms from elementary to university. That's my prediction. That and three bucks will get you a small coffee at starschmucks. Moving to its own maps from Google's seems like a compromise by Apple toward lower quality. It was driven by The Steve's hatred of Android and his desire to destroy Google because of it. It is a denial of revenue against Google. And Siri is losing badly to Google Now in most head to head comparisons. People such as Wozniak seem to think that Apple compromised quality by over-accentuating commercial aspects of Siri. A fundamentally flawed comparison. Google Now is a search application, and search is the thing that Google does best. Apple's version of Siri is a personal assistant. It stopped being a search application when Apple cut it away from Wolfram Alpha. They're two very different things despite having similar appearances and sharing some functions. -- Rich P. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
On 7/10/2012 12:12 PM, Richard Pieri wrote: The fact that Google put their name on a 7 tablet says one thing: Google is afraid to go head to head with Apple. If Google wanted an iPad killer then we'd be looking at Nexus 10 at $279. But that's not what we have; we have yet another 7 tablet. The only serious competition are Amazon and BN. For small values of serious: Nexus 7 handily beats Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet which will give Google a solid second place in the tablet market, albeit a distant second behind Apple. 1. I'm not sure they could do a Nexus 10 at $279, in part because people's expectations of a tablet that size are higher. Aside from the bigger screen (and higher resolution; I think they'll need to do at least 1080p so the screen looks as good as the Nexus 7 screen) and bigger battery to match, a 10 tablet will also need to have more storage, as well as the second camera and SD slot that got left out of the Nexus 7. (Though they might take my suggestion about the Nexus 7 and only include those last two things in the step-up model.) That's sounding more like a $350 product unless Google is willing to actually take a loss rather than merely break even, though it would still undercut the $500 level that comparable tablets sell for now. (Brief aside about the competition: the screen resolution of the Windows RT-based Microsoft Surface has only been talked about vaguely by Microsoft. I believe that if they come in at anything less than 1080p the product will tank; it just won't look good enough when placed next to a new iPad. MS is clearly trying to position Surface as a premium product with stuff like the VaporMG case; they need a display to match. I suspect the RT-based tablet will flop anyway because the market doesn't need a third OS in that space; the one with full Windows 8 has a chance because it will be seen as a more portable laptop replacement.) 2. ASUS is one of the few modestly successful Android tablet makers in the 10 space. They might not be interested in cannibalizing their own brand, which means Google would need to find another manufacturing partner. Maybe HTC would be interested; they badly need a successful product. 3. Who says that won't be Google's next product? That approach makes sense to me. First, establish the brand with a product in a space that Apple isn't yet occupying. Later, introduce a brand extension that takes on the iPad more directly. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 3:38 PM, Richard Pieri richard.pi...@gmail.com wrote: On 7/10/2012 2:46 PM, Shirley Márquez Dúlcey wrote: 3. Who says that won't be Google's next product? I say it. I mentioned Palm previously. What really killed Palm was the separation of software and hardware divisions. Palm as a whole worked because the software and hardware reference implementations were designed and built together. Splitting Palm left the hardware folks without access to a developing OS and left the software folks without hardware to run on. Google is in a similar situation with Android. They've kept up with reference smartphones but until now they haven't had a hardware reference for tablets. That's what Nexus 7 really is. Like Surface it isn't an anything killer. It's a reference platform, a bar for OEMs, a showcase for what Google says an Android tablet should be. You know that Google just completed their acquisition of Motorola in late May of this year? And Google already builds (or at least designs) their own servers and networking hardware. This would seem to at least hold out the possibility of Google doing full tablet/cellphone designs (hardware + software) entirely in house. They can then sell the references devices to seed the market as well as providing designs/help to other manufacturers who want to innovate off their platform. Unlike Apple, they have never made money off of hardware, so undercutting Apple pricing is entirely plausible. In addition, everybody talks about how well Apple is doing in smartphones (and they are certainly the largest manufacturer), but on the OS level Android is double iOS. (I've seen 50% vs. 25% numbers). Now that Android finally has a version which nominally works well for both tablets and smartphones, Google comes out with a reference tablet. While the smartphone market is different from tablets (smartphones are subsidized by cell carriers in many markets so the decision maker is often the cell company rather then the consumer), I still think Google has a reasonable chance to do the same thing in tablets that they did with smartphones. So there is my two cents as well... Bill Bogstad ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
On 7/10/2012 9:19 PM, Bill Bogstad wrote: You know that Google just completed their acquisition of Motorola in late May of this year? And Google already builds (or at least designs) their own servers and networking hardware. This would seem to at least hold out the possibility of Google doing full tablet/cellphone designs (hardware + software) entirely in house. It's not just design. It's understanding the fickle nature of the consumer marketplace. Neither Google nor Motorola Mobility grok that the way Apple does, and putting the two companies together won't magically give them that understanding. In addition, everybody talks about how well Apple is doing in smartphones (and they are certainly the largest manufacturer), but on the OS level Android is double iOS. (I've seen 50% vs. 25% numbers). I'm not sure that the numbers are accurate but the gist of it is. The Steve was livid that Android ripped off iPhone (his statement) and was doing better than his own toy. That was a couple of years ago. When you factor iPad into it then iOS dominates the mobile space. Don't get me wrong. I don't think that Nexus 7 is a mistake per se. At least I don't think that the idea is a mistake. The mistake is trying to compete with iPad head-on. Xoom failed. Tab 10 failed. Transformer is getting by. Nobody is going to beat iPad at its own game any time soon. So don't try. Google needs to Think Different. Take what they have, what they know. Turn it on its ear, inside out, upside down. Make something so insanely cool that everyone will want to have one, and everyone else will try to copy it. Easier said than done. Nexus 7 is a first step. It gets the idea of affordable, reliable, Google-branded devices into public awareness. The second step, however, isn't a bigger Nexus 7. I don't know what that second step is; if I did then I'd have already sold it to Google for a small fortune. What I do know is that it needs to be something different, something or some combination of things or some variation that the mainstream hasn't seen yet. -- Rich P. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 11:17 PM, Richard Pieri richard.pi...@gmail.com wrote: On 7/10/2012 9:19 PM, Bill Bogstad wrote: It's not just design. It's understanding the fickle nature of the consumer marketplace. Neither Google nor Motorola Mobility grok that the way Apple does, and putting the two companies together won't magically give them that understanding. No it won't. OTOH, Microsoft beat Apple for decades for marketshare even after the consumer marketplace became the dominant force for desktop computing. In fact, they still do even now. In addition, everybody talks about how well Apple is doing in smartphones (and they are certainly the largest manufacturer), but on the OS level Android is double iOS. (I've seen 50% vs. 25% numbers). I'm not sure that the numbers are accurate but the gist of it is. The Steve was livid that Android ripped off iPhone (his statement) and was doing better than his own toy. That was a couple of years ago. When you factor iPad into it then iOS dominates the mobile space. You are just plan wrong. Google has been saying for a while now that they are activating over 1 million new Android devices a day. Those are almost all mobile devices. Apple's shipping numbers for 1Q2012 (from an AP article on the Washington Post website) were 35.1 million iPhones and 11.8 million iPads. That's about 500,000 a day. Completely consistent with my 2 to 1 Android to iOS advantage. Don't get me wrong. I don't think that Nexus 7 is a mistake per se. At least I don't think that the idea is a mistake. The mistake is trying to compete with iPad head-on. Xoom failed. Tab 10 failed. Transformer is getting by. Nobody is going to beat iPad at its own game any time soon. So don't try. Google needs to Think Different. Take what they have, what they know. Turn it on its ear, inside out, upside down. Make something so insanely cool that everyone will want to have one, and everyone else will try to copy it. Easier said than done. Everyone already does have one (an Android device that is). It's just like with PCs. It's not how many mobile devices a particular vendor (whether Samsung, LG, Motorola, etc.) sells. It is the aggregate numbers that I think matters. I think iOS is dominating the tablet market (the best numbers I can find are at more then a 2 to 1 ratio vs. Android). However, Android still beats iOS 2 to 1 because iOS is being crushed in the (larger) smartphone market. As long as smartphones are subsidized in many markets, I expect that to remain the case. This gives Google a large base of customers, developers, etc. to use as leverage in their efforts to expand their tablet marketshare. I'm not saying that Android will automatically win. I'm just saying that Google has advantages similar to the ones that Microsoft had in their efforts to get into the video console market. Like Microsoft and the Xbox, Google doesn't have to make money on Android; nor do they have to get it right the first, second, or even third time. They can afford to stay in the mobile device market for a long time without making any money. For Apple, OTOH, iOS and related services are their cash cow. I don't think Apple will end up like RIM, but they could end up back the way they were some years back. A respected tech company which sold to niche customers. Bill Bogstad ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
Tom Metro wrote: Anyone planning to buy the Google's Nexus 7 tablet? I got one at Google IO, and it is a very nice device. Seeing as how I never filled up my little 8GB SD card in my old Nexus One, I think I will be able to survive in 8GB. Were I buying one, yes, 16GB for $50 seems worth it, but I'll survive in 8GB quite well. Nice size, small enough that I can have it with me. However, I can't report a ton of use hours yet. I also got a new Nexus Galaxy, which is way nicer than my old Nexus One. And though the Nexus 7 is small enough to have with me a lot, the phone I have with me a *lot*, and so it gets more use. I am glad I have it. It specs out as the best Android tablet (nearly) available, and in person I am not disappointed. If I did not already have one, I would order one. And at this low price it is almost like I should buy one anyway. -kb, the Kent who hasn't noticed any ghosting. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
On 7/9/2012 3:25 PM, Tom Metro wrote: Available now for pre-order from Google, or it'll be in stores, like Staples, in a few weeks. (It looked like Staples was only offering the 16 GB model, but that'll probably get updated.) GameSpot is also only offering the 16GB model. I wouldn't be surprised if the 8GB is direct only. The estimated manufacturing cost is $185 and Google is selling it for $199; that leaves barely enough to handle the order processing. The 16GB model probably only costs $5 more to make but sells for $50 more, so there is a little room to let the retailers have a small markup without Google actually taking a loss. I've already got one on order from the Google Play store. I went for the 16GB, though I feel it would be a better value if they had included an SD card slot in the more expensive model. It wouldn't take two circuit boards, just don't bother to install the $2 socket on the cheap ones. Even if you can't write to it (which is a stupid limitation that Android phones don't have) it would still be useful for storing music and movies, especially since that 9 hour battery life means you can get through an entire flight with it. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
On 7/9/2012 3:25 PM, Tom Metro wrote: Anyone planning to buy the Google's Nexus 7 tablet? Not I. Tablets and I don't get along, in the sense that fingerprints on displays make me want to destroy. It'll be interesting to see if Google can do the impossible. Nobody to date has put forth a genuinely successful 7 tablet. When it comes to portable electronics, the successful devices have either been very convenient to carry or very convenient to use. Palm nailed convenient to carry with the original Pilot form factor. Fits in a shirt pocket? Convenient to carry. The utility of the Pilot didn't matter so much in the face of the carry convenience. Apple cribbed from Palm with the original iPod. At the time iPod was introduced the other HD-based players were big, clunky affairs the size of portable CD players (yeah, I just called a portable CD player big :). iPod fit in the shirt pocket. So what about iPad? It won't fit in a shirt pocket so it fails the convenient to carry test. But what about convenient to use? That it has in spades. It was designed to be the epitome of convenient to use. And now the 7 tablets. Smaller and lighter than 10 tablets so more convenient to carry. Reasonable size screen so they're not a pain to use. Best of both worlds. But they're not. They're the worst of both worlds. They fail the convenient to carry test: they don't fit in a shirt pocket. They fail the convenient to use test: the smaller screens are harder to see things on, and the on-screen keyboards are half the size of what's on the 10 units. The 7 form factor has nothing at all compelling about it. The question, then, is whether or not the break-even price point will be compelling enough to make Nexus 7 a must-have device. -- Rich P. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Google's Nexus 7
On 07/09/2012 10:12 PM, Richard Pieri wrote: On 7/9/2012 3:25 PM, Tom Metro wrote: Anyone planning to buy the Google's Nexus 7 tablet? Not I. Tablets and I don't get along, in the sense that fingerprints on displays make me want to destroy. It'll be interesting to see if Google can do the impossible. Thus, the big winner of the last years, the smart-phone. Just about the same form-factor of the palm, with the variety of uses of a tablet. Granted that it's the one thing you'll take with you anywhere, along with your wallet (and pretty soon it'll be *the* wallet). The tablet, most of times, feels like a fifth wheel. (Unless one is a big time media/content viewer, I'm not) . I wish the Tech world would have stopped trying to re-invent the wheel - with just-the-best-size-tablet and move on to other hardware breakthroughs. (And on a same note for the adjacent discussion on this list), the great devices are all here, or on their way, we just need the unregulated airwaves to actually use them. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
