I don't understand why Android tablet manufacturers are failing

[smartpatrol]

Lol. Nice backtrack. It does back up third party apps, and it backs up their game saves as well. So quit lying. There no reason for you to come into this thread and post inflammatory bullshit. What is the point?

Rather than have a frank discussion about why Android has been a major failure in the high-end tablet space, Android fanboys would rather try to deflect any criticism. Even if it means lying.

Seriously, that is the only explanation for what I see here. It's like the Android geeks can't understand why anybody could possibly want something besides the geeks' Android device du jour.

It's baffling to me. You'd think that after years of Linux failing to take hold on the desktop, various iPod "killers" flopping, Windows tablets failing, iPhone being the best-selling smartphone, and now Android flopping on tablets, the geek crowd would get it.

Oh well. Clearly anybody who dares question the almighty Android is simply wrong, and deserves to be flamed into silence.

 

[JD50]

Except mine isnt bullshit from a secondhand source. Its actual numbers delivered by the actual company that created the product.

You don't even see it do you?

You post crap like this all the time about Android and "phandroids", then go on and on about apple haters and how annoying they are.

It'd be nice if there was an "All Things Android" sub-forum... your act is getting old.

 

[JD50]

Rather than have a frank discussion about why Android has been a major failure in the high-end tablet space, Android fanboys would rather try to deflect any criticism. Even if it means lying.

Seriously, that is the only explanation for what I see here. It's like the Android geeks can't understand why anybody could possibly want something besides the geeks' Android device du jour.

It's baffling to me. You'd think that after years of Linux failing to take hold on the desktop, various iPod "killers" flopping, Windows tablets failing, iPhone being the best-selling smartphone, and now Android flopping on tablets, the geek crowd would get it.

Oh well. Clearly anybody who dares question the almighty Android is simply wrong, and deserves to be flamed into silence.

 

[cheezy321]

You don't even see it do you?

You post crap like this all the time about Android and "phandroids", then go on and on about apple haters and how annoying they are.

It'd be nice if there was an "All Things Android" sub-forum... your act is getting old.

Dude. Did you read the title of this thread? I *surprise* posted an article about how android tablet makers are failing to take a foothold in the tablet space. Is this shocking to you? Am I in the wrong for posting something on topic?

I posted it in the right thread and I posted a fact that was announced by ASUS. It goes right along the lines of android tablet makers failing to make a dent in iPad sales.

If I posted a straight up lie in this forum, whether its against android or iPhone, I would expected to get called out on it. Thats it, thats all.

 

[JD50]

I didn't say they should be banned completely. However I'm saying there is a philosophical disconnect here if a number of apps on Google's store require rooting. The argument here isn't what's good for you and me, two geeks on AnandTech, but what's good for Android as a commercial consumer-oriented platform.

Yes you did... "A truly consumer oriented store would probably want to ban apps requiring rooting altogether."

What is wrong with just... not installing those apps that require root? If they are useless apps to the "normal consumer" then they won't even know they are there. No harm no foul.

Now we have gone full circle, since this was my original criticism. Most mainstream tablets with SD card slots do not support large file sizes, even in ICS, even though the units themselves may be advertised as having 1080p playback support.

You missed my point. The "normal consumer" doesn't have a library of ripped blu-ray movies on a NAS at home. The "normal consumer" buys or rents their movies from the Android Market, iTunes, Amazon market, etc... and watches them on their device. This is perfectly doable on all (I think) mainstream Android tablets.

Anyways, poofyhairguy said it works on his Transformer Prime, so I guess it's not an ICS issue. Again, you can't base your entire opinion of Android on a cheap chinese knockoff.

 

[BoberFett]

Edit: Not even worth it.

 

[Mopetar]

Except mine isnt bullshit from a secondhand source. Its actual numbers delivered by the actual company that created the product.

To be fair, the way you decided to phrase it was just asking to draw angry responses and generally aggravate people. If only there were a word to describe that kind of action. Maybe in the future, try being more tactful. It makes polite discourse surprisingly easier.

I'm surprised to see such low numbers though, especially for one of the best Android tablets available. Are those numbers for worldwide sales, or are they merely limited to the United States? The article doesn't provide enough details and 80,000 seems far too low, even for the number of shipped units.

 

[cheezy321]

To be fair, the way you decided to phrase it was just asking to draw angry responses and generally aggravate people. If only there were a word to describe that kind of action. Maybe in the future, try being more tactful. It makes polite discourse surprisingly easier.

I'm surprised to see such low numbers though, especially for one of the best Android tablets available. Are those numbers for worldwide sales, or are they merely limited to the United States? The article doesn't provide enough details and 80,000 seems far too low, even for the number of shipped units.

I don't think they gave any details. They also talked about 3,000 pre-orders which kind of confused me as well. Hasn't the prime been out for a while? Either way the numbers are pretty bad. Especially when this is the flagship android device. It looks like the space for an iPad alternative is amazon's to lose. I expect them to have a couple of different kindle fires(HD, low end, etc) by the end of 2012. In a couple years the OS will be so different from android we wont even consider it a true android tablet.

 

[Eug]

Anyways, poofyhairguy said it works on his Transformer Prime, so I guess it's not an ICS issue. Again, you can't base your entire opinion of Android on a cheap chinese knockoff.

It turns out Asus licences NTFS and exFAT support from a third party (Tuxera), precisely because this is a limitation of Android.

http://www.tuxera.com/news/asus-selects-tuxera-file-system-software-for-eee-pad™-tablets/

HELSINKI, FINLAND and TAIPEI, TAIWAN — May 12, 2011 — Tuxera Inc., the leading provider of Windows and Mac compatible file systems for Android, Linux and other platforms, today announced it has signed a license agreement with ASUS to include Tuxera’s file system software into ASUS complete line of tablets.

Tuxera file system products such as Tuxera NTFS and Tuxera exFAT enable tablets, smartphones, TVs and many other consumer electronics devices to transfer data to and from all types of portable storages using USB, SDHC, SDXC, and network interfaces. Tuxera’s software is optimized for all major chipset hardware and operating system platforms and delivers industry-leading read and write speeds, while using less power to extend battery usage time.

P.S. I find it amusing you call it a "knockoff" considering it's a tablet that has full access to Google Plus right out of the box.

I guess the good news is that Asus will be releasing a 7" tablet soon, presumably with this Tuxera exFAT / NTFS support.

 

[Bateluer]

P.S. I find it amusing you call it a "knockoff" considering it's a tablet that has full access to Google Plus right out of the box.

Its not a knock off, your device is technically a fully functional Android tablet. But the Chinese factories cut every corner possible to get them out. Hardware is cheap, build quality is cheap, SoC is cheap, the RAM is cut back, the screens are crap, and the Android build is nearly raw dough. You bought an extreme low end device, with the knowledge that it would come unsupported by the factory, minimal warranty, and be entirely reliant on the handful of other people who bought your device for support since the factory gives you none, and then wonder why basic tasks that other Android devices handle fine won't work on yours?

Like buying a Kindle Fire and then complaining because 8GBs of storage isn't enough and you didn't know there wasn't an SD card slot.

 

[rchiu]

They've had 2 years now to get it right... everyone and their mom knows the keys to victory are UI fluidity, physical platform, and the screen. Yet here we are a week from iPad stomping on Android's face. I just don't get it.

And I hate Apple... I'm a huge Android fan...

You missed on key factor, App market. Huge number of Android Tablet apps are phone apps port and down right disgraceful. That's the key reason I am still using ipad while having an Android phone.

It's chicken and egg, you need big market share to attract app developers, but if you don't have apps, you don't get big market share. Android phone is doing well because they got bunch of subsidy from carriers, and they have phone for low cost market all the way to high end market and iphone only compete in one market segment. So Android phone has good market share, and developer develop apps for Android phone.

Android Tablet don't get subsidy, usually priced similar to ipad and compete directly. So it is a hard sell and can't get much market share. With no market share, there are few good apps, with few good apps, market share suck more. The cycle continues.

 

[Eug]

Now I know why I was told that tablet supported NTFS. It did... as they had added NTFS support in their Android 2.3 version. However, all of them ship with ICS now, but without the additional NTFS support added back in yet to their version of ICS.

So I went and checked out more tablets yesterday. I was at Tigerdirect and they had about a dozen tablets on display... but not a single one had ICS.

 

[Eug]

Its not a knock off, your device is technically a fully functional Android tablet. But the Chinese factories cut every corner possible to get them out. Hardware is cheap, build quality is cheap, SoC is cheap, the RAM is cut back, the screens are crap, and the Android build is nearly raw dough. You bought an extreme low end device, with the knowledge that it would come unsupported by the factory, minimal warranty, and be entirely reliant on the handful of other people who bought your device for support since the factory gives you none, and then wonder why basic tasks that other Android devices handle fine won't work on yours?

You have now been proven wrong and/or have changed the goal posts so many times now it's sad. As I've mentioned time and again, the vast majority of models, mainstream or not, don't support NTFS or exFAT because it's not natively supported. Asus's solution to this limitation is to licence code from a third party to add that support.

Ironically, Mediasonic went to the trouble of adding it for their 2.3 release, which is more than most of the mainstream tablet manufacturers can claim, but have not (yet) added it for their factory 4.0 install.

Like buying a Kindle Fire and then complaining because 8GBs of storage isn't enough and you didn't know there wasn't an SD card slot.

See previous post.

 

[Eug]

You missed on key factor, App market. Huge number of Android Tablet apps are phone apps port and down right disgraceful. That's the key reason I am still using ipad while having an Android phone.

It's chicken and egg, you need big market share to attract app developers, but if you don't have apps, you don't get big market share. Android phone is doing well because they got bunch of subsidy from carriers, and they have phone for low cost market all the way to high end market and iphone only compete in one market segment. So Android phone has good market share, and developer develop apps for Android phone.

Android Tablet don't get subsidy, usually priced similar to ipad and compete directly. So it is a hard sell and can't get much market share. With no market share, there are few good apps, with few good apps, market share suck more. The cycle continues.

Android tablet sales numbers are not completely insignificant, but what makes it worse is the severe fragmentation within the Android tablet market as well, as you've alluded.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

I was thinking about the issues you mentioned with the UI and I think some of the problem on that front could be due to the tablets unusally low resolution. If I remember correctly the tablet interface for Honeycomb and ICS is intended for resolutions above a certain minimum and I think dpi comes into play as well. Because of this the manufacturer likely had to modify some of the settings in order to use the tablet interface and this could have had an adverse effect on the appearance of the interface.

 

[joedingy]

Some Android manufacturers are working hard to produce quality products.

This thread is 7 months dead. Let's let it rest.
-ViRGE

 

[shortylickens]

Some Android manufacturers are working hard to produce quality products.

:hmm: