I feel they did their absolute best to not ignite any flame war between Android and iOS in the comment section there. Credits and criticisms were given where due as fairly as possible.
And I agree with the closing comment. You need to wait for Honeycomb hardware to catch up, or iOS software to improve if you are camp-neutral. If you are camp iOS, iPad 2 is no brainer. If you are camp Android, I guess the message is clear: wait for another Android tablet that has better hardware than the XOOM.
And I suppose we all know Apple is hosting WWDC very soon...
WHY is the screen nearly square?? it's 4:3 ratio@ 1024 x 768. Res does not bother me as I care for video quality (rendering, crispness, pixel quality) but why the square screen??? I have 200 HD video clips in my iPod Touch that are 16:9 aspect ratio and they will leave huge black bars top and bottom if I transfer them over to iPad 2. It's like Apple as gone backwards. This is year 2011 guys, Apple should have made 16:9 a "standard".
Another concern, has the screen improved on black levels? iPod Touch 4G isn't bad but does not compare to the Plasma TV's. Has Apple addressed this in iPad 2?
Oh, another thing, why isn't the back panel of the iPad2 reflective, like chrome finish? Chrome finish makes the device look richer.
You have a point there.Because not everyone is going to be using it for a movie device all the time. Most people want it for other stuff and then use it sparingly for videos. Using a 16:9 screen to type up something is not ideal.
Thanks for the info.The screen quality that Apple uses in the iPads are one of the best screens in the industry.
I thought the chrome finish looks and feels better... oh well I guess it's personal preference thing.Because the aluminum feel makes it feel better.
It's kind of a dilemma, actually.
On one hand, it's obvious Android has immense manufacturing force behind it, and better hardware with lower prices will come as an eventual thing. But that means adopting any Android tablet at any time is a bad idea since it gets obsolete quickly.
On the other, it's not clear how much more refined Honeycomb can get at this stage short of Google introducing 3.0.1, 3.0.2, or 3.0.3, and then eventually they'll have to reach 3.1. Android has stayed relatively the same for over a year now, only adding more features. Each time a new iteration comes out, users yearn and pray for better performance. Obviously up to Honeycomb, that's still not Google's highest priority.
It's the reverse for iOS. It's clear Apple is very capable of pushing out faster hardwares every 12-month period. It's also clear that even without pushing hardware, their software performance is already top-notch or close to it in the market. But they just lack features severely, and they are very stubborn about bringing more features. It took some tens of pages of discussions on their developer forums and about some hundreds of bug reports later for them to consider adding the option to the mute/lock switch (or it'll still be a mute switch now). They also stubbornly refuse to adopt something a competitor does better, and the result is the notification system has sucked forever, despite the media lashing at it and users crying about it. It also took like 4 years for them to bring multitasking, just because... they didn't want to do it the way competitors did.
And the way I look at it, there is not a lot they can do to iOS 5 to differentiate themselves from competitors. Both because other OSes are mimicking iOS features, and because others have really good implementations of some features that iOS has to reach eventually. They can either choose to stubbornly march on with some little features added into iOS 4, or they can choose to give in to user demand, revise the system to better fit the tablet, and win over the market for the next few years.
It's a matter of pride versus recognition for Apple, whereas for Android manufacturers, it's mostly just a matter of refinement, and moderation.
I played with my friend's iPad 2 today. Thoughts:
What I liked: Waaaaay thinner. Feels much, much lighter as well. The roll-up screen cover is pretty dang cool. Noticeably faster - more "instant". Yay cameras, finally!
What I didn't like: My iPad 1 is already "fast enough" - apps open in seconds, vs. "a" second. Cameras are junk - the front-facing camera looks like a low-res Youtube video, and while the back is HD, it was fairly grainy. The camera on the new iPod Touch beats it by leaps and bounds. I don't know what they were thinking sticking a VGA camera on an XGA screen for video chat, it looks like garbage. Cool that you can video chat on it though - definitely better than doing it on an iTouch or iPhone.
Also, and I didn't think it would bother me, but the screen is the same. I like the screen on my iPad 1 just fine, but keeping the same screen on the iPad 2 just felt wrong somehow. It's thinner, faster, lighter, but looks the same screen-wise. I dunno. I have no complaints with the original screen, but it did bother me a bit that the second model didn't have a screen upgrade of some kind, considering it's like 95% of the device
Still on the fence about upgrading. I don't really have any reason to, other than just wanting the new tech, but it doesn't feel like a very compelling upgrade for me right now. I will probably upgrade at some point since our first baby is on the way, so it'd be nice to Facetime with family and not have to be near a computer. If I needed to save weight, I'd snag the new one today, but I carry around a 15-pound laptop, so meh...
as an iOS and android user i don't see how the notification system in iOS sucks. i like the blue pop up boxes and the numbers above the apps telling me if i have unread messages or whatever. it's a lot better getting a push notification on the latest groupon deal than swiping the top to see the notifications, which gets annoying after a while for those of us who don't obsess over our phones and just think of them as tools
How is the viewing angle on the iPad2? Is it as good as some of the latest LED driven displays on laptops? Viewing angle is very critical to me. iPod Touch 4G is horrible in this.
The issue most people have with iOS notifications is that they interrupt whatever you are currently doing. Most other platforms have devised a much more subtle way to inform you of new mail/downloads/whatever, that doesn't feel like an annoying web page from 1998.
my only gripe was music and video interruption. but in iOS 4 if it's not video or music there is a go to app and a close button in the notification. just hit the close button and go back to reading something else
with some baseball apps i would get push notifications of important plays and scores. with android it seems to be just the latest inning scores
There's a reason why they stole the WebOS notifications guy from Palm.
Well, I completely echo all of your comments. I bought one for my mother yesterday (they had them at the local Best Buy - Milo.Com rocks for searching stock). The screen being the same also felt like more of a letdown than it should have - it's just it feels like it should be higher res just because... The camera really is awful. As a contented gen1 iPad owner, about all that I've felt playing with the new one is that I have no reason at all to upgrade.
Will be interesting to see what they come up with. They'll probably have something new for their next major iOS release. The big question is whether or not it'll be something new and unique or if they're just going to essentially rip off WebOS, which honestly wouldn't be a bad thing in my opinion.
There's no issue with using lens cleaner on the screen, right? My stupid smart cover is causing large horizontal lines across the screen (like you took your finger from the left all the way to the right in landscape mode). The supposed micro-fiber in the cover doesn't do anything to help with finger prints and now it's just making it worse!