When I watched the video interviews with three “true-life” Galaxy Tab users that Samsung showed at its CTIA event, I was observant enough to figure out (with the help of about six minutes of Google research) that two of the users were actors and the other one works for a film-production company that counts Samsung among its clients. But I didn’t notice or detail every oddity about them. Folks who are discussing my story on all this, both in the comments and elsewhere on the Web, are having fun pointing out other curious things about the interviews, such as the fact that “leading New York real-estate CEO Joseph Kolinski” raves about the 8.9″ Galaxy Tab even though the only 8.9″ Tabs that Samsung itself had on hand at CTIA were non-working models.
Tag Archives | Tablets
Android Apps on the PlayBook: This Doesn’t Change Everything!
Yesterday, BlackBerry maker RIM confirmed what sounded at first like a wild rumor: Its PlayBook tablet, coming on April 19th, will run Android apps even though it’s not an Android tablet per se. Apps written for Android 2.3 Gingerbread will be another PlayBook option along with native programs written for RIM’s new QNX-based tablet OS and ones built in Adobe AIR.
As usual with RIM execs, co-CEO Jim Balsillie explained the news in a way that was, um, a bit twisty. (Balsillie and fellow co-CEO Mike Lazaridis have a manner of spelling out their company’s strategies that reminds me of a Choose Your Own Adventure book.) But if I understand Balsillie correctly, he’s saying that the Android compatibility isn’t there as a primary source of apps. People are going to want to run software that’s been designed to take advantage of the PlayBook’s hardware. The large quantities of Gingerbread apps–what he calls “tonnage”–are there in case anyone’s worried that there won’t be enough PlayBook apps, or the right apps for every purpose.
That sounds reasonable enough to me. But it also sounds like it’ll be a distinctly minor aspect of the PlayBook’s, well, playbook.
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Hey, They’re All Just Screens
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about the post-PC era. After Steve Jobs repeatedly described the iPad and other Apple products as post-PC devices at this month’s iPad 2 launch, I decided that the post-PC era is already well underway–and that it’s less about the PC going away and more about it being joined by a bevy of other gizmos, from phones to tablets to car-dashboard gadgetry. In other words, the PC is being replaced not by something but by everything. I wrote about that in this TIME.com column.
But after I finished that piece, I kept thinking about the whole subject. And I decided that the PC is, in some respects, going to be replaced by one thing, in a variety of versions.
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An iPad Smart Cover Made Out Of…Wood
I was intrigued by the debut of the iPad 2 Smart Cover, Apple’s solution for the bulk of problems that traditional cases cause. Well it was only a matter of time before another company would attempt to mimic what Apple designers have done here, and the first company to do so is Holland-based Miniot.
The company is known for its wooden cases for the iPhone and iPod. Its next target is the iPad 2. The cover is made out of a single piece of wood, and operates much the same as Apple’s Smart Cover does, acting as both a screen protector and stand. Magnets hold the case to the tablet perfectly just like Apple’s does. However, instead of folding, the Miniot Cover rolls much like a wooden blind would.
Here’s a video from the company describing its case:
Surprisingly enough, you won’t pay any more for this case than you would for Apple’s leather version: it is set to sell shortly through the company beginning at 50 euros ($69 USD). The company says that it will be available in several different types of wood, however it hasn’t specified which types.
If I wasn’t so in love with the orange Smart Cover, I probably would have picked one of these up for my iPad 2 when I finally get it next month.
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Is Samsung’s New Galaxy Tab Fibbing About Its Figure? And About Those Galaxy Tab Fans…
At CTIA Wireless earlier this week, Samsung announced a new 10.1″ Galaxy Tab tablet–one with specs that made it thinner and lighter than the iPad 2, with the same starting price of $499. After the press event, I scurried over to the Samsung booth in hopes of getting some hands-on time with the new Tab.
When I got there, I found that the 10.1″ Tabs out on tables were the older, relatively portly version announced last month at Mobile World Congress. The new 10.1-incher (and its 8.9″ sibling) were inside glass cases, and they weren’t powered on. I also discovered that my friend Fritz Nelson of InformationWeek had beat me to the booth–and he told me that he was trying to get Samsung to give him a Tab he could hold and judge.
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So Long First-Gen iPad, We Hardly Knew You
Here comes the iPad 2 again, like the world’s smallest, sleekest freight train, and in its wake, a trail of “while supplies last!” ads and deals and ballyhoo touting Apple’s original slate. Get it while it’s not-hot.
Apple’s iPad 2 (see our review, “It’s Still the One”) already debuted in the U.S. on March 11, but it’s still looming in the UK, Canada, and over 25 other countries. In goes global at last this Friday.
That’s not stopping customers from snapping up the original iPad in droves, if tales of sold out stores and online listings are true. They may well be. Apple’s knocked the price down $100 on original iPads, and it seems buyers are making a run on remaining stock. The 16GB model with Wi-Fi’s apparently already MIA.
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RIM’s PlayBook Has a Price and a Date
RIM has finally announced the specifics on how much you’ll pay for its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, and when you’ll be able to do so: It goes on sale April 19th for the familiar-sounding prices of $499 (16GB), $599 (32GB), and $699 (64GB). The 7″, businessy tablet is the single most intriguing iPad alternative, simply because it’s not that much like an iPad; it’s looked good in demos for months, and it’s be intriguing to see just how close it comes to living up to its hype and promise, both of which are considerable.
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OnLive Snubbed in Sprint’s HTC Evo View Reveal
If HTC’s Evo View 4G tablet can play modern PC games from OnLive, Sprint isn’t saying so.
OnLive was supposed to be a big feature in the HTC Flyer, the 7-inch Android tablet that Sprint is calling the Evo View 4G. The cloud gaming service gets top billing on HTC’s Flyer website, and promises to let users play PC games like Homefront and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood on their tablets.
But Sprint’s announcement of the Evo View 4G doesn’t mention OnLive, even as it promises other built-in entertainment apps such as Blockbuster On Demand and NASCAR Sprint Cup.
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Samsung’s New Galaxy Tabs: The iPad 2 Gets Well-Priced Competition
Greetings from the CTIA Wireless show in Orlando, where Samsung just announced two new Galaxy Tab tablets running Google’s Android 3.0 Honeycomb. The new version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has a 10.1″ display at 1280 by 800, a 1-GHz dual-core CPU, dual-antenna Wi-Fi, a 3-megapixel camera in the back and a 2-megapixel one up front. And at 8.6mm and 595 grams, it’s slightly thinner and slightly lighter than the surprisingly thin and light iPad 2. The Galaxy Tab 8.9 is a similar tablet with a screen that’s a bit smaller than the one on the iPad 2 rather than a bit larger.
Both Tabs will run a custom version of Honeycomb topped off with a new tablet-specific edition of Samsung’s TouchWiz interface and a bunch of Samsung services–and as usual with modified versions of Android, I wanna try it in person before I come to any conclusions about whether it makes the experience better or worse.
The most interesting thing about these new Tabs aren’t the specs–which look like what you might expect from a thoroughly modern Android-based tablet–but the pricing. The 10.1 will be available in a 16GB version for $499 and a 32GB one for $599 and will be available on June 8th; the 8.9″ will cost $469 for 16GB and $569 for 32GB and will arrive in “early summer.” Assuming no price cuts from Apple in the interim, the Tabs will provide the iPad 2 with real competition at similar price points for the first time. It’ll be fascinating to see how an Android tablet competes when the discussion is all about software, services, hardware, and the integration thereof, rather than about pricetags.
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The Xoom Gets Flash. But Don’t Get Too Excited
When Motorola’s Xoom hit Verizon stores last month, it was missing some of the features that promised to make it the iPad’s first formidable rival–including its much-touted support for Adobe’s Flash Player. That got fixed today when Adobe released Flash Player 10.2 for Android, a version which supports phones and tablets running versions of Android dating back to last year’s 2.2 Froyo.
I installed the new Flash on the Xoom and started trolling the Web for Flash content to try. My experience was mixed. Adobe doesn’t claim that this is a finished piece of software: The Honeycomb version of Flash Player is billed as a beta, and according to Engadget’s Sean Hollister, it doesn’t yet support hardware acceleration. (Apparently, the First Law of Mobile Flash–the version you want is always not quite here yet–still holds.)