It doesn't make a lot of difference (2G/3G were 18+dither) but I can assure you it's full 24 bit

I think displaymate just get a lot of press because they have very little competition in the "self-proclaimed experts of display tech" field and hence every blog links to them....

You might consider updating the Wikipedia page on the 3GS, then.

Interesting marketshare graph. It shows 2 entries for Q2 2010, with the last one lumping in the iPad under Apple's mobile computing share. Apple goes from being #7 worldwide to #3 world wide, before the iPad was even out everywhere.

The thought behind including the iPad is that it is a capable mobile computing device for many and slots in at a price point below the main Apple notebooks, similar to a netbook slotting in below the normal Acer/HP/Dell laptops.

Even without the iPad, Apple's mobile division is doing well, showing growth even when the iPad came out. Seems it's not really cannibalizing Apple products, but may be eating competitors market share in the mobile space.

The iPad's days are numbered. Dell is now pushing strong with the Streak, and at $550, permanently SIM-locked to AT&T, it's going to crush the competition. This thing is after all, a tablet, even if you can fit it into some baggy jeans pockets.

Ok, that was hard to type. Dell... Why bother? Maybe you're gearing up to compete with the iPhone... You're bringing a jig-saw puzzle to a gun fight. You could have at least showed up with a knife. Or a potato peeler.

BAM! Asus is publicly admitting the hurt. It's only going to get worse (for them).

Having tired of trying to make "an iPad killer" these companies have instead decided to just start making their own iPads...

New Samsung iPad

Viewsonic iPad

Toshiba iPad

LG iPad

The iPad market is sure heating up. And that's not including "knock-off" products, like the "iPed."

Where would these companies (including Google) be without Apple to design their products?

So, Apple put out a keyboard-less, stylus-less tablet PC and now everyone who comes after with such a device is just trend-following?

Look at the designs. This has nothing to do with the stylus-less hand-held concept in general. There are plenty of cars on the road, you don't see GM nor Ford releasing cars that are exact copies of the iconic Porsche body style, do you?

Apple has been designing phones for the likes of Samsung, Motorola, HTC and others since 2007 and now apparently they've been designing all the world's new hand held tablet computers.

There are 1001 ways to design and style a product. These derivative and lazy companies obviously find it much easier simply to pilfer Apple's design prowess than to come up with something on their own. Some of these physical designs are missing only the Apple logo. IMO, it's totally shameful and no better than the out-right knock-offs. These products are nothing more than Fiero-powered Ferrari-skinned kit cars.

It's also what I said would happen all along, that if anyone was going to establish this market it was going to be Apple. Everyone else is just along for the ride. There's no innovation anywhere else, not in software and obviously not in hardware. Apple doesn't need to be the only one innovating here. They don't necessarily need to have the best product. They always leave room for improvement, but no one seems to ever be able to go to the next level. Damn, the industry sucks.

L@@K, another bloody Korean iPad

edit: corrected some typos.

After looking at the links...I gotta agree with Bruno. A couple of them have an extra "killer feature" or two, but for the most part, they seem pretty knock-off.

I think Bruno is right on the money. Physical case design is one thing, but the software design is what makes an apple product (yes, I know, the iPod music playing software sucks, but it accomplished its design objective of making mp3 ripping and playback possible for the idiot masses). You see the phone designers copying some of the software design, too, with all the swiping gestures. But mostly those are gimmicks. It's still like comparing an original Mac to a Windows 3.1 machine. Anyone who used one could instantly feel the difference, even in the tiny things like how the mouse pointer moved.

You can't just put good design on the top of crap like frosting on an ugly cake. It has to be part of every decision made in developing a product. Case shape is one thing, but the important decisions are harder to replicate.

Jim

I don't defend a company like Samsung in this situation, they're pretty poorly ripping off the iPad with some of the additions they've made to Android.

The problem is, I don't defend any of these companies skinning Android. Why can't they just release a tablet device, throw Android on there, and call it a day? Why tack on their horrible software on top? At the very least, they could tweak it so that it scaled better to the larger screen, but then just leave it alone!

In the cell phone market, these companies seem to be saying "we have to differentiate ourselves from the other Android phones on the market, so we'll add our own software on top." They don't seem to realize that, IMO, their phone already differentiate themselves hardware-wise. They don't need that crapware.

But it drives me more crazy when it comes to tablets. There isn't a viable Android tablet yet, so why not be the first on the market with one? Just put out a 10" display device and call it a day!

For the moment, though, it doesn't matter. The landscape will be clearer as the year ends, and we'll see if there are one or two decent alternatives (for us Android lovers, not Bruno) to the iPad like there are in the phone market.

The manufacturers are copying the iPad design because the iPad is popular and because they don't have a single other bullet point to compete against it. "Android" isn't a marketable advantage for 99% of the population. So along with the iPod physical design, they make mods to Android to offer something more than other Android handsets, and at the same time to give some iPad looks (for some of these guys anyway).

I haven't seen anything to indicate that Android is any good on a tablet device without mods. What kind of native support does Android have for these larger and higher density screens? Have any apps made use of any such features? Is there any style guide for creating apps for a larger screen? What happens to older apps when used on these displays?

So far I believe Apple has the tablet game sewn up tight. Much more so than they have ever had (or ever will have) with the phone market.

True. On the other hand, my prediction is that Android will be very good on a tablet in a year or so.

Similarly to what happened in the phone market, where Android, at least here, is extremely popular and appreciated. I personally found the Samsung Galaxy very good, and, not being admittedly an advanced user of neither the iPhone not Android, I found Android just as pleasant to use as the iPhone G4. Both devices I've tried only for hours and use occasionally, so possibly I am not advanced enough to appreciate the pros and cons of each. On the other hand, I think 99% of the market is not, and only use smat phones at 1% of their potential.

for what it is worth, I can say that I know directly 4 people, 3 of which completely non-tech, who just love Android on their phone for the everyday life: they take pictures, listen to music, play games, and occasionally even make phone calls, and are just happy. Would they be happied with an iPhone? I don't know of course, but the (superficial) impression I get from Android-on-smart-phone is that it got pretty good and does please users a lot. In other words, a real competitor.

So, I can see this happen in the tablet (iPod style) market as well.

I don't know about Android for tablets... Mainly because of that other little unknown, Chrome OS.

What indication did you have that iOS was ready for a tablet? As far as I can see, it was barely changed at all for those purposes, but it works ok.

There are rumors that Gingerbread (Android OS 3.0) will have some stuff in it for tablets in addition to making the OS generally nicer looking.

Android in and of its self may not be marketable, but a less expensive alternative to an iPad will always be marketable, and clearly there's something to the OS given how many phones have been shipping.

No, but they do make a nearly line for line copy of a Honda.

IMO, Apple needs to start filing some motions and getting some injunctions against the better known brands for, at the very least, trade dress infringement. They've done it successfully before.

Hanspree iPad - seriously, does everyone need to put a silver and black bezel on these things? Really?



What? One of the reasons the iPad still isn't running iOS4 is because of all the changes made to its version of 3.x. The OS versions were developed in parallel and even from an end-user perspective, it's notable how many differences there are only by handling the product. Having watched the keynote where it was announced, it was made very clear that the iPad brought a lot of new code to the table, including a whole slew of new APIs.

There aren't really many obvious changes made to the OS itself, all the change is in the built-in apps/settings. An Android tablet would need similar changes of course, unless you wanted all the built-in apps to look very odd and waste the benefit of a much larger screen.

If you're talking about the iPad then you must mean that there aren't many changes to the Spring Board, because there are a ton of changes to the "OS" which are the only way the new apps can do what they do and look the way they look. Yes, you're going to see those changes in apps, but that's mainly because there's not really any OS UI other than the Spring Board to speak of.

Ah yes, good point I guess there were plenty of Cocoa chnages for all the new UI.

Enough that they still haven't unified their OS releases. I think it's going to be sometime this fall for 4.x on the iPad. Maybe we'll hear something about it tomorrow when they announce the new iPods.

Judging by this screenshot from Archos' new tablets, Android needs some work before it will take advantage of the extra screen space like the iPad does:

I'll give it to Archos for not making yet another iPod physical clone.

And at least they'd been in the non-Windows tablet for a long time, trying to make a go of it.

They have. Longer than most companies. Certainly longer than Apple. But all their stuff has been lacking in some area. Either the hardware is underpowered or the software is terrible. Now they have good software, but they still seem to be limiting their devices. Their previous Android tablets haven't been received well.

I don't see much of a problem with the screenshot above, Andy. Also, I'll point out that it isn't the official Android App Market. AFAIK, Archos can't put the official market on their devices, so they have their own.

The interface element I'm least confident will translate to a tablet is one of my favorite UI elements of Android: the shade. It's my favorite aspect of the OS, but I fear it'll look odd on such a large screen.

Both OSs have UI challenges when increasing the screen size. How about we wait to see what Google does to actually deal with the issue? That won't be clear until the next update.

I didn't realise that it wasn't the real marketplace app, but that kind of makes it worse. If it was just Google's app that hadn't been optimised for the tablet yet that is one thing, that it is Archos' own on their own tablet and it makes such poor use of the available space suggests a certain lack of care and attention.

Compare their app to the iPad one showing the same type of screen:



The Archos manages to list the basic details for four apps, the iPad lists 12 in an uncluttered view. Admittedly that appears to be on their 7 inch tablet. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that that same screen looks the same on their 10 inch one, except with an extra app showing and even more horizontal space doing nothing

Not that the iPad app store app is perfect, far from it (I really wish you could swipe left and right to page through apps, rather than tapping those somewhat small on screen arrow buttons).

Hmm, interesting that when set to the UK, the released lines are all cut off due to spelling out the full month. On the US Store, it says "Released Aug 31, 2010"

On the actual iPad topic, I'm now entering the 6th month of ownership, and still find the device very handy to have. And it's something I still use daily. It's my mobile TV for watching a show before bed, my morning newspaper for browsing sites and e-mail before I'm fully ready to start the day, and a companion when I'm out and about. At work, it's my tool for monitoring servers when away from my desk, or the device I take notes on in meetings. I'll also grab it for reference to show someone at times, and keep a number of work related documents on hand. I'll admit, I haven't done much reading on it, but I haven't been reading much at all lately. The problem is that due to the multitasking capabilities of the device, I find it just as easy to turn on and go into a game or video, distracting me from going into the books section. I need to be a bit more disciplined about that.

I still have to say one of the biggest features of the device though is the battery. I don't even worry about hitting a low battery warning. It will go days at a time with use here and there between charges. It's nice in that way, compared to my iPhone or full laptop that I have to ensure are charged once a day.

I haven't checked in much to see how my grandmother is using hers, but will be visiting in late October, and will post how she's gotten along with it.

*edit* Oh, and it took Apple a little under 5 full months to finally get stock levels to the point they can guarantee a unit will ship within a day of ordering it online. I'll be interested to hear what sales numbers are like at tomorrows event. Friend of mine visiting VMWorld says the iPad is all over the place. It's definitely got an incredible adoption rate among a lot of crowds.

I never owned an apple production until I bought the ipad.

I love it. It really just hit the sweet spot for the right device at the right time. It was a good choice to go with the Cell Phone style operating system. One of the things I love about it is that it is instantly on and ready to rock and rarely crashes. Its fast - never slows down so far (lets see how it does with multitasking in november)

I got the 16GB 3G version just for the GPS - i dont plan to pay AT&T anything for those outrageous rates.

I also like that the battery last forever - they got that right over most laptops this thing churns for 8 hours. A full day.

Sure there are things I dont like which keep me away from apple (forced itunes install to even use the thing) _ i bet the camera left off was to sell to institutions where a camera would be a no no for corporate or government buyers.

They've got a camera in the iPhone which is marketed to corporate users as well so I don't think they left it out of the iPad for that reason.