Hail, Hail Androidia - Current state of the tablet market

Shortly after I heard someone make the point, I put a poster in my office that said, "A computer will help you do what you want to do. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?"

Without benefit of any special requirements, a very bright friend complimented me by asking for some of my thoughts about "the non-Apple" tablet market. Not wishing to disappoint, I tried to do my homework, and here for the general benefit of anyone else who cares is the result.

“non-Apple” limits things usefully and I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment. To focus further:

• HP bought Palm for $3B solely to get their hands on WebOS, which they proceeded to murder and then mutilate. Recent news that over 200 Palm staff were laid off surprised the media only in that it was hard to believe there were still over 200 Palm staff in HP. There are Palm tablets available but there is no point in buying something already at a dead end. As Gertrude Stein said about her Oakland childhood home, “there’s no there there.” 
• The RIM death watch is continuing, and while the BlackBerry tablet also exists, there seems little point to discussing it. No there much longer.

I'm not saying Android is everything we have ever wanted in computing, but it is the most popular platform, has the most applications and can pretty much do anything any other tablet can do (except load data from iTunes). This is where the action is, even if you don’t want to get into flashing your OS with mods.

7-inch Tablets

There are several good reasons why you might consider spending $249 for a nook tablet rather than $199 for an Amazon Kindle Fire (I will leave for another day the question of whether the $80 Amazon Plus membership is a hidden cost of the Fire).

Any Android product will be communicating through Google servers. The Fire, however, also communicates through Amazon’s servers on a dogmeat browser of their own design that is already notoriously slow and won’t be getting faster – this in the interest of “offloading” processing into “the cloud,” which as Michael Hammer would put it, adds hand-offs and thus delays results. Two clouds for the price of one, with delays for free.

One reporter, at the grand Amazon announcement, asked Jeff Bezos if someone using the Fire to shop for shoes was likely to get an instant message from Zappo’s (which Amazon owns) offering a better deal, Bezos’ reply was a terse, “We won’t do that.” Reassuring? Not so much. I was quite impressed that the reporter had internalized the architecture so quickly; many people weren’t yet even sure whether the Fire would support Google’s Market (now known, sadly, as “Google Play Apps,” but for the record, yes, it CAN).

Yes, the Barnes and Noble product will offer you access to Barnes and Noble products, but remember the concept of tablet-as-reader is 180 degrees from the concept of the ereader. eInk does not have backlighting, and many people prefer it to reading books on a computer screen. Barnes and Noble has music products but they aren’t as adept at marketing them as Amazon; they are much less adept at marketing their “cloud” services, although for the nook it serves quite well – books do not have to be stored on the device and do not disappear from the account. The nook Tablet does not REQUIRE B&N connectivity; the Fire doesn’t communicate with the Web without Amazon connectivity.

This is to say, I think Barnes and Noble will be much less of an annoyance on their Tablet than Amazon is for Fire users. Any tablet can download music from emusic, Amazon, Google Play Music and a host of others; the only vendor I know that absolutely doesn’t support Android is…yes…Apple iTunes. I am pretty comfortable with the idea that you can even watch Amazon streaming movies on the nook tablet (and Netflix, and Hulu, etc.). I know for a fact that Barnes and Noble has fewer grand schemes for the use of private data than does Amazon; since a very generous friend gifted me with a nook, B&N has had lots of time to do bad things to me and, so far, the worst they've done is sent me emails for business partners (I remember where my delete key is, so it wasn't too difficult to deal with). The Fire, on the other hand, is an identity theft waiting to happen.

More and perhaps better thoughts about the nook tablet are here: http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/barnes-noble-nook-tablet/4505-3126_7-35059751.html

The Large-Form Tablet

“The sky” right now is the asus Transformer Prime (yes, Hasbro is very cranky about that name, which has nothing to do with Optimus Prime or Bumblebee). A to-die-for tablet, thinner than the iPad 2 (the new high-def iPad is thicker than the 2) that attaches to a delightfully-designed keyboard, this was immediately identified by c|net's Molly Wood as more than just the "Gadget of the Week.". Maximum PC says “KickASS.” BlueTooth, WiFi, HDMI video-out port, micro- AND FULL-SIZE SD ports, a USB port and an earphone jack (the single speaker is okay but not boom-box loud). Worst thing anyone has to say about aTP is, “How soon can you deliver it, please?” I think the combination of touch screen with keyboard is near perfection; it is HARD to type on a tablet. If and when I get back to building Frankenstein, I'm going to look HARD at

The other main competitors for the notPad market include the Sony, which is about the same $500 price as the older Samsung Galaxy.

Sony http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/sony-tablet-s-32gb/4505-3126_7-35003724.html and 

Samsung http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/samsung-galaxy-tab-10/4505-3126_7-34505338.html

Everything else is so many shelves below the two tiers identified above that you just DON'T WANT TO LOOK. 

You will discover that you want the MOST on-board memory and storage capacity you can get. If they don’t offer Ice Cream Sandwich, ask why. Firmly.

Android Apps - a few recommendations

You can download a free application daily from the Amazon App Store, even without a Fire [be careful, though - once you have Amazon in your machine, they will try and take ownership of ALL of your apps, and you might not want that]. But absolute minimum requirements include:

• avast or Lookout security
• Cracked Light
• Dictionary.com
• GasBuddy
• Netflix
• Overdrive Media Console (allows you to borrow books from your library)
• SpeedTest and 
• WiFi Analyzer

Don't panic yet - all of the above are well within your price range, and so far we haven't spent a dime.

I like the highly-customizable GO keyboard(s) and, should you be into such nonsense, I find Super Sudoku to be the best presentation of that particular puzzle, just as I find AI Factory’s Checkers and Reversi not only challenging but attractive. These and many, many other pleasant opportunities are free, too.

If you have $10 left after your tablet purchase, that will pay for both PocketCast (which I find the most effective podcast manager) AND MobileKnox, a secure database for user names and passwords that allows you to back up the data to your desktop (all for one low price).Being more than slightly compulsive, Folder Organizer was well worth the price to me. My work desk may be a mess, but my 'droid walls are tidy!  And your correspondent is not being compensated for these recommendations.

Be aware that many games have in-game purchases, preferably BEFORE your kids start playing. Corby is one of the worst offenders, and news that someone's children spent over $100 buying hats and clothing for the charming main character of the game was unsettling but unsurprising. Google is paying attention, though, and later 'droid operating systems have governors for in-game purchasing in the Setup menus.

C'mon Jellybean! Let's keep building Android Planet!

RodM

Happy St. David's Day - Where is YOUR money?

Another screed about Web design and process flow.

http://irs.gov has a relatively clean and bright home page with lots of topics readily apparent to the casual observer. A pleasant-looking man says, "I'm waiting for my refund" as are many of us, so I click there.

A three-step process appears. How nice, straightforward, clear. Except...warning...

"Please DO NOT CALL our toll-free number unless 'Where's My Refund?' specifically indicates that you should." And above that warning, another curious item - "Keep in mind that IRS telephone assistors will not be able to provide additional information." Good thing I found that, given that I have to keep it in mind.

Look around...aha. Step 3 is "Where's My Refund?" Got it.

Below that...hmm..."IRS toll free hours are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. local time." Awkward phrasing, and worse, there is no number provided. No phone number anywhere on the page. Well, let's try working through the process.

• Check 72 hours after you e-file - no problem. It's been a week and a half.


• You need: SSN, filing status and EXACT refund amount - no problem.


• Get your REFUND STATUS [a link] at "Where's My Refund?" [A graphic link]

Wonderful news. My refund hit the bank two days ago. Except, not so much...the bank knows nothing about it. "Please wait until that date to contact us again because we cannot take any action until then. Thank you for your patience." Someone is thanking ME for patience? That's a nice thought...and again, no phone number nor evidence of a link to same. The "Refund Help" gives me much, much more information than I could imagine needing about how to deal with the form I've already finished. Okay, let's back up.

Back at the home page, there's a menu at the top with "Contact IRS." This sounds promising. One of the options on the resulting page is "Contact Us for Status of Your Refund," which likewise sounds promising. Click...

ARRGH, we're back at the 3-step process page. Back to the home page, and back to "Contact IRS." Oh, there's a note BELOW "Contact Us for Status of Your Refund" stating "Want to check on the status of your refund? You can check online with the Where's My Refund application, or call 1-800-829-4477. (Please wait at least four weeks before calling.)" This is the first time that "Where's My Refund" has not had a question mark.

I somehow don't think waiting for four weeks is going to help with whether or not the bank should have my refund, so I dial the number. I go through one minute of information including the cryptic "We will update our systems with the new information very soon." Then I go through an automated process almost exactly the same as "Where's My Refund?" and learn...yes...that processing of my return is complete, it was delayed (for which they apologize) and the refund should be in the bank...two days ago. I am also advised not to contact them before that date, which doesn't seem like it will be a problem.

I finally, after three calls, locate a mechanism by which I can wait for an operator to assist me. The current hold time is 10 to 15 minutes. Unfortunately, I discovered that while I had not been invited to a meeting, my attendance was required in two minutes, so I had to break out of the queue and attend to business.

The phone tree one must traverse to actually speak to a human being is quite challenging, and to avoid any further annoyance to the IRS than this faithful report already provides, I will not go through the procedure. Suffice it to say that one must score correctly on five different levels of automated responses, enter nothing for the sixth and then resist the temptation to press 1 to indicate that you owe the IRS money. This is when you are told how long the current hold time is; my time to this point was 4 minutes and 37 seconds. Once on hold, you are provided with suggestions that you take your question to the IRS Web site, and of course that their representatives are helping other customers.

Please believe me when I say that the attendant who answered my phone call (at 33 minutes, 12 seconds after the connection began) was extremely pleasant, gracious to a fault and very patient with me having violated several procedural steps to make my inquiry.

The problem - this year's program is malfunctioning. The automated systems are giving out incorrect information and the IRS is experiencing processing delays with bank deposits. She suggested that I wait until the week of March 12th to call back and see whether or not further information was available about when the deposit would be made; she also complimented me on submitting a tax return with no errors.