Eugene Huang
Half of your list is about Android Tablets from various vendors. It is a drastic difference from Apple's iPad.
What does this mean to the Android community?
Would Android ecosystem become more diversified in terms of CPU chip sets, screen sizes, etc?
Would developers benefit from this diversity or suffer from its fragmentation?
Are developers prepared for developing apps for tablets?
What part of development infrastructure is lacking for creating apps for tablets?
Thanks.
@Q1 it means that there will be many choices for many prices ranges when looking for a tablet. Competition usually results in better products and more competitive pricing
@Q2 Yes, I believe that we will see many different styles and specs, resulting in many choices, and hopefully something for every taste.
@Q3 If developers take into account that tablets will have different hardware specs than phones (and work around that), and Google relaxes their comes up with a store specifically for tablets, it will benefit from the diversity. However, every company that produces each product is responsible for their implementation of the product, and how good it's support will be. We have already seen several fiascoes with only smartphones. Now that we are throwing tablets into the mix, fragmentation (or legacy, depending on how you look at it) will continue, and will likely get worse, as there will be more companies getting into the business who want to make profit, but might not care as much about future updates and support.
@Q4 That is a question that every developer needs to answer, but I believe that the tools are already there, so the willingness is what needs to be determined. Each tablet differs in some way, and many of the cheaper models don't have the sensor suites that allow the correct usage of many apps.
@Q5 Are you referring to app developers, or devices manufacturers? The biggest problem with tablets that I can see so far is the implementation of a proper app store onto the devices being produced by manufacturers. Google's requirements to have the Android Market on the device are somewhat bottlenecking the adoption of tablets by many, and for good reason.
I believe Google is trying to make sure that the higher quality devices (in terms of support and necessary hardware) are the one getting the Android Market, while companies that don't have as good of a reputation have to try harder to be accepted for the Android Market. Many manufacturers do not include all the sensors that most smartphones have in order to keep the price of the device low, and while it makes the product attractive price-wise, the user experience suffers because of it.
You can bet that if I ever get a tablet, it will be a high-end tablet with all the regular sensor suites and a good (but not necessarily official Android Market) app market.
— modified on Sep 13, 2010, 1:31:22 PM
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