yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Eee Pad Transformer General] dr.m0x:
You are bang on the money. The Apple phenomena is totally down to marketing.

For the price I paid for my 32gb transformer with dock, I could have had a 32gb ipad 2. Transformer has in its favour a higher screen resolution, expandable storage, and a physical keyboard. The only advantage to ipad 2 is battery life which is better than the transformer in pure tablet mode. Add the dock though and Transformer kills ipad 2 dead.

Looking purely at value for money the transformer is a better deal yet everyone still wants an ipad and your average consumer isn't even aware there are other tablets out there. In my city only about 1\3 of the chain stores even stock android tablets, they all stock ipad.

Its an uphill battle to convince people to try android. The only reason the phones have taken off is that there are so many good carrier deals. Here in New Zealand if you want an iphone on contact you have to go to Vodafone and then they rape you blind. In comparison all the carriers have competitive deals on Androids.

When the ipad 2 came out the news media hammered it for days and retards camped outside stores for days to get one on launch day. Talk about ****ing retards. I'd camp out for a chance to kick Steve Jobs in the balls but never to buy an electronic device.

Guess what happened when Honeycomb and the first tablet Motorola Xoom came out? Nothing. Not a single report in the media, heck most stores hadn't even heard of its existence. No one queued for it and all the retards kept buying ipads.

Such is the power of brands and Apple have perfected theirs. Android is still hard to sell because it isn't really a brand. Samsung is a brand, Asus is a brand and **** box $100 tablets like the apad are also brands. I'm not sure what can be done but it would likely take a hefty investment in advertising, product placement and the like to get the ball rolling. Considering how deeply ingrained in the psyche if the average consumer apple now is, the investment would have to be massive.

Sadly I feel Apple will be the tablet king for sometime yet.

Sent from my Bulletproof Htc Sensation.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] keroppilee:
There are certain pluses and minuses either way. Although apple's tech is way more restrictive, the stuff just works. Sure no flash, but everyone has a html 5 version of their pages for ipad anyway. No need to muck around with choosing the right compression for your movies. Huge app store.

I like my transformer, and I enjoy mucking around with roms and kernels and i dont mind doing troubleshooting when stuff gets into a bootloop for whatever reason. (Once a kernel had a problem with voodoo sound). I know that this isnt for everyone though. Straight out of the box i think the ipad is better for most people. I think that's the appeal for apple they allow tech ignorant people to use the latest stuff.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] EP2008:
Just to clarify, the ipad can run flash quite well if you use the $0.99 browser Puffin or $2.99 browser iswifter. In fact, I think flash playback is BETTER on the ipad than on my Transformer when using those browsers.

But you said it right, things just work with ipads and that's what people want. I remember the big linux push years ago and the big thing was "free" and "open source", but you know what? Nobody wanted to figure linux out when windows just worked for them. Same thing with Android vs. ipad - my wife can't figure out Android to save her life, but she's doing amazing things with her ipad. I have a feeling that most people are the same way.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] CrazyPeter:
I'd be interested to know what they don't understand about a Honeycomb tablet, as everything the iPad2 does, it's just as easy on the Asus. Sure the Asus does a whole lot more, and you can tinker with stuff to your hearts delight (which you can't on the iPad2), but that's advanced stuff, the basics are exactly the same. You have a apps button, a store button, a web browser and desktop shortcuts that get added when you download stuff...

I'm guessing you aren't comparing like for like. Sure there is alot of stuff in Android, some stuff people will never discover (like widgets), but all this stuff Apple simply does not have to begin with.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] EP2008:
I wish I knew! LOL Perhaps it's the fact that Android CAN do so much that turns people off. I mean, if you are doing basic addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, you don't go out and buy a scientific, graphing calculator - maybe that's how people view ipads. I know my brother who's an apple fanatic, tells me all the time that he doesn't want widgets or all these tweakable features, he just wants something he can turn on and use.

I look at my Transformer as a laptop - a computer. But there's no way I can say my ipad is the same, but if I just want to "grab and go", I'll get the ipad.

Also, because things "just work" on the ipad, you don't get force close messages or issues with the OS buggering up, and that's a huge plus for people who just don't want to deal with issues.

iOS 5 will change things a bit... it will make the ipad more desireable IMO, so we'll see how Honeycomb devices fare during the next year.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] CrazyPeter:
Anyone that tells you these things don't happen on the iPad2 are quite simply a liar or living in a dreamworld. Apps break, that's a fact of life. If anything Android apps are generally more robust due to the GC nature of the language preventing memory leaks.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] AlexTheStampede:
iOS runs Flash like Android runs Windows and OSX. It's true, just use Splashtop or some other similar app! Seriously, if those apps could run Flash content, you'd have to get them from Cydia as it would violate the AppStore rule about interpreted code. Still I do wonder... Wasn't there once a Linux package for open source Flash? Something like Gnash. Why nobody seems to care about it so to make a port for mobile devices?

Not that I care about the evil tech, just curious.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] wynand32:
I just don't see going from <50K sold (before the TouchPad firesale) to 800K sold (the lower number Digitimes is throwing out) would result in only 5X app downloads. Just doesn't make sense--sure, some people don't download many apps, but even if everyone only downloaded one app that would result in a 16X download rate.

I simply think the number of TouchPads shipped has been inflated--I think Best Buy had the most at 250K units, and everybody else considerably less (as demonstrated by all the cancelled orders; vendors were clearly pulling from the same inventory at distributors, which of course were simply never restocked). It's not important, really, but I just get bothered by these crazy numbers being thrown around.

And, I do think the Transformer has sold extremely well, and it also bugs me that Asus isn't getting as much credit as they deserve. They introduced a good product at a competitive price that has sold well, and the media reports that only Apple has had ANY kind of success with the iPad.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] wynand32:
Could be. I remember adding up about a million given shipped units from April - June. If they've maintained 700K in July and August, then yeah, they'd be pushing 2 million units.

Which, if true, I wish somebody would report, because that's a genuine success by any reasonable (i.e., non-Apple) metric.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] EP2008:
Do you have an ipad or ipad 2? What I'm saying is that in my own personal experience (and the experience of my wife, my father and my brother - all of them own ipads) is that rebooting the device because it's misbehaving or having an app crash is a VERY rare occurance - on my android tablet, I get force closes several times a day and reboot every few days. I've found this to be a regular occurance with all the Android tablets I've used, and I've used four up to now.

This is the reality that I experience. Are there apps which crash on ios? Probably, but I haven't used any yet and I'm up to over 80 installed apps on my ipad 2... I've used way more.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] EP2008:
Have you used Puffin or iswifter? Puffin is on Android too... they render pages server side - similar to Skyfire, but with more access to page elements.

These apps have been around for some time - no need to jailbreak my device either. Just purchase and install... they work like a charm and I don't have issues with sites like failblog, which seem to play advertisements quite well on my android tablet, but then buckle under the pressure when it comes to the video I actually want to watch.

If you really want to see a comparison, PM me with a few sites that have flash content and I'll do up a youtube vid for you :)
[Eee Pad Transformer General] Stevewmn:
In the US the Xoom got some reports in the news media. Negative reports, that is. The initial reviews were that it was rushed to market with some features that didn't work, like the micro-SD card reader, and I think the 3G data modem didn't work right, or it wasn't 4G (I forget). And of course there were no tablet apps to speak of, and no price break compared to the "premium" iPad. So it languished on the shelf, especially after the iPad 2 came out a month or so later and won the beauty contest by a landslide.

Part of the problem is definitely marketing and part of it I blame on Honeycomb and Google. The iPad is very easy to figure out using the copious working demo units at the Apple Store. Each of which is loaded up with a bunch of free and paid apps from the Apps store to give you an idea what they are capable of. In short, Apple makes it very easy to get a good demonstration of the iPad just by walking into any Apple Store.

The various Android tablets have to rely on the sales people at all the other technology stores in the marketplace. In the US this is basically Best Buy or something worse nationwide and Best Buy sets the bar pretty low. The sales people at Best Buy have never been very good at keeping their electronic products charged and functional, but the Android tablet people seem to be really trying to be good at this in the last month or so. (it's about time). Then you get to the Honeycomb demo. It's not as easy as iOS and it probably stops a few people cold. The home screens in the "out of the box" configurations are confusing. You've got stacks of youtube videos on one page and stacks of games or books or something on another page and you've got navigation buttons not seen on your Android phone to figure out. And there is a lot of dead space on the home screens because no one bothered to download any apps or add any widgets beyond what was set up at the factory. Any apps not set up as widgets/shortcuts on the home screens are hidden away in the apps drawer where no one with iOS experience is expecting to have to look for them. And of course the Best Buy salespeople are just about useless.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] CrazyPeter:
I had an iPad, it was utter trash. Sure I never has any OS crashes, but nor have I had any with my Transformer. Both I had occasional dodgy apps (none of which were built-in apps, always stuff downloaded). There is no real difference in App or OS quality between the two. The iPad sucked for other reasons (Apple lock-in and control mainly).
[Eee Pad Transformer General] checkbox111:
I can never understand why anyone would choose an ipad/iphone over an Android competitor, they're just dull and uniteresting, i can only imagine that the buyer is equally as dull and uninteresting :confused:
[Eee Pad Transformer General] Warkman:
I have a company iphone and a Transformer tablet.

Can you guess which one needs rebooting the most?

Yep the iphone! the TF has never required a reboot, whilst teh crappy iphone with rubbish signal holding (put my Blackberry up against teh iphone and the BB always has a better signal)

Apple=style over substabce
[Eee Pad Transformer General] dburckh:
I had never used a modern iOS device before recently. I picked up a used iPod Touch (iOS 4.2.1) recently and was frankly amazed how much it reminded me of my kid's toys. Does Leap Frog do their interaction design?

Anyway, I can understand some level of appeal to those how are initially shopping for their first smart phone, but after that I think you would just feel boxed in.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] EP2008:
I'm starting to get the feeling that the ios haters here are jealous of all the fantastic and useful apps that the Ipad has and Android doesn't... we will catch up guys... hopefully soon!
[Eee Pad Transformer General] mythrid12:
I'll agree that Apple has more to offer on their appstore at the moment but it does seem like Android is getting there.

Now... about what you said about android tablets forcequitting multiple times a day and having to be restarted a lot... I own a transformer as well as an ipod touch and ipad. I will say the iOS devices rarely have to be restarted and apps rarely crash but I wouldn't say my transformer is any worse about it.

The last app that forcequit on my TF was n64oid while playing Majora's mask but I hardly think it was an issue with the android OS.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] CrazyPeter:
Ignorance and stupidity usually, they assume that Apple is the only tablet on the market, because thats all everyone talks about.

Of course everyone talks about it, because the media are paid to talk about it, thanks to Apples huge marketing budgets.

And of course, the more people buy, the bigger the Apple marketing budget, the more people talk about it..... Catch 22.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] pas7771:
I always thought Apple product are overpriced.. guess what.. Apple has outstanding cash-flow, great isn't it.

Doesn't mean their products is bad, but you truly caught in their upgrade program if you like it..

for the same price I will always find better hardware and software equivalent..

my 2ct
[Eee Pad Transformer General] kkcheong:
I just wondering if Asus Transformer is the most popular tablet in XDA?
[Eee Pad Transformer General] wynand32:
Judging by threads and posts, yes. I believe the Transformer has about double the activity as the next closest (the Samsung GT 10.1)...
[Eee Pad Transformer General] RojasTKD:
Yeah, but all those tablets are CRAP and don't compare in way shape or form to to the Transformer, Tab 10.1, Thrive or ICONIA Tab.

As a side note, I can't imagine the Playbook is selling well. Wonder if they will slashing prices anytime soon (not HP crazy price slashing). Either way I think RIM may be in trouble.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] dr.m0x:
Playbook = fail book.

Only Android can stop Apple from world domination.

Sent from my Bulletproof Htc Sensation.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] CrazyPeter:
The problem is, when Apple fanboys think of Android tablets, they don't think of quality Android tablets like the Transformer, the Xoom, the Tab, they think fo the $150 ****.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] kkcheong:
I don't think that's true. With Transformer, Xoom and Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the market, the Apple fanboy already play around with these tablet.

Sad to say, Android Honeycomb UI still not smooth compare to Apple iPad (I have both iPad 2 and Asus Transformer. So I know what I'm talking). Just based on that impression, they'll think iPad is the best.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] Rumbleweed:
This will not help Galaxy Sales

BERLIN — A German court rules that Samsung Electronics's Galaxy Tab cannot be sold in Germany because it violated patents of rival Apple's iPad2.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] reaperzero:
have to agree on that. for some strange reason i keep meeting apple customers that are borderline obsessive on owning all apple products... including the heavy breathing, sweaty palms, and weeeeeeeird look they have in their eyes
[Eee Pad Transformer General] EP2008:
That's not the point. We are talking about Android tablets not selling well. Even $150 Android tablets - "crap" or not, don't have a market, yet $500-700 ipads and $300 kindles do. Like I said, people just aren't looking for Android tablets and that's a problem, regardless of how good we think the hardware or OS is.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] goodintentions:
I've told this story before. I was sitting on the train playing galaxy on fire 2 minding my own business when a man came and sat next to me. He asked which ipad I was using and when I said it's not an ipad he said "oh, it's an immitation".

What he said pretty much reflects most people's attitude.

Yesterday, we needed to get a reference from the astm manual. One of the guys ran back to the office to get a copy. I took out my TF and openned up the astm pdf. Since it's got about 2000 pages, it took about 10 seconds to render all the pages. One of the guys said to me "why don't you just get an ipad so it would load faster?" Well, according to my experience the ipad takes about the same time to load such a large pdf file. But it doesn't matter to this guy. To him, the ipad has to be better. There's no question about it.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] Rumbleweed:
The two products appear to be targeting totally different markets. Think back on the latest commercials or ads you have seen for each. The ipad commercials show everyday people using them for every day tasks that the majority of consumers use. email. learning, searching reference material, professional use. The Android commercials show people using them to play futuristic video games and watch sci fi movies. The message is if you are an average user and want a tablet to seamlessly integrate to your life style you should buy an ipad, if you want a tablet to root, modify, continually change ROMS and play futuristic video games you need an Android.

Bottom line both devices are doing a good job of addressing the markets they are targeting and not much else.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] kkcheong:
Partly true. Well it happened to all fanboy. Many Android customer (almost all of them) are obsessive with their device. I keep on seeing them in Engadget and HTC Facebook posting Android ftw, android rules and talking bad about Apple user. I guess both side have bad people and we shouldn't quick to judge.:D
[Eee Pad Transformer General] kkcheong:
Ditto. I see far too many Android fanboy dissing Apple product and this is getting ridiculous. Seems like Android user worse than Apple user in supporting their product. I don't get why these Android user want to defend their product so much. Unless they have bought google shares. For me, I got Asus Transformer + iPad 2 + Intel netbook + intel notebook + intel pc. I can use whichever I like depend on my mood. Does not need to be fanboy. You'll enjoy your life more. Just use the thing you like. :D
[Eee Pad Transformer General] EP2008:
Exactly! I hold zero brand loyalty, so I'm free to choose what I like without feeling like I've abandoned something.

I've got a few android devices, a few ios devices and soon a webOS device - I'll use the one that I'm holding... no need to get my pants in a knot because one's made by Apple and the other isn't.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] kkcheong:
When you said people getting iPad as show off device, all your other points goes down to drain.

This is because we already agree that if a normal customer non-geek goes into best buy testing iPad 2 and TF, I'm sure based on UX and smooth UI and build quality, they will choose iPad 2. No doubt about it.

So pls don't be angry if people buy tablet to consume media. It's not wrong. Everyone have their idea of what to expect from tablet. You don't have call the other tablet as toy if you're not apple hater ;)
[Eee Pad Transformer General] thebadfrog:
How because he sees people with iPads set them aside to use laptops make all his very valid points invalid. I see it all the time. There is nothing wrong with consuming media and calling an iPad a toy is not apple hating. I see people all the time using their iPads for media and then going back to the laptop for work. You've had legitimate points in previous posts but to continue in this manner just makes you seem to be a fanboi. If the iPad wasnt so overpriced i would buy one to join my 3 android tablets and 1 touchpad.

And if you don't think a huge amount of people have purchased an iPad to just "show it off", you sir don't understand the culture.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] kkcheong:
Not really overprice considering galaxy tab 10.1 is selling at the same price.

Oh the culture. Why hate the culture? There's also culture in Geek to show off their hackable device. Do not condemn others. That's my point. Show off culture is everywhere.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] wynand32:
The reason I personally care about how accurately things are being reported (and, I believe they're not being accurately reported at all) is that people do decide on purchasing and developing for a platform based at least in part on how well it's doing in the market. So, if the general consensus is that only the iPad is selling well enough to pay attention to it, then it creates a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy.

I think what's needed is accurate reporting, and not hype. Yes, the iPad is selling like no other tablet, and it's a bit of a phenomenon, really. I can't think of any consumer product that's ever sold this well, and Apple should be commended for a great job of marketing.

However, that doesn't mean that, say, the Asus Transformer, at 1-2 million units sold with minimal advertising and marketing, isn't selling well. Actually, the Asus is selling very well for a technology product, which explains why Asus isn't messing around in getting the next iteration out the door. For them, the Transformer has been a great seller and, presumably, a profitable one. How else to measure success?

In fact, I'd say that Honeycomb tablets as a whole are selling just fine at this point in their development. After all, they were only launched about six months ago, and Motorola put the entire category in a bind by releasing the Xoom at WAY too high a price and with too many things not working. If the first Honeycomb tablet had been the Transformer at $399 and with every function enabled, things would be very different.

But the biggest problem is that everyone is comparing all other tablet sales to the iPad--which sold for nearly a year all by itself in a new market that people perceived Apple as having created--when they should be measured on their own. Again, Apple should be commended for doing a great marketing job with the iPad, and for creating the perception that the iPad stands alone as the only viable tablet.

But, really, people are saying the same thing about the iPad that they said about the iPhone 18 months or so ago, and look at where the smartphone market is today. Yes, Apple has the #1 selling device, and probably always will. But Android as a smartphone platform has overtaken iOS and has more devices sold, more apps available, and more apps downloaded. I imagine that Android tablets will reach the same level, unless Microsoft manages to get a winning Windows 8 tablet platform out the door soon enough. In that case, we could see both Android and iOS suffer, but that's another story entirely.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] kkcheong:
Oh no. Another misconception of Apple by non-Apple user. It's not totally depend on Marketing to sell stuff. You need the device to work. ;)
[Eee Pad Transformer General] thebadfrog:
You are now just becoming a troll. If I want an SUV I don't have to buy a Mecedez for 80k. I can buy one for 20K and go to the same places. With apple I'm force to buy a Mercedes because there is no other option.

BTW...I am buying a MacBook Pro because I prefer osx after running a hackintosh but its used and at a reasonble price. Not the overpriced new.
[Eee Pad Transformer General] kkcheong:
You don't call people troll just because they have different opinion. And I didn't know TF is 1/4th of the iPad 2 price as with Mercedes example.

Anyway with apple you have no choice. but it's a good thing. No need to compare Samsung or HTC or Asus. :D

Before you said I'm troll again, I'm TF owner. So trolling is far from my thought. I just want to set things straight.