[Xoom General] frenzy757:
Coming from a Xoom owner and having played with the ipad 2 this weekend, I'll admit that Apple has just thought everything out much better than Motorola has.

In this, I don't blame Google...I love honeycomb and think its the better OS, but right now I can't recommend the Xoom to anyone I know unless they already know they want the Xoom (which are people like us).

You can just tell that Apple has thought a lot of things through...the design on the ip2 is amazing...it really does feel a lot nicer than my Xoom...its more balanced in one hand. The case, while IMO stupid, is also well thought out…the fact that they even thought of that was awesome...ive always been wondering when companies would design cases/covers that work WITH the item and looks fully integrated...the first ipad case was a pos, and the Motorola case is also ****. A lot of you will say the case is great yadda yadda, but get real, you can tell they put maybe 2 FTEs for like a week to design that thing. The way the magnets work on the iPad is great...a lot of third party case makers will probably use that to turn the iPad on/off.

The volume buttons on the Xoom are also incredibly frustrating to use...i have to actually use my fingernails to use them...again not a deal breaker since I deal with it, but still...not well thought out.

Again, I am not talking about the aps, which should catch up, but the hardware…and yea, I know “we aren’t the average consumer blah blah,” but I want the avg consumer to adopt honeycomb because they are the mass consumers that developers will flock to get. The avg consumer wants something that is pretty…really the iPad does make it feel “magical” whereas the Xoom is industrial.

Since people are focused on tablet centric aps, it is like the app stores are starting over again and the Xoom is somewhat like the G1. It took Android about 1-2 years to (IMO) catch up to Iphone’s apps (still some missing, but I’d generally say the phone apps are pretty much right up there with iOS)….so I am guessing it will take about that long for the tablet aps to catch up. In that time, maybe Honeycomb will get mass adoption…until then, I think iPad 2 is better for me too in the end. However, my nexus s will never go anywhere unless the iphone 5 fixes notifications and gives me SOME flexibility…doubtful.

It is incredibly frustrating for me because while I hate the walled-garden approach, being completely open without regulations has its qualms too…Right now neither OS is close to being perfect, but the iPad can do more now. Xoom has the potential to be amazing…I have 4 CNN widgets on one screen to get the latest news and its very pretty, but then I can’t watch Netflix in an airport? SOME devices will get Netflix…SOME devices will get Hulu…SOME devices will get mlb.tv support…three things I want to do a lot of while traveling….Sure Play On will fix a lot, but again, that is a work around. And while Playon has been great, its not perfect…nor free. Motorola has possibly forced me to leave Honeycomb.

Flash is dead…sorry, but Adobe has had a good amount of time now. I loaded flash 10.2 on my updated Xoom and while it is better, it’s not near a good user experience.

Ultimately, that is what Apple gets…it’s the user experience…not specs. Everything they have done, from banding, to hardware design, to software design, has been designed to make the user feel like they are really doing something COOL. Technology is such a black hole to some people, that the simple fact of “flicking a movie from an ipad to a TV” DOES seem magical to them…even though techies know that’s not a big deal.

Also, choices, while ultimately great, can lead to some pretty negative things…if I was an apple salesman, all I would have to say is “Fragmentation, your device may not be up to date in half a year,” which we all know is bull****, but to an avg consumer, that is one frightening sentence.

Flame Suit On.