Jason has a lot right in this article, primarily around the idea that Android tablets need to quit competing against each other and focus on competing against the iPad.  Most of the current Android tablets are already more technically powerful than the iPad.  I upgraded from my iPad to my Motorola Xoom and consider it to have been and continue to be a big upgrade.  How can that be when the Xoom isn’t as powerful as the latest Android tablets and is probably barely on par with the iPad 2, particularly if actual weight comes into play?

• Expandable storage.  My Xoom allows for expandable and swappable storage. Fixed storage is a huge disadvantage and I don’t intend to be locked into such a situation until wireless connectivity is as fast and reliable as my home wifi, and reliable 24×7 and free everywhere.  What can I say? I don’t want to watch stuttery, blurry videos on the plane and pay usurious rates to do so.
• No bloody iTunes.  In case you didn’t know, I abhor iTunes.  I bought one album on it and have not purchased anything through it since.  I connect my iPod to it for podcasts only and increasingly I don’t do that as my podcast listening is migrating to my phone.  I was astonished and dismayed at having to attach my iPod to iTunes to get quite a few things done.  Many of the apps I most used had to be attached to iTunes to load the files I wanted to use with those apps.  Granted, my wife hadn’t attached her iPad to iTunes ever and perhaps she’s more of a “mass market user” than I am.  However, we were both confused that she had to attach her iPad to iTunes to get the latest updates and iTunes screwed up a bunch of her apps, bookmarks and other settings.  Pile onto this the continuing lack of Flash and needless to say, my wife’s next tablet will be an Android.
• Apples purposeful gimping of all other services driving everyone through their store. It cracks me up that Applistas still think of Microsoft as the fascistic, big brother while they toil away in the shadow of Lenin’s, whoops, I mean Steve Jobs memorial proclaiming their superior liberalism.  Jason points out that services is the key and he’s right about that, but I’d argue that the platform that gives me more freedom to use those services of my choice in the way I want is better than being locked into one.  Android provides me access to Google’s Market and services as well as Amazon’s Market and services.  Additionally, I get the best experience that other app / service providers can give me without them being hamstrung by Apple’s “no store but ours” policy.

I’m definitely on the e-reader bandwagon, but not 100% of the time.  For instance, one of my favorite summer activities is to float around the pool and read light summer / beach content.  No way I’m taking my $500+ e-Reader of choice anywhere near the water.  Maybe if the Kindle dropped to $75 or so…

Why do I prefer eReader (currently Motorola Xoom) for my books?

Free content. Have you seen how many books are out there for free?  Seriously, I could probably legally never pay for another book in my life and never lack for content of interest or pay another $0.01 or physically visit another library.

Portability is huge since I travel a fair amount and read more while travelling than when I’m not.

• Slim single device can carry books that are 8 times the thickness and weight (using Winston Churchill biography as benchmark).
• Single device can carry multiple books.  Not that I wasn’t able to manage to carry “the next book” when travelling and knowing I was almost done with a book, but I tend to read on groups of topics.  Consequently, I may be reading a book on history that ties into a topic or events in previous books I’ve read.  It’s nice to be able to jump to the other book on the spur of the moment and read some cross-reference material.  Books I’m reading that reference the Bible are the perfect case in point.  I have the Bible in at least a dozen versions on my eReader.  I couldn’t carry even two different versions and my current book while travelling, let alone, unpack and deal with them in the tiny seating space of a plane.

Search and markup. Note the discussion of cross-referencing books books above.  When I want to find something in whatever other book I’m cross-referencing I not only have it readily available, but completely searchable by phrase and even quickly scanning my highlights and notes.

Highlights and notes. No more realizing the highlighter I have in my PC bag dried out and won’t work.  No more misplacing a book and not being able to find my notes on a particular topic or passage.  Some eReaders are even supporting community use such that you can share and see the notes of others in the book you’re reading.  Tied into the article above, this would definitely facilitate book club interaction and depth.

Consistent experience. I’m not sure why, but I tend to read big books.  This means that if it is a hardback it has large pages and is heavy.  If a paperback it is thick.  Either way, this means that I need both hands on the book most of the time.  Also, depending on the print, I have to manage where the book is distance-wise from my eyes to have the text in best focus.  These issues disappear with an eReader.  I can sit my Xoom in it’s case on my lap and go hands free only clicking the right-hand side of the screen to move to the next page.  Likewise I can set the size of the text to whatever size I want based on where I put the device and how my eyes dictate as I get older.

• Subpoint here with regard to bookstore specific devices.  Yes, an iPad or Xoom is more than a Kindle, Nook, Sony, etc.  You could probably get 3 of the above for the cost of an entry level multi-purpose tablet.  However, you’d then be blocked from some content only available on other “stores”.  On my Xoom and previously on my iPad, I had access to every electronic “store” including Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Borders, Google.  I always start my shopping at Amazon, but they don’t always have a) the book at all or b) the best deal.  No problem, I have all the other options available to me.

A book is a book is a book regardless whether it is printed on paper or displayed on a screen.  I take a bit of exception to the referenced article above separating content on an eReader as not a “book”.  The words are the book.  Even as I’m writing this I’m tempted to say that audio books are not “books”, but if the words are the book, then how you get the words is immaterial.  Is reading a book flipping paper pages a different experience than flicking you finger across a screen or tapping the edge of a screen?  Yes.  Is listening to a book driving down the road different than visually working through the words in text?  Most definitely.  Still at the end, when each type of “reader” sits down to discuss the book, so long as they got the words, then they have common ground to discuss and ideas to kick around.

For me, I just don’t pay near as much attention when listening as I do when reading, so audible books are just not of interest to me.  I love paper books and love having shelves full to have friends and family look over and pick from for their own use.  However, for purely practical reasons I prefer to get my books electronically going forward.  Since I put eReader software on my portable devices my reading habit has taken a huge upsurge and that’s a very good thing.

Good move on Amazons part as with my iPad I can buy from any ebook reader, I’ll only buy books that I can share with my wife and family.

Too late.  I already discovered Android and have found it superior.

First thoughts:

• Too little:  I don’t neeed something that is merely 7″.  If it isn’t the same size screen as an iPad, I’m really not interested in using it for… well anything.  I have a powerful phone with a large enough screen to do interesting things with, but if I want to watch video or read a book or browse the web, the screen needs to have enough real estate to be readable and show a lot of content without a lot of zooming.  I actually wish the iPad was another 0.5″ – 1.0″ bigger diagonally, but definitely no smaller.
• Too bloated:  I was tempted to say too powerful, but that really ties into my next point so lets go with bloated.  Yes, this will be a secure enterprise ready device.  It will also be a complete bear to deal with as a mere consumer.  I strongly suspect this will only be adopted by those whose enterprise IT shops won’t allow them to use an iPad or Android device for enterprise work.  The only people I know with BlackBerry’s admit they only have them because their company won’t support anything else… yet.
• Battery life?:   i.e. too powerful.  One of the articles I read on the press event noted that not once was battery life mentioned.  I strongly suspect that is with good reason.  All those connectors, drivers, underlying crypto and high res screen come at a huge power cost.  Add in the smaller form-factor reducing the battery size available and I see a huge market for add-on mobile power-packs or replacement batteries if they are removable.  That is of course if there’s any adoption of these.

My verdict:  No honkin’ way do I want one of these things.  Not interested at all for any reason.

I’ve had a Palm, BlackBerry, Treo, BlackBerry, iPhone, Android phone over the past decade and the BlackBerry, iPhone and Android in the past year and definitely understand why Android is so popular so fast.  While I really enjoy my new iPad, I really, really wish it was running Android.  I can’t wait for a similar sized Android tablet with more than the stupid, “one button”, single app at a time, nonsense from Apple.

People like Apple devices, but do they really like Apple software?  Will Apple lose their leadership position again by committing to keeping the software and the hardware unified while Android pulls the Microsoft coup by building software that runs everywhere else?  Early indications say, “Yes”.

If I was a stock player, I’d short Apple and Nokia and buy HTC and Google and maybe Samsung.

I agree with this article and definitely take issue (as does this author) with the fact that iPhone’s user experience is superior to Android’s.  I completely, 100% disagree.  I had an iPhone given me to use for work and really didn’t take to it very well.  It was an early version, but I found the lack of simple things like multi-tasking, no cut-n-paste, no Flash support really disconcerting.  Consequently, when left to my own devices (pun intended), I went and got an Android Incredible.  Awesome!  This behaves exactly as I expect my mobile device to work.

Last week, I took delivery on a new iPad and again ran into many of the same frustrations I had with the iPhone only now magnified as I was spoiled after several months with my Android.  I was also surprised to find that while there are a great many apps on the Apple Store, it appears from my searching that a higher % of them cost money while there is a huge amount of free content on Android’s store.  Now I do love my iPad because of the form factor, but woe unto Apple when a similar form-factor Android device comes available.

Long story short, Android is earning its way, but Apple has given it a hand up by it’s AT&T exclusivity contract.

P.S. Oh, and AT&T morons… ya want high margin sales, then perhaps stocking iPad accessories would be a good place to start.  I had to drive by probably a dozen AT&T stores to get to the Apple store to find accessories for my new iPad after stopping at the first 2 AT&T stores and being told “go to the Apple store”.

Interesting.  I’m going to try and see an implementation of this and see how it works with my new Android-based phone.

Google Voice Storms Apple’s iPhone — InformationWeek.

So like anyone, I started with the web site and it pretty much confirmed my recollection. I read the most recent article from their PR page and it revealed some interesting details. I won’t recap it, you can go read it at your leisure.

Certainly has some nice functionality, but the price is prohibitive even for me, one of the paranoid and willing to pay to resolve my condition. I’m completely happy carrying Roboform2Go around on a much cheaper finger biometric USB. I further protect the Roboform data encrypted with a second-factor key-file setup using TrueCrypt. Though Roboform touts their use of AES for encrypting their data, big deal, the weakness is still the fact they are at base, reliant on a password from which they generate keys. Me, I’m big into true multi-factor security, you know, some combination of:

• Something you know (password / passphrase),
• Something you have (typically a smartcard, but in my case files I use as my TrueCrypt keys on a separate device),
• Something you are (biometric of choice, in my case my fingerprint(s).

So using my finger biometric USB, with TrueCrypt using key-files from another location and of course my Roboform password, I get all three factors. Purchasing Roboform, my biometric USB and free TrueCrypt comes in well under the $149 Ironkey price for their 4GB. The other benefit of my configuration is that for the same dollars spent on Roboform ($40) and TrueCrypt (free) I can do the same thing using all 80GB of my iPod or at least whatever is left over with my podcasts on the iPod. Sure, in this case I only have two factors, not three, but they are still two solid factors such that anyone stealing or finding my iPod would have no ability to get at the encrypted data (remember the files I use as my TrueCrypt keys are not on the iPod itself). Of course, there may not be many others in the general consumer market likely to be aware of the cheaper, more flexible options and how to use them to construct their own secure portable storage.

Of course, IronKey isn’t the only game in town and at their price, I’m not sure the security advantages are going to be obvious to those comparing IronKey to GuardID’s IDVault. If the purchaser is looking for secured surfing I suspect the IDVault will win, but if secure data storage on a portable device is the goal, IronKey all the way. These devices are actually nothing alike, but will Joe Noob at Best Buy rack understand beyond $40 vs. $150? It all comes down to marketing as usual and Bill Harris does know how to do that, so I’m not betting against him and the IronKey team. I’m just not likely to be one of their customers unless their service offering increases in some interesting direction… say, making CardSpace cards portable and still secure such that IronKey serves as my Identity Provider playing with OpenID while also making OpenID secure.

Yeah, that would have my attention and likely my $$.

Hey Bill or Mr. Harris, if you prefer; I’m available to help with that <grin>!

Originally published March 18, 2008