iPad market share falls according to survey

Great news. Competition drives innovation and improvement. Apple should welcome the challenge, but sadly I expect more patent lawsuits rather than something more innovative than the "retina display." :-/

Posted:10 months ago

Yep competition is great. I take my nexus 7 around with me now and the iPad actually feels too bulky as a result. I can whip out the nexus on a train where before I felt guilty for having to contort around other passengers when using my iPad.

The iPad 7 or 7.7 or whatever it will be should change that but, if the price is more than 200 dollars for entry I'm not going to be persuaded by some nice aluminum finish or a mini retina display.

:)

Posted:10 months ago

Fantastic, I'm eagerly awaiting the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. Artwork on the go! :)

Posted:10 months ago

I just recently purchased a tablet (finally) and did a lot of shopping around. Settled on the Galaxy 10.1, as it was by far superior in terms of price/product to the ipad.

The galaxy (same as the Google and MS tablets will be) is just much more versatile and far less restrictive. and all that at a chunk cheaper.

it's good to see more competition - perhaps, over time, that will lead apple to change prices as well as open up the tablet a bit.

Posted:10 months ago

There is a huge difference between what 7 inch and 10 inch tablets are optimal for. They are utterly different markets.

Several people at Kwalee now own and daily use both sizes of device and they use them in completely different ways.

Posted:10 months ago

Loving my Nexus 7, and agree with above that it makes the iPad feel just too bulky. For me, it's really just web browsing and book reading that I used my iPad for, and the Nexus 7 is much better for that tbh. I wish the screen would be a bit brighter, but it's no big deal.

One thing for the Nexus 7 users out there - you can up the storage if you use a MicroSD card USB adapter and a micro-usb lead. It's a little cumbersome, but it's an easy way to up your storage, of sorts.

Actually REALLY impressed by Android 4.0. Very polished now, and while there might be less apps, there's everything I need. I was able to trade in my iPad and iPhone for a new Nexus 3, Galaxy s3 and still have some money left over. Result.

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Fran Mulhern on 2nd August 2012 11:22am

Posted:10 months ago

yeah expanding memory was a big win for me with the Galaxy 10.1 tablet. i have a USB and memory card adapter for it, which means i can have has much storage as i want. as i said - it's the versatility of non-apple products which is a big draw for me.

Posted:10 months ago

The question surely is have the amount of iPads sold gone up or down?
If other tablets are selling, but Apple sold more units, it doesn't hurt them, especially if those buying £200 tablets wouldn't pay £500 for an iPad, or wouldn't buy Apple products. I suspect if they are losing market share in a massively expanding market, therefore still seeing growth, like in the smartphone market, investors needn't lose sleep.

Posted:10 months ago

"One thing for the Nexus 7 users out there - you can up the storage if you use a MicroSD card USB adapter and a micro-usb lead. It's a little cumbersome, but it's an easy way to up your storage, of sorts."

Cool, thanks for the tip Fran. I too have a Nexus 7 as of a week ago, and I think it's superb. Like you say it's just for web browsing and playing around with, but it's fast and smooth and I love Jelly Bean, or whatever the latest version of Android is called. Just waiting for a few games to be updated to be compatible (Cthulhu Saves the World, Game Dev Story) and I'll be all sorted.

Any suggestions for some good non-games apps or widgets to download?

Posted:10 months ago

Terence, depends what you like, really. AppyGeek, NewsRepublic and News360 are all excellent and have good widgets. I'm a bit of a news junkie, so they work for me.

There is also an android app that allows access to iTunes University. Can't remember what it's called, but am sure you can google it.

The only other apps I have installed really are Kindle, Netflix etc.

Your turn.

Oh, I should point out I've asked Google to exchange my Nexus 7 - I'm having that problem with the screen coming up on the lefthand side. Haven't heard back from them yet but I think they're just super busy - am sure it'll be fine.

Posted:10 months ago

Well, I've only filled two of the five screens and those are mostly with games, but so far I've got:

Osmos
Orbital
Broken Sword
World of Goo
Cthulhu Saves the World
Radiant Defence (which I don't really care for)
Dead Trigger (which I have now deleted as playing a proper FPS on touch screens just does not work IMO)
Toddler Lock & Bedtime Battle for my 2 year old daughter
The demo for Avadon, which I have yet to play
SpaceChem demo, as above
Great Little War Game
Cut The Rope
Juice Defender
AVG Antivirus free
Soundhound
IMDb
Hangman Classic Free
DoubleTwist (could not live without this on my phone so I thought I may as well put it on my Nexus too)
Google Books
Kindle
Netflix
BBC News
The Weather Channel (which I don't think I've used yet)
Google Skymap (love this)

I think that's about it.

Posted:10 months ago

This might be useful: http://www.quora.com/Android-Applications/What-are-the-best-Android-Apps-Why

Posted:10 months ago

@Fran - If the cumbersome aspect of USB drives bothers you, I've seen some on Amazon that are battery powered and act as a Wi-fi transmitter so your additional storage appears as a network drive, no need to plug it in.

Posted:10 months ago

David, I'll check that out. To be honest though, I REALLY need to cut down on the amount of tech crap I buy. I've got so many headphones and leads lying around, I'm bound to trip over something:) That's definitely worth looking into though, thanks.

Posted:10 months ago

David, any chance you can link me to one? Can't seem to find them?

Posted:10 months ago

@Fran

Search for "kingston portable storage wi-drive". I don't know how good they are, but it sounded like a cool idea.

Posted:10 months ago

Got it, thanks:)

Posted:10 months ago

@ Terence - have you tried Galaxy on Fire 2? It was good on the ipad, haven't tried it on Android yet.

Posted:10 months ago

@ Bruce I disagree, as an owner of both an Asus Transformer and a Nexus 7, I have almost stopped using my Transformer aside from word processing (which I could do on the Nexus 7 as well if I got a good portable keyboard). I prefer the size for reading, browsing, playing games, and watching videos. It's much more comfortable to hold.

@ Terence Haha my friend if you have filled two screens with apps you should start using folders. I'm a bit OCD and I LOVE Android folders. I currently have my games divided into Core Games, Casual Games, Puzzle Games, Strategy Games, Parlor Games, and Gaming Services lol. All you have to do is drag and drop apps on top of each other then tap the folder to name it.

I own the 16GB Nexus 7 and don't have problems with storage. I mostly use things over the cloud, and most of the media I store I store on my home PC and then remotely access it through a remote desktop like Splashtop HD or a remote media player like Emit.

Posted:10 months ago