android compatability with ipad

Bluefoam

I'm gonna be in the states next week and am considering, possibly, maybe buying an iPad 2 or 3...

I use a Desire S and Google services for my phone/email/calendar etc. I'm wondering if an iPad would be able to sync seamlessly with my Android setup? I like the fact that I can access the same info on any pc/laptop and my phone and emails are available on any device at any point. I have no intention of replacing my Android phone and my next one will also be Android. I'll continue to use my phone over 3g but the iPad would be WiFi only...

listermint

Why Ipad?

why not Asus Prime?

If you are used to android im not sure what benefit the Ipad will have for you.

Bluefoam

listermint wrote: »

Why Ipad?

why not Asus Prime?

If you are used to android im not sure what benefit the Ipad will have for you.

For various reasons, I don't find any Android tablets compelling. I would consider waiting for HTC to release something, but it doesn't seem forthcoming

Kenny Logins

iPad requires itunes,. Getting everything to play together may create an unnecessary headache.

I'd look at Xoom and Galaxy tabs/note too.

Atomic Pineapple

I'd imagine it would be a lot of hassle

Bluefoam

Say, for instance the cogs were beginning to turn in my small skull... Please let me know why the prime is a good option... Does it charge via micro usb like my phone? I'm used to HTC sense and love it... Particularly how it resizes web pages to fit the text onscreen. What is the basic Android experience like? Is the prime on ICS yet or still Honeycomb?

Would I have any issues to consider buying in the states? Plugs etc...

kaahooters

Bluefoam wrote: »

For various reasons, I don't find any Android tablets compelling. I would consider waiting for HTC to release something, but it doesn't seem forthcoming

htc have a tablet, its called the flyer, 7" screen

bd250110

Kenny Logins wrote: »

iPad requires itunes,. Getting everything to play together may create an unnecessary headache.

I'd look at Xoom and Galaxy tabs/note too.

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. wow - this thread is full of bad advice and outright mistruths.

iOS devices are not tethered to iTunes anymore. Sure, if you want to add music or videos to the iPad you need to do this through iTunes, but it is wireless and can be set-up to do it automatically. It's actually pretty smooth and seamless.

Google apps work an absolute treat with iOS devices. All you need to do is tap "Mail, Contacts & Calendars" and enter your google account information. Boom, all your gMail, google contacts and calendars will appear on the iPad almost instantaneously. There will be no fuss with this.

Personally, I don't see any compelling reason to choose an Android tablet over the iPad, you will hear the usual drivel of being in "Apple's closed eco system" and so on, but thats just fanboy rubbish, for the most part, in terms of bang for buck the iPad is unmatched.

tallus

You could try to get your hands on a HTC Jetstream. Looks like a nice tablet.
Otherwise... I have to say, I think the iPad is the one to go for. link to jetstream

Bluefoam

My laptop is bust at the moment so the need for iTunes would cause hassle. The transformer does look good, so I'll consider it. Unfortunately the HTC's are a little dated to buy new, but the stylus would be a huge bonus for work stuff. Shame the transformer doesn't have one.

Would it be possible to add an email app for exchanging so that I can add a work email account that wouldn't interfere with my gmail?

bd250110

Bluefoam wrote: »

My laptop is bust at the moment so the need for iTunes would cause hassle. The transformer does look good, so I'll consider it. Unfortunately the HTC's are a little dated to buy new, but the stylus would be a huge bonus for work stuff. Shame the transformer doesn't have one.

Would it be possible to add an email app for exchanging so that I can add a work email account that wouldn't interfere with my gmail?

AS I say, you don't need iTunes, you can purchase content from the store, should you want some entertainment. Not sure how you would get similar content on a Droid tablet without a computer, tbh. Possibly via dropbox or similar, but you would still need a computer in the first place.

As for exchange, you don't need to add an App. iOS supports it right out of the box. In "Mail, Contacts and Calendars" you just add your MS Exchange account details and off you go. You can view your e-mails either as a combined inbox or as separate inboxes within the mail app. Similarly Exchange calendars are given a different colour annotation to differentiate. However, contacts just appear in one list, IIRC. Hope this helps.

Kenny Logins

bd250110 wrote: »

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. wow - this thread is full of bad advice and outright mistruths.

bd250110 wrote: »

Sure, if you want to add music or videos to the iPad you need to do this through iTunes, but it is wireless and can be set-up to do it automatically. It's actually pretty smooth and seamless.

Which is it? itunes or no itunes?

Nolimits

Bluefoam wrote: »

Say, for instance the cogs were beginning to turn in my small skull... Please let me know why the prime is a good option... Does it charge via micro usb like my phone? I'm used to HTC sense and love it... Particularly how it resizes web pages to fit the text onscreen. What is the basic Android experience like? Is the prime on ICS yet or still Honeycomb?

Would I have any issues to consider buying in the states? Plugs etc...

That's standard in every browser I think

bd250110

Kenny Logins wrote: »

Which is it? itunes or no itunes?

The answer is it depends. You don't NEED iTunes to set up, update the iPad, etc. You do need iTunes to get media content that is already on a PC/Mac onto the iPad. So depending on your uses (my mother for instance) you could quite happily never use iTunes.

The iPad is meant to be a "post PC" device, as any Android tablet would be, as well. However for those of us with large music/movie/TV Show catalogues (not all of which came from the iTunes store), iTunes is necessary. For the uses the OP mentioned he need have no dealings at all with iTunes.

Kenny Logins

bd250110 wrote: »

Kenny Logins wrote: »

Which is it? itunes or no itunes?

The answer is it depends. You don't NEED iTunes to set up, update the iPad, etc. You do need iTunes to get media content that is already on a PC/Mac onto the iPad. So depending on your uses (my mother for instance) you could quite happily never use iTunes.

The iPad is meant to be a "post PC" device, as any Android tablet would be, as well. However for those of us with large music/movie/TV Show catalogues (not all of which came from the iTunes store), iTunes is necessary. For the uses the OP mentioned he need have no dealings at all with iTunes.

Do you need itunes to initialize it? I once bought an ipod touch that was completely useless until paired to itunes.

bd250110

Kenny Logins wrote: »

Do you need itunes to initialize it? I once bought an ipod touch that was completely useless until paired to itunes.

Not anymore. Since iOS 5 activating and updating iOS devices has not required iTunes.

talla

Have to say while android on phones is more flexible and a better operating system, its way behind on tablets.
I moved to android last year from the IOS world of an iPhone 4 and Ipad2.
I currently use a Samsung Galaxy S2, Samsung Note and Galaxy tab and Amazon kindle Fire. Love the S2 and Samsung Note however the tablet experience is a letdown. The operating system is laggy and sluggish but the major issue is there are really very few quality apps for tablet.
While the transformer prime on paper has a good feature set and performance is better on ICS, its still not a great experience and obviously still suffers from the lack of apps.

TBi

For a tablet i'd have to say iPad is better than android. Hardware wise iPad is much better, i was following the transformer prime and the list of problems was remarkable. Apple make a better quality product.

iOS is easy to use and will work with all google services as easy as android. You can set it up without a PC, and even purchase music directly onto it. Transferring music from PC to iPad needs iTunes but once you get used to the management side of it you'll see this is a better way than direct file system access.

As an example if you like a song listening to on your PC you can give it a 5 star rating. You can have a dynamic playlist for 4 star+ songs which syncs with iPad/iPhone and when you sync again the song is copied. When i had to do it manually i always would forget to copy the song.

Bluefoam

This is becoming a dilema...

It seems to be the Prime v's the iPad...

IPad requires iTunes... Firstly I find iTunes very bloated and requires allot of management, it also runs slow on my laptop, which is currently stricken with the flu. I don't want to have to connect it to my work pc. I get the feeling that by using Google services and not iCloud, that I would be missing out on something.

The Prime is drag and drop, which I genuinely like. You can download content from multiple sources. There is a lack of apps optimised for Android, but my primary uses would be browsing, email, movies and opening/viewing various documents (acad, PDF, word, etc). Is the lack of apps really a problem? Bearing in mind I have no great interest in playing games on it.

The big point that has held me back on getting a tablet is the lack of stylus. One of these would allow me make proper use of the Adobe apps (photoshop/illustrator). But I don't see stylus's becoming a feature of most tablets anytime soon. This is why I wanted to hold off for a HTC, but their tablet policy is a little odd and they have none on the market currently that meet the specs of the Prime.

Can someone please make the decision for me?

Kenny Logins

Galaxy note uses a stylus for handwriting recognition, it might be worth investigating the Samsung range.

The overall standard of apps and games may not match the ipad (yet?), but there are some that offer functionality the ipad can't. Airdroid for example, which allows you to manage your device from any browser.

http://airdroid.com/

For movies, Mobo player will play almost any file type and can stream from a shared network folder or NAS, no conversion or even PC required.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.clov4r.android.nil

For browsing and email etc. the clear advantage of Android is the ability choose your own keyboard.

Bluefoam

Have been looking around the shops today. No transformer primes to be seen. The Samsung wasn't very responsive at all. The iPad is nice, very nice to hold... iMovie and garage band are big plus points. The screen is a different shape to most of the others, I like it, but I can see how it would not show movies properly.

I also find the ios UI to be very one dimensional and its really about the apps... Whereas I like the widgets on my phone, it adds a bit of interest/intregue.

What a dilema...

TBi

Bluefoam wrote: »

This is becoming a dilema...

It seems to be the Prime v's the iPad...

Go here. The 1st three stickied topics are all problems with the prime: Wi-Fi/bluetooth issue, GPS issue, WiFi reception issue. One topic is even named "Has anyone got a defective free Prime yet?". Reading all these posts turned me off the prime. You don't see half of these kind of posts for any of the iPads.

Bluefoam wrote: »

IPad requires iTunes... Firstly I find iTunes very bloated and requires allot of management, it also runs slow on my laptop, which is currently stricken with the flu. I don't want to have to connect it to my work pc. I get the feeling that by using Google services and not iCloud, that I would be missing out on something.

I don't use iCloud on my iPad, just google (and exchange and live). It works perfectly. iTunes is only to put movies and music on the iPad, if you don't do this then you won't need it. You should check if someone hacked the protocol to use winamp?

Bluefoam wrote: »

The Prime is drag and drop, which I genuinely like. You can download content from multiple sources. There is a lack of apps optimised for Android, but my primary uses would be browsing, email, movies and opening/viewing various documents (acad, PDF, word, etc). Is the lack of apps really a problem? Bearing in mind I have no great interest in playing games on it.

Can someone please make the decision for me?

Drag and drop is nice, but you can download from multiple sources on an iPad too. All the apps are optimised and the screen on the new iPad should be amazing. For me it's no contest, a hardware and software bug ridden android tablet or a working iPad. If you are only going to use a tablet for browsing, email, movies and opening/viewing various documents then you don't need the fancy "powerful" features of android and would be better off with the stable hardware and software that the iPad offers.

BTW i'm pissed off with Apple at the moment and would buy an android tablet in an instant if they were any good, the problem is that none of them are (IMHO).

srsly78

Used a transformer prime a few weeks ago, great device. No sign of any gps or wifi bugs. Is thinner and lighter than the new ipad, while actually having a slightly physically larger screen. The only thing the new ipad wins on is screen resolution. Prime still needs a custom charger tho, bit annoying. Still no charge via micro-usb.

Don't really get the whole "lack of apps" argument myself, not missing anything. Need for tablet optimised apps is not an issue either, most apps scale well even if not designed for tablet specifically. Have the original transformer myself. Not gonna upgrade yet, but might consider it when new android tabs with high screen resolutions come out.

mickoneill30

srsly78 wrote: »

Don't really get the whole "lack of apps" argument myself, not missing anything. Need for tablet optimised apps is not an issue either, most apps scale well even if not designed for tablet specifically. Have the original transformer myself. Not gonna upgrade yet, but might consider it when new android tabs with high screen resolutions come out.

I'm in the same boat. I have the original Xoom. I was going to buy a Prime and move the Xoom to my missus but after comparing them more I'm just going to buy her a Xoom. They're only £279 on Amazon. I can't justify the extra cost for the Prime.
I've had mine nearly a year now and I have no lag on stock ICS. Maybe the newer tablets are faster but it doesn't seem to be worth the extra few hundred for a slightly faster tablet. I know the Prime has the keyboard but that is something I have zero use for so it's not a benefit.
I get guys telling me about lack of apps too when I talk about Android. When I show them my tablet they can't show me anything I'm missing. Then I show them what they're missing

I get the ease of use thing but if you spend 5 minutes figuring out Android it's easy to use. Having only icons on the main screen is easier. Having only one icon would be easier still, it doesn't mean it's better.

pickarooney

I find the iPad2 frustrating to the point of unusable. I have one for work but it just doesn't do anything I want it to without pissing about with extra PCs and cables and accounts and logins. The main use I have for a tablet is watching films and TV shows and the iPad just does not let me do that in a user-friendly way. It's a pity as it's a nicely put-together device with a great screen but the shape and lack of connectivity completely ruin it for me.

srsly78

mickoneill30 wrote: »

I'm in the same boat. I have the original Xoom. I was going to buy a Prime and move the Xoom to my missus but after comparing them more I'm just going to buy her a Xoom. They're only £279 on Amazon. I can't justify the extra cost for the Prime.
I've had mine nearly a year now and I have no lag on stock ICS. Maybe the newer tablets are faster but it doesn't seem to be worth the extra few hundred for a slightly faster tablet. I know the Prime has the keyboard but that is something I have zero use for so it's not a benefit.
I get guys telling me about lack of apps too when I talk about Android. When I show them my tablet they can't show me anything I'm missing. Then I show them what they're missing

I saw no speed difference between the transformer and the prime for normal usage. You would have to be running some crazy high-end game to actually need all the power.

ED E

srsly78 wrote: »

Still no charge via micro-usb.

Its not physically possible. Same for the ipad. A tablet battery is way too large to be charged by a 500ma feed from USB2. Most of them draw about 2A to charge.


For me its would you rather:

A: Pay loads of money for a device only to be told exactly what to do and not do with it as if it was a bloody rental

or

B: Pay similar money for a device that is then yours to do with how you please.


I have a $150 android tablet, and obviously its nothing amazing, but for a quarter of the price of an ipad its 80% of the device. If I had the cash I'd instantly buy a Transformer Prime without a second thought.

Oh yeah, and IMO Droid is becoming better by revision, while iOS is becoming worse quite rapidly.

TBi

ED E wrote: »

Its not physically possible. Same for the ipad. A tablet battery is way too large to be charged by a 500ma feed from USB2. Most of them draw about 2A to charge.

It is physically possible to charge with mico USB, the limitation you mention is the USB port.

bd250110

Show me what you can do on your android tablet that my iPad can't do? The phrase is always bandied around, but I have yet to see something that an iPad cant do that an android tablet can. I suppose widgets might be nice to have, but their utility on a WiFi device is debatable. Personally I never used them on my android device and have been suspicious of the toll they take on battery life and my data plan, but that's just me.

ED E wrote: »

Its not physically possible. Same for the ipad. A tablet battery is way too large to be charged by a 500ma feed from USB2. Most of them draw about 2A to charge.


For me its would you rather:

A: Pay loads of money for a device only to be told exactly what to do and not do with it as if it was a bloody rental

or

B: Pay similar money for a device that is then yours to do with how you please.

The only thing is that you can charge an iPad with an iPod/iPhone charger, but obviously if you have an android phone that is pretty irrelevant. Certainly the iPad will trickle charge from USB, even though it will say "NOT CHARGING". It's better than nothing in an emergency.

I'm not sure what Apple "tells you exactly what to do"? Apps like VLC are available for iPad, so there is a but of freedom from iTunes.

Like another poster had said the difference is that the iPad "syncs" and once you get your head around the concept, iTunes syncing works really well. All unwatched TV shows and movies will appear on your iPad, songs with 4+ stars, etc. I understand why power users would want some freedom from iTunes and the whole ecosystem, but we make up probably ~1% of the market.

él statutorio

bd250110 wrote: »

Show me what you can do on your android tablet that my iPad can't do? The phrase is always bandied around, but I have yet to see something that an iPad cant do that an android tablet can. I suppose widgets might be nice to have, but their utility on a WiFi device is debatable. Personally I never used them on my android device and have been suspicious of the toll they take on battery life and my data plan, but that's just me.

Adobe Flash.

Camera with a decent sensor and an LED flash.

Cheaper. (not really something it can do, but still)

It's down to what you prefer. Some people prefer iOS, some android. It's not the end of the world one way or another.

Kenny Logins

bd250110 wrote: »

Show me what you can do on your android tablet that my iPad can't do?

Change keyboard, add widgets, expand memory, stream any video file (from any location), mount as network drive, multi-task, manage from any browser...

iPad is obviously more refined in other areas such as the app catalog and ease of use, but there are very clear differences between Android and iOS and any decision to buy one or the other should be based on how the buyer plans to use it, not which is 'better'.

mickoneill30

bd250110 wrote: »

The phrase is always bandied around, but I have yet to see something that an iPad cant do that an android tablet can. I suppose widgets might be nice to have, but their utility on a WiFi device is debatable. Personally I never used them on my android device and have been suspicious of the toll they take on battery life and my data plan, but that's just me.

On my tablet I've 3 widgets on the home screen that I use every day. On my phone I've a load. I'm sure they use battery. I still use my tablet an hour or two a day and charge it a couple of times a week. I also use a live wallpaper on it. My charging cycle hasn't changed noticably so I've kept it. As to the toll they take on your data plan there loads of apps to monitor that, and many apps will give you an option to only use WiFi.

Can you download torrents on an iPad? I don't know if you can or not and the use of those is debatable also but that's another thing I use my tablet for.

There are apps to make the tablet available over the network to copy files to and from it using your PC. I don't know if you can do that on the iPad. Probably.

I'm not trying to be anti iPad. Its just that iPad owners always seem to think that the Android devices are limited.

I prefer the widscreen format for watching movies on. That's not available on iPad. Well it'll play widescreen videos I'm sure but they're either in a rectangle or zoomed to fill the screen.

One important thing that my Android can do is plug into any PC anywhere using a standard USB cable. I never have to ask "have you got an Apple cable when I've forgotten my device". Instead I ask anybody for their standard phone cable. That has been handy a few times.

Is there anything an iPad can do that an Android device can't do?

listermint

TBi wrote: »

Go here. The 1st three stickied topics are all problems with the prime: Wi-Fi/bluetooth issue, GPS issue, WiFi reception issue. One topic is even named "Has anyone got a defective free Prime yet?". Reading all these posts turned me off the prime. You don't see half of these kind of posts for any of the iPads.


I don't use iCloud on my iPad, just google (and exchange and live). It works perfectly. iTunes is only to put movies and music on the iPad, if you don't do this then you won't need it. You should check if someone hacked the protocol to use winamp?


Drag and drop is nice, but you can download from multiple sources on an iPad too. All the apps are optimised and the screen on the new iPad should be amazing. For me it's no contest, a hardware and software bug ridden android tablet or a working iPad. If you are only going to use a tablet for browsing, email, movies and opening/viewing various documents then you don't need the fancy "powerful" features of android and would be better off with the stable hardware and software that the iPad offers.

BTW i'm pissed off with Apple at the moment and would buy an android tablet in an instant if they were any good, the problem is that none of them are (IMHO).

Hello mr ipad salesman,

As im sure you are aware the transformer has had firmware updates covering all the tripe youve written about above. Its now a very stable platform with better battery life and and processor than the Ipad.

oh and it has a bitching micro SD card slot for people that dont want to buy stupid accessories just to put photos on it from a digital camera.

TBi

él statutorio wrote: »

Adobe Flash.

won't be supported in future versions of android, so this is a moot point now.

él statutorio wrote: »

Camera with a decent sensor and an LED flash.

Cheaper. (not really something it can do, but still)

You won't get a decent camera if you buy a cheap one and vice versa. The camera in new iPad is good. Also why in the world would you go around taking pictures with a tablet?

mickoneill30

TBi wrote: »

won't be supported in future versions of android, so this is a moot point now.

Sure it is. Loads of sites still use Flash. So it's hardly moot. It's supported now.

TBi

listermint wrote: »

Hello mr ipad salesman,

As im sure you are aware the transformer has had firmware updates covering all the tripe youve written about above. Its now a very stable platform with better battery life and and processor than the Ipad.

oh and it has a bitching micro SD card slot for people that dont want to buy stupid accessories just to put photos on it from a digital camera.

[CITATION]?

I posted links to all the people with issues, please post links to all the people with this new fixed Prime.

I'd bloody love if the prime had all these problems fixed. I might buy one if they are! New stock in 7 days on komplett, will have to keep the credit card out... assuming you can back up your statement.

listermint

TBi wrote: »

[CITATION]?

I posted links to all the people with issues, please post links to all the people with this new fixed Prime.

I'd bloody love if the prime had all these problems fixed. I might buy one if they are! New stock in 7 days on komplett, will have to keep the credit card out... assuming you can back up your statement.

couldnt have put it better myself

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=77314215&postcount=198

i think you will find as with most tech, its the cranks and complainers that are more vocal than those satisfied with a product. I have the same problem with an android head unit i have in my car. Its perfect has never failed but its counterpart forum has nothing but the same eejits coming on with issues. mostly because they dont know what they are doing.

And people lashing on random roms when they havent got a clue in the first place is also a recipe for disaster.

I dont know what else to say to you. Its a good tablet, a very good one. Buy one or dont up to you. You can spend your life reading forums but its only going to frustrate you.

good luck.

subway

i have an ipad and an SGS2, they dont do anything together.
ipad is an expensive web browser (and its **** at that) i use the SGS2 for pretty much everything else.
ipad is also handy as a remote control for my headless servers.

i have never shouted at a piece of tech so much as i do with this ipad. even my nes all those years ago didnt get such abuse.

download a file with ipad - cant do anything
open second browser window in ipad, first one closes, lose all data. open "busy" web page, ipad browser crashes (at least 5 times per day)

i dont know why anyone wants an ipad, i choose my phone over it 9 times out of 10.

bd250110

él statutorio wrote: »

Adobe Flash.

Camera with a decent sensor and an LED flash.

Cheaper. (not really something it can do, but still)

It's down to what you prefer. Some people prefer iOS, some android. It's not the end of the world one way or another.

browsers such as skyfire covert flash video to HTML5. It's not ideal, but it is a solution. Obviously point and shoot games are still a no-go, but they don't really work with a touch interface. in any case ICS does not officially support flash either- although it will run it. Not to mention that adobe themselves are no longer offering future support for flash mobile.

Personally, for the specs I think the iPad is pretty cheap, at €399 for the 16GB wifi iPad 2 i think it's tremendous value. There are not many dual core 16GB android tablets out there for that money, with a decent user experience. sure there are 100-150 android options, but I don't think those are comparable in terms of build quality, user experience and specs.

The new iPad has as good a sensor as you will find in any tablet. 5MP backside illuminated camera, which should be better than the one seen on the iPhone 4. This was itself a very decent quality shooter. There is still no flash, which is an omission, I agree.

Ultimately, I agree. iPad Vs droid tab ultimately boils down to a matter of opinion, I still maintain that there is very little an iPad can't do that a droid tab can. Much of it is just fandroids tooting the same old inaccuracies time and again. It's personal preference, but for me the iPad wins based on price Vs spec, battery life, build quality, apple customer care, iOS app store, 3rd party developer support, 3rd party accessory availability and the jailbreak community. Given that mix, I think the iPad is an incredibly compelling package, lacking in specific areas, but an excellent all-rounder.

Bluefoam

My mind is almost made up to get the prime. The issue that is really pushing the descision is the fact that I often receive video files from various sources - from friends, downloads etc... And it seems that the iPad requires allot of PC work to recode the files and then to sync them. As with my phone, I know I can just plug in the prime and copy files to it.

I also plug my phone into the DVD player to play files on the TV screen. I know this is possible with the prime and it'll even connect via HDMI. I'm not sure the iPad will allow this without an Apple TV.

bd250110

Can you download torrents on an iPad? I don't know if you can or not and the use of those is debatable also but that's another thing I use my tablet for.

There are apps to make the tablet available over the network to copy files to and from it using your PC. I don't know if you can do that on the iPad. Probably.

I'm not trying to be anti iPad. Its just that iPad owners always seem to think that the Android devices are limited.

No torrents or widgets unless you are jailbroken, unfortunately. For me, it's not an issue, but it is for some.
Personally, I don't know if you can mount an iPad as a drive on a network, I imagine yes, but TBH all of my documents live on my dropbox, that way I can access them wherever. It works better for me because out place of work insists on encrypted USB sticks. So again it's not an issue for me.
I don't think Android tablets are limited, not at all. Sure the app selection is not as strong as iPad, but unless the iPad has the right selection of apps for a particular user, who cares?

Bluefoam wrote: »

My mind is almost made up to get the prime. The issue that is really pushing the descision is the fact that I often receive video files from various sources - from friends, downloads etc... And it seems that the iPad requires allot of PC work to recode the files and then to sync them. As with my phone, I know I can just plug in the prime and copy files to it.

I also plug my phone into the DVD player to play files on the TV screen. I know this is possible with the prime and it'll even connect via HDMI. I'm not sure the iPad will allow this without an Apple TV.

I think you have made a good choice. You have identified what you need from a tablet and found one that does that for you. For video, unless it is e-mailed to you and in a format QuickTime can deal with you are out of luck. Although Goodplayer seems to be getting good reviews.

HDMI out is supported on iPad 2 & 3 (not sure about iPad 1, tbh). You need (yet another!) dongle converter from Apple. Its about £30 I think, probably less on eBay.

To answer the original question, yes the iPad works well with Google services, it also works well with MS Exchange, right out of the box. Good player will probably play almost all the file types you will encounter. Namely, GoodPlayer can play AVI, Xvid, Divx, DAT,VOB,FLV,WMV ,MKV,MP4,RM,RMVB,AC3,HTTP,HTTPS,FTP,RTSP,MMS,SFTP,SMB,MMSH,MMST,RTP,UPnP and UDP etc.... the drawbacks are that I don't think mobile Safari (on the iPad 1 running iOS 5.0) is especially stable and some tasks you will be used to accomplishing on your droid will be handled a different way on the iPad, thats not to say they can't be done - just done in a different way.

Personally, I've found mine a joy to use, Im just giving my POV, as an iPad user. iOS is not as awful as some make it out to be, or as brilliant as others do. It has it's issues, it's limitations, but it works for me and I am very happy with it. IMHO, the iPad is the most well rounded package on the market at the moment, all considered.

TBi

listermint wrote: »

couldnt have put it better myself

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=77314215&postcount=198

.<SNIP>

I'll take your one post and raise you two.

Grassey

TBi wrote: »

I'll take your one post and raise you two.

And both posted 7 - 9 days before my quoted post earlier in the thread, in which timeframe I believe the .13, .14, .15beta, and .15 firmwares were released and solved the majority of issues people had... Those XDA forums on the prime sicken me, if you read them you see its the same handful of people posting the same rubbish day in and day out bulking out the complaint threads with nonsense!

As OP posted above, he wants something that plays from a HDMI out port, can play all video codec/formats, the prime easily does that, and fantastically.

Another point I didnt see mentioned is that by staying android at lease all your paid for apps on your phone will still be available for the tablet too.

Plus the TFP also takes a 64gb sd card... Win Win!

TBi

Hmm... might look into buying one so. Credit card is at the limit at the moment though so i'll wait until April. I'll have to read up on the .15 firmware.

bd250110

Grassey wrote: »

Another point I didnt see mentioned is that by staying android at lease all your paid for apps on your phone will still be available for the tablet too.

Plus the TFP also takes a 64gb sd card... Win Win!

Quick question. When using apps on your tablet which are designed for a Phone, do they scale up to fill the entirety of the screen? Does this work well? My other question is are there any "hybrid" apps which have a display optimised for tablet and phone, but in one app? Im genuinely interested, as the x2 solution for iPhone apps on iPad is less than ideal. This occurs when developers do not develop a UI solution for iPad within the app. In this isntance, Apps look awful and don't fill quite the full screen, don't even get me started on the keyboard.

Grassey

Market (or should I say play) has a few apps I've on my phone listed as incompatible with the tablet, but I'd say about 95% of them work grand.

All of the ones I have scale to fit the primes screen perfectly, and I haven't come across any that look badly scaled or crap resolution.

Games I used to play on my phone look even better on the tab, like GTA, Dead Space, Shadow gun, N64 & PS emulators.

jeromeof

I love these threads lots of heated opinion, some sensible, some fanatically wrong.

As someone who have both iOS devices and Android devices (both phones and tablets) - long story but its part of my job to look into these things. Its all boils down to what you think you want to get from a tablet (or even a smartphone for that matter).

Most techie's are quiet happy to live in the "PC world" of files and folders and get frustrated when they don't see them, but we have started to move into the "Post-PC world" where files and folders are not the primary "metaphor" for computing. Depending on who becomes dominate in the end, how we interface with "computers/devices" is going to change. It might be an App centric world (with the iPad is probably the poster-child) or it might be a web-centric world (Google's other initiative ChromeOS is a good example) or even a Tile/Hub centric world of WindowsPhone7/Windows8 or possible a mixture as in Android. But the fundamental change is we interact not with files but with "services", Netflix is a brillant example of a service and iTunes is morphing into this "service" model. The web has always been about services, whether its google search, youtube, flickr etc. The change with the PostPC world (and its not just Steve Job's who realised this) is the services can be good or even great replacements for more traditional approaches to interacting with computers and for 90% of the population (and probably 90% of the activities of the remaining 10% of the population), they can use these "services" and never have to worry about maintaining or configuring their "computer/device". For the remaining people, there will always be "trucks" as SJ put it, real computers to do the heavy lifting/loading.

So, its comes down do you think you still need a "truck" or more correctly do you only have one "computer/device" in your house and does that need to be a "truck". I have one centralised "truck" in my house (actually a MacMini) but then I use tablets / smartphones /game consoles and even a HDTV to interact with the 'services' supplied both by this "truck" and by 'services' on the Internet (like Netflix or RTE player, BBC player, Hulu (via PlayMo).

Sorry, for being a bit long winded in this reply, but I think its important to know what you are getting into with an iPad. I love my iPad and its better than any other Android tablet I have used in the past year, and I have used a few. My opinion of it is mainly because I knew what I was getting and didn't expect it to be a PC device. My general comment on the Android tablets is the build quality is very poor, ICS while "familar" to PC users in some respect is a poor interface and the Android App quality is terrible. Yes there are Android "tablet" versions of the major apps but they are so obviously stretched versions of same Android smartphone apps. If you want a tablet and still need a "truck" I would wait until later in the year, as the Windows8 UI is a fantastic tablet UI and has that "fallback" ability to run all your favourite Windows Applications as a backup.

Your initial question can the iPad work with you google data and the answer is absolutely. Your mail, calendar, contacts will immediately work without problems as they are classic "post-pc" services. Ironically, I even listen to Google music (cloud hosted music offically only available in the states at the moment) on my iPad via an App I got in the AppStore (gMusic), while the same app isn't available in the Irish market yet even from Google. Google documents can be browsed and edited, Google reader subscriptions are easily loaded in the many RSS reader apps (Reeder, Pulse and Flipboard are my favourites). Even services like Google Goggles or Google Voice are available for the iPad. Google Earth iPad app is even much better than its Android equivalent IMO.

So, if you did already have a "truck" in your house (like I have) I wouldn't hesitate to recommend an iPad, here are some of the things that an iPad can do that might surprise you:
1. Torrent client
It obviously true you can't download torrents on a iPad (and even on an Android tablet I would warn you not to do it - battery won't last), but an iPad (and a Android tablet - as well as any Android phone and even a iPhone) can act as a torrent client, i.e. you need a real computer to act as the torrent server to do the "heavy lifting" of downloading the files. I use Transmission with the Web UI enabled. You can browse to PB or demonoid or whatever and copy a link to the torrent you want to download (torrent files are becoming a thing of the past as the world move onto magnet links for torrents - PB doesn't use .torrent files anymore), open the interface to torrent server (on your truck) and paste the link in and the server will happily download the file for you without wasting any battery life on your tablet. This works for both Android and iPad and there are a couple of ways to make it a bit easier, I use Transdroid on Android and a transmission bookmarklet on the iPad to remove out the copy/paste step. Key thing is it the best approach to torrenting files and it can be achieved on the iPad (and maybe fractionally easier on Android - i.e. android will register .torrent files with the browser, with an iPad you have to remember to use the bookmarklet.
2. Remote control / Remote file management
Lots of apps to do this I use Files connect for file management, i.e. move files around my MacMini "Truck" and I used SplashTop and RemoteVNC for remotely connecting to my "truck" if I have to for whatever reason.

3. Streaming content
My "Truck" has a few options for streaming, I have it DLNA enabled (which works reasonable well for Android and the game consoles) but nothing on Android is nearly as good as AirVideo on the iPad which streams video and transcodes it dynamically depending on the network quality, it even transcodes it over 3G or remotely. On a recent trip away I was able to watch videos I had downloaded via the hotel's wifi connection back to my "truck" in my house.
For audio streaming there are lots of options, if you don't want to every get into the iTunes/iCloud world, there is gMusic (as I mentioned above to use Google music service) or I have also installed AudioGalaxy (which basically remotely streams my music to my iPad and android devices).

4. iTunes / iPad as a pseudo USB drive.
I used to absolutely hate iTunes but then I learned a few settings to make it more acceptable. One key thing to do if you have an iOS device (and you are a bit techie / happy in the PC world of files / folders) is to click the "manually manage music and video" which means you can drag music and videos (mp4, m4v only - but I will explain below) happily onto your iPad without iTunes really being involved (though iTunes acts as a "proxy" for the drag/drop). Its sort of the "I know what I am doing don't annoy me button". Other things to do might be to turn off the iTunes store, Genius support and a few of the other things that slow iTunes down. Lots of Apps play AVI files (though i use the AirVideo which transcodes everything on the fly so I never worry about the format), one of the best for the iPad is FlexPlayer, and basically this will appear in iTunes once you have installed it on your iPad and you can drag drop AVI / MKV etc. files onto it within iTunes to copy them, in much the same way an Android tablet's SD card might appear and you would drag / drop videos to a movies/videos folder.
If you never want to connect an iPad to a computer you can still use say DropBox as both a cloud "file system" service and as a App. A great example of a iPad app is GoodReader which is really for reading but can play music / movies now also. GoodReader really bridges the PC and Post-PC worlds it has tremendous connectivity options, so for example, I can use DropBox, Box.net and a file share on my "truck" and remotely access what I want when I want it and play / read / listen to it or pass on whatever the file is to other applications on the iPad if I really need to.

So, in summary, an iPad can easily get at everything in the Google Cloud services (except the Android apps themselves), but think about what you want your tablet to do and if you need it to do "truck" activities I personally would wait until a Windows8 tablet comes out. The Prime is a reasonable ok Android tablet but its expensive for what it is and its main "gimmick" is the "transformation" with the keyboard. But there have been lots of problems with it: http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/03/the-swift-rise-and-sad-fall-of-the-asus-transformer-prime-android-tablet/

If you had say an iPhone but switched to an Android phone and you were more happy with the Android phone, then I would probably suggest say a Samsung Galaxy Tab (as you should get one cheaply now). It has a much better build quality than most android tablet, its still running Gingerbread (though depending on the model it might get an ICS update) and as long as you accept it doesn't have the quality Apps that the iPad has, its will be good for browsing, acceptable for music (though I would still use AudioGalaxy IMO) and MXPlayer or MoboPlayer for video.

Anyway hope this helps.

mickoneill30

That was a good post. Of course you're going to get disagreements with some bits. Here's mine.

jeromeof wrote: »

1. Torrent client
It obviously true you can't download torrents on a iPad (and even on an Android tablet I would warn you not to do it - battery won't last), but an iPad (and a Android tablet - as well as any Android phone and even a iPhone) can act as a torrent client, i.e. you need a real computer to act as the torrent server to do the "heavy lifting" of downloading the files.

1: If you're downloading big files it's perfectly possible to plug in your tablet just as you would with a PC or laptop. So the torrent can download overnight and you go to bed.

2: If you have an iPad and no "truck" then you're stuffed. In fairness though I'd say that this doesn't affect most iPad users.

jeromeof wrote: »

3. Streaming content

I'm not arguing with this one. I don't use streaming content enough. For me I use Plex when I'm away to stream stuff from my PC. It transcodes and works perfectly. When I'm at home I just browse to my network shares and play without any transcoding. Maybe AirVideo is better. Those two solutions work fine for me.

jeromeof wrote: »

My general comment on the Android tablets is the build quality is very poor, ICS while "familar" to PC users in some respect is a poor interface and the Android App quality is terrible.

Elaborate on that. I have a Xoom (since April last year) and I was going to get a Prime and give the Xoom to my missus but the Xoom is too much cheaper than the Prime to justify that. I agree with your points about it being too expensive. So I'm buying her a Xoom. The iPad is an excellently built piece of kit. I don't see anywhere where its build quality is better than the Xoom. I've seen the Asus Transformer too and it seems very well built. Before the Xoom I had an Archos 10.1. While not as good as an iPad in terms of build it was still very good and for less than half the price that was fine for me. I don't think the higher end Androids skimp on build quality. I know the ones for about €100 do. But they're about €100.
What's with the poor interface. If you hit the drawer button the interface is the same as the iPads. As to the settings. If somebody is familiar with Android and then looks at an iPad they can't find the settings easy. That doesn't mean the interface is poor, just that they're not used to it. We use Android phones in work. After 10 minutes of showing even the most simple users how to use it they're flying. If 10 minutes is all it needs to get enough info from somebody to enable you to use your device then the interface is not complicated.

It can be complicated though. My phone looks like a NASA control centre and anybody who picks it up hasn't a clue how to use it. But that's for me. When I'm giving a phone to my users I set up the icons I want them to have and show them how to use it. It's not long before they're installing apps and installing widgets by themselves. These are very simple users.

But my points above are small.

People should just evaluate the tablets and see what's best for them. An issue I have is that some people buy an iPad just because it's an iPad. I was talking to a guy last week who had just bought one. He was asking how to do X, Y & Z. I don't tell people they should have bought an Android device if they've just plonked out a few hundred quid on an iPad but from his requirements an Android would have been better for him (two of his many requirements were that he needs to use sites with Flash for work and he needs to transfer files using SDCards). All of his requirements could be figured out and got around but it wasn't the best tool for his job. If he hadn't a techy person to help him then his tablet was junk. The same could be said for somebody buying an Android when all they need is an iPad.

jeromeof wrote: »

The Prime is a reasonable ok Android tablet but its expensive for what it is and its main "gimmick" is the "transformation" with the keyboard. But there have been lots of problems with it: http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/03/the-swift-rise-and-sad-fall-of-the-asus-transformer-prime-android-tablet/

That link is 3 months old. It's moved along a fair bit since then (as already discussed in this thread).

I agree that the Prime is pricey. I was reading an article about Onlive Desktop (http://desktop.onlive.com/overview) last night though. Interesting. Only available in the US though. But a techy person can set up their equivalent pretty easily. The Prime has a nice keyboard and then you could put a Bluetooth mouse on it and with Onlive you have a machine you can use for your work. You can get a bluetooth keyboard / mouse for any tablet though but the extra hours the Prime battery gives you means you could work for 1 - 2 days on a Windows box with no plug.

jeromeof

mickoneill30 wrote: »

Elaborate on that. I have a Xoom (since April last year) and I was going to get a Prime and give the Xoom to my missus but the Xoom is too much cheaper than the Prime to justify that. I agree with your points about it being too expensive. So I'm buying her a Xoom. The iPad is an excellently built piece of kit. I don't see anywhere where its build quality is better than the Xoom. I've seen the Asus Transformer too and it seems very well built. Before the Xoom I had an Archos 10.1. While not as good as an iPad in terms of build it was still very good and for less than half the price that was fine for me. I don't think the higher end Androids skimp on build quality. I know the ones for about €100 do. But they're about €100.

Maybe I was just unlucky, but I had an original Xoom for a while and the audio plug got a bit loose and there was a bit of "give' with back, i.e. didn't feel as solid as an iPad. I had an archos also, terrible plastic quality, it was cheap and I should have known better. Played with HTC flyer for a few days (borrowed from a friend) and it was pretty solid, though I believe he has some problems with it now. I also had a Nook Color and a very cheap chinese tablet, both were poor and wouldn't last a year IMO. The Samsung Galaxy Tab had better build quality but possible I am a bit biased as I do like Samsung Android phones and even Samsung TV's.

I have used lots of gadgets over the years and for me build quality comes down to how solidly the device is put together (no loose fitting "button" or give in the case), how much plastic is used (plastic will almost certainly crack at some stage) and how many different parts are used to put it together (the more seams / joins) the more likely the gadget is to break apart or loosen when it drops. The iPad is just one piece of glass and one piece of very solid metal and strangely the lack of things like a removable battery component actually probably means it lasts longer as a gadget. Thats not saying i never had a problem with apple gadgets, one older iPhone had a defective power button, so nothing is certain about build quality.

mickoneill30 wrote: »

What's with the poor interface. If you hit the drawer button the interface is the same as the iPads. As to the settings. If somebody is familiar with Android and then looks at an iPad they can't find the settings easy. That doesn't mean the interface is poor, just that they're not used to it. We use Android phones in work. After 10 minutes of showing even the most simple users how to use it they're flying. If 10 minutes is all it needs to get enough info from somebody to enable you to use your device then the interface is not complicated.

I don't think Google have perfected the interface yet. While smartphone android (e.g. Gingerbread) is like a slightly uglier IOS with extra power user features borrowed from Symbian, Blackberry (and even older Windows Mobile) and can be simplified down, it probably offers too many ways to do the same thing, rather than perfecting the best way to do that 'thing'. Tablet Android (i.e. ICS) certainly looks nicer (Roboto font is nice) is a different mixture of UI 'ideas' borrowed for Windows/Mac, e.g Status Bar, task list etc. hence why I feel they were target PC users wanting a tablet interface. Neither Android UI (and they are very different - which is potentially another problem) is as well thought through as WindowsPhone7 or Windows8. IOS is obviously very simplistic and I imagine will be enhanced during the summer to better compete with Windows8, but for me the experience is the apps not the "desktop", though again with Windows 8 Microsoft have cleverly mixed the two together.

mickoneill30 wrote: »

People should just evaluate the tablets and see what's best for them. An issue I have is that some people buy an iPad just because it's an iPad.

Absolutely, agree and was my main point of my larger response, but I do find that most people who buy an iPad because its an iPad are not techies and are probably more than happy to live in a "PostPC" world. They are not interested in specs, don't understand what a CPU or RAM is. They were probably not that happy manipulating files and folders but do it because that what they learned (from their techie friends) but if they found a PostPC "service" which just worked they would happily live with this environment even if they had to say pay €7 a month (e.g. Netflix).

mickoneill30 wrote: »

I agree that the Prime is pricey. I was reading an article about Onlive Desktop (http://desktop.onlive.com/overview) last night though. Interesting. Only available in the US though. But a techy person can set up their equivalent pretty easily. The Prime has a nice keyboard and then you could put a Bluetooth mouse on it and with Onlive you have a machine you can use for your work. You can get a bluetooth keyboard / mouse for any tablet though but the extra hours the Prime battery gives you means you could work for 1 - 2 days on a Windows box with no plug.

.
I haven't had any time to play with a Prime yet (just briefly) and it seemed powerful. Build quality was pretty good, but I would worry that the docking connector would fail over time. From a brief playing around it didn't seem like it would really take advantage of the quad core processor. In a PostPC world you have a primary foreground app and a very controlled (to save battery life) set of background apps (its the same on IOS and Android - though Android allows the background apps to do a little more). But no Apps are optimised for the quad core and Moore's law is sort of breaking down as a quad core does not run a single app 4 times faster than a single core. Though, I do imagine some games should be able to take advantage of the quad core but probably not immediately. It was interesting that Apple talked about Quad Core GPU at the ipad event, though 90% of the reason was a 'spec' marketing reason (i.e. it is quad core bull****), but it makes sense in some respects to save battery life while offering the games (who really are the only apps I think can take great advantage from a Quad core) the ability to render better graphics faster.

As for OnLive, I have used it (its already available for the iPad) and its pretty amazing (especially for free). The Office apps worked pretty well (but a keyboard is obvious needed) and I was even able to run a video full screen within the OnLive virtual windows environment and it streamed without loosing any frames back to my iPad. If you have a "truck" I would recommend Splashtop remote (for both iPad and Android tablets) as it does the same with the same performance (better than windows remote desktop or VNC).

Professey Chin

jeromeof wrote: »

I don't think Google have perfected the interface yet. While smartphone android (e.g. Gingerbread) is like a slightly uglier IOS with extra power user features borrowed from Symbian, Blackberry (and even older Windows Mobile) and can be simplified down, it probably offers too many ways to do the same thing, rather than perfecting the best way to do that 'thing'. Tablet Android (i.e. ICS) certainly looks nicer (Roboto font is nice) is a different mixture of UI 'ideas' borrowed for Windows/Mac, e.g Status Bar, task list etc. hence why I feel they were target PC users wanting a tablet interface. Neither Android UI (and they are very different - which is potentially another problem) is as well thought through as WindowsPhone7 or Windows8. IOS is obviously very simplistic and I imagine will be enhanced during the summer to better compete with Windows8, but for me the experience is the apps not the "desktop", though again with Windows 8 Microsoft have cleverly mixed the two together.

There is no tablet Android & Phone Android anymore.
Gingerbread for phone & Honeycomb for tablet were different but theyre unified under ICS now

jeromeof

The Great Chinholio wrote: »

There is no tablet Android & Phone Android anymore.
Gingerbread for phone & Honeycomb for tablet were different but theyre unified under ICS now

In theory yes, but in practice I think Galaxy Nexus is the only phone you can get with ICS on it and even a maddening number of Android phones announced (not even launched) at MWC last week were still going to have Gingerbread. There are lots of promises about upgrades later in the year for the high end phones, but this happened previously and I got so sick of waiting that I rooted the HTC phone I had at the time to get to Gingerbread. So, If you go down the rooting world you can get ICS (I have ICS on my second phone a Samsung Galaxy mini at the moment).

My point is people who were used to an Android phone having a Gingerbread (that the Android phone experience they know) and ICS is different (especially on a Tablet).