I have a laptop.


I kick it old skool

I am the company! Hotels invariably have free wifi these days. About the only place you need to transfer first is if you want to watch your own movies on the plane.

A movie is usually somewhere between 0.8 and 1.2 GB @ 480P with H.264 compression. Gives you max of 30 or so on the biggest tablets.

iPad 3 every time. Everything else is just dying on it's feet (inc the Transformer that's only sold 80,000 units in it's latest form).

Apps - if you saw the research on what Android apps are up to at the moment (eg downloading your contacts in the background etc), you wouldn't touch Android with a barge pole. As apposed to Apple checking apps before they get listed - frankly, after x years of Windows and letting all sorts of crap land on my machine and try and rape me, I'm actually a bit of a fan of the walled garden.

Transformer looks nice, but they are selling very few. Rumour has it that they've only sold 80,000 of the latest version.

Samsung Galaxy is meant to be nice, but they aren't innovating, just slavishly copying Apple. Even the ads are now copies of Apple.

Then there is the thing of updates. Android manufacturers are doing a really bad job of upgrading old machines. Once you've bought it - that's it - you're more or less on your own.

As for Apple, our 2 year old iPad has been updated several times by Apple for free - but of course, Apple are evil.....

To be honest, the biggest problem with getting an iPad is that you'll be buying a MacBook shortly afterwards, and moving to iPhones at renewal time. It is contagious.

This is an odd thing to say.

Apple have handed over $4bn to developers iirc (which means they only made $2bn themselves), and iirc, Android developers have made only a tiny fraction of that, and many Android developers are stopping development on the platform because of low returns, high support costs, and fragmentation.

You might not get rich, but it's certainly possible to make a living from the App Store.

I'll take your figure of $4bn, and take Apples figure of more than 500,000 apps in the app store. So that's 8 bucks per app they've paid out on average! Not exactly stunning, is it? Notwithstanding the fact the vast majority of apps would be better developed to run under a mobile browser than an individual program.

But I'm more concerned about the closed system. App developers develop at the whim of Apple -- they tightly control both the hardware and the software. This is not a healthy place to be.

Still not a vast amount, but it's actually an average of $8,000 per app.

Message to self: don't post before third coffee!

You seem to be unaware that Apple has the exact same issue, the one you point out is in fact the Apple issue, look up Path. Apple doesn't actually check apps for these kinds of things, they really mostly check that it looks nice and doesn't crash too often rather than hidden spyware, which has happened numerous times. Not fun being in a walled garden when there is a rabid dog in there with you!

iPad has moved away from Google Maps to the Open Street Maps, I'd thought. Or hasn't that happened yet?

Those open source street maps are really hit or miss. Great in some areas, such as Boston...but half of Maine doesn't exist on the thing

I was at the mall today with my kids and decided to check out the Apple Store, WOW! There was certainly no shortage of interest in the new Ipad, the mall was dead but it looked like xmas in the Apple Store, it was crazy busy!!!!

Asus Transformer not looking quite so attractive to me now...
Build quality and ongoing GPS issues are just 2 detractors for me... A potential 3rd is true support for OS upgrade in future... That's enough to kill it for me. Shame. It looked nice. I'll spend my money instead on a blue tooth keyboard and case for my iPad instead - cheaper too.

Interesting to see that the build costs for tablets compared to iPad are similar when you compare like for like. Yes, you get more in an Android device - generally speaking we're talking memory card slot and HDMI output, which account for a small fraction of overall cost... and are not things I particularly need...

Path got busted by Apple, but something like 13 of the top 20 free Android apps were doing the same thing iirc. (reported recently).

What was worrying was that Path was busted for lifting the information because they used it (and got your permission), but the Android apps had no business lifting the information in the first place - they were games etc. Totally unrelated to using your contacts (iirc).

Personally, couldn't care less if someone buys into Android. Spent enough years screwing around in IT to have standards these days, and Android just doesn't cut it.

Seriously - having to run anti-malware stuff on your Android?

Me either, mixed reviews online (as most things do) and I was actually advised against it in Best Buy today because of issues with WI-FI.

I am thinking I am going to buy the new Ipad, my hubby thinks I should get the Ipad 2 as there is not enough to justify the price diff between the Ipad 2 and the new one... but I think I would rather get the newest one.

Still trying to figure out how to text

Find a 10 yr old kid
give them phone
tell them what you want texted.
Get phone back.

Or

Wrote message on paper. This is known as text.
Attach paper to pigeon
Let pigeon go