And therefore I'd suggest you don't do any of those things and enjoy your tablet with the stock OS. It's your choice unless you buy Apple -- in which case Apple makes the choice for you.

The build quality issue is a bit of a red herring.

They're all built well until you get the duff one and start to complain about it.

I think over all, Asus isn't bad, on par with Apple and Samsung can't be to shabby as half of their components are in the iPad.

It's also not like Apple aren't known for making duff builds either. Remember the Cube? Also, the white MacBooks, with the disintegrating plastic around the hinges, screen and thumb pad, or the power adapter that got recalled because it kept breaking?

To be fair on that one, Apple were good at doing the repairs for free, but the folks had to get it done while visiting us as the cost of shipping laptop would have been hefty other wise, which they've had done 3 times now, though they did get the adapter sent in the mail free.

Really though these days, unless you're buying a budget product, the build quality is pretty much the same, it really is, mostly built in the same factories, using the same components. Anyone that poohpoo's it is having a laugh.

They're all great, until you get the duffer that slipped through QC.

Some good points there Bob (I'm still chuckling over your 'Ferret-raping-cumdumpsterdrinkingfecal-coffindodgers' comment and trying to see how to work it in to this posting...)

My 'issue' with build quality is not that the quality is 'bad'... just that flimsier casings and/or fixings are used - they do they job fine, to a point, and probably for 99.999% of the time for everybody, they're fine. I attach more value to something being a bit more solid, and I'm prepared to pay for that - both my white plastic MacBook and aluminium MacBook Pro have travelled many many times by air all over the world and been either crushed are dented by way of long drop on to hard surface. And they both continue to work perfectly, though my 5 yr old white plastic one is sounding like a new fan is required... And needs a little bit of jiggery poker to get a disc in & out of the optical drive due to it being crushed one time... other than that, it reads & writes OK!

Apple have had some Friday afternoons with their stuff - though handled many of them well - I didn't know there was a huge issue until I went in for a replacement battery for my white MacBook and they replaced the keyboard etc and cleaned the thing up all for free - it looked brand new afterwards - not bad for a 4 yr old laptop!

A pal has a $300 HP laptop - and you can tell it's a $300 by the material/build quality... and it's good enough for what he wants to do - he was never going to have the extra $700 for a MacBook to do the same thing... though the little arse keeps calling me to fix virus/trojan horse/explorer issues that are as much down to him being an IT numpty (like 99.9999999 of the population) as they are down to him running a budget laptop and Windows 7.

Many of the components are the same, many are not - in the land of Asia/Pac contract manufacturers there is ruthless focus on shaving 10ths of a penny off prices in every area, and mainly passing these on to the end user - it's very very competitive. And quality is not nearly as uniform across equivalent components as people would have you think... And again, often this is not an issue - instead of lasting 4-6 yrs for example, they last 2-3, by which time you're looking for a replacement machine anyway to keep up with the latest trends... Cheaper raw materials and higher running temperatures tend to really shorten the life time of these products...

That's the thing. He got a budget laptop and it's built for the cost. If Apple aimed to do a budget product, it too would be the same.

Had your mate bought a $1K laptop, he'd expect and find the same kind of build quality that you find in your Apple, because that's what that budget range dictates.

I don't want to bash Apple too much though and will say the two things they've got right for their laptops, up time to get online, from when you open the case on the sleeping laptop to being online is pretty quick and that is really good, the other is the magnetic power socket, especially since the recall and the new design working both ways and actually sticks even after you breath on it which the original design didn't.

Everything else, from the whole range of products, nothing makes them stand out as being especially better or worse but the cost mark up.

Though the closed platform and the limited options does the job for what a lot of people use a computer for these days and there's nothing wrong with that because that's what choice is about as it's just as easy to get something else if that's what you want and these days with hacingtoshes, you can even get OSX on your device if that's what you want.

Sort of a late reply - but apple suggested windex and a soft cloth to clean the ipad and it seems to work well.

Im sure you already know this very well, but thought I would mention that if and when your inlaws upload pics to the ipad, they are almost impossible to delete if they wish to do so in the future. I didnt realize when I was sync with itunes that my pics were being loaded on to my ipad as well, something I didnt want - so now I have 700 pics that I cant delete -or at least Im so technically challened I cant figure it out.....

Cheers

Dunno where you pulled that data from chief.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/tech...s-android.html

Here's a surprise:

Apple holds the master decryption key when it comes to iCloud security, privacy.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/20...ty-privacy.ars

Of course, if you've nothing to hide I'm sure it's perfectly safe.

I pulled it out of my hat!!!

Thanks for some solid numbers. With more Android and other devices being sold (irrespective of how we define 'sold') then we can look forward to some more useful competition and drive better features and benefits for all.

Reading further around the article you cited, I see the commentator suggesting iPad volume will perhaps peak at around 65 million units in 2012, assuming supply chain issues don't constrain... and flatten off beyond that - even drop. That makes sense as the market matures.

I wonder what Apple and others will come up with next to keep volumes up.

And I wonder just how sustainable that $600 share price is Apple has...?

As much of the talk here has been Ipad verses Transformer some of you maybe interested in reading/watching this 'apples' for apples (excuse the pun) comparison of the 2.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-574...e-vs-new-ipad/

I find the concept intriguing, and I personally use and love a good deal of open source software. In my company, our main application is built on jboss/apache/tomcat/svn, all of which is (I believe) open source (though we run it on windows servers). I also understand that those involved in the development and delivery of such software are able to make a good living because companies such as ours are quite happy to pay for maintenance/support.

We also use windows servers, and windows desktops, and MS office. We've considered the alternatives and - despite costing us hundreds of thousands a year - we've concluded that it's the cost-effective thing to do.

I do question the economics of the concept. it's great that there are some independently wealthy geeks out there willing to code for free (and I do understand that 'free' does not mean zero dollars involved, as pointed out in the article) but essentially software is labor, and labor needs to be paid for if you are to acquire, retain, and motivate quality developers. Further - while there are some smart, non-money demanding geeks out there willing to produce code, there are a lot of other elements to software delivery that are less glamorous and essentially don't get done (well) unless you pay people to do them - test, QA, packaging, documentation, migration to other platforms, etc. I know that all these things do get done in some form or another for various open-source packages, but they are done on an ad-hoc basis.

If you just want to focus on the 'open' availability of source code (though still sold for a profit), the issue comes down to return on investment. If I invest millions of dollars to develop a piece of software, and if I then make the source readily available to others then I am potentially giving away my ROI. I may choose to do this to speed acceptance of my product/solution, but it is purely a business decision. I've worked on software products that involved hundreds of people working for years to develop; literally millions of dollars of investment by the company (in salary, plus acquisition of hardware, facilities, etc) - and they barely made a profit (software development is a risky business). I don't see any 'evil' in the company protecting that investment and doing everything it can to get a return on that investment.

By keeping a product 'closed', you run the risk of not attracting 3rd party developers, and that's the risk a company like Apple takes. For now, given their leading position, they can keep it closed and still have a strong 3rd party network but as competition grows, they will lose that edge and - in my opinion - the iPad will go the way of the Mac - a niche product that appeals to a limited audience only.

The concept is indeed counter-intuitive to simple economics. The strange thing is that it does work, and it works well. FOSS is everywhere, even when you don't see it. Switch on your TV and if it's a modern flat screen, chances are you've just booted some FOSS software. Indeed, boot your effing iPad (god kills a puppy every time you do, remember!) and iOS can be traced back to FOSS roots.

The great benefit is that mankind is not constantly rewriting the same code, and is therefore freed up to let us progress even faster. Now, just get rid of stupid bloody software patents and there could be a renaissance in computing.

Maybe it's time to buy a new hat ...

(btw, Harry, thanks for, well, you know what )

It is intriguing, and as fatbrit points out, counter-intuitive. I guess the challenge is in keeping focused on what matters - as observed in this article http://www.economist.com/blogs/babba.../desktop-linux

I used 'hat' instead of 'arse' when I couldn't find an appropriate picture (I found a ton of inappropriate pictures and await an imminent visit from my company's IT Nazi Party!!)

(Oh, Uncle Eb, er thanks for, you know... now make sure you stay off that list...)