“I’ve owned an iPad for 10 months now, and I’ll be the first to tell you that I didn’t really view it as more than a luxury item until recently. Sure, it’s lighter than my MacBook Pro and still lighter than the recently introduced MacBook Airs by at least half a pound, but it was only until I started traveling more for work and pleasure did I realize its true utility. In between meetings and at launch events, I’m perfectly comfortable banging out emails, sending instant messages to my colleagues, and catching up on the latest tech news in the blogosphere,” JP Mangalindan writes for Fortune. “Then Honeycomb came along.”
According to Mangalindan, there are some real reasons to be excited about Honeycomb from both a hardware and software perspective:
• Motorola Xoom’s specs list
• Multitasking that shows apps you’re running (and recently run) with preview tiles that appear on the left side of the screen
• Widgets that can show more information on numerous homepages
• Notifications that pop up in the bottom right-hand corner and don’t demand immediate user interaction
Mangalindan writes, “Given what I’ve seen of Honeycomb and Motorola’s excellent tablet, Cupertino will have some serious catching up to do with their iPad 2.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Given what we’ve just read, we want to take nice long naps. None, we repeat, none of the bullet points above matter a whit to 99.99% tablet consumers. “Apple scared?” Puleeze.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “JES42” for the heads up.]
Honeycomb is nothing to write home about. Bleh.
I do think iOS could use an improved notification system. I think iOS 5 will probably have better notifications.
Nothing else on that list sounds remotely appealing.
Why does Google insist its home page be so “clean” while producing such confusing cluttered screens in Android and now Honeycomb?
” None, we repeat, none of the bullet points above matter a whit to 99.99% tablet consumers.”
Naturally, the only factor that determines whether a feature is valuable or not is whether it is part of iOS.
Multitasking? Doesn’t matter to 99.99% of consumers…oh wait, iOS has that? Then it’s an extremely important feature!!
Not impressed. I’d like to try Android, but not willing to drop money on it. I just addressed a similar article this morning, though it wasn’t quite as sensational as “Apple should be scared…”
http://taketotask.wordpress.com/
Isn’t this a cereal? Not interested. Prefer an Apple.
Who wants pages of widgets? That seems to have very little practical use, while adding lots of complexity and confusion. Maybe one screen of widgets could be useful, but that’s a big maybe. Dedicated apps are much more useful and practical.
@Macfan101
Nothing about Android’s implementation of multitasking makes it compelling.
iOS has multitasking and it’s just as easy to flip through open programs — easier if that swipe feature comes out.
Apple is first and foremost the best software developer in the world. Apple is the oracle and has been for ever. Google’s not going to gain that status or expertise and experience instantly and is actually using Apple’s open webkit sdk as it’s basis for software development…
There’s nothing instant or coincidental about iOS development.
Apple will always lead and therefore dictate the standard, while others may find short lived “features” that seem appealing but are not thouroughly implimented, fallible and taxing, of their hodge podge array of unsupported devices while compromising security, battery life, and a dependable quality user experience…
Apple’s hardware manufacturing ability and innovative lead is also unique and unrivaled, enabling laser carved unibody advantage, propriety long life unique battery design and chips…
No one else can make such superior tablets or tie all of these factors together in such a powerful product.
Last but not least, iPad was in development for years before shipping, which is an unclosable gap and lead that will never be be bridged.
IPad is truly the revolution.
Consumers don’t care about any of the items on that list. Multi-tasking within iOS will continue to evolve, but it works very well and preserves battery life. Most intelligent tech consumers understand the folly of inflated spec lists; tech journalists should know better too. What makes the iPad and iOS so great is that it is very easy to learn and use. Android is for IT types that hate Apple and love to write their own software and tweak the operating system; that is a very small group of people. The audience for the iPad is a new breed of tech consumers that Apple created, Android is for the tech consumer that is eager and longing for a Windows Tablet that doesn’t run Windows.
“what I’ve seen of Honeycomb and Motorola’s excellent tablet, “
if the person saw it at CES the Xoom’s there were running a looped tape of a pretend interface.
I’ve read 5 or 6 reviews of the Xoom all praising it like the next incarnation of sliced bread: none of them had a working model but just quoted specs or the canned moto demo.
did this person had a hand’s on?
Those specs sound like batter drainers. Didn’t Steve Jobs say that what you leave out of a product is as important as what you include? We’ve been beaten over the head with the specs club before. For a $799 battery drainer, it’s DOA. Not to mention, I’m sure we’ll discover other bugs in honeycomb from Our Lady of Perpetual Beta.
Come on now MDN, that’s just denying what’s very clear to my eyes. Honeycomb has stolen a march on iOS 4.2 for the iPad. Unless Apple ups its game and introduces new elements to the UI, it’ll be increasingly left behind as anachronistic.
I can’t see why the iPad’s UI has to mimic an iPod touch. There’s no sense in it – you’re using all that screen space inertly.
Sounds great!
I buy a tablet from Motorola (no track record at all in computers), and I get the software from Google, who are a Web advertising company.
No-one takes responsibility for the upgrades or issues with sofware, because its free.
Piracy and confusion are also free with these ‘tablets’.
Its also called an Xoom, hcih might be pronounced as exhume – the act of digging up a body from a grave.
I am seriously underwhelmed.
hcih means ‘which’ – I was in a hurry to express my disdain….
Multitasking didn’t matter. Why do you think the iPhone managed to sell so well without it? But now it’s a must-have feature, because as smartphones became more powerful, people began expecting more from them. Like multitasking.
The point you think you’re making fails.
And let’s see you name one killer feature of Honeycomb. One. I’m betting you can’t.
From Froyoyo to Honeycomb, what happened to the version in the middle that is supposed to be named beginning with a letter ‘G’? Look, somebody can write down a list of specs and requirements and let a team work on it, and the end result may still be shite. It is all in HOW you put it together.
However – I do think Apple need to allow a more flexible desktop on the iPad – as mentioned above, there is no reason for the home screen to look like a giant iPhone.
Multiple home screen designs are going to be necessary in order to give the product a custom ‘its-my-ipad’ look.
Without opening the floodgates of chaos, some loosening of the reins is desirable….
(that mixed metaphor is all yours for free)
Those items on the list are very impressive. I spent some time looking into the features of honeycomb and honestly, as an iPhone 4 owner, and someone looking to buy the iPad 2 I am very interested. The new features in Honeycomb make the tablet much more full featured, while maintaining the flex and use of a tablet.
The widget system to produce live updates on yoru desktop or home screen based on apps is pretty cool. Basically I can have multiple apps running at once on my home screen showing snipits of the most important information.
The contextual menu bar at the top that changes based on your current actions is also a good idea, might as well take advantage of the extra real estate of a tablet screen.
The notification system also makes sense. In fact, many of these features make sense on a tablet, just not on a phone.
I think for Apple to really stay ahead of the game in relation to tablets means they will need to implement features specifc for the iPad that are not in the iPhone or iPod device. Why have such a larger screen without it???
While there are not there yet, I do feel confident that Apple has spent the last year developing and not just hanging out. iOS 4.3 is a minor upgrade with minimal changes, mostly just adding functionality that should have come in 4.2.
So i have to ask myself, what does Apple have in store next? So far they have never ceased to amaze, and they have always stayed a head of the curve, not behind it. With that, im excited to see the next iOS revision, hopefully this time the iPad version will come much sooner than the last time around (i.e. multitasking).
“Notifications that pop up in the bottom right-hand corner and don’t demand immediate user interaction”
Wait, isn’t that what I see on Windows XP systems. This damn notification telling me that there are unused icons on the desktop?
Article after article MDN is scathing of ANY statement that is anti-Apple. I love Apple products (I own a MacBook and an iPhone 4), but the predictability of a biased response from MDN is getting boring. Can’t MDN ever provide constructive feedback?
JP Mangalindan also reckons that from what he has seen of the Starship Enterprise, our space shuttles have some serious catching up to do too.
After Honeycomb comes Android HoneyPot, and iPad 3 will have some catching up to do.
And, after HoneyPot comes HoneyMustard, and iPad 4 will have some catching up to do.
Uh huh. Sure.
Why?
Honeycomb isn’t shipping yet and neither is iPad 2. Let’s let the market decide. Wait. Maybe it has already.
It would be interesting to see how the UI of Android 3 works in portrait mode.
Will you miss the space of the permanent status bar in your application?
Will the concept scale well with 100 or more apps installed?
And how will it work on 5 or 7 inch displays?
And whats about battery life with all these dynamic widgets and multitasking in the background?
These are the little details which can spoil the first positive impression very soon.
Let’s wait and see how the actual product fares in the real world. I have a feeling it’s going to fall far short of the hype.
“Can’t MDN ever provide constructive feedback?”
Ha! I don’t think the writers at MDN even know what “constructive feedback” means.
If something doesn’t have an Apple logo on it, then it’s worthless junk to them.