Android tablets will win
A couple of days ago I bought a Nexus 7 tablet to play around with a concept for an app. Colour me impressed.
Packaging was slightly below Apple’s standards, but it inconsequential. The product had a feel of quality and heft. It works. Setup was a breeze. It’s fast, flexible and easy to use. I don’t like the on-off button on the side, I would much prefer it on the front but that’s very minor.
I installed Twilight, an Android version of Flux, which dims the screen at night - something I really need with iOS 7 and it’s super-bright whites.
Developing on Android is easy and fun to get started. Within an hour I had a little app working on the device. No cost, no complex downloads.
Developing is fine and good, but I think Android is going to dominate the iPad into oblivion over the next couple of years. The Nexus 7 is £200 off the shelf at retailers, or easily found for £180 on offer, or £150 on a hot deal. Apple won’t come close to this price. Tablets are first and foremost a web and video consumption device. I’d say the Nexus 7 works better than my iPad for this. At a significantly lower price. I could have picked up a Hudl for £120 which would be pretty similar.
I have a feeling that tablets will be commoditised before phones. Phones have an important social element - iMessage helps here, and apps are arguably more important on this smaller form factor. I’m fairly locked in to a couple of subscription apps that I’ve bought for my iPhone. This isn’t the case with the tablet, where I almost exclusively use the web browser.
I might write some time about iOS 7, but having lived with it for a while I think it’s brought almost nothing new. I dislike the design strongly - it is new, not better.