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Amadeus Consulting Discusses: iPad Alternatives-Redux Part I

In a previous blog post, we covered a bunch of tablet alternatives to the iPad™. Unfortunately, shortly after writing the article, most of the tablets were either cancelled or delayed, so we wanted to follow-up on our previous article and give some updates on what is happening with tablet.

Also, in an upcoming blog post we will be covering a new batch of tablets that have since been announced.  In general, since we develop (or can potentially develop) custom software applications for clients on these devices, we tend to focus a bit more on the software side of these tablets.

The WePad – Now the WeTab

Status: Delayed until mid-September, and underwent a name change. Formerly the WePad, Neofonie has changed the name of its upcoming tablet to the WeTab, perhaps in consideration of all the iPad jokes.

Features: the WeTab has a very impressive arsenal of features and hardware. Based around Google’s™ open Android™ operating system, the WeTab boasts a 11.6″ display, a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, GPS, a webcam, USB sockets, a flash card reader, and many other impressive features. It also boasts Flash compatibility and broad support for standard PC peripherals.

With the Android operating system, users will be able to download and run apps from the Android Marketplace, as well as its own WeTab AppStore, which means that current android apps should be able to run fine on the WeTab, or have WeTab specific applications. Also, unlike the iPad, the Android OS allows multitasking which creates a much better user experience.

If it can do everything they say it can, it is going to be one of the most impressive tablets on the market, and it provides encouragement to those looking to build apps for android phones since they will also get to play with tablet devices.

Archos Home Tablets

Status: Originally planned to ship in late April or May, but was delayed until June. It is not open to the Android Marketplace and only runs on Android 1.5, but it does have its own marketplace with about 1000 apps.

Features: Unfortunately, there is no longer much that really makes the Archos tablets stand out.  Archos 8 – with its picture frame type display still could have some fun uses, such as in the kitchen, or for more social chatting, but neither really stands out in terms of features or price. Of course, they do provide all the standard tablet features, but they leave out some of the extra perks that really distinguish it from other tablets, or even from larger display Smartphones.

Notion Ink:  Adam

Status: Delayed until November, but preorders are set to start soon. It may come with a standard LCD version and then one with an upgraded Pixel QI screen.

Features: According to the website, the Notion Ink’s Tablet “changes everything.”  Why are so many people trying to change everything and then changing it again? But besides the branding, the tablet is really cool.

Among its best features is that it runs Adobe® Flash® to leverage the best of rich Internet applications, has a 180 degree swivel camera for video chart or taking front-facing pictures, multi-touch support and 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity. In addition, Adam features a Pixel QI transflective screen. What is that? It is a 10.1 inch screen that can switch between backlit LCD mode like on other tablets, and a low-power electrophoretic reflective mode, which looks more or less like e-ink, making it a great solution for switching between video and e-books and greatly extending battery life while reading.

Expected to be released this June, Adam claims to have up to 16 hours of HD video playback, supporting 1080p video, all powered by a dual-core ARM processor and an NVidia GPU. Notion Ink applications are expected to either run on Flash, or on a proprietary – but open – software system.

Adam really opens up the door to future application development possibilities for mobile and portable devices. Needless to say, we can’t wait to get our hands on one.

Microsoft® Courier

Status: Dead. Or even deader than dead, if that is possible. In fact, it was only a proof of concept prototype and was never meant for production, but was leaked to the media by a third party. It was a pretty nifty folding tablet device, about the size of two iPhones™ with a crease down the middle. The software would let you “tuck” things into this crease, and the screens could be used in any number of ways, including as a keyboard / display. It was a really interesting idea, which unfortunately never will make it to market.

HP® Slate Windows® 7

Status: Most likely dead in its current state, with a redesign in progress. This one is a tough call though because it appears that HP still wants to release a tablet, but would prefer to drop the Windows 7 component. Now that HP has acquired Palm®, it appears that they may delay and redesign the tablet to use some sort of Palm OS. For now, the HP Slate is still officially alive, but HP has been strangely silent on the project since the initial announcement.

Features: We’re not sure of the specifics, but we would definitely love to see HP and Palm come out with a really strong mobile or tablet OS, or even a strengthened version of webOS. As custom software developers, we would definitely love more programming toys, and another addition to the mobile development market could present some interesting alternatives for consumers.

We are hoping that the tablet maintains some of its other initial features, such as Bluetooth compatibility, USB ports, and Wi-Fi. But HP could go a bit further and try for WiMAX, or the ability to create a Wi-Fi Hub with 3G capability. In either case, with all of HP’s innovation and resources, this will be a fun product to watch.

Stay tuned for tomorrow when we post the second half of this article.

 

About the Author

About Todd McMurtrey

The marketing team at Amadeus Consulting considers it part of their daily tasks to stay on top of what is going on in the technology marketplace. It is important to our company culture to be technology thought leaders, but we also want to share our knowledge and insights with readers excited about the latest and greatest tech news in the Tech Market Watch blog.

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Palm WebOS by Allen, Mitch Edition ILL, 1 $16.49 A Note from the Author and from O'Reilly Media about what this bookdoes–and doesn't–do:Palm webOS is a brand new platform and represents a very different type ofoperating system where the web runtime is used as the basis for the UI andApplication model. Palm and O'Reilly felt that it was important to have abook available to help developers get a basic understanding of the new Palmplatform at the time that the SDK was released; this timing played a majorrole in the content and structure of the book.Ideally this book would have been a complete reference of the new platformbut that wasn't possible since the content was written at the same time asthe software SDK was being developed by the Palm engineering team. The bookdoes provide a complete overview of Palm webOS, a thorough description ofthe application model and gives details on many key design concepts. Thereare descriptions and examples of UI widgets, services, storage,notifications, dashboards and background applications, serving as a greatintroduction but not as a definitive source.The book uses a simple News reader application to illustrate the technicaldescriptions but the examples are not intended to serve as a cookbooktutorial. Experienced developers should be able to use the examples to buildup a working application chapter by chapter but others may not find theloose descriptions adequate for recreating the application unaided. Overtime, these different needs will be filled by other books, but in themeantime we hope that this book will serve a valuable role introducingdevelopers to webOS and giving them a way of getting started with webOSapplication development.A second printing of the book will update any original coverage obsoleted bysubsequent Mojo SDK builds. For owners of the original printing of the book,all of these updates are posted on the View/Submit Errata link (please seeleft-hand column of this web page).Thanks for understanding that book publishing and coverage of rapidly movingtechnologies can sometimes be an inexact science; we knew there'd be a needfor a book such as Palm webOS: The Insider's Guide to DevelopingApplications in JavaScript using the Palm MojoT Framework, and there'scertainly no better person to write that book that Mitch Allen; that said,we understand that because it is such a new operating system and SDK, therewould (and will continue to be) changes that at best can't be documented andexplored until new printings of the books are released. In the meantime wewill be diligent in posting updates to this book's O'Reilly Media catalogpage.DescriptionThis is the official guide to building native JavaScript applications for Palm's new mobile operating system, Palm® webOS™. Written by Palm's software chief technology officer along with the Palm webOS development team, Palm webOS provides a complete tutorial on the design principles, architecture, UI, tools, and services necessary to develop webOS appli

Palm webOS by Allen, Mitch Edition , 1 $1.99 A Note from the Author and from O’Reilly Media about what this bookdoes–and doesn’t–do:Palm webOS is a brand new platform and represents a very different type ofoperating system where the web runtime is used as the basis for the UI andApplication model. Palm and O’Reilly felt that it was important to have abook available to help developers get a basic understanding of the new Palmplatform at the time that the SDK was released; this timing played a majorrole in the content and structure of the book.Ideally this book would have been a complete reference of the new platformbut that wasn’t possible since the content was written at the same time asthe software SDK was being developed by the Palm engineering team. The bookdoes provide a complete overview of Palm webOS, a thorough description ofthe application model and gives details on many key design concepts. Thereare descriptions and examples of UI widgets, services, storage,notifications, dashboards and background applications, serving as a greatintroduction but not as a definitive source.The book uses a simple News reader application to illustrate the technicaldescriptions but the examples are not intended to serve as a cookbooktutorial. Experienced developers should be able to use the examples to buildup a working application chapter by chapter but others may not find theloose descriptions adequate for recreating the application unaided. Overtime, these different needs will be filled by other books, but in themeantime we hope that this book will serve a valuable role introducingdevelopers to webOS and giving them a way of getting started with webOSapplication development.A second printing of the book will update any original coverage obsoleted bysubsequent Mojo SDK builds. For owners of the original printing of the book,all of these updates are posted on the View/Submit Errata link (please seeleft-hand column of this web page).Thanks for understanding that book publishing and coverage of rapidly movingtechnologies can sometimes be an inexact science; we knew there’d be a needfor a book such as Palm webOS: The Insider’s Guide to DevelopingApplications in JavaScript using the Palm MojoT Framework, and there’scertainly no better person to write that book that Mitch Allen; that said,we understand that because it is such a new operating system and SDK, therewould (and will continue to be) changes that at best can’t be documented andexplored until new printings of the books are released. In the meantime wewill be diligent in posting updates to this book’s O’Reilly Media catalogpage.DescriptionThis is the official guide to building native JavaScript applications for Palm’s new mobile operating system, Palm® webOS™. Written by Palm’s software chief technology officer along with the Palm webOS development team, Palm webOS provides a complete tutorial on the design principles, architecture, UI, tools, and services necessary to develop webOS applications-including the Mojo JavaScript framework

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