[Closed] Any decent alternatives to the iPad yet?

[img] http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT2W7MrImoZAcuOzdctHyMADljY8svkgOWz_KQLWh30oQg0t-6y&t=1 [/img]

Who gives a toss about Flash on a mobile devise? Flash has historically been an issue on this site, which you ought to be aware of, and as for SD cards, why is that an issue? You can do plenty via wifi and airsharing, and SD cards aren't an issue, I copy pics to and from my iPhone vis SD card, and [i]that[/i] doesn't have an SD slot either. If I can do it with my phone, you can do it with an iPad. I'm not going to tell you how, you should be able to work it out as easily as I did.

DELL inspiron duo? No idea what its like but saw an ad for it on the tube the other day and it looks good

Samsung 10".

cz he never mentioned sd cards it was usb he was worried about
wind in the defensive fanboi mode!

look at my tablet thread.

FWIW the Vega is not as good as the iPad by a long way, I've thought about it a lot and ordered an iPad

Have you? I'll need to see it when you get it. Fancy one myself.

You can connect USB devices to an iPad.

ipad is the best one out there by all accounts
[url= http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-%26-technology/ipad-2-begins-beautifully-designed-journey-towards-landfill-201103283666/ ]http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-%26-technology/ipad-2-begins-beautifully-designed-journey-towards-landfill-201103283666/[/url]

CaptJon, How?

Lack of Flash support is mostly a non issue. I VERY rarely now come across sites that don't fully support the iPad and when I do I just don't bother with them anymore and look for an alternative. I am an Ecommerce consultant and spend huge amounts of time online.

What USB devices would you want to connect? Your camera can connect with it via the memory card, there are USB chargers available for it and a few limited accessories. Its not really a device designed to be your one and only but does cross over with other devices such as laptops and phones quite a bit. As for carrying extra storage or data I do that via Dropbox. Other than that I personally have no need for USB connectivity.

Once you get over the idiotic anti Apple arguments and make peace with the fact that it's just a tool with an Apple logo on it you'll find it's currently the only tablet worth buying. I do hope it gets a competitor soon to push innovation but I do love my iPad.

Who gives a toss about Flash on a mobile devise?

Lack of Flash support is mostly a non issue.

I can't play Virtual Regatta on the iPad/iPhone as it's flash based. I need to be able to access the game at any time of the day which rules out apple solutions. 3g reception in our canteen is also pretty poor on the iphone/pad but for some reason the lads with HTC's don't seem to have a problem even with the same networks. However good the interface is the product is next to useless if you can't get a connection leaving you with a glorified media player.

Still think flash will appear in some form eventually - the competitors are running it, and once something comes close to the ease of use of an ipad the Market will become more competitive, which can only be a good thing.

*puts iPad on high shelf*

I can't play Virtual Regatta on the iPad/iPhone as it's flash based. I need to be able to access the game at any time of the day

Trying to get my head round this.... 😯

I've read that some of the camera kits for the ipad contain a usb port and its possible to connect keyboards and other things up through it.

iPad's definitely the best of the bunch, but the lack of flash support is a killer - there're loads of Spanish sites that use it, including my work one.

Not bothered about flash but I'd like to be able to connect an external HD to the iPad.

Once you get over the idiotic anti Apple arguments

I thought the OPs concerns were entirely technology based and perfectly valid - not anti-Apple at all.

Nothing yet comes close - cost me 290quid for a 16gb wifi iPad direct from apple.
Ace bit of kit

All the videos on BBC news are flash, no?

@molgrips: not talking about anyone in particular on this thread or another. Just gets on my goat that some people feel a desperate need to hate something. It used to be Bill Gates and it just happens to be Steve Jobs more recently. It is the best product for the moment, who cares who it is made by!?

@SkillWill: Sky News has one of if not the best iPad video apps available. BBC news have been the poor second cousin of anything on the iPhone/iPad. Their execution of news on these devices are pretty poor.

@Doug: can't say anything to that. Maybe just move along, nothing to see here. 😀

Apple wants to sell products and if Flash was so great they would have put it on the devices. Simple as that. The around 25-30 million iPad's sold, the around 100 million iPhones sold and all the recent Macbook Airs that shipped without flash is some indicator that lack of flash is not a killer for most people.

Yes Flash has already reappeared in some other form, it's called HTML5. 🙂 A hell of a lot of video sites now support HTML5 and works well on the iPad including your most popular porn sites. 😀 Flash is a relatively old technology that simply hasn't kept up with mobile as much as they could have and unfortunately in a lot cases hurts the user experience more than it helps it.

I think the average user doesn't care about disputes between Apple and Adobe, Flash or HTML5. The point is that with an iPad I can't watch the videos on BBC News, with other tablets I can, so that is one reason why I won't be buying an iPad. It's an important enough reason for me, and perhaps the OP.

Dunno but was at my neice's yesterday. She's got an HP tablet of some description. It was about 500 miles away from an ipad, not a pleasant experience.

Yes Flash has already reappeared in some other form, it's called HTML5. A hell of a lot of video sites now support HTML5 and works well on the iPad including your most popular porn sites. Flash is a relatively old technology that simply hasn't kept up with mobile as much as they could have and unfortunately in a lot cases hurts the user experience more than it helps it.

I'd trust HTML5 a lot more if it were a closed standard, and the video tag is a joke. Until then Flash support is pretty much (for me at least) a requirement.

Just gets on my goat that some people feel a desperate need to hate something.

It's tribalism isn't it?

Apple wants to sell products and if Flash was so great they would have put it on the devices.

Well not really. Apple is run by a geek type techno-entrepreneur who has ideas about technology more than just marketing and business. So he can make techie decisions like not including Flash based on the tech itself.

I bet you any money that if he retires in the near future, the successor would have Flash all over the i-world in the next firmware update.

Got to be the [url= http://uk.blackberry.com/playbook-tablet/ ]Blacberry Playbook[/url]

Well not really. Apple is run by a geek type techno-entrepreneur who has ideas about technology more than just marketing and business. So he can make techie decisions like not including Flash based on the tech itself.

To be fair, the problems with Flash on mobile devices are pretty well documented: excessive CPU use, security concerns... Enough to justify not including them on the iPhone, for example. But (for me at least) an iPad must be able to access all the web, otherwise it's fatally weakened.

(The cynic in me also wonders whether Flash is banned as it allows you to write games and apps with going through the App Store...)

The point is that with an iPad I can't watch the videos on BBC News, with other tablets I can

Not sure about iPad but for the iPhone there is a dedicated BBC News app which works fine and plays all the videos and presents content in a more "mobile friendly" version than the main BBC site.

Failing that, you can use the Skyfire browser which plays all the videos on the BBC site just fine.

I'd trust HTML5 a lot more if it were a closed standard, and the video tag is a joke.

Big sites like YouTube, Vimeo, mpora etc have been serving up HTML5 video for ages. (and it's better than flash video because it takes less time to download and plays properly full-screen).

playbook looks a bit small.

What is the real point of Flash? Most of the time it just pisses me off as it seems a waste of time but thats only my opinion.

I wonder if the Blackberry tablet locks up for no reason like my 8900 phone does requiring the battery to be pulled out.

What is the real point of Flash? Most of the time it just pisses me off as it seems a waste of time but thats only my opinion.

There [i]are[/i] some good Flash games out there (check out sites like http://kongregate.com which have hundreds of free games, mainly in flash).

Trouble is that none of these games were designed with a touch screen in mind, so even if Flash was available on an iPhone/iPad (and wasn't a buggy-as-hell battery vampire) most of these games would be unplayable as they are designed for mouse and keyboard input, not touches and gestures.

Big sites like YouTube, Vimeo, mpora etc have been serving up HTML5 video for ages. (and it's better than flash video because it takes less time to download and plays properly full-screen).

That's Google's take on the video codec, but it's still not "standard" HTML5 (mainly cos such a thing doesn't yet exist...)

What is the real point of Flash? Most of the time it just pisses me off as it seems a waste of time but thats only my opinion.

I'm 100% with you on that one, 99 times out of 100 it's just eyecandy, the webdesigner justifying his/her wage and using the technology they're most comfortable with. Unfortunately, there are still too many useful websites out there that use the stuff, it's not going away for a while yet.

The point is that with an iPad I can't watch the videos on BBC News, with other tablets I can, so that is one reason why I won't be buying an iPad.

IIRC the Beeb was slow in providing non-Windows web content before, so no surprise that they have not caught on to the fact that Flash is not a universal format.

What is the real point of Flash? Most of the time it just pisses me off as it seems a waste of time but thats only my opinion.

It keeps 99% of you lot (IT people) busy. Write, complain, use, whatever.

Well my job about as far from IT as it can get 😉

You work in disinformation technology?

Kuco - Member
What is the real point of Flash? Most of the time it just pisses me off as it seems a waste of time but thats only my opinion.

Oh fine. Be like that then. 🙁

😉

I personally haven't used a tab yet that is anywhere near as good as the iPad (I have been using tabs in various forms for 10 years - even with Window 3.11 and a magnetic pen!)

The lack of flash is annoying I admit, but the skyfire browser gets around quite a few of the flash video issues (still no C4OD) and is a joy to use. But what really does it for me is flipboard, it works so damn well! Some much of the net is designed for ios devices that it surpasses the web experience of other tablets because of this, everythign is perfectly optimised. I have android friends (robots have friends too) who have to emulate an ios browser to get the same experience.

I do 90% of my out of work web browsing on my ipad, i don't miss flash videos at all. I also block it on my work computer and home desktop.

I suspect Apple did a cost benefit analysis of making the iPad Flash compatible and decided the impact on the CPU and security issues weren't worth it and/or solving them would have meant compromises elsewhere.

I think you just have to be realistic aout what you want a tablet to do. I held off for ages about the iPad , but the other day I bought a refurb original one from apple and I have to admit that I as much as I thought I wouldn't like the whole apple iTunes malarky, as a user experience, the iPad itself is brilliant.

The whole thing is fast enough, very few of the sites I would visit have items I can't view and in all honesty, if I want to bash out a complicated document, I'll resort to the main pc. The rest of the time, the iPad handles it fine without delay.

The most surprising thing is the books ... I never thought I would use it so much to read books

I'm still waiting for one that I can scribble and make notes on.
Then I'll ditch my laptop (maybe)

I'm still waiting for one that I can scribble and make notes on.
Then I'll ditch my laptop (maybe)

You can already do that.

I suspect Apple did a cost benefit analysis of making the iPad Flash compatible and decided the impact on the CPU and security issues weren't worth it

I doubt it. Any sensible solution if you weren't anti-flash on principle would have been to leave it off by default but allow the user to switch it on, with associated warnings.

@clubber? which one?

re flash - apart from being a processor hog, many sites require a mouse, drop downs etc - a touch interface doesn't have a hover state so many of these sites simply wouldn't work.

and flash to deliver video has never made sense!

i imagine sites like bbc will switch to html5 within a year...

@Travis - ipad (and presumably other tablets) - plenty of apps that you can either write notes (keyboard) or 'drawing' apps where you can just write on the screen. Or have I misunderstood what you want?

@clubber, not misunderstood, I never said my point clear enough.

I would love to scribble and make notes on pdf or doc on an ipad type thing.
It would make my life so much easier

Not sure about iPad but for the iPhone there is a dedicated BBC News app which works fine and plays all the videos and presents content in a more "mobile friendly" version than the main BBC site.

Failing that, you can use the Skyfire browser which plays all the videos on the BBC site just fine.

+1. Never found a lack of Flash a problem, and the iPad BBC apps are lovely. Airdrive and the like works well instead of USB, thoguh I'd likean SD card slot. Can't see why it's a problem to fit one really, so it must be a religous argument vs how you get content on to it.

There is a statement somewhere on the iPlayer site about how they are addressing the lack of Flash for idevices, so it will be a non issue for the BBC at least - current iPlayer app works very nicely. Think it was HTML5 as this appears to be where browsers are headed.

You can do that using several apps I believe - GoodReader (I use it on my iPhone) certainly does it.

http://www.labnol.org/software/annotate-pdf-on-ipad-iphone/17844/

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&source=hp&q=goodreader+annotate&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=1&cad=b

I would love to scribble and make notes on pdf or doc on an ipad type thing.
It would make my life so much easier

Can do that with GoodReader, I think - at least type notes, and add highlighting etc.

EDIT - too slow 🙁

ohhhh.... could be just what I want. Thanks for that 😀

Is it possible to change the default browser? I like Firefox and don't get on with Safari, can I change that?

Safari on an ipad/iphone isn't the same as safari on a pc (or presumably mac - I wouldn't know).

You can get opera for them though. And several others.

You can't change the default browser though (at least not as standard - jailbreaking may allow it).

Google Reader + Flipboard = amazing!

oh! flipboard looks good - shame it's not out on the iphone until the summer. Anyone know any alternatives - my taptu looks reasonable.

Many thanks for all the debate, I want something that I can just browse with on the sofa, but have the ability to do more when 'docked', so being able to add memory or even an external drive will be paramount to me.
I'm sure the flash debate will soon be dead, but as others have mentioned you just can't play some games with touchscreen, so maybe it would be nice to be able to use a mouse, or even a touchpad on the keyboard.

Now, anyone have any thoughts on the [url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-Transformer-Android-docking-station/dp/B004TB0EXY/ref=pd_ts_computers_1?ie=UTF8&s=computers ]Asus Transformer[/url]? 😉

Cheers.