Got a motorola XOOM

[RG25]

The wi-fi Xoom's came out yesterday.. Picked one up at staples..

This thing is pretty cool and sleek.. But lack off apps and price ($599+tax) are giving me some buyer's remorse.. Thinking about returning it! I shouldn't be surprised by lack of apps though. This is really the first of the REAL android tablet (Honeycomb) and I have no doubt the amount of quality android apps will grow exponentially over the coming months. This is just part of being an early adopter.

I am truly jealous of the Ipad app store. So many awesome apps that will work for the Ipad 2 right out of the box.. So many people have Ipads and it means a large number of apps & accessories along with a lot of user information online. I have no doubt since android is coming out on so many tabs over the next couple months that soon it will have the same base.

Anyone else get the xoom or thinking about it? Ipad 2?

 

[bos]

Why are there so little apps? Is honeycomb that much different? There sure are a shload of them for froyo.

 

[RG25]

Why are there so little apps? Is honeycomb that much different? There sure are a shload of them for froyo.

There are, there are.. Accept these were developed to run on a 4.3 inch screen or smaller and aren't optimized to run an a Tablet that is much more powerful. So a lot of the apps are buggy.

 

[bos]

There are, there are.. Accept these were developed to run on a 4.3 inch screen or smaller and aren't optimized to run an a Tablet that is much more powerful. So a lot of the apps are buggy.

Ah yes. Makes sense.

 

[Clone9]

IMO, you've nailed the biggest difference between the iPad/iPhone and everything else. Android continues to get better (Droid owner here), but they still done have the quality and/or quantity of apps that Apple does. I'm sure it'll get there, but it will take a while.

 

[Ames]

I've had a Xoom for a couple of weeks now. I love love the Gmail support. The web browser and Chrome sync are great. But the lack of apps kills it. It needs at least 1 good Twitter app; if it doesn't get one in the next couple of weeks it's going back.

 

[cstrunk]

I've heard that programming apps for Androids is very challenging. Some say it will get easier as the processing power and memory keep increasing on the phones/tablets. We'll see.

 

[Ames]

I've heard that programming apps for Androids is very challenging. Some say it will get easier as the processing power and memory keep increasing on the phones/tablets. We'll see.

As someone who has programmed for the 3 major platforms I think Microsoft WM is the easiest, Android second, and Apple third. But I wouldn't call any of them really challenging.

 

[mksmith2]

Speaking as an android fanboy for phones, and an apple fanboy for about everything else, I actually sorta think android's open-ness sorta hurts their own products. I love my Desire and think that android is the best platform for phones because it's so open and you're able to do so much with it, though the price is that there isn't much overall polish visually stock. However, iOS is more battery efficient and since they control what goes into the app store, you always know what you're going to get. Not to mention that apple controls what hardware configurations you're going to have to worry about. (as newer versions of iOS don't work on certain older phones/iPods) Not to mention that there is a polish/shine that comes stock. The biggest thing against iOS is the lack of openness but IMO that's basically fixed by jail breaking. The jail breaking community makes it as accessible (if not more accessible) than rooting (don't let me scare you though, rooting is pretty easy)

On topic with the OP though, I think what holds the Xoom (and other android tablets) back is that there are so many different configurations of hardware, software and etc (though I think developers who are porting their things from iPhone to Android are doing a fantastic job and the quality/quantity of apps is beginning to do better). I think making honeycomb (3.0) tablet exclusive will greatly help the apps and help control all the fragmentation issues (and that many phones that use older versions of android are reaching EOL if not already there)