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Originally Posted by Unleash_the_Phury
I've never crowed about the quantity of apps; I will say that a bunch of Apple apps seem quite useful and functional. Any of the programs I use on my Macbook for schoolwork or personal stuff, such as iWork, GarageBand, iMovie, and CeltX, I can run on an iPad 2. Penultimate is an awesome note-taking app; it's 99 cents. Comixology is free, and I can get new comics every week without going across town to the one comic book store in Lethbridge. I can watch as many movies as I want with Netflix.
And I can't stress this enough: the fact that Apple has agreements now with Inkling to make fully interactive textbooks available for download is HUGE. Inkling has access to over 95% of textbook content that universities use, and while I'm sure it's going to be a massive undertaking, the fact that Apple signed this deal first is going to continue to mean the iPad is the tablet of choice for the majority of students.
Now, I will qualify my comments by saying that for any hardcore editing, I use Adobe Premiere. But functional editing software on a tablet is kinda a big deal. And while most of my writing would be done on a normal computer, having all my stuff synced to a tablet that goes everywhere with me is particularly useful when inspiration hits at a moment's notice. I will also say that as of right now, students aren't the biggest consumers of iPads. But the idea of them is catching on; I expected to see a ton of kids with iPads this September, but it wasn't until after Christmas that they really started making appearances.
Now I'm not sure how expensive these textbooks are going to be, but the standard PDF e-textbooks are considerably cheaper (60 bucks cheaper in the case of my animal behavior text) than paper copies, and with that math in mind, an iPad pays for itself after four or five years of university. Less if you're in management, accounting, any sciences. If the cost of one semester's worth of accounting textbooks were cut in half, my roommate would have enough money to buy a 16 GB iPad. When more textbooks become available, more iPads are going to move.
To come back to the original point about apps, they're like fans at a football game. A good number of them will be intelligent, knowledgeable and useful, but they're still going to be vastly outnumbered by doofuses who couldn't tell you if the team was first or thirtieth, and didn't understand why Larry Johnson was released.
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You again have missed my point. Your Apple-centric tunnel vision is, frankly, amazing. Yes, their are ipad apps that are very useful... and there are also ANDROID apps that are very useful too! Of course, Android apps on average are cheaper, but let's leave that point for another day.
Let me make this ABSOLUTELY clear... yes the ipad has great apps... Android tablets will have the same apps or apps with the same functionality. You just don't seem to get this point. EVERYTHING you can do on an ipad, you will be able to do on an Android tablet. Let's take a look at this HUGE inkling deal that you are so excited about...
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Inkling expects to expand to Android and to release some of its creation tools to publishers later this year.
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Since they currently only have 14 textbooks... by the time they actually have CONTENT.. they will have the same app available on Android tablets.
So by the time they have enough content to make it worthwhile (Fall of 2012 if they are lucky) let's say a student wants a tablet that uses the app... do you think he will buy the $500 ipad or the $250 Android tablet?
So back to my point... if an Android tablet has better hardware and has the same app functionality and the ability to view the ENTIRE web (Flash) and better prices and a better OS and a built in cloud music service (bye bye having to plug into crappy itunes) and similar battery life(probably slightly worse because the added functionality comes at a price)... why would you buy an iPad? Most of what I described is current reality... some of it is coming in the next 6 months.
Apple's best play is to release an iPad3 in the Fall... there is a lot of speculation and with all this pressure they may do that. If they do, then erase the advantage of a better OS and cloud music (Apple will prolly have their version) and I would imagine they will have hardware on par as well. Flash and price is what will keep Android ahead in my book.