Wi-Fi-Only Motorola Xoom To Hit Stores March 27 | Hacker News Reader

Wi-Fi-Only Motorola Xoom To Hit Stores March 27

mashable.com

15 pointsbkaid21 comments

What I've learned from the whole Xoom debacle is that the Flash codebase must be a massive stinking pile of shit. They can't give Linux security updates and they can't get it to work on one of the most important non-Apple tablets in existence.

This is why you write tests instead of adding features. Because while meeting your deadline today is good, not ever being able to meet a deadline again is pretty bad.

>they can't get it to work on one of the most important non-Apple tablets in existence

Actually I am running the 10.2 beta on my Xoom (w/3.0.1) and for a beta it is looking quite good. May be crashes the browser once a day but the work they did for tighter integration with the 3.0.1 browser is clearly showing - it scrolls smooth even with lots of Flash content on page, the videos all work without much stuttering.

I think they still aren't accelerating the HD videos in the beta or are doing it sub optimally but I am very hopeful it will work at least as well as it does on a desktop!

>I think they still aren't accelerating the HD videos in the beta or are doing it sub optimally but I am very hopeful it will work at least as well as it does on a desktop!

That's a very low bar. If I wanted an improvement, I'd be looking at something like Netflix's Silverlight implementation, which doesn't consume full CPU to render HD video.

What I've learned from the whole Xoom debacle is that I don't need a feature to actually "work" in order to use it as a main selling point. An inactive SD slot; No Flash at launch even though that's its biggest selling point. 4G networking, but only after you send it back in for refurbishing later this year.

Knowing this, I'm going to start a car company and start advertising that my cars get 1000 miles per gallon. The small print will have something about the installation of frictionless parts at an unknown availability date.

> No Flash at launch even though that's its biggest selling point

I don't think that Flash is the biggest selling point... I think the biggest selling point is that it's the most powerful tablet out there. And it sounds like the WiFi Xoom will have Flash at launch anyway. Not really a big deal.

It is no longer the most powerful tablet. A5 chip in the iPad 2 offers similar CPU performance and much better graphics performance than Tegra 2 according to Anandtech's tests.

And half the RAM of the Xoom (at least according to Gruber), so it's not as clear cut as you make it sound.

And yet not one review has mentioned that having 512 MB hampered performance.

There's a lot more to "power" than just clock speed and graphics. For example, nobody has to ask permission to write and run apps on the Xoom whereas iPad can only (under normal circumstances) run apps that have the approval of a small team of people in California.

Being able to run whatever computer programs you want - on your computer - definitely factors into what it means to be powerful.

Also, it has more sensors and a newer operating system and UI. There are many ways Android 3.0 is more powerful that iOS, such as having real multitasking, more user-configurable settings, etc.

What would you prefer? Thousands of apps approved by "a small team in California", which are generally spyware free.

OR a handful of apps specifically designed for your platform.

> They can't give Linux security updates

Google Chrome on Linux has already received updates for the latest flash vulnerability....

x86_64 Linux?

My 64 bit install of Chrome is working perfectly fine, although I have no idea if the flash plugin it uses is 64 bit or not.

What's the point of using Linux if you're going to use Chrome instead of Chromium?

for one thing, I disagree with my distro's update schedule for chromium, and Google has a package repository for chrome that allows me to stay on the dev channel while still using the package manager to handle updates. not to mention that I get flash, PDF, and other proprietary features that you don't get with chromium. oh, and flashplugin-installer doesn't work properly behind a proxy without docking around with system files I don't have permissions to change.

I'm guessing you mean this was the straw that broke the camel's back for you, because there's been a continual stream of indications that the Flash codebase is a mess for the last few years.

massive stinking pile ... shit

Observation +1. You've got 4 out of 4 correct there. I claim that any person who has not only smelled but also tasted, not to mention mucked, the abovequoted part could feed The Daily WTF for years. Hopefully Adobe's HTML5 conversion tool could turn out to be a decent face-saving way out for Flash.

(Posting anonymously for a reason, feel free to draw your conclusions.)

I hope this is easy for Canadians to purchase. All the Wi-Fi Xoom articles today mention US retailers, many of which have Canadian stores but there doesn't seem to be any mention of Canada. Sure, I can order it and send it up here but they'll charge me all sorts of extra fees for that. Anyone know what the deal is on international Xoom purchases?

We need cheaper Android Honeycomb tablets: Something equivalent to the WiFi-only Xoom for $499, and lower-end devices in the $250–350 range.

Don't get me wrong, I really like my Xoom, and it's a fun device to hack on. But Android has historically thrived on two things: "Good enough" devices, and a huge range of form factors and price points. And we're just not there yet.

I suppose I'll have to wait a couple of months until the deluge starts. :-)

I don't think there's much that can be done with this. I spent a week with a Xoom and while it isn't slow it isn't lightening fast either. So you can't really cut any of the hardware specs.

The cheap Android tablets that came out before saved money by putting a sub-par touch screen on. But last I checked Google was insisting on Multi-Touch ability for Honeycomb tablets. So there's no way to go cheap on the screen.

So I don't see where Android tablet manufacturers could cut from. As it is Apple's ability to buy in bulk and manufacture their own chips gives them a huge cost advantage.

Aw. For a second, I thought this was going to be about a Wi-Fi-only phone.

When that becomes a popular product category, it will be an interesting day in tech.

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