Motorola Xoom: The Day After

The Motorola Xoom Wi-Fi officially released yesterday, even though some stores had started selling it a day or two before. For those who aren't familiar with the Motorola Xoom, it's the first real Android tablet to compete with the iPad. Beating Apple to the dual-core punch, the Xoom was first released only in partnership with Verizon in February. Now, nearly a month later, the Wi-Fi only version has arrived. It will take a while to gauge it's success, but I've discovered it to be sold out in all but one of the Best Buy stores in Michigan as well as nearly all of the close other-state Best Buy stores. I doubt we'll ever see iPad lines, but I have a feeling it might hold it's own in the tablet ecosystem.

The reviews are mixed (akin to the Apple/Android fans), but seem to be mostly positive. There have been the outspoken few who rail on the Xoom for not having 4G, Flash & the SD card working a launch, which is a fair point to make, but conversely, the iPad 2 will never have any of those features (Flash and SD card slot will most likely never see the light of day on any iPad but, like all things, that could change).

Additionally, people have complained about the bugs in Honeycomb, which I also acknowledge as a fair point, but one that is easily fixed with software updates. Another complaint is the amount of tablet optimized apps when compared to the iPad which has had a year for tablet apps to mature.

I understand why Google wanted to get Android tablets out as quickly as possible. The iPad had enjoyed a near full year of no real competition and has a huge head start in regards to apps and marketing. Had Google waited till after the iPad 2, it would have only added difficulty into an already challenging entry into the market.

An unfortunate early side-effect of early entry into the market is that Google is delaying the release of Honeycomb source for the time being. They cite the need to ensure the OS will run on phones as well, among other reasons.

The article above is by Ryan Paul who is the Open Source editor at Ars. He reviewed the Motorola Xoom a few weeks ago, which I thought was a fair review. This new article, on the other hand, is a bit harsh and I feel he blows some of the issues out of proportion.

He makes a point that "Android smartphones are encumbered by lockdown mechanisms that block installation of third-party firmware". Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the doing of the phone manufacturers/carriers rather than Android itself (interestingly enough, he makes a similar point in the '08 article linked to above). Then continues with, "The availability of Android source code after each release was really the last remnant of openness in Android—and now it's gone." loosely implying that Google will never release the Honeycomb source (which they've given no indication they won't).

His next point on the 'decline' of Android openness; "It started even before the first Android release, when Google silently stopped making SDK updates available to the public for months and used nondisclosure agreements to gag the privileged few who were given access." I feel this is a bit of a stretch as members malor & doornail (respectively) point out in the comments; "All you've got is one fact: 50 Android developers have access to SDK versions that other developers don't. That's ALL." and "...closed betas with NDA's is just about how everyone does it and sounds exactly like what Google is doing."

I will give him credit on his point about Google sending cease and desist notices to the creator of the Cyanogen mod. While I understand both sides (Google needing to protect their copyright vs being open) I feel Google could have handled the situation much better.

Another point he made on Twitter is directed towards the possible fragmentation of the Android tablet ecosystem, to which I responded that tablets running on older Android already exist & app makers who want their apps to work on both phones and tablets currently couldn't use Honeycomb-only APIs (needing to work on both 2.x and 3.0).

Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Mr. Paul, I just feel he's blowing some of these issues out of proportion, especially considering he seems to favor the iPad as his tablet-of-choice, which is the epitome of a closed system (which in-and-of-itself, I feel is a solid product). I look forward to reading more articles from him in the future.

You can follow Ryan Paul on twitter at @segphault