Why do Apple and Google hate flash memory cards?

My kids got iPad minis for Christmas.  Although I am firmly a fan of Android tablets, I bowed to their wishes based on the old standard argument that "all of their friends have them."  To some extent, that argument carries more weight in this context since collaboration, use of the same apps and games often requires being on the same platform.

My experience with Apple in this limited context has only reaffirmed my wish to stay as far away from Apple as possible.  All the accessories are overpriced.  Repairs (one cracked his screen already) are impossible.  Access to many very cool, innovative, and free apps seems much more limited.  Also, the Apple "Geniuses" at the Apple store have not lived up to their name.

But one frustrating limitation of the iPad that annoys me most is the lack of a micro SD port.  This omission makes it impossible to add additional storage space to your device.  You re stuck with the limited amount of space you purchased with your device.

One might expect this sort of thing from Apple, since the company has always been averse to including any technology which Apple did not develop and does not control.  It also does not like the possibility that owners might find a way to use the device that Apple did not anticipate. It's just Apple being Apple.

But I am also bothered by Google's refusal to include a Micro SD reader on its Nexus tablets.  Google seems to be drifting from its traditional view of "make something the consumers will love"  following the trend of Apple, to "make something which customers will accept but which benefits us more."

Both Apple and Google's refusal to include Micro SD creates real problems for users.  It makes it much harder to transfer files between the tablet and other devices.  It makes it much harder to recover important documents, pictures, music, etc. if the device fails.  It limits users' ability to carry around media with them for offline use.

Similarly, the failure to have a full size USB port on the device which would allow for the easy connection of flash drives causes the same limitations.  I'm not sure why some industrious manufacturer hasn't developed a flash drive with a micro USB interface to get around this problem.  Update: Kingston has a solution to this with its Microduo line.

There are some ways around this, at least with Android.  You can connect your tablet directly to your computer using a USB cable for transfers and backups.  But it still doesn't help with carrying around extra data.

All of these limitations benefit Apple and now Google's apparent strategy to keep everyone connected to the Internet all the time.  This allows both companies to track how customers use their devices and to gather more data on usage.  It also keeps the user inside the company's sphere of influence, making them more dependent on the company's services for online storage, online documents, online backup, etc.  If a user is working happily offline it is almost seen by the manufacturer as a failure.  Further, it forces users to pay more for devices that have more base memory, which are sold at a huge profit by the manufacturers.

Fortunately, most third party manufacturers who build Google products included the Micro SD reader.  This is the number one reason I am using them rather than the Nexus.  I will continue to stay as far away from Apple as possible.

Do Not Buy a Tablet Now

The iPad has remained the dominant tablet for almost a year now. There had been tablets in past years, but the iPad's user interface made it the cool product of 2010. Personally, I think the iPad holds little benefit over a netbook, and has the big negative of not having a keyboard. But I can certainly see why the large screen like a computer, combined with the highly nimble and responsive screen of a smart phone, has captured the imagination of the masses.

That said, I still think the iPad is doomed to fall to a niche portion of the tablet market over the next few years, much like the Mac computer did in an earlier generation. The number one reason for this is Apple's greed. Apple has near total market share right now because it is the only game in town. The company is to be commended for bringing a great program to market that had no equal. But that cannot last. As dozens of competitors seek to take on Apple in the Tablet arena, there are plenty of weak spots for them to attack.

Number one is the price: at around $500-800 depending on the model, the iPad can cost twice what a decent low end netbook costs. This is probably justified given the cool OS and new features. But competitors will soon match those features and sell a similar product for half the price. Apple could engage in a price war, but if past practice is any guide, it will not. Apple will come out with cool new features and offer an iPad 2 at a similar cost. Competitors will offer better deals and pick up more market share, much like Microsoft did in the PC market of the 1980's.

Apple is going to keep its prices for the device high, meaning that many people will not want to go in that direction. In addition, Apple is proving equally greedy in its App Store. It's 30% commission is far higher than the market will bear for very long. It if it wants to make its money on Apps, it should sell the iPad for half the price as a loss leader. If it did that now, it would gut the competition and make itself the market leader for years to come. But trying to make so much money on both the front end and back end is simply not sustainable over the long term. Eventually, other App stores will take a majority of the market, offer better terms to developers, and win the sales war.

Similarly, Apple refuses to share the wealth with other companies. Its refusal to support Flash, or to provide ports on the iPad to let third parties add their own creativity and imagination to the product will stifle its uses. Many users will find the iPad limiting. Apple tries to control how its device is used, rather than leaving that up to the user. That is a major mistake.

So who will emerge the winner? Probably not other players like Blackberry or HP with its WebOS. They are late arriving to the market, unwilling to make serious price concessions, and unable to develop the large App selection needed to build critical mass. They may be very nice products, but that is not enough. Anyone remember the Amiga PC of the 1980's? It was an amazing computer for its time, with many very cool features far ahead of anything else available at the time. But its high price and the inability to build sufficient market share to encourage software developers to build a large stable of programs sealed its fate. Instead, the far less evolved but cheaper and more widely available MS-DOS took over the PC world.

So who will be in the position to be the next Microsoft? Certainly not Microsoft, which has not developed a truly ground breaking program since it introduced MS-Office a couple of decades ago. To me, the winnner appears to be Google. The Android OS, with the Honeycomb version being developed for tablets, looks to be the favorite. Just like MS-DOS in the PC world of the 1980's, Android is a widely available and cheap OS for developers of phones and tablets. It is a high quality OS with enough flexibility to let third parties develop and create new and innovative ways to use it. It is available to a wide number of hardware developers, meaning it will much more easily push its way into a large market share, thus encouraging more App developers, which only continues the cycle up to market domination. The fact that App developers are not shaken down for as much money as possible will also earn Android good will and devoted supporters in the developer community.

This leads me to the title of this piece. Do not by any tablet now. If you wanted to be an early adopter of the iPad, you should have bought six months ago. At this point, you should wait for the iPad 2 to be released in April. Even if the iPad original is all you need, the prices on that will drop considerably as soon as the iPad 2 hits the market.

If you are considering any other tablet, there is not much out there. Google's Honeycomb, Blackberry's Playbook and HP's WebOS are all still months away from release. When they are first released, you will likely see more bugs in first releases than we saw with the iPad. Apple is one of the best in beta testing and getting rid of glitches before going to market, despite its other faults. I would say Christmas 2011 is probably the earliest to consider such a purchase.

If you are concerned about getting value, you will probably have to wait until well into 2012 or even 2013 before the "bleeding edge" pricing goes away and competition forces tablets down into the sub $300 or even $200 level.

If you want something right now that is cheap, reliable and that is small and easy to carry around, buy a netbook. You can get a pretty good one for around $250. It will have a screen as big as the iPad, an OS as good as any PC, and it will even have a keyboard to make writing much easier.

Ten years from now, we will look at an $800 tablet the way we look at the $5000 PCs or $1000 CD players that were sold in the 1980's. A device made in 2021 will be much cheaper (probably under $150 in today's dollars) and will do much more. Sure, most of us won't wait until then since life is short and we want to enjoy the latest technologies now. But the next two years will see the largest decreases in price and the highest growth in improvements. Patience is well worth it.

Why cell phones should think big

Apple, which has dominated music player and cell phone markets for years now, has received great fanfare for the introduction of the iPad.

This technology is nothing new. Tablets and e-readers have been around for years. Amazon and Sony have been fighting in the e-reader market for years now, with relatively little interest from consumers. More advanced multi-function tablets have been around for years too. Anyone still have their Palm Pilot from the 1980's? Even Apple was doing this 20 years ago (anyone remember the Newton?).

Why then is the iPad being seen as the greatest new invention since the PC? In part, this is due to Apple's well earned reputation for coming out with cool cutting edge technology popular with young people. Part of the reason is also customer confidence in being able to purchase and download interesting media with relative ease. But the other big reason is that Apple is filling a consumer demand that just isn't being met by any other major product.

Until the development of wireless 3G networks, portable streaming video was not a viable technology. The other problem has been that most large media networks are so afraid of piracy that they have been reluctant to much of any content available. While there have been some other attempts at portable video, they have been too small to gain much notice, and have not had access to much digital media of interest.

All that is changing now, and Apple is clearly the first major player out of the gate. It is a wake up call to the rest of the industry to get out there and make something happen.

E-ink readers such as the Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader are seen as the future, but these sorts of devices really fill a different consumer need entirely. They are ok for reading a book straight through, but if you want to jump around pages in a reference book, or store hundreds of documents for reference, these devices fall woefully short. Further, the slowness in updating page changes and inability to move beyond monochrome, makes them look pathetic next to the iPad. Yes, e-ink has great potential because of its ability to use much less electricity than an LCD screen, but if it cannot keep up in performance, it is like comparing an electric golf cart to an SUV. Until performance can meet that of LCD, e-ink is going to be relegated to people who want a very limited use device. They are only going to do that if the cost is much cheaper. Until we see devices selling for well under $100, these will not be of much interest since consumers can read books, and much much more buying a similarly priced iPad.

The technology to take on Apple, however, does already exist for a number of companies. They are called Smartphones. Apple simply took its iPhone OS and put it in a device with a bigger screen. Other companies, Blackberries, Palms, Androids, already exist on phones and are capable of streaming video, organizing documents, playing games, and just about anything else available on the iPad.

Their only major failure? You cannot get one with a screen bigger than about 3". Phone manufacturers have tried to keep their devices pocket sized. There is a large market for these small phones, but many others would be more than happy to carry around a larger device if it had a screen size that let the read documents, watch shows, or play games without having to use a magnifying glass. There is no reason these cell phone makers could not keep pocket sized devices for customers who want that, but put basically the same OS on a 9" screen for customers who want larger screen size. Given that the OS already exists, such a device could be on the market in a matter of months. They could even still work as phones using a head set to the tablet.

Come on cell phone manufacturers - the cell phone market is hugely competitive right now. The tablet market is wide open. You already missed being first into the market. Better to be second than tenth.