Taking Gingerbread with a pinch of Salt!
Hi All,
There is a big Gingerbread confusion around in the meeting rooms here. Its tricky to explain you all as well. That OS will be lot more superior than 2.2. And there ARE few products hitting with 3.0 soon. It needs to be evaluated that what does that mean. The window is really small for 2.2 devices.
Things are strange which Google does, and they might do a lot, open a lot more And while they do all this, there are only few people who know what exactly. And now since that cannot be communicated it becomes a very difficult decision, especially for start-ups like us.
Back to the meeting.
Regards
And seriously:
Android is only a third of this device.
We can put chromium or Ubuntu on it and upgrade ourselves everything to the latest and greatest if we want!
2.2 or 3.0?
Ah! Right, the digits aren’t the same.
But!
Actually, I don’t see any difference.
Is this a race for bigger numbers? Or is ADAM just for geeks who really do see the difference in these OS? Don’t go for the best in everything. If you want to concuer the market, do only things necessary to elate the masses. I’m already inspired, so just let me buy it, will you?
Gingerbread with Bumptop? I hope, you say: Yes, we can!
Hi Rohan,
Now that Adam is ripe for release, how about announcing a discount for us bloggers who we with you, praising you, cursing you, advising you….?
regards,
Saravana
Rohan,
I’m not in your industry but I want to give you some advice that I hope you at least read. You must get your product out. In the computer industry, there will always be a new software version that is coming out soon. You can’t wait for the newest version to launch your device.
Get the hardware built with the ability to load software upgrades but get it built. If ADAM is set to run with 2.0, 2.1, or even 2.2, launch it as is and start prepping for an upgrade but get it out already. Don’t put a buggy device out but you get the idea. I’m going to assume that the number of people who know about your product is not large when compared to the Apple iPad. Let’s be honest, the iPad is the best known device and it is what people will compare any newcomer to. Your device, if it delivers as promised, will destroy the iPad in a side by side test. But theoretical comparisons only go so far. You must get your product out soon. iPad will be getting into university’s and schools soon. You can’t let it get too big of a market share before you launch. I hope you are able to launch before the end of the calendar year.
There will always be a new version of Android coming out. You can’t keep waiting for the next release to come out. You’d never get Adam out! And other tablets wirh similar specs may come out in the meantime. Even if these tablets don’t do well it is bad for you. People will start to think Android isn’t good on tablets.
I also agree that you should embrace modders. I am running Froyo on my Eris. HTC isn’t releasing Froyo for this phone. So I have modders to thank for that. Embracing them would give you a loyal following. You could fashion yourself like the Apple of old. Going up against Big Brother. Except, this time, Big Brother is Apple.
Thank you Rohan for the update.
I’d be happy to have a device with 3.0, but that’s absolutely the last thing I care about. I will updating my device to the next version of Android the day Google releases it regardless of whether or not you release an update to your release of the OS. If this breaks all of the enhancements you add, I won’t be too upset. I’m not one to care about enhancements. In my experience, enhancements & extra software added by my computer manufacturer usually hinder my ability to use my computer. I just uninstall them and find different software.
I’m hoping to get an Adam because it looks like a solid product. But I need a tablet for grad school, which starts in just a month, and I’m going to buy the first decent tablet I see with a Pixel Qi display.
I really hope it’s the Adam, and I really hope it comes out soon to help with grad school.
Something you should try to do is set a cadence for yourself, say “upgrade to the newest version every 4 months, no matter what ‘newest’ means”.
Consumers like predictability too, so they’ll like that even if you don’t upgrade as often as the competition. To give you a real-life example, I am on Android 1.5 on my f****** phone, if only I knew better…
I don’t think you can afford to keep pushing it back b/c of another Android update! If the tablet does not make it out by the holiday, it will likely fail… at least with the mainstream consumer. Knowing that Gingerbread is on the horizon only means that your dev team will be busy preparing updates POST-LAUNCH… at least that’s what it should mean.