A Tablet tour. with emphasis on usefulness and application development using .NET

A couple of years ago Apple released the IPAD. I already had a IPod Touch at that time and bought the IPAD with the idea of developing applications for it. Since then I have picked up a IPhone and two other tablet devices with the idea of developing applications for them. I am primarily a .NET developer so these notes are from a consumer and a .NET developers perspective. Currently I own:

1. An IPAD 3G.
2. A W500 WIndows 7 tablet that I run windows 8 on.
3. A Kindle Fire (I got yesterday).

Although I don't have as much time in with the Fire as I have with the other tablets, here are a few initial notes.

First the IPAD. For a general consumer device this is the one I use the most although the fire may change that. I like the IPAD for the bigger display. I replaced my old Kindle DX's with this because it was backlit. This allowed me to read in bed without another light source. The Fire will now allow that too. I also like the IPAD 3G capabilities. When I travel, it is nice to be able to hook into the internet from virtually anywhere. It was also the most expensive tablet at ~$850. I picked up one of the original AT&T unlimited data accounts for it, so my internet usage is pretty much pegged at $30 a month which makes it very useful. I had considered trying to develop applications for this, but in general I find I can't stand the Apple development environment or Objective C. Jobs was a brilliant man, but he and I differ on what we think makes a good development platform. Give me C# and MonoDevelop or Visual Studio any day.

The W500 I have not owned as long. I bought it specifically to work on WIndows 8 applications. So far I like the expandability of it. Much more capable then my IPAD. I have it hooked into my pico projector through the HDMI port and use it currently for watching movies from my digital libraries on ITunes and Amazon. I also us it for watch netflicks streaming video. I have just bought a Kinect, which I plan to drive using this machine. I will develop software on my Quad Core laptop and then test it on this guy. I primarily plan on using this as a device to test new WIndows 7 and 8 applications and communicate with the my .NET Gadgeteer robots and devices. On the whole I like this tablet, but it is way to heavy and not portable enough to beat out my IPAD for general consumer use. In addition Microsoft really needs to get it act together to compete against Amazon Web Services and the Fire. Azure is not enough.

Finally, we have the Kindle Fire. I picked this up because I have always liked the kindle and it is hard to beat the price. At $200 it is the cheapest tablet I own. I do wish the screen were bigger and will upgrade when the larger 10” screen comes out. I also believe that until Microsoft gets it together these are going to be the primary competitor to the IPAD because of the content available. I want to start developing for it using either C# (through MonoDroid) or Java. I think this particular device with it's size connectivity make it a good candidate for a device you can easily carry around. I can see using it as a mobile device for controlling home automation and other things through some gadgeeter devices. In addition by utilizing amazon's cloud services and the amazon appstore I think there are going to be a number of enterprise level applications made available for this tablet.

All in all from a consumer perspective I still like the IPAD. From a developer perspective I like the W500 and think the Fire will be a close second. Once I get more familiar with the Fire it may be the new winner across the board.

kindle - Part 2

Ok. This is a way cool device. Had to be the easiest way to read the Journal ever. Must say all the financial articles amaze me. When did Russia become Europe's energy provider? I did not know Hillary had voted the same for a lot of the stuff for the Iraq war. Finally Guantanamo is going to eat Bush alive if the supreme court goes against his imprisonment tactics.

You do have to read the thing with the cover on though. Otherwise you start hitting the wrong keys. With the cover on it is almost like a paperback book though.

Kindle

My Kindle came in from Amazon.com yesterday. I had already purchased 80 or so Ebooks to try out on it. Most are older science fiction that are very tough to find today. Out of print etc. I also subscribed to the Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine. I have always enjoyed reading the Journal in the morning, but usually found the hassle and waste of throwing away the paper too much. Same for Time Magazine. Now no more paper to throw away but I can still read the Journal every morning. Very nice.

I have also found some of the older Science fiction is the actual pulp version from astounding. Apparently these were scanned to make the ebook version. Reading the original Skylark stories and seeing the pulp drawings from the original astounding articles is very cool.

I also like the fact that I have 80 books with me in a device the size of a paperback book. Much more portable then a laptop. I will probably start purchasing all the new books I want this way. The price on a new hard bound bestseller for example is only $10 vs the $30 or $40 I would normally pay. I picked up Churchill's History of world war II for about $6 bucks a book. I have the collectors version setting on my book shelf, but it does take up most of a shelf :-).

A primary motivator for me to buy the kindle was I was running out of book shelf space. The garage is full on both walls, there is a wall full in the living room, a wall full in both bedrooms. I only have about 1.5 shelves free so I am being careful about what books I buy. Now with the Kindle I will buy them first in Kindle format and then buy the hard backs only when I want collector versions.

I figure this will both save me shelf space and money. In addition I will start trying to buy most of my technical books in Kindle format. These usually are only useful for about 2 years before they are obsolete so at least now I won't have obsolete books taking up shelf space. The only thing I might miss is the source CD's but those are usually online any way. I probably spent a good $1K on this beast between the Kindle for $400 and the 80+ books. So far it looks to have been very well worth it.

I plugged my 1 Gig SD card into it. I had this in my old windows mobile phone but my new phone could not use it. It had to be a mini sd card. So the new windows mobile phone now has a 4 Gig mini sd card in it while the Kindle has another gig of memory for books. I figure that is some where around 1200 books I can carry around in the Kindle before I will have to upgrade to a 4 gig card or something. Of course by that time the kindle will be out of date and I will buy a new one :-)