Android on x-86

I'm thrilled to make this post from Android Ice Cream Sandwich version ported to run on x-86 platform. Thus, I now have a really powerful "tablet" running Android. Having used Android version 2.x on phones and tablets regularly before, the 4.0 version looks and feels really cool.

Also interesting to note that there is an app called AIDE which can be used to develop and deploy Android apps directly from an Android device. In my opinion, this was the only stumbling block that prevented tablets from replacing PCs.

Kudos to the team that worked on this project. Amazing work. What's more, they also have a live cd equivalent which can be used to 'preview' it on your device before installing, and then install it on your hard disk on a multi-boot way. So your Windows & Linux installations can peacefully co-exist.

IPad's price war - how will Indian market respond?

The Tablet market across the world is set to become very interesting with iPad prices being slashed tremendously. Most Tablet buyers will now actively consider the Apple stable too before making a purchase.

It will be interesting to see whether Apple will now take more interest in the hitherto neglected Indian market, with iPad now becoming affordable to many Indians.

Unless Android device manufacturers now begin to take care of software upgrades post sales, they will be very badly hit. There is too much fragmentation in the operating system versions, and this will be the most important concern to address.

If prices of low end tablets will further come down to keep up with competition, the lower end consumer will also benefit.

Certainly a very interesting stage, will this be the tipping point? If so it will greatly benefit my latest attempt at entrepreneurship

Quote: Why Smartphones & tablets are picking up

My friend, Suraj, has this to say about the success of smart-phones/tablets:

It is not the jazzy UI or touch abilities that drive the success of smart-phones and tablets. The real reason is that now more and more people are addicted to internet & social media, and for accessing that, regular PCs/Desktops are an overkill. Smart-phones and tablets are handy devices offering connectivity to all your on-line activities, and this is the reason behind their success.

Well said.

More on the Indian tablet PC market

Continuing from my previous post on the Indian Tablet Market. Two major events occurred which are related to tablet PC industry- Kapil Sibal unveiled Datawind's 'Akash' tablet at sub 2500 rupees, and within a day Steve Jobs, the man who gave a fresh life to tablets, passed away.

Many professionals today mistake Steve as the innovator of tablets - that is not true. Just like iPod was not the first mp3 player, iPad arrived a few years after tablets were first released. All the earlier devices failed miserably, and full credit to Steve to have had the guts to venture into this area, as well as make it a roaring success.

I think even other good tablet makers like samsung owe it to Steve for having revived the market and indirectly enabling their sales too.

Meanwhile I have bought my first tablet- an android 2.3 based iBall Slide - a value for money device with decent features at 14k rupees. The one reason I chose this over slightly lower priced competitors like Reliance Tab, Beetel Magiq, Mercury mTab, etc was the presence of USB Host - the ability to connect USB keyboard, mouse, pendrives, etc - which were otherwise found only in the 30k device range. Hopefully this device will meet all the needs till the products become more mature. The only one irritant in using it is that some websites still work with only Internet Explorer - which is not possible with android or iOS devices, and that's the only area where netbooks score.

Apart from Samsung Galaxy Tab, I think another device worth checking out is Asus Eee Pad, which at 29k priced bundled with keyboard dock and android honeycomb OS is hi end at much lower price than iPad.

Going at this rate, I think over a period of next 3-5 years, computing will move over to tablets entirely.

Indian Tablet Market looking up

Till recently there were only very limited options if one wanted a tablet computer in India - with the exception of OlivePad, the only other options were the highly expensive Apple iPad and the moderately expensive Samsung Galaxy Tab.

August has been a month of many launches- all of them in the android space. I'm sure all technologists would've by now concluded that the mobile/tablet platforms are now entirely between android and iOS platforms. And looks like the Indian market is behaving differently from the world market - Apple is far from being the market leader here. Reliance 3G tab, Beetel Magiq, Mercury mTab are new options available at sub 13k prices, with the latter two being sub 10k. This certainly would hot up the tablet market like never before.

There is also talk of amazon too coming out with a forked version of android based tablet akin to kindle- I'm yet to know the price. I'm also hearing of spice coming out with a tablet. None of these new tablets are available yet in stores for checking out. among the tech specs of OlivePad, mTab and Magiq, I liked mTab most, at par with GalaxyTab spec at a much lower price. I wish there was a chance to try out these devices for a real feel - the tech specs may not always live up to a good user experience.

Will update the blog once I get to lay my hands on these devices at a store. Do drop in a comment if anyone of you are aware of stores having the newer devices.