Flash
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The only Flash-based site that really matters
Support for Adobe's Flash browser plugin is often touted by Android hardware vendors as one of the advantages that their products offer over Apple's mobile devices. Although the Flash plugin is now relatively mature on Android smartphones and works largely as expected on handsets, its transition to tablets hasn't been entirely smooth.
Adobe's track record with mobile Flash is spotty and the company hasn't been able to deliver a consistently good Flash experience for its tablet partners. Despite working closely with RIM in a high-profile partnership, Adobe's port of Flash to the BlackBerry Playbook was abysmally poor at launch. Adobe also let down Motorola by failing to make Flash ready for the Xoom in time for the tablet's release.
Although Samsung's marketing material for the Tab 10.1 prominently highlights support for Flash, guess what? The plugin isn't included out of the box. Samsung says that Flash will be added to the device in a future over-the-air update. For now, consumers who want it can simply install the Flash plugin themselves from the Android Market. We had no difficulty installing Flash 10.3 on our Tab 10.1 review unit.
We tested several different kinds of Flash content on the Tab 10.1, including streaming video, games, and interactive Flex applications. The performance of Flash content was generally acceptable, aside from some slight lag that we noticed occasionally during video streaming and graphically-intensive games.
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ZOMG CUTE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go43XeW6Wg4
Embedded Flash elements in webpages do tend to slow page scrolling, however, especially on sites with a lot of Flash content. This situation isn't nearly as bad on the Tab 10.1 as it was on the Playbook, but it was still noticeable during use.
The Honeycomb browser has an option in the "Advanced" section of its settings panel to switch browser plugins into an "on-demand" mode. This mode, which works much like popular Flash-block browser add-ons, makes embedded Flash elements in webpages display a placeholder instead; they won't actually load unless one of the elements is tapped. This feature largely fixes the power and performance problems that result from Flash.
Our tests of Flash on the 10.1 demonstrate that it can work reasonably well on mobile tablets—and that its undesirable aspects can be easily avoided by toggling a single browser option. The fact that Samsung hasn't baked Flash into the ROM yet was a bit irritating and might prove confusing to novice users, but it's not a serious obstacle for Android enthusiasts.
QuickOffice
Samsung licensed the full version of QuickOffice for Android and includes it by default with the tablet. QuickOffice is a mobile office suite—with document, spreadsheet, and presentation support—designed for compatibility with standard Microsoft Office document formats.
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Changing the formatting of a document in QuickOffice
QuickOffice has some cool features, including support for syncing with Dropbox and Google Docs. This makes it especially useful for people who have it on both a phone and a tablet. Although its document compatibility isn't perfect, it works well enough to provide real mobile productivity.
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The QuickOffice file browser, with Google Docs and Dropbox accounts
QuickOffice has a full Honeycomb-native user interface, which worked very well on the Tab 10.1. Samsung's decision to include it in the default installation is sound—it adds value and makes the device more immediately useful to enterprise adopters.
Samsung's custom software
As we explained earlier, Samsung didn't ship its TouchWiz user experience layer on the Tab 10.1 at launch—it's coming later in an over-the-air update. There are, however, two Samsung applications on the device.
One is Samsung Apps, which appears to be a pitiful attempt by Samsung to create its own application store. It looks terribly out of place on the Tab 10.1., and it only has a a few third-party applications in it, most of which are already in the Android Market. Samsung Apps looked like a trainwreck from the moment I opened it, but the thing that's really mind-blowing is that it doesn't even work out of the box.
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Kill it with fire
When I attempted to install an application from Samsung Apps, I got a security error message informing me that the installation was not permitted because the device is configured to block software installation from sources other than the Android Market. In order to use the Samsung Apps store (though I can't imagine why anybody would want to), you have to enable side-loading by ticking the "unknown sources" checkbox in the system settings panel. You'd think that Samsung would hardcode an exception for their own curated application store, but it seems that they didn't.
The other Samsung application bundled with the device is the Samsung Music Hub. This is basically a music store backed by 7Digital. It has a (rather garish) Honeycomb-native tabbed layout, but it at least looks like it was designed for a tablet. The hub allows users to purchase music to add to their library.
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Samsung's music store is less hideous than its app store
Given the low quality of the bundled Samsung applications, it's not surprising that the company has delayed rolling out their full set of customizations and branded software. As an Android user, I'm not particularly attached to the stock configuration and often like the customizations offered by manufacturers. In this case, however, I'm not so impressed. Frankly, the parts that Samsung let through the door don't leave much room for optimism about TouchWiz.
Third-party software
Thanks to the stability improvements, Honeycomb is no longer a non-starter. The platform is on much better footing today than it was at launch, but it's still not fully competitive—in large part due to lack of third-party software designed for the tablet form factor.
When we reviewed the Xoom, only a handful of applications even existed that were optimized for large screens, and even fewer used the actual Honeycomb user interface elements. Several of the ones that we looked at, such as the Flixster application, were well-implemented and did a nice job of showcasing the look and feel of Android tablet software. Unfortunately, the number of available tablet applications hasn't grown by much in the months that have passed since Honeycomb's launch.
The Featured Tablet Apps section of the Android Market has a bunch of fullscreen games that stretch to fill the space, but there aren't a whole lot of new conventional applications. To make it seem like less of a ghost town, Google has started throwing in applications that aren't tablet-optimized at all; for example, Dropbox is now included in the tablet section even though it hasn't been adapted for larger screens and merely stretches.
Note-taking applications seem to be a bit ahead of the curve. The best-looking new native Honeycomb applications since Honeycomb's launch are the client apps from Catch and Springpad. These both look great and make excellent use of the Honeycomb user interface elements. As we reported from Google I/O, the folks at Evernote also have a really slick Honeycomb update coming soon.
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Catch's note-taking application
Aside from these programs, the Honeycomb application ecosystem hasn't made much progress. Particularly frustrating to me is the lack of Honeycomb support in Google's own official Google Reader client. One of our readers recommended Newsr, from Locomo Labs, which provides a native Honeycomb interface for Google's news feed service. The interface is cobbled together rather badly and has some odd glitches, but it basically works.
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The Newsr RSS reader displaying my Google Reader feeds
Locomo also has a multicolumn Twitter client called TweetComb that uses the native interface elements. It's got a bit more fit and finish than Newsr and worked basically as expected.
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A multicolumn Twitter client for Honeycomb
These applications are step in the right direction, but they aren't even on the same playing field as the equivalent iOS software. It's tempting to be simplistically optimistic and just assume that it's only a matter of time before Honeycomb's third-party software catches up, but it's not really clear yet.
Platform fragmentation is a key part of the problem. Google hasn't released the Honeycomb source code yet, so a number of hardware vendors still build tablets on top of Android 2.x. Third-party developers want to reach the largest possible audience and aren't willing to alienate buyers of Android 2.x tablets by using Honeycomb-exclusive APIs.
This means that a lot of the third-party software, including the applications that are being designed for tablet users, won't deliver optimal integration with the Honeycomb user experience. Google has taken some good steps to reduce the scope of the problem by backporting Honeycomb's critically important Fragments framework and making it available as a static library that can be used on previous versions of Android.
The Fragments framework allows developers to break their Android application user interfaces into components so that less effort is required to make them work across multiple form factors. For example, developers can use Fragments to take a list-driven phone application and stretch it out into multiple columns on a tablet.
The ability for developers to use this feature on previous versions of Android obviously helps encourage development of tablet-friendly interfaces, but it doesn't address the issue of Honeycomb-native user interface idioms—like the application toolbar and new menu system—not working on Android 2.x tablets.
Third-party developers also cite the abysmally poor performance of the Android SDK's emulator—which is generally used for application testing and debugging during the development process—as one of the biggest challenges that has discouraged them from making more progress on tablet application development.
Google and Samsung put a Tab 10.1 in the hand of every Google I/O attendee, which means that 5,000 developers now have direct access to an Android tablet. That by itself might increase the application count a little bit. In the long run, however, we think it's unlikely that the application availability issue will get better until the release of Ice Cream Sandwich—if it is remedied at all.
Ice Cream Sandwich is the next major version of the Android operating system. Google says that the update will converge the Android tablet user interface and other new Android 3.x features back into the Android mainline, and that the source code will be available. That would pave the way for reducing the fragmentation among Android tablets and probably help to combat the uncertainty that exists today among third-party developers.
As things stand now, too many killer applications—like Flipboard and Netflix—on the iPad have no tablet-friendly Android equivalent. Users have to rely on Android phone software for almost everything, which generally offers a poor user experience on Honeycomb.
Held back by the apps
The Galaxy Tab 10.1 easily has the best hardware of any Android tablet on the market today. Samsung has really outdone itself—the Tab 10.1's svelte profile and impressively light weight (it weighs less than an iPad and has more RAM) are sure to attract the attention of consumers. Hardware excellence isn't the only measure of a good tablet, however; software is arguably just as important—if not more so—on such a personal device.
Google has moved Honeycomb forward with Android 3.1 and has thankfully fixed the stability problems, but that's still not enough. Honeycomb's barren third-party application landscape really hobbles the Tab 10.1 and other Android tablets.
The main users who will find the Tab 10.1 appealing are Android enthusiasts who like the platform's flexibility, are tightly bound to Google's Web service ecosystem, and are comfortable using Android phone applications on a 10.1-inch screen. The Tab 10.1 is also a good choice for third-party Android developers looking for real-world hardware on which to test and develop their applications.
The 16:10 aspect ratio and dual speakers also make the Tab 10.1 a reasonable choice for users who watch a lot of mobile video. One problem, however, is limited content; no compatible Netflix or Crackle applications exist for the Tab 10.1—just Google's nascent video rental service and whatever content is available via Flash in the browser.
The Tab 10.1 is a much more credible product than the Xoom, but it's not quite competitive with the iPad. If Google wants to compete, it still needs to build a vibrant third-party application ecosystem in order to make Android tablets a good option for regular users.