Let's hope that other manufacturers also do this. (Right now, I'm looking at you, Asus, though I'm sure my gaze will wander...)

I expect it's less of a problem on the iOS app store due to the lack of hardware diversity, but in the Android Market a lot of 1-star reviews are "DIDNT WORK ON MY PHONE IT SUX" which may or may not be useful - perhaps it really doesn't work on that model, but I've encountered apps that "don't work" on the model I have but which work fine on my phone.

The 5-star system is generally useless, though, with top ratings given to bad products merely because they function (this $10 PSU will probably fail next week and fry everything it's connected to, but it turned on! Five stars!), and bottom ones given out because of supply issues that had nothing to do with the product itself, or because that user happened to get one that was DOA and they had to get it replaced, or because they've never used the product but are biased against that brand.

Valid point. This does smell a little of "security flaws" which start with "first, get root access"... ("It rather involved being on the other side of this airtight hatchway", as Raymond Chen puts it).

If you have someone's phone or trick them to run code on it that steal their Wallet database, that can be used to obtain some information which you might be able to use to trick them to revealing their credit card details? It's possible, but rather convoluted, and requires the user to make mistakes more than once; I'm sure there are far easier ways to commit fraud.

Like I said, if people look at what's available on the market and decide that the iPad is the tablet they want, that's fine. What disappoints me is that, to many people, the iPad is /the/ tablet - they don't go looking for a tablet and decide they prefer the iPad to the competition, they just make a beeline for the iPads and buy one of them without thinking (or, perhaps, even knowing) about anything else available. Sure, it means that Apple's marketing and their favourable press coverage works. But I'd rather that people actually make an informed decision rather than be blind to the alternatives.

Exactly. This frustrated me before with the iPod - friends and family wouldn't go out looking for an MP3 player, they'd go out looking for an iPod, because an iPod is what you get to play music on the move. And it's just the same now with the iPad. They didn't look at the available tablets on the market and decide that the iPad was the one that best suited their needs. They wanted a tablet, so they bought the iPad, because the iPad is the tablet.

Unfortunately, everyone has now been trained that they need "an app for that". Even if the "app" just contains a browser window. There are a huge number of mobile apps which just duplicate functionality easily available on websites, but users will install the app if it means they get to where they want to go quicker. (I imagine that the majority of people have no idea how to add bookmarks to their home screen, so they'll go looking for a ready-made solution.)

It's not out yet, but following experience with Softmaker Office on Windows Mobile, I'd definitely keep an eye on that. Here's a comparison chart they put together regarding the word processor: http://www.softmaker.com/english/ofatmcomp_en.htm It looks like they're accepting beta testers here, might be worth a try: http://www.softmaker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=182&t=9374

That's true. The Verge test isn't an indication of the type of battery life that users will actually see while web browsing; the realistic usage pattern there would be occasional page loads (high power consumption) followed by relatively idle periods where the device would normally drop down to the companion core. This test keeps the CPU on high load at all times, which isn't where Tegra 3 is designed to shine battery-wise; it's meant to have power when you need it but drop down when you don't, and it's not surprising that battery life suffers when it's asked to run four cores on full power non-stop.

I don't think that making things smaller makes the screen less cramped. In particular, UI elements for a touch device need to be a certain physical size to make them usable, and a higher resolution screen (which I'm all for) means you need to render them at a higher DPI. A larger screen allows for more content room, and I find 3.5" cramped in that respect nowadays too.

I'm the AC (just got an account, hi!). I was Miteh/M'teh, also a bluerider at Telgar.