It seems that Samsung has weighed in on the 3rd party announcement that the Tab return rate was a soaring 14% and corrected it to be < 2%.


http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/02/sam...low-2-percent/

Who do we believe?

Good goodness! Look at the Sports Illustrated Android 3 app:
http://www.androidcentral.com/sis-an...trateds-legacy

Looking very nice.

I would tend to agree with a lot of the suggestions.. especially the DLNA compatibility--it's driven me nuts to see that it can DO DLNA but it doesn't seem to work well with non-Samsung devices.

Here's something worth noting:

It appears as if Honeycomb has uses full encryption as standard:


http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/02/hon...ts-encryption/

Add this to the announcement that data will be securely backed-up in the cloud for worry free operation and you have one-heck-of-an enterprise-ready device. Of course, remote-wipe functionality may be still desired even with encryption.

RIMs playbook is going to have some serious competition from Android to add to the pressures already present with the iPad.

And so RIM goes out like a joke. RIMSHOT!

It's almost surreal, but reading posts and comments around the net in relation to Android 3, and most authors and users seem to be pretty impressed with it -- even the admitted iOS fans.

It seems that the Mateus Duarte acquisition is paying off. It was clear in his Engadget interview that his focus was on interaction quality rather than simply aesthetics, and there seem to be resounding comments that Android 3 is simple, elegant, fun and easy to use.

But the major point of distinction between Android and iOS seems to be the complexity; a point I would have to agree with. The new innovative functionality of the bottom bar is very nice, and the homescreen is very nice, but adds a touch more complexity to the overall system which is simply not available on the iPad. I feel a simpler home-screen and a slightly customized bottom dock could improve usability tremendously for the masses. Perhaps forward-thinking carriers will choose to customize along these lines. For example, I would enlarge and include more intuitive icons on the lower dock and put the app launcher shortcut down there as well.

Still, the system looks like it wouldn't take long to figure out for a mildly diligent soul, and the new enhancements provide heaps of new and useful functionality simply not present in iOS. The classic feature/simplicity tradeoff.

The release apps themselves are brilliantly intuitive, and the action-bar provides a very nice and unified location for context-sensitive operations. In this usability area, Android more than competes with iOS, IMNSHO it out-paces it.

An individual demoing Android to Laptopmag said that Android 3 was the future of Android in general. If true, Android will be the OS to beat on many, many fronts.

C'mon Sammy... Get. On. It.

Holy... crap.

I tried out the new market.google.com website to see what the hubbub's all about. I love it. A lot. I saw that I have two Android devices (although it wasn't sure what my Droid was--my guess is because it's rooted). I gave them nicknames/labels and then when I went to try out pushing an install... it let me choose which of them to install onto. I went ahead and installed a free chess game on my Tab through the website. Literally a SECOND later I see the download icon on my Tab's status screen.

OMIGOD...ROCK ON!! This works as fluidly (although seemingly faster) like on my XBOX LIVE account through the xbox.com website. BEAUTIFUL!

I tried pushing to my Droid (rooted and seems to still be running the old Market)... BAM! As smoothly as the Tab, it just appears! I.. loooove the new market! A LOT! It's such an "untethered" feeling! So much better than that half-assed iTunes experience.

It's beautiful, right? It's such a small change, but it makes a HUGE difference in usability. It's quite clear that Android is maturing and I love this push for higher levels of usability rather than simply new features.

I love the large layouts and simple navigation. This is how a web store should be done!

Android is now competing much more intently on the one front that most claim Apple holds a monopoly on -- supreme usability. At the rate of Android's improvement, it will arguably offer a superior experience on all fronts very soon.

Here's Honeycomb showing quick swapping of keyboards.

http://www.androidcentral.com/honeyc...reen-keyboards

You have got to LOVE that lower bar! What a killer feature!

Boom. It seems that fragments will be supported all the way back to Android 1.6!

http://android-developers.blogspot.c...ments-api.html

So even without honeycomb, older devices will reap the multi-pane benefits of compatible Honeycomb apps. Not bad at all.