Samsung announces 7" iPad

Behold! Samsung's Galaxy Tab. It's an iClone with a 7" display and looks lovely: shown off in the video are Android 2.2, voice calling and a camera.

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steeroy

Also shown in the video: enormous chunky pixels. Eep. Zooming that close never makes a display look good.
friendpuppy

Basically it’s a third-rate iPad.
Multifarious

An iClone…? Really..?

Then what is an iPad? A portable Microsoft Surface?

Before you start pointing fingers about who’s cloning from who you might want to check outside your fanboy bubble..

Here you can see where steve gets his ideas…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgvVFSIBvis
- gobo
  
  Yes, really, absolutely. Apple created the form factor and the concept. Everything that follows that form factor and product concept, which did not fundamentally exist before Apple created it, is copying them (or “following” them, or “elaborating on” them, if you prefer). That’s not a bad thing — competition within a product concept is awesome — but it’s the truth.
  - akbar56
    
    I think you will find that the PADD from Star Trek outdates anything from Apple in terms of form factor and concept.
    - gobo
      
      That’s true, absolutely. I don’t normally append “…in the real world, rather than the imaginary future” when I’m talking about prior art.
    - mkultra
      
      Minor quibble here, but the PADD didn’t actually exist.
      
      The Greeks wrote of magical horseless chariots, but Henry Ford was still a pioneer.
- Anonymous
  
  The Surface wasn’t the first tablet, and no one wants a Surface anyway.
jamiethehutt

I want a tablet with a USB port and a real linux OS… Something that I can use instead of my laptop…
- CL114C0777498D
  
  that’s what i’m waiting on too. already have my phone to run a mobile os, need a full os on a tablet for it to be useful to me.
  - Jerril
    
    I was ready to buy a nice convertable tablet netbook, but then all the manufacturers pulled their plans after Apple dynamited the market.
    
    Jerks. (Both Apple, AND all the folks that canceled their tablet PCs)
DrPretto

Ha, It is NOT iclone, just look at the specs,

Android 2.2 running on a 7-inch display, video calling, Swype, HD movie playback, “Flash support,” GPS navigation, an e-reader, and plenty more.
It KILLS ipad.
So by your logic every tablet is an iclone?

As a linux user, I will buy it instead of the ipad, with Android I can do whatever I want, with ipad you can only do what Steve Jobs want you to do with your the product you bought, I dont like apple philosophy.
Jerril

Accusations of iCloning are based entirely of ignorance of all the slate-form-factor PCs that have been out there before Apple got into the market and popularized the idea.

They’ve been especially popular in medical clinics (to capture and interpret physician handwriting and give the physician immediate access to searcahble medical references and databases) and in warehouses (for inventory management).
- DrPretto
  
  Exactly, a little history about tablets:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook
  “The Dynabook concept was created by Alan Kay in 1968, two years before the founding of Xerox PARC. Kay wanted to make â€œA Personal Computer For Children Of All Ages.â€ The ideas led to the development of the Xerox Alto prototype, which was originally called â€œthe interim Dynabookâ€.[1][2] It embodied all the elements of a graphical user interface, or GUI, as early as 1972. The software component of this research was Smalltalk, which went on to have a life of its own independent of the Dynabook concept.
  
  The Dynabook concept described what is now known as a laptop computer or, (in some of its other incarnations) a tablet PC or slate computer with nearly eternal battery life and software aimed at giving children access to digital media. Adults could also use a Dynabook, but the target audience was children.”
DrPretto

iclone?
Then what about sony cameras vs panasonic vs canon vs nikon; are all clones?
Rob Beschizza

No comments have been deleted, as far as I can tell.

Also, it should not be necessary to point out that stuff in science fiction shows aren’t actually real.

The gadgets that Apple, Samsung and so on make are consumer products that actually work. They represent a technological, engineering and industrial design ecosystem that has nothing whatsoever to do with cardboard boxes stamped with Okudagrams.

No-one is saying Apple invented the idea of a tablet computer. Apple is just the company that is selling them to our mothers, which is why Samsung is ditching Microsoft-ordained junk like the Q series tablet PC in favor of an iClone.
- Brainspore
  
  Also, it should not be necessary to point out that stuff in science fiction shows aren’t actually real.
  
  If Stephen Hawking announced a working design for a faster-than-light starship tomorrow some people out there would still be bitching that he stole the idea from Zefram Cochrane.
Anonymous

I think anyone can call anything that looks at all close to an iPad an iPad clone because no tablet has had 1% of the iPad’s commercial success nor media coverage. Cool your jets, Apple haters, I’m sure Andriod will take over soon, and then you can gloat.
wrybread

Far and away the best part of this story is all the commenters acting like that thing doesn’t look *exactly* like an iPad. Or a big iPhone. One even going so far as to claim that Apple gets their ideas from Microsoft.

Hilarious! Bravo! Encore encore!
robulus

Star Trek sucks anyway.
Rob Beschizza

TODAY I DIALED PATIENT CIRCUMSPECTION AND A DESIRE TO ELABORATE. THANK ME LATER.

So, if you think that anyone was selling this sort of thing before Apple did, you might be confusing spec sheets for products.

It’s amazing that there are still people out there who not only think a 3 pound resistive touchscreen UMPC running Windows XP and an iPad are fundamentally the same thing, but regard other people’s failure to see them as functionally identical as “ignorance.” It’s exactly the delusion that’s let Apple completely own this game in the last few years.

We have a cycle of companies ignoring (and even ridiculing) what Apple does and then copying it afterwards, all the while pretending that their me-too products are coincidentally similar implementations of long-running consumer fictions like ‘touchscreens’ and ‘tablets’. You kow what, folks? I don’t like a lot of what Apple does, either. But that cycle, and the fact Apple is making all the money, what’s made Apple the reference point for just about everything deemed newsworthy in consumer electronics. It’s what’s let that one company turn the futuristic thrill of mainstream tech writing into the business beat’s most boring wank pit.

Also, as a matter of general principle, anyone advocating for open-source tablets on the basis they might run Flash really needs a punch in the sack. Traitors.
akbar56

A. Wow guys…it was a joke.

B. The claim that Apple “created” the form factor and concept is still laughable.

C. One could even debate that the PADD as a concept (or any other single unit-touch screen-fictional-computer device) predates the Newton.
- DrPretto
  
  Do you remember a T.V. series called Quantum Leap?
  Al used a device called “Ziggy” something like an A.I. pocket pc:
  http://www.quantumwiki.co.uk/index.php?title=Ziggy
  
  But nothing like Nikola Tesla prediction of mobile phones in 1909:
  http://recombu.com/news/nikola-tesla-predicted-mobile-phones-in-1909_M11683.html
  
  and his article on Popular Mechanics:
  http://books.google.com/books?id=nN8DAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA476&vq=tesla&pg=PA476#v=onepage&q&f=false
  - akbar56
    
    Technically, Ziggy was a super computer AI inside the Quantum Leap facility. The handheld device was just a data link Al used to get specific information since he couldn’t verbally have a two way conversation with Ziggy in the imaging chamber.
    
    But no..I don’t remember that show :)
    
    @rob…Again, I was injecting a little humor here. You guys take things way to seriously sometimes. But I still find the idea that Apple “created the concept and form factor” to be extremely laughable.
k88dad

Some thoughts:

Steve Jobs is known for how he implements his ideas and not for where he gets them. “He stole from Xerox” should be read as “We all have a modern GUI because he stole from Xerox”. Apply history to today’s hardware and draw your own conclusions.

El Predicto predicts that Flash will suck on this device, as it has on every mobile device that has included support. Whoa! I’m really going out on a limb there!

Vaporware vs. hardware: it’s a concept that some people can’t wrap their heads around. By the time the competitors catch up, Apple will have moved the goalposts. It happens over and over.
DrPretto

Apple marketing: “Magical and Revolutionary, the BEST internet experience”
And you can not even watch internet videos that arent on youtube, come on, dont make me laugh.
Oh and there were touchscreen phones before apple iphone, apple just make the U.I. pretty.
Just wait, since this november the market will have hundreds of better options than the ipad, which doesnt even have 1 USB port, or web cam.
Yes, the war started and apple never will sell more tablets than other brands.
- Anonymous
  
  They didn’t make it pretty, they made it usable and enjoyable.
  
  That’s the difference between failure and success. Don’t kid yourself on subjects you clearly don’t fully understand.
  
  Why do I need a USB port for an iPad? I don’t have any USB ports on my toaster or my car either … cause they’re not required. Same goes here; it’s not a computer, stop likening it to one.
  
  ‘Better’ to you seems to mean ports that you don’t need, customisation that’s intended for a different product, and hardware that won’t improve the functionality or experience; if you’re lucky you’ll even pay half the price for a product that’ll last half the time, bargain!
  
  What you’re referring to is what YOU want, not what the market demands. Tablets have existed for years, but it took the iPad to get one in the hands of the masses. Like it or not, it’s a product that’s making a lot of people happy and filling a small and non-vital role in peoples lives; admittedly partially creating a need, but none-the-less filling it well.
  
  As it happens I don’t own one, but that’s because I’m not the target market and wouldn’t benefit from the product. I also see no point in a tablet with a full OS and laden with ports. I’ve got a laptop for that; prodding the screen wouldn’t improve the UX or make tasks easier … it would be a gimmick that wouldn’t even outlast my trip to the cashier.
Anonymous

LOL at all the iClone offended (untwist your panties folks).

It’s an iClone because they’re piggy-backing off of the success of the iPad. It has nothing to do with the innovation of the technology; it’s a business clone, not a product clone.

It will also likely make 5% as much revenue and fall apart in half the time; but hey, false economy has worked for phone makers for years.

Also, last time I checked Android isn’t really any more open than iOS; seems more like you guys are just as brainwashed by Google as others are brainwashed by Apple.

I’m in the fortunate positoon to be able to appreciate technology and UX at face value.

Also, RE: comments pertaining to a tablet with a full OS? Seriously? You want a laptop … but without a keyboard? Sounds really useful …
Anonymous

And, based on other Samsung devices, it will be completely unsupported by Samsung from here on out. Hope you like 2.2, cause there will never be an upgrade.
- Blue
  
  And, based on other Samsung devices, it will be completely unsupported by Samsung from here on out. Hope you like 2.2, cause there will never be an upgrade.
  
  This is what I’ve heard elsewhere and the principle reason I won’t be buying it, despite wanting to to.
  
  If it’s true, Samsung’s short-sightedness will undermine every effort they make in their Android devices. Shame.
DrPretto

Seems like some comments are deleted, maybe by some apple fan?
dculberson

I am very far from an Apple fan boy – don’t own a single Apple computing device and just one iPod nano – and Rob is 100% right on this thing. Apple crated this market, this looks exactly like an iPad midi (not mini – that’s the iPod touch) and is clearly a clone.
CL114C0777498D

Samsung announced a new tablet, not an iPad. also, in what way is it an iClone?
- oldtaku
  
  I’m looking forward to Android 2.2 tablets – but that thing does look exactly like they said ‘Hey, let’s make an Android iPad!’ At least from the front. It’s obviously thicker and a bit more square. But it’s certainly not trying to copy the industrial design of a Kindle or Streak.
- Michael Smith
  
  #2,
  
  Its a clone of an iOS device.
  - CL114C0777498D
    
    don’t see how it’s a clone, there have been tablets before the ipad. plus it doesn’t even look like an ipad, it has the android buttons on the side. totally don’t understand your position.
oldtaku

PADD or whatever, I don’t care who ‘invented’ the tablet idea – but that Samsung pad is so obviously an iPad lookalike that it has to be deliberate. It is an iClone; not a KindleClone, and certainly not a LenovoPadClone.
sergeirichard

Give it a digitizer and I’ll buy it.