From iPad to Xoom to iPad2

In the last 12 months I've had an iPad, switched that out a few months ago for an Android Xoom, and then earlier this week switched out again for an iPad2. Let me start by saying I am not overly impressed with the iPad2's wifi issues (even dropped by the "Genius Bar" today where they said since they could tether it to a phone it must not have issues... what?!?), but then that's not why I bought the iPad2.

Let's go back to this time last year. It was at about this point last year I realized that I wasn't going to be able to get a good Android tablet before the end of the year. Not just a cost issue, but there was nothing that was going to be worth buying. So I could keep slogging my netbook along, or I could give in to the inevitable. So I spent several months figuring out the iPad, and getting to understand the advantages, and compromises, of the tablet form factor.

When the Xoom was announced, it caught my fancy since I had already had a bit of time with a Viewsonic G-Tablet, and knew that there was some serious horsepower under the hood. Of course the iPad 2 was being announced then as well, but I was really getting to miss the ability to use Flash. I was also looking forward to possibly writing my own programs and I knew that would be much easier for Android than for iOS. Sure enough, once the WiFi Xoom came out (Homey don't play that 3G/4G stuff), I managed to get hold of one. So I spent the last several months enjoying what I could do with it, as well as playing a bit of a hacker with the 3.0->3.1->3.2 upgrades over on XDA-Developers. It was also great that I could now do almost anything on the web I could do with a desktop, and that outside of a few things where having something stuck in one place is a GOOD thing, I pretty much was doing EVERYTHING with my Xoom.

So why on earth would I go back to an iPad?

About two weeks ago, I was rummaging around for a video editor for the Android, and again getting disappointed that there was nothing to speak of. And while the online version of Photoshop Express was getting me the basics, it wasn't giving me everything I needed. One of my photo sites then did a review of some of the iOS photo software, and I realized that I could be doing more if I had an iPad again. I still held out for a bit though, presuming that there would probably be Android versions of most of those programs. That hope was dashed when I read an article last week that Motorola had sold a grand total of 440,000 3G/4G/WiFi Xoom's compared to Apple's several million iPads. I'm enough of a developer and a businessman to know that if "I" had to decide where to put my energy or my company's energy, I wouldn't need to think long about it.

Sure enough, outside of the WiFi issue, the iPad2 has delivered the missing pieces. It has software to let me control my Canon T2i (more important since a little accident last weekend). It has several different packages for editing my photos - using the RAW version to boot. And of course it has iMovie which will let me work on my travel videos over my lunch hour.

Given that it now looks like the Quad-Core Android tablets will not be available before the Quad-Core iOS, I consider it unlikely that I will flip back anytime soon. I'm going where the software is that will let me be productive, and for now that is definitely in the Apple camp.

For your consideration...