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Pay to use Wi-Fi on Xoom
- Thread starter bluemonkeyguy
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I wasn't aware of the price either... wow.
For something that's billed to be an iPad competitor, they sure are shooting themselves in the foot.
Granted, based on the current iPad its 729:800, but still, it's not a good marketing point, especially now with this wifi "issue."
I honestly didn't expect it to sell well anyways though.
For something that's billed to be an iPad competitor, they sure are shooting themselves in the foot.
Granted, based on the current iPad its 729:800, but still, it's not a good marketing point, especially now with this wifi "issue."
I honestly didn't expect it to sell well anyways though.
The way Xoom is priced and on top of it some crap, its pretty much DOA. First impression is the most important. I don't see them gaining market later even if they released a better product at better price..
I find the move absolutely disgusting and considering this is the flagship Honeycomb device Google have been touting in media events, they should apply pressure on retracting this stupid requirement for the sake of "openness".
Holding the consumer to ransom? I hope it all blows up in Motorola's face.
Holding the consumer to ransom? I hope it all blows up in Motorola's face.
But that's one of the key problems with Android in general. It's billed as being "open," but the model Google uses is to put the software out there and let the mobile providers do the contracting. Since the mobile providers want lock-in, Android becomes open in name only, but in actual practice it's not what most people think of as open.
Unless you are a developer, in which case everything on the market is open to your skills, but most people are not developers. For the average consumer, Android is as open as Verizon (or whoever) wants it to be (hint: not much).
Unless you are a developer, in which case everything on the market is open to your skills, but most people are not developers. For the average consumer, Android is as open as Verizon (or whoever) wants it to be (hint: not much).
I wholeheartedly agree with you and this is one of the main reasons my last two phones have been the Nexus One and Nexus S.
The way Google have been showing it off, I expected the Xoom to be the "Nexus" of Android tablets, open to development, hacking and all. The mere fact that they have the ability to disable a critical hardware component like Wifi makes me worry about what other restrictions Motorola have on the thing.
That's the thing about Android. Its becoming quite apparent that all this openness benefits the carriers far more than it does the end users.
Well, I'd bet that a huge percentage of iPad sales are wifi 16 or 32gb models, so offering a competing product at a $200-300 premium (over 50%!) is going to be a major turn off. Most non-Apple consumers don't spend $800 on a laptop!
Millions, clearly. That's why I run an AT&T iPhone and have been hovering around MacRumors for five years.
I mean, seriously, do you buy a 3G device and then get angry that they want you to buy at least a month of 3G service? What about that is logical?
There's quite a bit of difference. Wifi is a hardware feature that costs the carrier absolutely nothing for the consumer to use. 3G is a network feature that costs the carrier to implement and maintain.
It's the same thing if the carrier said you have to pay a monthly fee to use the SD card reader for example. It's completely ludicrous and is going to be lambasted in the media and by consumers. I still think it's a mistake and they mean wifi tethering, as it's so unbelievable that a company would do this.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2; en-gb; GT-P1000 Build/FROYO) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)
I'm with Spinedoc on this.
Of course I understand Verizon want some kind of return on the hardware sold but considering the price of it, there is no need to hold the consumer at ransom by disabling hardware components like Wifi.
Will Verizon persue a similar tactic with Apple and a CDMA iPad at all? I doubt Apple would ever bow down and let them lock consumers from of off the shelf features like Wifi.
I'm with Spinedoc on this.
Of course I understand Verizon want some kind of return on the hardware sold but considering the price of it, there is no need to hold the consumer at ransom by disabling hardware components like Wifi.
Will Verizon persue a similar tactic with Apple and a CDMA iPad at all? I doubt Apple would ever bow down and let them lock consumers from of off the shelf features like Wifi.
For navigation purposes, has the GPS....so thats why, pretty simple! I got my 3G because I thought it would be awesome to have Navigon anywhere I wanted on a 10" screen.....word!
I guess my point is not that it isn't a little skeevy (which it is), but that I don't really see how it's a dealbreaker. It's not like most people who are going to go and shell out the $800 to buy one of these things in the first place are going to feel put upon that they have to pay an extra $20 to supply the thing with data.
I know what you are saying, but as a consumer who is not afraid to spend money (I have a 64gb 3g ipad) and also as one who is not afraid to have the monthly fee (I pay monthly for 3g) this would definitely be a deal breaker for me. If I wanted wifi alone, or if later on I wanted to cancel my 3g but keep wifi, but the carrier said I would have to pay for wifi, you can bet I would steer far away, and once again it's not a financial issue.
Changing your stance from equating paying for the hardware feature of wifi to paying for 3g service to saying since the device costs so much consumers won't care isn't cutting it. This will put a big crimp in the sales of the unit and I'll bet they stop doing it very shortly after it gets released. There are just too many choices out there, especially upcoming choices this year. I also see a perfect opportunity for Apple to market the ipad2 as being the tablet where you don't have to pay for wifi, kind of like their PC vs Mac commercials.
It's all about activation of the device, same as phones. You know, like how you can't use WiFi (or anything) on an iPhone unless you first activate it.
The Verizon Samsung Tab had the same requirement: one month's 3G subscription in order to get past the startup activation screen. So it's nothing new except apparently to some people who haven't been paying attention.
Fortunately, Verizon/Samsung had built in a "secret" method to get past the activation screen... something I used with the Tab I got off eBay.
Wonder if the Xoom also has a bypass.
The Verizon Samsung Tab had the same requirement: one month's 3G subscription in order to get past the startup activation screen. So it's nothing new except apparently to some people who haven't been paying attention.
Fortunately, Verizon/Samsung had built in a "secret" method to get past the activation screen... something I used with the Tab I got off eBay.
Wonder if the Xoom also has a bypass.
But at least ATT doesn't charge you a month data plan to activate your iphone/ipad. I didn't realize they already implemented this with the Tab, I'm quite surprised there wasn't more of an outcry. Ahh well I guess the consumer will endure more and more abuse every year.
Well, the iPhone has a bypass too but I don't think that was the point of this conversation. A tablet is not a phone.. why is it constrained to the activation rules of a phone?
Exactly
Can you imagine all of the hate and bad press if it was apple who did this?
Even ignoring the fact that it's a tablet and not a phone, this isn't true: If you buy an unlocked, unsubsidised, iPhone you don't need to pay anything to a carrier to activate it - you just plug it into iTunes.
At the price the Xoom it doesn't appear to be subsidised so you shouldn't be forced to pay a carrier before you can use it.
and you probably have to give them a credit card to activate the one month and then they will make it as difficult as possible to cancel. I really doubt they will let you just sign up for one month with no auto-renew. They are going to want people to signup for 1 month with auto-renew and then "forget" to cancel.