Adventures with the Galaxy Tab – The Wild Wild West of Applications

Posted on by

Time for some more fun and thoughts with the Galaxy Tab 7 – you might recall from parts one and two that the unit has been supplied by O2 for me to use in the real world, i.e. not in  an office or reviewing space, but out in the rough and tumble streets of Edinburgh.

Android as an operating system puts a lot of strength on the third-party applications, and as the Galaxy Tab is pushing to be “more than a phone” (I’ll discuss this point later on in the month), the applications that the device run become critically important. Out the box the Tab is a pretty solid device, and there is the safety net of the Android Market to grab more features and functions should you need them. To be honest once I added in clients for the social network (see the part two of the Tab Adventures) and a few games to while away the time, I don’t need any more applications. So it’s nice the facility is there, but like every other computing device, the basic load-out gives 80% of the functionality, it’s a simple matter to sort out most (but rarely all) of what you want to do with a few third-party applications.

But you also have the Samsung Apps, a secondary marketplace in the device. I know the politics and why it’s there, but I’m at the bleeding edge of stuff like this. The average user is going to wonder why there are two, and one of them (the Samsung one) seems to have far fewer apps than the other one. If Apple have taught the consumer electronics marketplace anything, it should be to have a laser-like focus on the user experience and make it smooth, easy, and without any issue. It’s fair to say multiple app store icons are an issue

Thankfully the only O2 icon in the device doesn’t lead to yet another store, UK networks are pretty savvy and realise a walled garden does not make for a happy and contented consumer any more. The icon simply has O2 send the internet settings back to the Tab if they need reset. A nice touch, and one that should help reduce support desk call time.

But there are too many apps on the Tab as it comes out the box. The day has finally come in the UK when the crapware fills up your app launcher, with apps that cannot be deleted by regular means. You’ll never get rid of them, they’ll always be there, like a bad stain. I thought everyone had learned what this did to Dell’s reputation?

Is this O2 adding value, or Dell bundling in more applications (for a fee) to help bring down the build cost of the Tab? If I had to speculate, I’d say the latter (Samsung Apps, Samsung Games, Samsung Movies, these might be a hint), but it’s not a road I want to see hardware go down. At the very least let us delete apps from our personal devices.

Part of the smartphone game is of course to give the user the confidence that applications are out there. Even though I’m using only a small set of applications (and they are pretty mainstream, Dropbox, Facebook, Foursquare, Kindle, Twitter and Skype) the idea that there are tens of thousands of apps out there is a wonderful safety net. Confidence that your phone will do what you want it to do, even if you have no idea if there is a version of Now Boarding out there for Android (which there isn’t…)

Here’s the secret about the Galaxy Tab. It’s a workhorse. Unlike the iPad, where you can just play around with the icons, menus and slidy things, Android lets you get on with what you want to do. I love the feeling of the Tab and how it works, but in a  good way it’s a ll grunt. I want email I switch it on, go to email, do it, and get out again. There’s no feeling that I should play around with things on the screen.

This isn’t magic happening that you want to gape over, it’s what magic looks like once you become blase about it and let it be used as a tool and not as entertainment. That’s what I’m taking away from the Galaxy Tab 7. It’s not a toy, it’s not a wonderful plaything to show off with, it’s an instrument that you use to get a job done.

The question is what is the job the Tab was designed to use, and is that what I want from it? That’s the next bit of the adventure.