Fred Wilson posted some early thoughts about the Nexus 7 tablet on his blog this morning ((Including a picture of his foot.)) and the thoughts are really interesting to me. Coming from a diehard iPad lover, this type of a post really amuses me. While Wilson seems to really like the Nexus 7, a lot of the things he talks about seem like a joke that they are just now available.
He states:
>There is also something very comforting about getting a clean build of the most recent version of Android on a device.
Think about that for a moment. Wilson is all about Android and just now, in July of 2012, is he getting an Android tablet with a “clean build”. Amazing. What does this remind you of? Perhaps Windows and all the preload crap that used to come with it from HP, Dell, Sony, et al…
Two other things I want to point out.
1. Wilson said he put some of his favorite apps on the home screen. What strikes me about this is that there aren’t that many apps on his home screen and a couple of his most favorite aren’t even available on this device. That’s one area where Apple is just destroying Android: all apps available on all devices with the only distinction being between iPhone and iPad. That’s phenomenally powerful and easy for iOS users. What is also striking to me is that the apps he chose are honestly pretty ugly UIs from what I have seen of them — of course I will know more when I get my Nexus 7.
2. Wilson states that he really likes the Nexus 7, that his primary use case is reading in the Kindle app. Before he said all that though, he talks about how much better the Kindle app is on the Kindle Fire. I get that the Fire is a pretty shitty tablet, but if you really are primarily using it for reading, I have to believe it would be better than the Nexus 7 based solely on what Wilson is saying about the Kindle app on the Nexus.
Again, take this with a grain of salt since I haven’t used a Nexus 7, but it’s kind of like when Apple made the transition from PowerPC to Intel and boasted how Macs are *so* much faster now and all the Windows geeks laughed at Apple nerds — because they had that speed all along. Kind of like that, except that Android isn’t even close to on par with iOS on tablets yet.