Android OS – TechCommGeekMom

Just within the last month or so, I’ve been made aware of two tablet computers made for especially kids–and ones that weren’t something like a glorified LeapFrog or VTech toy. There is a place for LeapFrog and VTech-type tablets for the preschool/early elementary school set, but the ones I list below were recent ones that I became aware of targeting the grammar school demographic.

The first one I saw was the Tabeo tablet. I read about it in the following CNET article:

Toys ‘R’ Us unwraps $150 Tabeo tablet for Kids

The Tabeo, according to the article, is an Android-based tablet that includes drop-safe bumpers, wi-fi, and parental controls, and will only be available through this toy selling-enterprise.

The other kids’ tablet that I came across (and I don’t remember how–perhaps watching TV with TechCommGeekSon?) is called the Meep Tablet, which is being released by Oregon Scientific.

You can find the product website here:

Meep Tablet

It, too, is a tablet that runs on an Android OS, has drop-safe bumpers, wi-fi, and parental controls, and it appears that it is sold only through Oregon Scientific.

What would be appealing about these tablets, which are targeted for the ages 6 and up crowd? Part of the appeal would be the price– about $150 for either tablet. Yes, the parental controls and such are nice features–no denying that, but what else? Neither item has much memory, and if kids are going to use these tablets for games, then they need a lot more memory than what a first generation iPhone had. While memory cards can be added, why go to those lengths? Why not just put decent memory chips in the devices in the first place?

Being that I’m an m-learning TechCommGeekMom, I also tried to think about how such devices would be good at a school setting. Could they be used in a school setting? I suppose they could be on some level, and it’d be a decent investment for a school at just $150 a pop. Schools could control the content, using the parental controls. The bumpers used to protect the devices would allow for some longevity for the devices as well. The devices still have video and web cameras, and are still wi-fi enabled. Since they run on a version of Android, they could download Android apps.

But is buying either of these devices worthwhile? Since only the Meep in available now, and the Tabeo is coming out in a few weeks, we’ll have to see what the big reviews say. I wouldn’t mind reviewing them myself if I could get a hold of each of these, so in the meantime, I can only go by what each manufacturer has promoted.

But in thinking about the age group of “6 and up”, and thinking about my own son and how I would want to invest money in a tablet for him (if he wasn’t usually borrowing my iPad), why would I bother to get a kiddie version that’s barely expandable or that could be updated with later software, and had more memory?

My first thoughts turn to the idea of the rumored iPad mini. Oh, if that was out there (and I had the cash), I’d buy that in an instant for my son. Why? Well, first of all, it’s no secret that I LOVE my iPad. I love the variety of apps available–both educational and for games for him. Since he has to use my iTunes account to download apps (and I don’t give him my password), I can supervise what goes on the device and what doesn’t. That seems like parental control to me. I would be able to use the “Find iPhone” app to track him as well, as needed. It also would much more internal memory, I should think, than what the Meep or Tabeo is offering. Even if it only had a 8GB or 16 GB memory, that’s better than the base memory offering of Meep or Tabeo. Additionally, there are already school programs out there using iPads, so adapting to iPad minis would be an easy transition for many schools, and be easy for kids to use due to its smaller size for smaller hands.

This leads my thought stream into thinking about Nexus 7 tablets, Nook HD tablets, Samsung Galaxy or Kindle Fire HD tablets. Why not get those for a child? They are smaller Android-based tablets as well, right? Well, the prices tags are a little higher, that’s for sure. In most situations, however, several of these tablets are not THAT much more money, and yet there would be more flexibility in these devices. I was just even reading a rumor that Microsoft’s Surface tablet may come in a variety that’s in the $200 range. Talk about flexibility compared to some other tablets, even if it’s still more of a PC than a tablet! Why wouldn’t a parent invest in that type of tablet instead, knowing that there are more apps, more downloadable programs, and more memory with these machines?

Business Insider recently posted this article comparing tablets, and it’s worth a read:

The Only 7 Tablets Worth Buying Right Now

Of course, my money is on the hopefully impending iPad mini. But even if that never comes to fruition, these other tablets provide some good bang for your bucks. I think cheap childproofing bumpers and kid-friendly can be found on eBay and other retailers, if that’s a concern. But I see these other mainstream tablets being a better investment, as they can grow and upgrade with your child better than one “made for children”.

My child is part of the demographic that the child tablets are targeting. He’s now 11, and is a very different child than when he was 7, 8 or 9 years old. His tastes and needs have changed in just a few short years. Heck, he’s even upgraded his Nintendo DS two times in the last three years, because he wanted better memory and flexibility with the DS apps offered, as well as more powerful hardware. He might not put it in those terms, but even he knows the game. (No pun intended there!) Looking at tablets for growing kids should be looked at the same way–a tablet, for the investment, should be able to grow with the child, and a regular tablet would better suit those needs. With a regular tablet, not only would there be personal flexibility with games and apps, but more opportunities to use it for educational purposes–for homework, classwork, etc.

And that’s TechCommGeekMom’s take on that. If some manufacturer wants to send me one to be put through the TechCommGeekSon wringer, or if someone has had a different experience with a made-for-kids tablet, let me know. I’d be glad to share your experiences in a post here.

In the mobile technology wars, it’s been a war between the technology of Adobe Flash versus HTML 5. This has been a long going–at least in Internet years–battle royale that has been going on for a while, but it appears that a break has finally happened.

Recently, Adobe made the decision to end the support of Adobe Flash in Google’s latest Android OS, aka “Jelly Bean.” The significance of this is huge. To some, this is a surprise. To others, it is not.

Flash has been the driving force of web animation for a couple decades now on many websites globally. It is a huge part of Adobe’s repertoire, and yet… Flash has had a difficult time making it into the mobile realm. Just in the desktop/laptop realm, a Flash player can be rather unwieldy. There seemed to be only one flavor of Flash made for 32-bit machines, and not for 64-bit machines (like my own) which are becoming more commonplace. Flash programming is an art unto itself as well. As much as many employers want people to have Flash backgrounds as technical communicators, I’ve also been told by developers to not bother learning it unless I really was dying to know, because it was rather complex even for the experienced developer to use, and developing Flash was time consuming.

This was all brought to the forefront about two years ago by the late Steve Jobs who said that Flash would not last, and that HTML5 was the future. He believed this so much that all of Apple’s new mobile products supported HTML5 from the get-go, but not Flash. Aaron Silvers reminded me of this when he posted this article from Business Insider, STEVE JOBS WINS: Adobe’s Ditching Flash, today on Twitter. It’s been a huge deal as iPhones and iPads proliferated with HTML5-friendly browsers, and didn’t support Flash, while other browsers for other tablets, like the Kindle, Nook and other Android-based tablets and phones did.

Adobe’s had a hard time with this, as far as I could see. Just for the record, I love Apple products, but I also love my Adobe products as well, so it’s been a tough debate to follow. I actually wrote a case study about it just several months ago about it, entitled, A Case Study: HTML 5 versus Flash, which discussed the history of this debate and what actions I saw Adobe–as a company–trying to make to work within this new environment that was pushing HTML5. At the time of the writing, Steve Jobs had just passed–literally within days of when I wrote my first draft and final draft of the paper–and so much was out in the media about the great Steve Jobs and how he was the mastermind that he was. I still love Steve Jobs, but after all, he was still human and fallible, so I wanted to show how Adobe countered his attacks against Flash. In the end, the conclusion at the time was that HTML5 was the future, but it wasn’t completely NOW (or at that moment). HTML5 needed more development, and in the meantime, Adobe would adjust with the HTML5 revolution with its work on the Adobe Edge product and bringing that capability to its development products, but in the meantime, Flash was still working on most of the machines in the world, and there was no reason to stop working on that as well.

The way I saw it, Adobe’s point was that you don’t just abandon a long standing technology that’s worked so well overnight, just because the next best thing is starting to come along. It’s like abandoning DVDs just because Blu-Ray disks are out. There has to be some sort of legacy transition, and until HTML5 was more mature and used by those other than the developers at Apple, it didn’t make sense to abandon Flash altogether. But in the meantime, time needed to be taken to start working with the new medium and figure out the best way to move forward.

Fast forward to now, about six to eight months after I wrote the case study above. Mobile technology continues to explode on the market, and the race is on to be the dominant technological mobile device with new tablets and smartphones being introduced. RJ Jacquez posted this article that came out today on Twitter: Adobe: Web standards match 80 percent of Flash features. Arno Gourdol, Adobe’s senior director of Web platform and authoring, was quoted at the Google I/O show, referring to HTML5’s capabilities at this stage, “I think it’s close to 80 percent.” Seeing the writing on the wall, it’s obvious, after reading the rest of the article, that Adobe has been making efforts to keep up with HTML5, and make forward progress on using the web standard. Adobe’s not quite there either in keeping up, but it seems that it’s starting to make significant progress in this direction.

So, where does this leave us in the mobile learning world? As I see it, this is another means towards single-sourcing for learning. Flash has been good, there is no doubt. Some of the most interactive e-learning and m-learning sites (depending on your device’s capabilities) have been Flash driven, and so much has been Flash driven for years that Flash capabilities and interactivity are expected. In speaking with my e-learning developer husband about the topic, he said that Flash, while complicated at times, was easier to develop than HTML5, because HTML5 depended not only on new HTML5 coding, but also javascript and jquery much more than before to have content play the same way–or at least similarly–to Flash. From the sounds of things, those similarities are getting closer and closer. How soon will HTML5 be a true standard in the same way as standard HTML has been all these years? Probably sooner than later, but I see it as a big step towards that single-sourcing solution that will help eliminate the idea of problems with BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). No one will have to worry whether something will work on an Android, Windows or iOS device. It will just work because they all use HTML5.

This is an important issue to follow, because it’s not the mobile technological devices that need to be watched as much as how they will be programmed and used. Flash isn’t gone yet, but seeing what will happen with it, and where and how HTML5 progresses will be a hot issue for some time to come–so keep on top of this!