Tablet Thursday Digest: Android And iOS And WebOS, Oh My!

Another busy week for tablets, as the market segment just keeps heating up.

From the industry leader at the moment, we have some great news. Apple’s iCloud and iWork  with Cloud Support have gone into Beta for developers. No news on how magical it might be just yet.

Not that it matters what it’s like, because you’ll still use it.

Then there was Monday’s release, pull, and release of Skype’s iPad app. This was quickly followed up by an Android client update today (just in time for this article — thanks Skype!), allowing for official support of more handsets. It makes you wonder why anyone would bother with FaceTime.

Speaking of Apple, Samsung Australia got fed up with Apple’s attempts to block the release of the Galaxy Tab 10 and finally issued a “screw you guys!” statement. Sure, it looks like legalese, but seriously, that’s hardcore. Not content with flipping off their competitor, Samsung decided to offer a  hearty “and your little dog too” to fans of their Tab 10’s clean, stock Honeycomb interface by releasing a TouchWiz update to the popular tablet. The update goes live tomorrow, but tech journalists in NY and London got to go hands on early. Plenty of people like TouchWiz, but for those of us who don’t, there’s the rather rude fact that if you don’t chose to update, then while your tablet will be fine, you will be unable to get future updates (such as the forthcoming Ice Cream Sandwich).

How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat yer meat?!

Android updates can be so cruel, can’t they? Take Motorola for example. They’ve been promising Android 3.2 for the XOOM any day now. While sources indicate that day is coming soon, they also indicate that SD card support on the XOOM will be read only. This is an absolutely baffling decision.

Almost as baffling as deciding to buy a XOOM in the first place.

Of course, if you’re signing up for Comcast cable, you don’t have to buy one.

Toshiba’s pushed out their own update, fixing the reported sleep issues in the Thrive tablet. Sadly, it’s unlikely that this does anything to fix perceptions of the Thrive as an “over-sized” device.

For those that have been complaining, Sharp may have a product on the way. The Galapagos line is going to feature a 10.8″, 7″ and interestingly, a 5.5″ tablet. No date for a U.S. release has been set yet, but I’m interested in seeing what sort of market there is for such an itty-bitty tablet.

Size is one thing though, price another. For those looking to save a few bucks, Pandigital just popped out a $170 eReader that can likely be hacked soon. They also just came out with the Nova and the Planet, two sub-200, non-Honeycomb tablets.

Both the Asus Eee Slider and RIM’s Android emulation layer for the Playbook  have been delayed, which is a damn shame as the Android layer in QNX could make the Playbook a lot more usable. As for the Slider, if you don’t want to try that out, then you don’t get as techciteted as I do.

If you don’t find this neat, then there is little hope for you.

Remember My First Sony? A startup thinks your kid needs My First Android Tablet. I think this device will have very limited appeal; I wouldn’t let most infants and toddlers near a rugged G’zone phone, let alone a tablet.

It can survive fire and water. Dunno about teething.

Last and sadly likely least to everyone but me, HP has had another busy week. After spending a Sunday kvetching with fellow Techcitement writer Mordy Gilden about the glitches in the TouchPad’s version of WebOS, I woke up to an update that addressed many of those issues. While largely a bug fix, it’s a needed bug fix, so I welcome it. However, what HP really needs to do is bring the price down, and that’s starting to be a trend too. It started when Geek.com knocked $80 off the price. Now, HP has it on sale this weekend for $100 off, and Staples offers the same. I personally think $399 should have been the price out of the gate, considering that the device is really targeted at the last gen iPad, but it looks like that’s going to be correcting soon. I wouldn’t be shocked to see a price change in time for the holiday shopping season.