My friend Harry has done some deep sleuthing (read: he Googled it) and it’s seeming that two of the “user testimonials” in Samsungs latest ads are in fact made by actors:
I did notice, however, that freelance travel writer Joan Hess bears a striking resemblance to New York actress Joan Hess:
And that real estate CEO Joseph Kolinski could be New York actor Joseph Kolinksi‘s twin brother:
Filmmaker Karl Shefelman, on the other hand, looks a lot like…filmmaker Karl Shefelman. Who works for a New York production company. One that’s done work for Samsung.
Don’t fret too much folks, they aren’t the only ones to have faked some reviews.
Now I know I’m a long-time non-fan of Android, and my experience with the Xoom is only exacerbating those feelings, but really, what is going on here? I wrote a post back in the day explaining why I felt the tablet market was generally doomed, but the iPad proved me wrong. Or did it? Is the reality that only Apple can ship a “tablet-like product” successfully?
I think the answer might be something like “for the overwhelming majority of regular people, absolutely yes.”
As far as I can tell, the best use of any Android tablet presently on the market is to develop apps for Android tablets. Yes, I’m dead serious with that comment. Laptop mag just did a head-to-head comparison with the Xoom and iPad 2, and somehow actually managed to make it a “close call” – but then again, the guy writing it somehow managed to find the Android interface “better” than the iPads. If you are technically proficient, interested in widgets, and like coding, I could see that perspective. If you aren’t, it’s flat out wrong. But I digress (like usual).
So I come back to the key question here: who is using these things, and to what end? I’ve *never* seen one in the wild, and I live in the utter mecca of techieness (heck I even see Nooks on the bus to work). Further, I’ve yet to meet a single person outside of the tech echochamber who is even really aware of these devices, let along truly in the market for one. Go to the retail stores and try to get demos – there’s typically at most a single person in a store who even knows how to demo them (and yes, I do go to stores and do ask these kinds of questions – and anyone who claims to understand regular consumers and how they use technology should do at least the same)!
I’m working on another post (coming soon) on where I feel there is a market opportunity for HP and the like to bring tablets to market successfully, but if there’s one aspect I’m utterly convinced of – there is virtually no consumer market for non-iPad tablets. And by “virtually none” I’ll go with “about a million in North America, maybe two tops.”