Playbook vs iPad
16 November 2010
RIM have posted a video comparing the performance of the Playbook browser against the iPad.
(If you can’t view the above video, watch it on YouTube)
It’s an interesting video, and the performance of the Playbook’s browser is impressive. I do have one beef with the comparison though — at about the 1:23 mark, where both browsers are rendering the adidas.com website, the narrator notes that because the iPad doesn’t support Flash, the iPad experience is a ‘rather mundane, boring-looking HTML site’ compared to the full-on Flash experience on the Playbook.
This has nothing to do with Flash support and everything to do with standards support. If there was a non-Flash, standards compliant alternative rather than the ‘mundane’ and ‘boring’ version shown, the point would be moot.
Or, to put it another way, it is not the fault of the iPad that adidas’ non-Flash experience is boring & mundane.
Also worth noting is that this is a comparison between a product that’s been on the market for 10 months and a product supposedly due to market in ‘early 2011‘, right around the time Apple might announce the next iPad.
I wonder if RIM will revisit this comparison in early 2011?