It is typically liberal ideology that attempts to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. Do you buy your MacBook from a carrier? Your netbook? Your laptop? Your desktop? Why on earth would you contemplate buying your tablet from them?
Worse, carrier supported tablets are contrary to present trends. Why would I want to spend $30-$50 a month for network access for my tablet? If there’s not a wifi signal nearby, I turn one on from my phone.
If the world measured the success of netbooks from carrier sales, they would have laughed at the abysmal sales and said no one would ever buy one. Yet every coffee shop is filled with them. Besides, I already bought my tablet, a Nook Color, and likely I’ll have a fully functional version of Honeycomb before the first retail tablet featuring it can be purchased by an end user.
Beyond all this, the constant and frustrating experience retail users have with phone updates being delayed and not coming out in a timely basis further supports the idea that people would greatly shy away from carrier sponsored tablets. Samsung still hasn’t given a firm date for updating to the Gingerbread version of android. Luckily for those suckered into two years of owning a Galaxy Tab, CM7 is available. And Cyanogen has already committed to bringing Honeycomb to the tablets.
And don’t forget future OS support. There are Android phones out there that ended official OS upgrade support rather quickly. Look at the Droid Eris, released in Nov 99 with Android 1.5, upgraded to 2.1 in May 2010 (7 months after 2.1 was released), and that’s it. No Froyo. It will never officially get the OS version that came out only six months after the phone’s release. The Motorola Devour is even worse. It came out in March 2010 with 1.6, and never got an upgrade beyond that.
Phone owners under contract should get upgrades throughout their 2-year contract lengths. These Android owners, and others, got screwed.
Contrast, only the original iPhone, last sold almost three years ago, can’t take the latest iOS. Compatibility of the current iOS version goes back to the iPhone 3G released in mid 2008.