Wouldn't it make more sense to advertise the device and list its features to a potential convert (I am visiting the site to check it out after all), than show me a "haha you can't see flash page". As soon as I saw the page I just hit back and moved onto something else, as most probably will. A red page without even an image of the device so I might later recognize it as the tablet that does flash isn't helping them much.
You say this based on what, exactly? It sounds to me like they just need to finish working on their web site, and one can't really take more from it than that without inserting one's own personal biases.
The page I saw insulted me. It didn't say "Hang on while we finish up here." I reserve the right to draw conclusions based on their tone, not just on their decision to skip building a cheap and simple web site.
I suspect you are fulfilling exactly what they want out of the page - insulted iOS users foaming at the mouth, expressing their anger and propelling their new site into the headlines with accompanying controversy lasting several days. This will lead to yet more discussion about Flash and the iPad not supporting it which will trickle down to even non-tech users who will slowly absorb the controversy as a simple equation of "the iPad can't do something the Toshiba tablet can".
Toshiba is a major company, and this is a major product launch. I don't think unveiling a single video on their web site is their full advertising plan.
evilduck has a good point. Apple announces and launches within an intimate timelime. When will we really see the Xoom? How many people know about the Xoom now? How many will remember it when they launch in April. After the iPad 2 has likely been announced, possibly even shipped?
I'm excited about the potential for Android here in tablet form... I suspect the race will be nearly identical to Apple's on the mobile front... Apple has been a full cycle ahead. They're pushing the technology, they're advancing innovations in Tablet UI (though I think Honeycomb represents a better tablet-progressive than iOS does)... they were ahead on phones, they're ahead on tablets. That impression alone sells people.
Now that I've actually seen the ad -- no, it didn't insult you any more than the Mac vs. PC ads "insult" the PC user. If you take knocks on Apple products as some sort of personal insult, you might want to step back and take a couple deep breaths.
From another perspective, I run NoScript and couldn't see the site either. Between the petty Apple redirect crap I saw here and it being Flash only, I'm never going to see their advertisement. Had they chosen a regular web page, some of their fancy effects may have broke at first, but they could have at least had the chance to show something catchy that would have persuaded me to whitelist them.
As it stands, I'm not even curious what they're trying to do differently than Apple. I'll wait for the next news item telling me how it only sold <10,000 units and how quickly it was scrapped.
So you know what's funny? For some reason the image failed to load when I first visited the page, and I was left wondering what the fuss is all about. Hence the parent comment.
But now that I actually see it, I think it's a good ad. Normal iPad users like my sister are painfully aware of their device's limitations, and this speaks to them, if a little cheekily.
I could kind of understand if Toshiba doesn't want to put much effort into selling to current iPad owners, but there are a lot of other iOS devices whose owners might be in the market. Toshiba just lost an opportunity to tell me anything about their tablet except that it runs flash, and that they think I'm dumb for owning an iPod touch. Will I be booting up my laptop to check out their site? Um, no.
If Flash isn't a big enough issue for you to switch, the chances of you switching at all are tiny. That iOS page is actually a good ad for the fraction of iOS users who might want their product.
That's an ad full of win. It's very different from the off putting DROID eats your lunch and is smarter than you stuff from Verizon, doesn't look at all inspired or a derivative from Apple marketing and lists features that are interesting instead of attacking Apple.
I found the music very jarring and unsettling. I didn't care for the little spinning wheels/arrows everywhere, I have a really fast connection, I wonder if they could have loaded their flash faster somehow?
I wanted to look for the resolution and it told me 720p, which I then had to go look up what that meant (I mean, I know it's a tv display format, but if someone had said WXGA I'd have needed a translation to pixels for that too).
It didn't make me want to recommend one to someone else or buy one for myself. I don't recall a price. There are a lot of ways this could be improved.
But hey, I thought the Seinfeld/Bill Gates ads were interesting, so what the heck do I know, eh?
Oh, THAT is going to get me to tell all of my friends not to make the mistake of buying an iPad. And I ask: Is brochureware for a product shipping Real Soon Now really an "Interesting site on the Internet?"
I don't think they're eating their own dogfood, I think they're drinking their own kool-aid.
I am on my iPad and now that I clicked on that link and could not browse back because of the redirect I dislike toshiba even more. An on the ugly page is a ugly message.
Trying to get Apple users to like Toshiba products : fail
Incredibly stupid. "Hey, I've got an idea! When any one of a group of over ten million wealthy, technologically-inclined consumers visits our site, let's insult them!"
I'm what many might call an Android fanboy, but I have a hard time understanding these sorts of decisions made by companies. What iOS device owner is going to see that message and think "OMG I WANT A TOSH-TAB"?
To me it looks like an attempt at viral marketing. Their market? Android fans. How do you get Android fans to look at your page? By putting up a controversial page making fun of apple users.
I suspect that the kind of person who owns and iPad AND is offended by this is probably a market they are willing to write off in trade for huge publicity in Android circles - they might just be right.
I guess I'm having a hard time taking this thing that seriously compared to the Xoom. I mean, if Toshiba told me they were releasing full source at launch and include flashing utilities, I'd be ecstatic and would buy in a second. Like I said, I like Android and tinkering. I recognize that I'm a minority and I suspect Toshiba wants to move these puppies.
-1? Really? The hardware looks inferior to the Motorola Xoom. The Toshiba has that awkward chrome and has hardware buttons when Honeycomb is eliminating them or making them redundant. I guess others are just uh super into Toshiba?
I downvoted you because you jumped right in at the beginning of the thread and made a bunch of posts about the Xoom, all of which sounded more like excuses to mention it than like informative posts. Acting like a marketing bot is as bad as being a marketing bot in my book. If people are interested, they'll respond or upvote. If they ignore you, they're not interested. There's no need to repeat yourself all over the place. (However, if this stupid pagination thing keeps going, I will start to be more sympathetic to thread-spamming.)
So two constitutes a bunch now? Especially when one is in reply to the notion that "techies" are going to buy it when it has an inferior build, inferior specs and a bulkier size, and the other was a general comment at the top level of comments?
"all over the place is an exaggeration". Clearly I'm not a marketing bot, that's equally absurd.
I count three, with no information about the Xoom (before you got downvoted) except that it would "slaughter" the Toshiba and its UI was "better." I think the downvoting was consistent with HN standards. When a particular web site is under discussion and a guy posts a plug for a similar site, he doesn't get downvoted. Three in the same thread without an informative comparison, he gets downvoted.
The ad talks up Android and the HDMI, USB, and mini-USB connectors as features, so it is clearly aimed at techies, and since this is the first and only place I've seen it, I think they're hitting their target market. The folks who see it will be aware of the Apple/Flash drama and the Apple/Android rivalry, and in that context it's just a piece of in-your-face humor. Why would anyone feel insulted? If they feel so sensitive about their Apple devices, then they are unlikely to buy anything except an iPad anyway.
I notice that, once you get through the video, it shows a bunch of bars that you can hover over to see previews. I wonder how their tablet is going to handle that, since the concept of hovering doesn't exist without a mouse.
That bit of snark aside, this looks like a really impressive device. The cameras are a great addition, and if they put together some demos of video chatting, it could help them explain how they're better than an iPad in a way that really resonates with people, more than Flash and ports.
Wouldn't it make more sense to advertise the device and list its features to a potential convert (I am visiting the site to check it out after all), than show me a "haha you can't see flash page". As soon as I saw the page I just hit back and moved onto something else, as most probably will. A red page without even an image of the device so I might later recognize it as the tablet that does flash isn't helping them much.