Tablet Wars II: Attack of Android 3.0

[Krimson]

I'm old school - I have an original Galaxy Tab (7") I got back in January running Gingerbread. May not be Honeycomb but I'm sure it has the power to run Hero Lab.

[Tom B]

I have my Galaxy Tab 10.1 now, and it's been perfect for everything I've needed. Except gaming. If it had Hero Lab it would be perfect for gaming and I could leave my netbook at home.

If only it had Hero Lab for Android....(sigh)

[Sigil]

Just ordered a Toshiba Thrive. It will work great for viewing Pathfinder pdf's. Now hoping I do not have to wait to long for HL to ported to Android!!

[12hourhalfday]

My tablet is always with me at the game table, if I had herolab I wouldn't need to bring my laptop. I would totally buy another Herolab license for my android tablet.

[Nanan00]

As the DM of my group and the owner of a Nook Color and holder of a HL license. I have made PDFs of all of the players chars and several dozen npcs that I have ready access to.

[pyremius]

Currently I'm a player rather then a GM. I have a Windows laptop, and through work I have an iPad 2 and an Asus Transformer. Currently, the lack of an Android version of Hero Lab is the only reason I'm still using the laptop. When my laptop finally dies, if there's an iOS version of Hero Lab available I still plan to return to pencil & paper for character management.

Very simply, I cannot think of a single task I prefer to do on iOS when any other option is available. I will, in fact, preferentially use my Android smartphone over iOS. The only exception I can think of would be the original Blackberry Storm - although I broke my contract early just to get rid of that particular mistake.

While I fully expect Hero Lab on iOS would be very good, the cost (specifically, having to use iOS for my other needs) is unacceptable. Hero Lab - or any decent competitor - on Android will be considered. Hero Lab on iOS, will not.

[Kaisius]

Please count this as another vote for an Android version for HL. I'm very pleased with HL on my desktop and have recently purchased an Android tablet. Having a tablet version would be worth another license to me as well.

[Nikmal]

Count my vote for Android over iPad for Hero Labs!!!

[chiefweasel]

I do have a question along these lines: What are people looking to do with the tablet as far as HL is concerned? it would seem to me that a fully functioning HL would be difficult to use on a tablet. The editor would be rough and i really dont see folks using the editor on the tablet for file creation.

So with that in mind, my suggection would be to have a semi viewer form of HL based in the cloud (which could go along with Realm Works concept). basically you could upload your HL file of your character to a central LW server (These same characters could then ne used as NPC by other folks, just a side idea). Then the character could be viewed and used through a browser. This would make it tablet agnostic. There could be limitations of the changes that a player could make to their character while it is in the cloud area, such as the character isnt able to be leveled. But effects and abilities within the character could be activated and propgated throughout the character. simple things like HP could be tracked and saved out to the character though.

It seems liike a process like this would be easier and broarder than trying to create/maintain code for each platform.

The only disadvantage I see is that you would need a network connection to run the browser. But a process could also be created to do basically the same thing on the local device but still leverage the native browser and its framework.

just a thought.

[Lurch]

Originally Posted by chiefweasel

I do have a question along these lines: What are people looking to do with the tablet as far as HL is concerned? it would seem to me that a fully functioning HL would be difficult to use on a tablet. The editor would be rough and i really dont see folks using the editor on the tablet for file creation.

I don't have a tablet currently (if/when I do get one it will be Android-based though, nudge nudge), but if I were to use one with Hero Lab it would be almost exclusively at the table, for tracking/maintaining things that occur during play (activating abilities, using items, memorizing/casting spells, tracking hit points, logging XP/treasure gains, etc.), in effect as a "live" character sheet, ideally with the ability to then sync the data to my desktop version for leveling, etc. (syncing data between an owner's multiple licenses is something I'd love to see anyway). I don't see access to the editor as necessary for a tablet as I'd be far more likely to use my desktop for that (how many people run the editor on the fly at the game table anyway?), and while the tactical console would be a nice feature as a GM, if I'm running a game I usually have my laptop with me anyway so it would be potentially redundant (if I had both a laptop & tablet at the table as a GM I'd primarily use the tablet to display player handouts, monster pictures, etc.).

Now, if there were some sort of cross-platform networking functionality available where the GM's HL laptop/desktop syncs with the players' HL tablets & updates the characters in real-time that'd be pretty amazing IMO, but I think that's also getting away from what HL was intended to be in the first place & going more into VTT territory, which is already being handled by d20Pro and the like.