You probably heard that Apple had a blowout quarter. We're in the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades, yet people still clamor to buy their products. While the stores are filled with $250 Acer netbooks that sell at razor-thin margins, Apple can't make iPods, iPhones and Macbooks fast enough.
Apple is frequently accused of being all style and no substance. In reality, Apple is where it is due to innovation. Stellar marketing also plays a factor. Take the Magic Mouse, for example.
Microsoft is sitting on tens of billions in cash and yet they didn't come up with this. Why not? Lousy management. This extends throughout the industry, with the exception of a handful of companies. They are still building products for an old 1990's business model.
I hear that Jobs is a real ass to work for, but you know what? I'd prefer to work for a guy with a clear vision of what consumers want, who has marketing savvy and demands excellence.
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You're often pretty down on Microsoft, but I think they innovate far more often than Apple. If you count design as "style", then I think it's pretty fair to say that they ARE all about style. I can't think of a single technology "invented" by Apple that I hadn't seen somewhere else first. Case in point:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/05/microsoft-research-shows-off-multitouch-mouse-prototypes/
Apple is successful because they are impressive designers who can see an idea and figure out how to make it "work". They understand the value of simplicity.
MS is a company that has a lot of genuinely fantastic technology, packaged, almost without exception, in pedestrian interfaces. IMHO, the new Zune is the best media player on the market, with touch/iphone only winning out overall because of superior apps.
Charlie, it's great that MSFT showed a prototype. Where's the product?
Regarding Zune, I disagree. The new Zune would have been groundbreaking 3 years ago. Now it's just adequate, and without the colossus known as iTunes it doesn't stand a chance. No one wants to write apps for Zune and it is therefor doomed. My forecast is as follows.
Symbian: Toast.
Zune: What is that?
Windows Mobile: Toast.
Palm Pre: Toast.
The battle will be between Apple, Google Android and RIM.
As far as the Zune, I think it's genuinely impressive now if what you're interested in is media. The ipod interface the iphone is functional, but that's it. Where is the ability to play HD video on an external monitor? The only reason I carry an iphone and not the zune is that the PDA/phone functions are important to me.
I think also agree with you on the phone space. But it still comes down to design. I fully expect the new Android phones on 2.0 with faster CPUs to be better technology in nearly every way. Pound for pound I think Android is already as good/better as the iPhone OS. And it'll make practically no difference. The iPhone OS is more polished, they have the huge App Store, and the phones just plain look good. But where's the innovation?
Apple's ability to innovate something you hear a lot about, but with the exception of Magsafe and maybe the scrollwheel, practically every new big bullet point on any particular apple product is something I've seen somewhere else before. (Granted that it's rarely executed as well as Apple...)
I think Microsoft is slowly improving. I could see them being a worthwhile company in a few years. While Apple seems to be slowly turning into MS - witness their bizarre and paranoid App Store approval policies, their goofball notifications system, and that many of their updates are pretty darn buggy (On one of the most homogenous platforms imaginable), to name just a few.
"I think Microsoft is slowly improving."
They've been slowly improving for a couple of decades now. MS moves forward a couple of feet while the rest of the computer world advances a mile.
To continue to "blame" their lack of innovation and product quality on a long ago relationship with IBM just shows what a tool Ballmer is.
At the end of the day, a great company has to have vision and MS is cross eyed.
I continue to foresee a small device that will be both your PC and your smartphone. You'll dock it to a base at home and it automatically reverts to an OS display that is similar to your desktop now, and when you undock it it reverts to a smartphone. Phones, cameras, PDA's and MP3 players are already merged in one device. This one device will soon merge with your PC.
I have all of the them. I have an iPod Touch, Android G1, HTC Touch Pro2 with Windows Mobile 6.1, and two Zunes.
I've used all of them extensivley. The only thing about iPod that is better than Zune is its marketshare. I can download all the songs I want on Zune and fill it up. At $0.99 a piece on my iPod it gets very little use.
Also, Windows Mobile 6.1 with HTC Touchflow 3D is way better than Android. The TouchPro2 has a huge 800x480 pixel screen, syncs with outlook effortlessly and even syncs all my files up to the cloud wirelessly.
And no, I'm not relying on Microsofts cloud to backup my files. :)
Also, what's new about the Magic Mouse. The mouse that came with my Dell does all that. It's not wireless and it's not as pretty though.
Also, what's new about the Magic Mouse. The mouse that came with my Dell does all that.
Really? I imagine that Apple has a some pretty big legal bills ahead, then.
The great thing about all of this is consumers have variety and choice.
Can you imagine if the government ran personal computing. You know, because it is too important to be left to the greed of the private market. Too much waste with replication. Too many people getting rich, and Dell assembly plants laying off poor non-unionized workers.
Instead, the usual suspects are taking on health care. Which like their 'Model Cities, Urban Renewal, HUD' and other programs are going to finish off American medicine like they have American cities.
Still who would of thought that two of the American Big Three would be playpens for leftist lawyers, funded by taxes on mostly non-union workers to pay incompetent featherbedding management and union dolts and their somnolent retired lunkhead parents.
Although Apple should not claim to be "innovators" you have to give them credit for taking concepts and delivering them to market. There is no denying that they know how to make money.
I have been a full time Apple user since 1992. They have me hooked. I also use Windows at my work (when I have to). I even have WindowsXP on my Mac at home (parallels) for when I really need it.
All my associates that use Windows are always talking about installs, upgrades and just making the blasted machine do what they want. Meanwhile I show them the videos I edited, layouts created and photoshops. They spend their time wrestling with the machine. I get to spend mine creating.
Really? I imagine that Apple has a some pretty big legal bills ahead, then.
I'm just aksing a question. I really can't see any new functionality in it. Maybe I'm wrong. Can someone enlighten me?
If Steve Jobs were a prole, he'd be dead of liver failure by now.
I think apple had a winner with iphone/ipod alot of it is good marketing. If people couldnt get enough apple, then how come even though they are a dominant presence in schools so lots of kids grow up having exposure to their products they still cant seem to break 10% of market share.
"then how come even though they are a dominant presence in schools so lots of kids grow up having exposure to their products they still cant seem to break 10% of market share."
I don't speak for everyone, but I think I am fine with Apple having a small (but maybe growing) market share but profitable nonetheless. The PC market graveyard is full of manufacturers who had way, way more than 10% and yet couldn't maintain a net profit to save themselves.
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