1. For all of you doomsaying Tim Cook and the future of Apple under his leadership, please take some time to remind yourselves of the fact that Tim has been with Apple since 1998. Since that time, coincidence or not, Apple has pulled itself out of its own pile of **** and moved on to do many of the things that we all love it for today. His views on retail might not be best, but to say that he will bring about Apple's downfall now that Steve Jobs is dead is downright ignorant.
2. Having been to both a Microsoft Store and an Apple Store this evening, and having done this taste test since the first Microsoft stores opened, I've found both tonight and really, ever since the Microsoft Stores have opened, the Microsoft Store is a much warmer and welcoming experience. Since they opened a few years, ago, I've felt rushed in the Apple Stores; I've felt like a sheep being herded when in actuality, I have my own agenda for visiting. I don't attribute that to Browett or Cook; I attribute it to Apple attempting to push to streamline their retail operation. In the last year however, I've noticed that unlike in the Microsoft Stores, in the Apple Stores, they now treat me like I'm a complete moron despite that I have seven Apple certifications (my ACMT included) and can school even the head genius on everything on the floor and in the back. In the Microsoft Stores, they can tell that I'm not a moron and upon doing so, they treat me like an actual fellow human and not like a customer that inherently doesn't know what they're talking about. I suppose I could attribute that practice to Browett, though placing such blame seems silly. The point is that there's a problem and it's global.
Well that's a fair argument except for a few things.
You can't say Microsoft is 100% focused on great products because they still managed to release poor products. Among these are Windows Vista, the worst operating system in the past ten years, Microsoft Office, which for all the high points, is still bloated and cursed by its own monopoly, windows media player, which is awful, internet explorer, which is only a market leader because it is default.
I get that you're not happy with Apple's retail policy, but that does not mean that Microsoft is about to commandeer smart phone supremacy from Apple. You want to see bad retail, take a half hour and go into a Microsoft store. The store is uninteresting, the people are far less helpful, and the products have no innovation.
I haven't had that experience with the Microsoft Store at all. Most people that I talk to there know what they're talking about and they don't treat me like I don't. The products don't lack innovation; they just lack Apple's fit and finish. There's a difference. You'll find laptops there that are faster and technologically superior to even the fastest MacBook Pro. Retina display they may not have, but performance that gives the non-retina 15" MacBook Pro a run for its money, that they have in abundance. And no, I'm not a Microsoft fanboy; I just see fault in your argument.