Oh, is that why Apple's sales are a joke outside of the US, because they are overpriced? Just because the US enjoys being debt ridden, doesn't mean everyone does.
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iPhone Share of Smartphone Sales Continues to Increase
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Oh, is that why Apple's sales are a joke outside of the US, because they are overpriced? Just because the US enjoys being debt ridden, doesn't mean everyone does.
i think that is a purely subjective comment and there are elements that both companies improve upon. To simply state that only one company is the only innovator is a little much.
It all comes down to "culture." MS and Apple are NOT the same. Not by any means. It all comes down to beliefs and attitudes - about the user, about how users should interact with technology. It's all about taste. People think that "taste" is some shadowy, abstract, elitist buzzword. It isn't. Taste means you care. It means you aginize over every pixel (a la Scott Forstall) until you get it just right. It means you give a damn about the person who is standing at the cash, ready to fork over their money for your product.
Do your products have that special kind of gestalt, or don't they? Are you making life more difficult for the consumer, or aren't you? Is it your stated goal to perfect design and usability, or isn't it? Microsoft has no mission statement. Zero. You ask anyone what MS is all about, you won't get a clear answer. Apple . . . easy. Right away: usability and design. Their products all scream these two principles. "Cool" stuff. It's "cool" because it looks good, is easy and fun to use, and it works like it should. It's just that simple. When Apple announces a product, you know, at the very least, that it'll look great - hardware and software, and be easy to use. Power wrapped in a great interface that is meant to make life easier, backed up by solid support should you need it. Done. Is that so hard to pull off? Apple has about half of MS' manpower and resources, and they are redefining industries and markets constantly - from notebooks to operating systems to handhelds. The iPhone happened almost overnight, and its effects have been beyond astounding.
Current innovation in the handheld/mobile phone industry is due to Apple. All of it. And it doesn't end there. The reason Windows is approaching some semblance of usability (as in, it sucks less), again, due to Apple. The reason MS is trying to make Windows Mobile something people will actually want to use, once again, due to Apple. The reason Windows sufferers will have an already obsolescent, late, about-to-be-upstaged (again) Zune HD, yet again it's thanks to Apple. When Ballmer walks into a room full to bursting with Mac users, saying "we've got more work to do", it's due to Apple. You like your HTC Touch? Thank Apple. The browser you'll be getting on the Zune HD . . . you can thank Apple. Palm's return to relevance (or semi-relevance), you can thank Apple. It isn't just Elevation Partners at work there. Apple is the key to the existence of usable tech in the mobile and computing industry today.
Where's all the MS R&D money going? Look at Apple from 2001 to the present. Now look at MS. Anything truly compelling or noteworthy from MS in around nine years? XP (nothing to be proud of), and xbox. And more versions of Office bloatware.
MS is essentially a corporate/enterprise software vendor masquerading as a home/consumer vendor.
Simply put, Microsoft products, in light of what could be accomplished with today's technology (what Apple is doing), are unfit for average home/consumer use. Absolutely unfit.
When, as a CEO (Ballmer) you spend half your time defending yourself and your operation against questions about why you're being upstaged, year after year, by a much smaller, nimbler, more focused competitor with half your resources, half your manpower, and half your global reach, something is horribly, horribly wrong.
MS is a follower. They run on two things in the consumer sector:
Ignorance and inertia.
Yes, I did. I might be a Finn and even a Finnish citizen but I'm not going to excuse a Finnish company for a horrible UI. I've used Nokia devices in the past but looking back on that time, they were extremely clunky compared to what we have today. I work in the software industry as a developer and so I cannot give that sort of interface a pass in this day in age. It is time for Nokia to get with the times. Adding a webkit browser to an aging OS and hardware does not cut it.No you did.
But yep, I do my surfin' and e-mail with it. It's small, it has full keyboard and when it's freezing outside, I don't need to poke it with my nose as iPhonists do. (or remove gloves and freeze paws.
Ah, sorry.. nothing bad about iPhone. I just wanted to say why Nokia is unknown over there and that it has smartphones.. and that it sold 3 million units more than last year.
You mentioned features areas which the iPhone does have but you failed to mention what is lacking. Give us specifics.
You must be joking. Have you ever actually used a 64bit Windows server OS for actual work? Have you ever tried running VS.NET on such a system with Resharper loaded? Crash, crash, crash, crash, crash. I had to hunt around the net for a wrapper program to fix VS.NET so that I could run it along with SQL Server Management Studio.
Good for you. Most people don't have these issues. Whether that's a question of configuration or competency is something only you can decide.
Still doesn't detract from the fact that Windows had a 64 bit version before OS X did though which, in turn, is merely an example of something that shows that MS and Apple copy from each other.
Does it Matter? Linux/BSD came first, and its fully 64-bit. Down to the last peice of code.
Mac OSX is NextStep with only some services using BSD code. Its at Apple whim and the coders to use 64-bit Cocoa.
They are! Only in US they have not managed to gain significant market share...
Yes, let's see what kind of device is the Maemo Linux OS Smartphone. Maybe we'll see a demo next month.
Exactly it doesn't matter. Everyone copies everyone else which is why it's stupid to say MS copy Apple exclusively when they copy each other - and other companies - all the time.
Ditto.
Sonera is trying to import the horrible american model (overbloated prizes, carrier lock in, exclusive models, etc) with iPhone. I'm not interested on becoming a serf.
Windows has had 64-bit XP since 2001, why would you use server on a desktop? (I can understand using 32-bit server on a desktop - you can support more than 4 GiB of RAM with a 32-bit OS.)
By the way, Windows Server has a reputation as a very solid system. When you say "crash, crash, crash" I assume that you had programs failing, not "bsod, bsod, bsod". You cite one incompatibility between two programs, and blame the OS?
Actually, 10.6 will be Apple's third attempt at getting 64-bit into OSX - and the one where they realized that Microsoft did it right the first time, and 10.6 is a true copy of Microsoft's way.
- 10.4 - 64-bit for terminal applications only - big thud.
- 10.5 - 32-bit kernel in PAE mode - poor performance due to constant transitions between 32-bit kernel and 64-bit application
- 10.6 - 64-bit kernel and drivers for some hardware combinations - just like Microsoft did for Windows 2000
DEC OSF/1, Solaris, Cray and a few others predate Linux with 64-bit support. (And I mean "predate Linux", not just Linux 64-bit.)
"Apple's whims" about which 64-bit CPUs to fully support is going to be a blemish on the 10.6 introduction. The whining will be intense as people (beyond forum readers) realize that their recent Apple isn't supported in 64-bit mode.
It looks bad to dual-boot a Mac into 64-bit in Windows Vista or Windows 7, but only 32-bit in OSX. If the hardware is capable, Apple should write the drivers.
I can understand not supporting OpenCL on some weak graphics hardware, but to have an x64 CPU and not be able to run the 64-bit kernel?
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The 64-bit stuff is OT, sorry - there's lots of discussion about 64-bit (lack of) support at the "golden master" thread. -as
well Nokia is pretty big, but I think one of the reasons they're so big in smartphones is because almost all Nokia phones are technically smartphones, Both the E-series, which are dedicated smartphones and the N-series which are more mid to high end multimedia and camera phones, but they all run Symbian Series 60which makes them smartphones
I don't understand how you can count E-series as smartphones but not N-series? Both have the same OS, you can install same software on both, they same CPU architecture etc. Only diffenrece is that E-series comes preloaded with business oriented software & branding.
It's like saying that Mac pros are computers but iMacs aren't.
Big thanks for posting that off-topic stuff. I wasn't aware of that and it was really interesting. Now I'm gonna check that link you provided, and see what kind of 64-bit support there is going to be for my Mac.
Thanks, Aiden!
It's really interesting to read most of your posts. You often present clean facts to support your point and not the usual overblown propaganda for any heavy-biased, narrow-minded views.
You're most likely one of the reasons I keep coming back to MR at the present even though I'm no longer using Mac and/or OS X. Friends still do though... for now.
I'm glad that I bought 20 shares at $6 few years back when Apple almost went to bankruptcy. Too bad I didn't put all my eggs into the Apple Basket!!!
I' ll try to buy too! I believe that will keep rising in the next few years
I'm sorry if I was unclear, I meant that the N-series was smartphones as well, they are technically, but people usually don't think of them as smartphones, nor do they often use them as such
No, it doesn't. So my comment isn't directed at you, per se ... but why then, if Apple takes the cake in the handheld/mobile industry, is there so much rabid negativism on the tablet rumors? Everything I've quoted from you above should resonate with anyone who has ever owned an Apple product. With few exceptions, there is every reason to be excited about the new form factor tablet; Apple style.
Stop being hypocrites, people!
I get as tired of reading the naysayer comments from Mac users on the tablet as you probably do the posts defending Microsoft products.
As for the iPhone success ... I am happy to have contributed to this good news!