Quote:
Originally Posted by Sil_liS
I'm actually hoping that Windows will expand the customer base to people who didn't consider either Apple or Android.
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Well,
I'll pre-order the Surface Pro as soon as I'm able. Because we have to test books on virtually (ha!) every device, I have an iPad. It's a nice toy--but it's lousy,
in my opinion, for real productivity, as in, actual
work. Yes, it has reminder apps and calendars, but for any type of keyboarding, I find it horrible. The apps don't really work cross-platform (trust me, I've tried), and I'm also very...displeased by the "you don't need to know how it works" patronizing attitude that Apple takes. When something does not work how you expect it to, there's nary a real manual in sight. Can I play word games and Sudoku on it? Yes. Do I read on it? I read Pulse and Flipboard, but not books. I find the thing far too heavy for any extended reading time. Does it do some flashy things very well, like the dreaded "Survivors" Immersedition book? Yes. But to me, it's a toy, not a real tool.
I was hungrily eyeballing various Droid tablets before the advent of the Surface, and from what I've seen of it thus far, I'm fairly impressed with it. Does it have nine billion apps? No, but I'm not seeking nine billion apps (I have never played "angry birds" and don't really know what it is, other than a game), I want something I can do serious keying on, and that's certainly not the iPad. Touchscreens are spiffy, but they suck for real keying, as we all know. I don't care if a magic voice (Siri, GoogNow) talks to me. I just want something that I can do actual WORK on. </rant>
As far as Apple's market share, versus everyone else's, my sole observation on this is that if Jobs were still alive, he would never have allowed the company to do something as boneheaded as naming their new product the "mini-pad." (And yes, I know, that's not the REAL name). I can promise you that while guys may not think that when they see ads for it, women do. I've actually started calling my Nano (for workouts) "The Tampon." (This also tells me something very interesting about how many women are in top spots--
really--at Apple; or how seriously their input is taken vis-a-vis product design/naming/release. Because trust me, no woman would have been that stupid.)
I know it sounds trivial...but Jobs was all about the trivial. He understood his market; he knew that his devices appealed to right-brainers, not left, generally speaking. Deisgners and other creative types, rather than business users. He knew that "cool" was a huge part of Apple's marketability and appeal. Things like rounded corners, eye-candy, etc. In a million years, a product that would be called the 'mini-pad' would not have escaped without him cleverly renaming it to something ELSE, even if it was a dumb-ish name ("Lisa," anyone?). Now, this alone certainly is no death knell for Apple, but I think it's indicative of
slippage. It's the small things that, to me, seem to indicate the lack of that minute, Jobs-ian oversight that he wielded to ensure that people would line up to spend absurd amounts of money for bloody PHONES, for the love of heaven. I think that small slippage will continue to show up, and continue to cause erosion in the market share. Now, I could be dead wrong--it wouoldn't be the first time; but that's what I see.
Hitch