"Apple is the next Microsoft"

[theinfamousj]

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

I am not worried for Apple. They are NOT the next Microsoft.

iPad sales have slowed, but so has the Kindle Fire. The difference is that the majority of iPads that were bought are still being used, while the majority of Kindle Fires ended up on eBay and/or broke and people upgraded to the Nexus 7, Galaxy Tabs, and others.

For every person that still owns and uses an iPad 1, there are probably 10 who have bought two or more Android tablets since then.

The same can be said for Macs and iPhones. There are more people with 2007/8 MacBook Pros than with Dell laptops from that same year. There are more people with the iPhone 4 (not 4S) than there are those still using a Samsung Galaxy S2.

And the same thing with iPods, which is why Apple recalled the Nano five years after the fact, and if anything else came up with the others, would probably be doing the same procedure now.

iOS 7 has received a lot of negative press, but at the end of the day, it's nowhere near the amount of hate Windows 8 has received. Android guys don't complain about KitKat, but the majority of them probably haven't even seen Jelly Bean.

First, I should clarify that I am typing this from my Samsung Galaxy S2. I own a new-to-me 2009 Mac Book PRO, but also a 2007 Linux netbook. The reason I have all of these things is that there are still software packages for them that allow the old hardware to run modern programs. My SGS2 has been rooted and custom rommed to Jelly Bean and may be upgraded yet again in the coming days. The MacBook is running Mavericks (and then will be switched to Linux once Apple stops support). The netbook runs the latest Web browsers like a breeze with its ever-upgradable Linux.

The house in which I work (as a nanny) originally went iDevice and Windows computer. They have replaced the iDevices with Kindle Fires because of the universality of charger cables with their Android smart phones. They have also gone with Linux rather than Windows8.

From what I have seen, it is Apple's desire to keep their plugs proprietary and the marked difficulty of not being fully invested in the ecosystem (an iPhone to a Linux computer is a nightmare, an Android is a piece of cake) is what is killing their growth. Either that or it is that they make durable goods so no one needs to buy a new computer (growth or sustained sales) if the one they have is still working brilliantly. For planned obsolescence (aka "growth"), Apple isn't doing such a good job, whereas Dell has it in the bag.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by meeera

I see far far fewer people using laptops at all in public. For bits and pieces they use phones, and for bigger things tablets.

I'm talking about places where people do work. Tablets etc are not good for doing work, but for 'consuming digital content.' I don't see that many ipads / tablets, period. I tend to see those more on long-distance travel (something I avoid). But I see a lot of people playing with their phones. This is one area where I see Apple doing well. I see a lot of iphones.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by hardcastle

Microsoft has a company culture that isn't compatible with consumer-facing long-term support though. They nuke anything that doesn't dominate immediately and come back in six months with the same broken attempt. Games for Windows, the Zune, Internet Explorer 7-11, for example. They even get a little antsy around the Xbox, suddenly swerving in their approaches every few years despite few necessary reason for doing so. I don't expect the Surface to stick around unless it really starts making waves by the end of the year, and I guarantee Microsoft will be back with another attempt soon after, leaving many consumers high and dry.

Microsoft will be an interesting one to watch. They're careful and wily when it comes to enterprise ecosystems, and they know how to stay entrenched. The new CEO might have a better idea of how to draw the consumer-side into the that same mode of thinking.

I'm confused about your post. Microsoft still supports Games for Windows, the Zune, Internet Explorer 7-11.

[Kumabjorn]

Soo, the original question was if Apple would go the way of Microsoft. I think the risk is there. Apple's worst enemy is commoditization. As long as they can differentiate their products, they will be fine. They don't rely on market share, they rely on having products that no one else has. Look at the iPod, when it came out it was fantastic. Nothing like that existed. Everybody in the eastern part of Asia started to hone in on this product. They got closer and Apple introduced a color screen, this was still interesting, just not as different as the first generation. They came out with miniaturized version and sped ahead again. They even came out with a Nano, that people started to misplace and forget.

Then came the iPhone, and a lot of other Smartphones. Even though they were certain that the iPhone would cannibalize sales of the iPod, they still released it. With all the commoditization taking place with the phones, the iPod era is now finished. The next sphere is computers, unless our needs are very specific we have no need for an iMac Pro, do we want one? Probably. Would we love one? Absolutely. But do we need one? Not likely.
So Apple is more than ever dependent on finding that unique blend of innovation and design that has been their trademark. Perhaps it is only me, but I thought that Barcelona was one big blaha blaha. A waterproof Galaxy 5? Seems like a typical example of commoditization, to me. We can't come up with brakegrounding innovations anymore so we add little features and improvements instead. Once that happens, price becomes more of a factor in the consumers' purchase decisions. So, in that sense I do think that Apple are on the verge of becoming the next Microsoft. Then again, they have had the capacity to pull rabbits out of top hats before, perhaps they can manage that trick again.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I see a lot less people using mac laptops in public places now than I did a couple of years ago. It used to be at least 50%, now it's more like 10%. That may just be coincidental. I wonder what sales for mac laptop figures are for the last five years.

Where do you see people working on laptops primarily?

In standard business settings, I've rarely seen MacBooks (except in art departments, but most of those have since been switched to PCs by IT departments).

In wifi cafes and on campuses, I've seen them quite regularly. In New York City, the average wifi cafe is (in my experience) about 75% mac laptops or ipads and 25% everything else.

In those places, I seem to be the only person who ever uses a Nexus 7 and a wireless keyboard. In fact, I nearly always use a PC laptop or a tablet in wifi cafes because my MacBook Pro is used for music. Bringing a laptop, headphones and a USB music keyboard into cafes to write music has proved to be too conspicuous.

I've done that exactly five times and, on each occasion, people interrupted me to ask questions about my setup, my music career and my music in general (or to tell me about theirs). Not the best recipe for getting work done, I've found.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I'm talking about places where people do work. Tablets etc are not good for doing work, but for 'consuming digital content.'

That depends on the kind of work you need to do with your portable device. My partner completely replaced his laptop with his iPad two or three years ago - dealing with customer and colleague communication (email and Skype, mostly), reading scientific papers, remotely monitoring lab machinery, and so on. He sits down at our home desktop computer maybe once every couple of weeks, if that.

Serious writers need a separate Bluetooth keyboard, but yes heaps of (but not all) people can and have replaced their laptops with tablets.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Where do you see people working on laptops primarily?

In standard business settings, I've rarely seen MacBooks (except in art departments, but most of those have since been switched to PCs by IT departments).

In wifi cafes and on campuses, I've seen them quite regularly. In New York City, the average wifi cafe is (in my experience) about 75% mac laptops or ipads and 25% everything else.

In those places, I seem to be the only person who ever uses a Nexus 7 and a wireless keyboard. In fact, I nearly always use a PC laptop or a tablet in wifi cafes because my MacBook Pro is used for music. Bringing a laptop, headphones and a USB music keyboard into cafes to write music has proved to be too conspicuous.

I've done that exactly five times and, on each occasion, people interrupted me to ask questions about my setup, my music career and my music in general (or to tell me about theirs). Not the best recipe for getting work done, I've found.

In public, the only places I seem to see people working on laptops are wifi cafes, and I don't see many Apple laptops.

But I'm in the suburbs/country and I don't get out much.

[DiapDealer]

I've actually never seen a Macbook in the wild. I'm not sure they're legal in rural Ohio.

[hardcastle]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

I'm confused about your post. Microsoft still supports Games for Windows, the Zune, Internet Explorer 7-11.

Your confusion stems from ignorance, then.

Games for Windows is ending support for its games in July of this year and is no longer being supported. The Zune player was killed in 2011, and the marketplace was shutdown in 2013. Things unique to the Zune brand, like the subscription model, might as well have never happened.

Each version of Internet Explorer is billed as "no THIS is the one that will fix it," with the last quickly forgotten. And of course new updates are tied to hilariously expensive Windows versions, and old versions are abandoned quicker than their respective OS versions.

These examples, which you were so quick to question, are three of hundreds across Microsoft's history; dozens of consumer products that are indicative of a mentality that I as a consumer cannot trust. 18 months from now they'll give up anything I buy from them unless it's entrenched in their Windows/Office ecosystem or makes a massive splash.

And even that's not a guarantee. The Xbox 360 was making big waves, and suddenly Microsoft shows up with the original announced vision of Xbox One: a brazenly terrible anti-consumer product that was only dialed back when consumers pre-ordered its competitor instead. They're an unqualified mess.

[pl001]

My Surface RT has replaced my laptop for personal use. Work is another matter, but it's a lot closer than people think there too. Heck, there's little work I can actually do on a standalone PC today, almost everything is done through thin clients and VMs. The only thing I use my home PC for now is media storage and streaming. And there are hard drives that can do that by themselves today.

Microsoft is not blind to this, it's why they are still pushing Windows 8/RT so hard.

But back to the topic at hand, I think it is clear that Apple could never be the next Microsoft, because they were never like Microsoft to begin with. They are far less diversified and depend almost exclusively on the fickle consumer market selling premium devices that many people want but few really need. I continue to be amazed at their success, it has been incredible given their limited product portfolio.

[pl001]

Originally Posted by hardcastle

Your confusion stems from ignorance, then.

Games for Windows is ending support for its games in July of this year and is no longer being supported. The Zune player was killed in 2011, and the marketplace was shutdown in 2013. Things unique to the Zune brand, like the subscription model, might as well have never happened.

Each version of Internet Explorer is billed as "no THIS is the one that will fix it," with the last quickly forgotten. And of course new updates are tied to hilariously expensive Windows versions, and old versions are abandoned quicker than their respective OS versions.

These examples, which you were so quick to question, are three of hundreds across Microsoft's history; dozens of consumer products that are indicative of a mentality that I as a consumer cannot trust. 18 months from now they'll give up anything I buy from them unless it's entrenched in their Windows/Office ecosystem or makes a massive splash.

And even that's not a guarantee. The Xbox 360 was making big waves, and suddenly Microsoft shows up with the original announced vision of Xbox One: a brazenly terrible anti-consumer product that was only dialed back when consumers pre-ordered its competitor instead. They're an unqualified mess.

Igorance goes both ways, apparently. Zune is what brought consumers subscription based music, a service that Microsoft still offers today through XBOX Music Pass and it spurred other services. It's not exactly the same service, no, but everybody knew that wasn't a viable long-term business model.

XBOX 360 was no longer "making waves", it was outdated and needed to be replaced just as the PlayStation was. Yeah, they made some "anti-consumer" decisions and I don't condone that but don't pretend Google and Apple don't do that as well.

IE has some issues, and being locked into it is the reason I'll probably never buy another RT product. But at least I can use the whole web with it. And to claim it is "abandoned" is ridiculous. For one, it's a free product. Yeah, so you have to update to a "new" OS that is over 4 years old to use the latest version. Like no other software would ever require you do that.

Microsoft is far from perfect, but let's try keeping things in perspective here.

[hardcastle]

Originally Posted by pl001

Igorance goes both ways, apparently. Zune is what brought consumers subscription based music, a service that Microsoft still offers today through XBOX Music Pass and it spurred other services. It's not exactly the same service, no, but everybody knew that wasn't a viable long-term business model.

I was wrong about the subscription example.

But my main point still stands. Microsoft drops what they have, comes back rebranded or retooled, and then they nuke it again and again and again and again. Zune becomes Xbox Music, and I bet you that will be forgotten just as quickly and rebranded as something else soon enough.

Originally Posted by pl001

XBOX 360 was no longer "making waves", it was outdated and needed to be replaced just as the PlayStation was. Yeah, they made some "anti-consumer" decisions and I don't condone that but don't pretend Google and Apple don't do that as well.

I'm not talking Playstation, Apple or Google. I'm talking about Microsoft.

The Xbox 360 needed to be replaced eventually, I agree. But note: the Xbox 360 (in brand, software and hardware) was doing great in 2012 and 2013, and they could have continued in that direction, making a bigger, better 360 successor. Instead, they launched this weird, half-baked new Xbox brand and hardware. It was the most baffling revamp of a brand I've ever seen. This is indicative of the pattern I'm discussing.

Originally Posted by pl001

IE has some issues, and being locked into it is the reason I'll probably never buy another RT product. But at least I can use the whole web with it. And to claim it is "abandoned" is ridiculous. For one, it's a free product. Yeah, so you have to update to a "new" OS that is over 4 years old to use the latest version. Like no other software would ever require you do that.

Microsoft is far from perfect, but let's try keeping things in perspective here.

I am not talking about other software. I'm talking about Microsoft. The crimes of the industry in no way invalidate my criticisms of Microsoft. Obviously Apple, Google and the tech industry as a whole are worthy of plenty of criticism. My criticism of Microsoft in no way implies that they aren't.

I'm just trying to make a point about Microsoft's company culture being unable to sustain long-term consumer products. If you want to argue with me, argue with that.

[pl001]

Originally Posted by hardcastle

I'm just trying to make a point about Microsoft's company culture being unable to sustain long-term consumer products. If you want to argue with me, argue with that.

Well I know you don't like IE, but like it or not it has been sustained.

And so has XBOX. XBOX was forced to change, as the gaming console industry is on the decline and being seriously challenged by casual gaming platforms like iOS and services like Steam. It HAD to be more of a general entertainment and service-driven device to survive the next 5-10 years, and even now the traditional game console part may not. But that's not Microsoft's fault. You can't maintain a market that isn't there. Even so, it's still a gaming console today and continues the brands associated with it.

Zune was not sustained because the writing was on the wall in that market. Notice how the current iPods aren't up to date with the iPhone? The dedicated music player market has collasped. If you want a Microsoft music player you can spend about $70 on a Lumia 520 and not activate the phone part. It's redundant to offer a standalone player today with such cheap phones available. Two years support for a discontinued consumer device is quite good and nothing to complain about.

They also continue to support and develop Bing even though it has struggled to gain traction. It's gotten to be quite good, along with many of its companion products.

Office is still a consumer product on some level.

And of course there's the most successful consumer product in the history of computing, Windows. Yes, there have been new versions, but do you really expect support to never end on old versions? They have been pretty good about extending support to old versions. Twelve years of supporting Windows XP. Heck, they even still have the MS-DOS command prompt in Windows 8.1/RT.

Anybody can complain about any computer product I suppose as they ALL require upgrades of some sort and nothing is supported forever. I don't understand why people single out Microsoft as being so horrible as historically they have typically been better in offering support than most of their competition and this is very easy to show.

[hardcastle]

Originally Posted by pl001

Anybody can complain about any computer product I suppose as they ALL require upgrades of some sort and nothing is supported forever. I don't understand why anybody would single out Microsoft as being so horrible as historically they have typically been better in offering support than most of their competition and this is very easy to show.

You're still picking on my examples and trying to turn this into an emotional issue on my part (snide comments like "I know you don't like IE" are insulting and rude, and "I don't understand why anybody would single out Microsoft as being so horrible" just proves you didn't even read the post you replied to) instead of taking my thesis overall as I asked.

If you will not show me the respect to do this much, then I will not continue to engage in this conversation. You don't deserve a proper reply if you can't offer me that much.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by hardcastle

Your confusion stems from ignorance, then.

Games for Windows is ending support for its games in July of this year and is no longer being supported. The Zune player was killed in 2011, and the marketplace was shutdown in 2013. Things unique to the Zune brand, like the subscription model, might as well have never happened.

Each version of Internet Explorer is billed as "no THIS is the one that will fix it," with the last quickly forgotten. And of course new updates are tied to hilariously expensive Windows versions, and old versions are abandoned quicker than their respective OS versions.

These examples, which you were so quick to question, are three of hundreds across Microsoft's history; dozens of consumer products that are indicative of a mentality that I as a consumer cannot trust. 18 months from now they'll give up anything I buy from them unless it's entrenched in their Windows/Office ecosystem or makes a massive splash.

And even that's not a guarantee. The Xbox 360 was making big waves, and suddenly Microsoft shows up with the original announced vision of Xbox One: a brazenly terrible anti-consumer product that was only dialed back when consumers pre-ordered its competitor instead. They're an unqualified mess.

Actually if you read the article, it is the Games for Windows Live Marketplace that is being shut down:

The GFWL client would remain operational, and the Marketplace function wasn't likely to be missed given how it was dwarfed by the catalogs of other digital distribution services like Steam or EA's (NASDAQ: EA ) Origin.

In the case of Zune, your previous statement of "They nuke anything that doesn't dominate immediately" doesn't make sense because as the article that you linked to shows:

Zune would have turned five years old in November.

And older versions of IE are still supported by Microsoft with the exception of IE versions 2.0-5.1 for Macintosh and IE 5.2 for for Mac OS X which have been supported for years after their release regardless of their success.