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Bill Gates Responds To Apple iPad
superapecommando writes "Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has called Apple's iPad a 'nice reader' but claims netbooks are the way forward. Speaking briefly to BNET's Brent Schlender, the Microsoft Chairman, who had admitted to being in awe of the iPhone on first release, saw nothing in the iPad to really excite him."
If there was anything that could guarantee the skyrocketing success of the iPad, we've just witnessed it.
"Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has called Apple's iPad a "nice reader" but claims netbooks are the way forward. Speaking briefly to BNET's Brent Schlender, the Microsoft Chairman, who had admitted to being in awe of the iPhone on first release, saw nothing in the iPad to really excite him. "You know, I'm a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard - in other words a netbook - will be the mainstream on that," Gates said. "So, it's not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with iPhone where I say, 'Oh my God, Microsoft didn't aim high enough.' It's a nice reader, but there's nothing on the iPad I look at and say, 'Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.'" The Microsoft founder and his wife Melinda now devote much of their time to good causes. Last month, they announced plans to donate $10bn (£6.2bn) over the next 10 years to develop and deliver new vaccines. The couple believe it should be possible to save the lives of 7.6 million children under five between 2010 and 2019 in poorer countries."
Good on you Borg Bill, saving the life of one child is a life-changing thing, a million I can't even get my head round.
The iPad ought to be enough for anybody.
A DRM riddled, unable to multi-task, underpowered tablet with no ability to expand? Lord, I hope not.
These days more than ever the hardware only makes one difference - what inputs are available. There are a few other minor considerations like which APIs are enabled for developers, but really the only significant factor is how you can get information into the machine. Everything else like CPU speed, RAM, storage, etc are problems that, for the ordinary user at least, are solved.
The iPad is designed to make it easy to enter spacial information (where you're pressing on the screen) compared to a mouse or a keyboard. That's why it'll make a great reader, web browsing tool, and gaming device, but a relatively poor word processor or data entry device. A netbook on the other hand isn't really optimised for information entry at all. The keyboard isn't as good as a laptop, it's harder to operate a touchscreen on one than a tablet, and there's usually a pretty rubbish trackpad. Netbooks are a great compromise but they're not going to win in the long term when we can make laptops fold up smaller (somehow!).
In the future there will be a place for tablet PCs while there won't be for netbooks. I'm sure Bill is right that for now MSFT's interest lies in the netbook, but looking to the longer term he's dead wrong.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
I have an old Pocket PC that cost about $300 back in 2005 , and I really can think of much the IPad does that it won't.
Cruise TT
A DRM riddled, unable to multi-task, underpowered tablet with no ability to expand? Lord, I hope not.
Yes, this is exactly what has kept Tivo and cable company DVR's out of the market now entirely dominated by MythTV... oh, wait, no. It's not that I don't agree with your assessment of the iPad, it's just that I don't think it will in any way stop the iPad's success in the market. Don't worry. I'm sure there will always be alternatives for geeks; just don't expect your idea of the ideal product to be mainstream.
(For the record I use MythTV, an HDHomeRun, and my own homemade antenna to record OTA TV.)
It's just an overgrown PDA.
In other words, as asserted earlier, a netbook of the future. Netbooks were conceived and marketed for purposes befitting an overgrown PDA. Not devices to do your programming on, or write your term papers, or edit videos, do your Photoshop work on, etc. But a portable device to carry around and share your photos, movies, music, or check your email, browse the Web, without the bulk/weight penalty of a full-sized laptop. That's why they're called netbooks, not "mini laptops".
Netbooks aren't merely cheaper, smaller, lower-performing laptops, the idea was "why carry all this around when in reality you want a device for only a small subset of the capabilities of a full laptop?" Not "people need smaller laptops with full computing capabilities."
I see the iPad as the best expression of that type of device thus far.
I didn't think there was a whole lot of use for the device until I took a trip from Munich to Philly in one of US Airs brand new A330s and noticed something, every single seat had a USB power outlet and all over the US USB power outlets are increasing in number. Are there any netbooks that can run off of USB power? The fact that the iPad can, has (supposedly) a really good battery life, and the fact that you can use the thing while standing up has sold me on the device.
That being said, the first company that can come out with a netbook that can run off of USB power will have a winner.
Monstar L
...the diff between Gates and Ballmer should tell you why Microsoft is so damned moribund these days.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
"It's just an overgrown PDA."
To some of us, this is perfect.
I have a superpowerful desktop that I can use if I need to...honestly, except when I'm needing to process 100 tracks of audio at once or need a compiling station for the few times a decade I actually get back to programming, I rarely turn it on (and even with my music, my laptop or macmini that is ultraquiet and fits in my rack case in a smaller slot than any of my outboard gear is powerful enough).
I have an iPhone for 99% of the rest of what I do these days...I felt constricted to my office otherwise until I picked this up. I've been a gadget junkie for most of my 4 decades on this earth and the last device that was as compact as my iPhone that was useful to me? My Newton...had to invest in cargo pants to have this with me (had palm and a sony branded palm before those...or was it after...I forget).
I can get to my servers anywhere with my phone...can do just about anything. And yeah, I can do that on my friends Droids or Win phones, but never quite as easily or quickly...the OS just gets the hell out of the way with this device which should be the goal of ANY device so that you can focus on the task at hand.
My only complaint with the iPhone is that the screen is too small. I still find myself using it more often even at home or the office than I do my computers sitting around (and in some ways, I use to do that with my other gadgets...its faster to pull up email on a device where it is always running...I thought of buying one of those Peek emailer devices for the same reason (and they are pretty cool, but when I tried one, was slow for what I needed...didn't speed up my life and one more gadget).
So yes, an overgrown PDA might be EXACTLY what is needed. I played with the Dell Tablet, but it felt like using a PC with a stylus. I generally like Dell products if I go the PC route (at least the business class ones...other than the one I'm installing today has no fricken XP drivers and I'm having to scour the net to get the appropriate install!!!) and I thought it would be great. Honestly, it felt more cumbersome using than simply having laptop with a wacom on it. Why aren't tablet PCs going anywhere? Because they think they are PCs (I saw one recently that once you unplugged the keys and otherwise, it pulled up a custom tablet environment that was simplified to this world...might have to see if I can get a loaner sometime to check it out!).
So current tablets don't work because they try to be too much. PDAs are perfect because they don't. Geeks don't get that...limiting what you can do will help you focus on your job, not focus on technology. If your job IS technology...well, then this is the wrong device for you. If you job is making certain you get your life together? A more limited device with the appropriate apps might just be the thing...My only concern right now is I don't want to carry two deviced (i.e., if the pad could be a phone too, it would be an instant choice...except for the times my headphones run out of juice, but then again, I also find it just as akward to hold the iphone as well and just throw it on speaker 90% of the time!)
You clearly want a computer. Buy a computer. A tablet is not a computer.
Feel free to point out all the tablets that are trying to be a computer. Now try pointing out the ones that have been successful products. Perhaps the market does not want a tablet that is a computer. Perhaps the market wants computers that are computers and tablets that are something else. Perhaps what you want is not what the market wants.
Something to contemplate.
What is wrong with you?
The iPad was announced 3 weeks ago. No one has reviewed it. In fact, next to no one has touched the thing. We're getting these stories like "iPad becoming less popular" but you can't buy one for another 3 months.
I know people like to bash Apple (and MS, and....) but why not wait until you've touched the thing to declare it a failure of a netbook without a keyboard.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Oh, but people have said plenty about it. I'm not going to link to all of it (you would expect people to Google these things), but here is a link to one article that links to several.
And for sake of clarity, I have and iPhone, own an iMac, spent many years working support on Apple products. I don't call them out just because I'm a "hater" because I like some of their products. But honestly, look at this thing and its specs and try to tell me what there is to get excited about this.
... The iPhone delivered more functionality than the other phone manufacturers were willing to dole out to us (secretly because phone companies hate their customers). ...
Except that the iPhone delivered significantly LESS functionality than other phone manufacturers were giving us, and was significantly behind the times (like 4-5 years) compared to actual features in things like Symbian and Windows Mobile. The thing it did was take what functionality they had, and make it really easily accessible - so much so that people like you, apparently, think that it had more functionality than it's contemporaries. That's what puts the iPad in competition with netbooks - it's a netbook that is easy to use, which is where it will find its market.
What is the bl**dy obsession with whether it multitasks or not?
For this kind of device, in my opinion, multi-tasking is almost meaningless. The iphone's notification system could use some improvement, but real multitasking? Come on folks, it's not meant to replace your desktop or be your little Mersenne prime hunt in a pocket.
It was the same when the Zaurus was released - great it has Linux on it, yea! But apart from that, it sucked, compared to a lowly palm-pilot, which was just made to get the stuff done it was built for.
If I look at what I want from a device in that form factor, book reader, organizer, the fact that it DOES ITS JOB, and that it is well integrated with my stuff comes up WAAAYYY higher than multitasking.
Priorities, people - priorities!
If it had multitasking, 100 different chat clients for all chat systems ever written, could run gimp and do some powerful image processing, run all my databases (including SQL stored proc support), do some folding@home (or is that folding-on-the-road?) in the backgroup and everything else you might want to think up, it would neither be this small and light, nor likely very responsive, nor run as long as it does... ...and - most importantly, it would no longer be the device that MOST people can use easily: Apple isn't just thinking of the slashdot crowd as its potential customer base...
A note on expandability: Over time, we have gone from highly super modular devices, to cheaper, more specific, less expandable devices. The cheaper is a key part of that. In the 80s, you bought a motherboard with lots of expansion slots. Then you could add sound, better video, a newer drive controller, etc. Buying something with those on board was considered cheap and bad. Then in the 90s, every board had built-in audio, video, and IO. It was just so cheap and so ubiquitous that there was hardly a reason not to have it built-in. After 2000, it got to the point where hardly anyone even buys a sound card, and only specialized IO cards exist. Most laptops come with built-in webcams that are good enough for 99% of usages and are too cheap to not include, just for the 1% who want something better.
For many electronic devices, it is easier/cheaper to buy a newer one than to upgrade. That saddens me, but it is has become a fact of economics. So the "no ability to expand" might not be as bad a thing as you think. If it comes with a camera, a GPS, accelerometers, bluetooth, wi-fi, and sufficient storage... by the time the next generation of wi-fi comes out, it might be cheaper/easier just to buy a new iPad than to upgrade the current one.
But if there's one thing Bill Gates knows about, it's how to build an effective, consistent, and beautiful UI that people will love.
My wife. Who takes her MacBook Pro from the kitchen to the living room and back again. Surfs the web. Looks up recipes and newspaper sites. Reads her email.
Wouldn't know multitasking if it jumped up and bit her on the nose. Likes the idea that she can read it on the couch. Has no use for a 'real' computer.
Just like most people.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I see a lot of people simply reading a laundry list of what a laptop(and netbook) does vs iPad does and proclaiming laptop the winner.
But the two devices are not mutually exclusive and in fact are complementary.
You don't do your work on an iPad. You do your work on your Desktop/Laptop and when you want to kickback and read e-comics on the couch, you grab your iPad.
Want to check the news at breakfast, grab your instant-on iPad that you can control with a finger while eating at the breakfast table.
Cooking up something new for dinner, iPad in the kitchen with your recipe (no worry about food in the keyboard).
Finish reading a book in your bedroom at night.
This is internet/reader device for every room of the house, highly portable with a slick interface.
I am as big a tech geek as anyone here, but I have other devices to hack. I have no problem getting a really nifty reader/net tablet with a different form factor, high quality user interface and yet unimagined possibilities.
Even with the limited uses I am considering now it is enough for me to head to the store once they are released.
In another way of looking at it, the iPhone had greater effective capabilities. You could theoretically do more with other phones, except that you wouldn't. Ok, maybe *you* would do more, but I worked in IT and supported people with various kinds of smart phones, and the only functionality that most people used was email, and those email applications weren't too friendly and often lacked html support.
So which phone is more capable, one with 500 features of which you'll actually only use 1, or a phone with 10 features of which you'll use 9?