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Apple CEO Likens Surface To Car That Flies, Floats
theodp writes "Conceding that he hadn't actually played with one, Apple CEO Tim Cook told Wall Street that Microsoft's Surface tablet is 'a fairly compromised, confusing product' in the company's 4Q earnings call. Cook joked, 'I supposed you could design a car that flies and floats, but it wouldn't do those things very well.' In Apple's 2Q earnings call, Cook also mocked the idea of touch on a laptop or desktop, quipping, 'You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going be pleasing to the user.' Cook added, 'We've done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn't work. Touch surfaces don't want to be vertical.' So, is Cook just pulling a page from Steve Jobs' people-don't-read-anymore playbook, or is he unaware that children happily used vertical touch screens forty years ago on UIUC's PLATO System (more PLATO History)?"
Sounds almost as DOA as a 7" tablet to me....
So, not only do we display such stories as the shocking revleation that Apple was going to live stream its product announcement (only to Apple owners), but now we get stories about what Apple thinks about other products. Is anyone shocked that Apple is less-than-impressed with a Microsoft product? Next we'll have a story about how Mitt Romney thinks Obama has made policy mistakes.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Apple's walled garden has early mover advantage and gazillion apps.
Android's open nature has attracted dozens of OEMs to make the hardware, and also has gazillion apps now.
The Surface is neither open, nor are developers flocking to i since Microsoft is now screwing over developers like they have done OEMs.
So it is neither open nor low-cost; and bound to be a colossal failure. No need for Cook to break into sweat...
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
The only compromised and confusing thing is Tim Cook.
don't talk about them, don't mention them, don't respond to reporters about them, and DONT COMPARE YOURSELVES TO THEM
Are you joking? I'm a product manager - I constantly field questions from customers, sales, the media asking how our product compares to X. WTF do you think the "I'm a Mac I'm a PC" ads were all about? Companies that refuse to acknowledge competition do so at their peril. BlackBerry, anyone?
I suspect Apple's dismissal of vertical touch screen usage has to do with muscle fatigue. Try holding your arms out in front of you without resting your hands on anything for 5-10 minutes, and I think you'll see what he's getting at. People want to love Minority Report-style interfaces, but the truth is that there are reasons for not using them. Is it a well-founded argument against vertical screens? I guess we'll see!
A car that flies and floats? Sign me up.
After all, he has no dog in this fight.
Oh wait, he's from a competitor.
Wonder if he has incentive to twist the truth a little bit?
Apple seems desperate these days.
Futurist Traditionalism
I really like the look of the surface hardware. I suspect that most users will end up using the touch screen only in "tablet mode" but so what! This is sour grapes from apple.
I happily used PLATO thirty years ago. The thing had a touch screen, but very few of the programs used it. Those that did I recall as being made for kids for whom it was assumed the keyboard-screen relationship would be too complex. Outside of those programs, touch screens just didn't make sense for desktop work. They still don't.
'I supposed you could design a car that flies and floats, but it wouldn't do those things very well
So the headline should read:
Apple CEO Likens Surface To Car That Flies, Floats And Does Neither Very Well.
A car that flew and floated, lacking other qualifiers, would be awesome.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Especially don't mention a company that pummeled you in the OS wars for a decade.
But Apple shouldn't worry about Microsoft, because technology companies never have resurgences.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"Conceding that he hadn't actually played with one..." He was too busy trying to navigate from home using Apple Maps perhaps?
You'll probably lose your warranty for holding it wrong.
...but to do so without knowing anything other than, "it's a competing product, and we didn't make it, therefore, it sucks balls, obviously," is just pathetic.
...but that is not what he said. He pointed out the obvious weakness of Surface, Its a confusing device. Almost everyone agrees with that assessment. Now by stating this he may have acknowledged Surface as a competing product.
Where Apple is the British:
First they ignore you
Then they laugh at you (we've reached this stage)
Then they fight you
Then you win.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
"Conceding that he hadn't actually played with one ...
Stop right there.
Sues Tim Cook for defamation. :)
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
"Touch screens don't want to be vertical"...
So, you're saying that a desktop HAS to be vertical? What happened to thinking out of the box? Disappointing, Tim!~
I can fully imagine a 20-24" touch screen lying on my desktop, facing up (maybe angled 10-15 degrees towards me), where my keyboard is right now. That'd be a pretty natural interface. If it had finger touch, plus a more accurate stylus for finer work, it'd be very useful.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
You don't compare yourself to your competition only when they have a serious advantage over you. The iPad vs Surface. They are actually very similar devices. The key difference is in different approach to the UI. Apple will happily compare themselves to the Surface because they have the First Mover Advantage, also they have a large user base, and made common many of the touch UI elements.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
..so that in a couple of years when Apple announces its competing product we see what he has to say. Apple has a history of dissing other products and then quietly incorporating those very features into their own ones later.
2007 - iPhone launches without the ability to install apps. According to Jobs, web apps should be more than sufficient. Same goes for cut n paste - 'Who needs it anyway?' until it appeared on the next model.
And most recently, 'Who needs a 7" tablet?' Voila - the iPad Mini.
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
The ARM Surface isn't really designed to be a real product. In true Microsoft style it's job is two fold. First, to waste time and keep the M$ faithful from buying an iPad or Android tablet unti the Intel Version of the Surface is ready for production. Secondly, and even more importantly it will allow Microsoft to force ARM tablet manufacturers into paying the famous Microsoft Tax on all tablets they produce or face the wrath ans usual sanctions.
The developers, and "consumers" that buy Windows RT are just cannon fodder.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
You're gonna need two hands to hold this bitch
I guess you'll have to work the touch screen with your nose (yes... except you with what you're thinking, sir, need therapy!).
Acknowledgement is one thing, any company that outright slags off another is walking in dangerous territory, I think Apple are doing themselves a lot more harm than good lately.
Lately? Since the day the Mac was introduced the core of the marketing campaign has been comparison. Whether it be IBM or Microsoft or Google their ad campaigns emphasize how they are better.
They didn't miss their earnings estimates. As usual, they beat their own estimates. As usual, they missed the absurdly inflated estimates of stock analysts that have never gotten an Apple earnings call right in the history of earnings calls. (The large institutions were largely correct, however.)
The CEO ALWAYS has to talk smack about the competitor's product. The REAL proof is whether or not he does nothing about it while he's talking smack, a la Ballmer. But I greatly suspect that he's already got a team of people looking at what features to take from the competition. We'll see what's what in 6 months.
Yeah, because when we're working in an office we really want everyone to be talking to their computers all the time. That will really make for a good working environment.
Nice to hear Cook pointing out the fact that vertical touchscreens really don't work. Not just in their testing -- this was a thing, pre-PC, in many of the 70s and 80s CAD workstations. There were touchscreens, light pens, and other "directly interacting with the monitor" input devices. They all failed. It wasn't expense (not in dedicated CAD, prices were so high, paying $1000+ for an interface device would have been lost in the noise), it wasn't functionality (they worked fine)... it was people. We don't like repetitive stress, but particularly on large motor functions. Reaching up, away from your normal comfortable seating position, to touch a large monitor -- just not something that's good for you.
Of course, they wouldn't be Microsoft if they didn't entirely not learn from the past, and actually do it worse. Touch-with-finger screens are inherently a compromise. You wouldn't choose to smear greasy fingers over your viewing device if you could help it.... it's a compromise some are willing to make in order to have an easy to use pocket computer. On the desktop, we use off-screen, horizontally mounted control devices.
But it's clear Microsoft didn't have any cognitive psychologists working on any part of the mess that is The-UI-Formerly-Known-As-Metro, either. This will make one hell of a cautionary tale, though -- hopefully we can stop trying these same kind of stupid ideas on mainstream Linux distros...
-Dave Haynie
It's completely orthogonal.