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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)?"
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?
A car that flies and floats? Sign me up.
'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.
"Conceding that he hadn't actually played with one..." He was too busy trying to navigate from home using Apple Maps perhaps?
Children are our future, after all.
Apple/Jobs has a history of shitting on concepts that they are simultaneously developing.
OTOH, MS/Ballmer has a history of mocking things as well while lagging behing in the market.
Time will tell what type of CEO Cook will be. Hopefully his hubris is just a smokescreen to mask moves and not arrogance for its own sake.
..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."
Interestingly it appears that Microsoft was quite complementary about the iPad during its presentation.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6385/microsoft-surface-review
A Different Perspective
A week ago, I sat in an auditorium and listened to Steve Sinofsky talk about the tablet market. He talked about how the iPad was a great device, and a logical extension of the iPhone. Give iOS a bigger screen and all of the sudden you could do some things better on this new device. He talked about Android tablets, and Google’s learning process there, going from a phone OS on a tablet to eventually building Holo and creating a tablet-specific experience. He had nothing but good things to say about both competitors. I couldn’t tell just how sincere he was being, I don’t know Mr. Sinofsky all that well, but his thoughts were genuine, his analysis spot-on. Both Apple and Google tablets were good, in their own ways. What Steve said next didn’t really resonate with me until I had spent a few days with Surface. He called Surface and Windows RT Microsoft’s “perspective” on tablets. I don’t know if he even specifically called it a tablet, what stuck out was his emphasis on perspective.