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Bill Gates: iPad Users Are Frustrated They Can't Type Or Create Documents
An anonymous reader writes "While Apple views the tablet and PC markets as two separate entities, Microsoft takes the opposing view. During a CNBC interview this morning, Gates continued to toe the party line insofar as he praised the benefits of Microsoft's tablets and Windows 8 while explaining that iPad users are frustrated because they have trouble typing and creating documents. 'With Windows 8, Microsoft is trying to gain share in what has been dominated by the iPad-type device. But a lot of those users are frustrated, they can't type, they can't create documents. They don't have Office there. So we're providing them something with the benefits they've seen that have made that a big category, but without giving up what they expect in a PC.'"
And Microsoft keeps demonstrating that they just don't get it, that no one seriously expect a tablet to be a PC, and that no one wants their PC to be a tablet.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's true.
--Sent from my iPad
And yet you go to any business conference nowadays, and the place is littered with iPads and other tablets. How odd it is that, whatever your advice might be, businesses are buying tablets and they are being seen out in the field.
You can certainly argue that business are wrong, but you can't argue with the fact that the tablet has made major inroads into the enterprise world.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Microsoft is fustrated that still, no one gives a shit about windows 8, and no one wants windows rt, and they were all DOA.
As much as I despise apple products, no cult-of-crapple iPad users would ever think twice about anything else, and if they did, it would more likely be android.
Like a start menu. oh wait.
What OS is installed doesn't change that. Surface users are frustrated that there are no apps for their devices.
Touch UIs suck, and the proof is all over the internet. Every time someone posts something like "I would [something], but I'm on my [phone|tablet|mobile]" it is a damning statement on how limited touch is compared to keyboard+mouse. Even common desktop tasks are a chore in touch.
I realized recently that maybe part of the reason why Apple resisted putting cut and paste into iOS for so long was because they couldn't figure out how to make it not suck. That's something Jobs would have obsessed over.
. . . a lot of folks I see using computers can't do that with a keyboard either . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
So according to Bill it boils down to MS Office (because you can simply get a keyboard for an iPad, just as you can for a Surface tablet).
The thing is however:
a) there's no native Office for Surface either (Office 2013 has no Metro-interface and isn't particularly suited for touch screens, even in touch-mode)
b) they are woking on a version of Office for iOS and Android
c) you can use Office 365 on whatever device that has a browser, which includes Surface, but also the iPad and all of the Android devices out there
How does that make the Surface any more attractive than the competition?
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Microsoft is a software company, right?
Users are frustrated because it lacks a keyboard? You mean just like Surface? Oh, but you can buy one as an add-on you say? You mean just like Surface?
Wow.. I'm not sure who I'm more afraid of now.. Ballmer or Gates, both seem pretty out of touch with reality.
It shouldn't be that hard to understand.
With the ipad and keyboard dock I can use the iPad *without* the keyboard if I want to. I'm guessing neither of the cheap laptops I could have bought would work very well without the keyboard attached.
I 100% agree with him. I can't type /at all/ on my iPad 2. Because I'm not the disciplined type that raises their fingers 100% before hitting the next key I find the iPad trippng up a lot. It also doesn't keep up when I'm typing quickly and I'm not patient enough to slow down to wait for it. I've even tried two third party keyboards and wasn't impressed with them (1 because it was small and travel sized, the other is that new fangled overlay .. I can't remember the name but I was a part of the kickstarter). Anyway, when it comes to typing anything of substance I always put down the iPad and go to my desktop computer.
In the end my iPad 2 has become the samething my X-Box has become, a bad, over-priced Netflix player.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
Dear Abby,
Ever since we got my 13-year old an iPad, he's gone up to his bedroom after dinner each night and asked us to not disturb him while he "creates a document." Today I learned from Bill Gates that he can't actually create a document.
Should I knock before entering his room to ask about this?
I'll never understand that. You basically bought two cheap laptops ....
Do that, and what you have are two cheap laptops that are slow, don't work right, and and are 2-5x the size and 3x-10x what an iPad/iPad Mini weighs. If you need a laptop, by all means buy a laptop. But if what you need is a tablet, buy a tablet.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Probably because of a few things.
1) Tablets are generally light and very portable and easily held in one hand. If you're at a gathering where everyone is standing, it's easy to whip out a tablet and show people stuff - while still having your other hand free to gesture and communicate and other things. One-handed use is quite important when you do not have a surface to use as a stand. Holding a laptop in one hand is often awkward, clumsy, and until the recent touch screen ones, interactions are terrible.
2) Tablets have great battery life. An iPad or Android tablet will generally last all day even if you're showing lots of people your brochures and screenshots and stuff. PCs with such battery life usually have external batteries, making them really heavy and unwieldy, especially single-handed carry.
3) There is very little need to compose long documents while at the conference - you may need to type some stuff up quickly (like entering contact and calendar stuff), but that generally is quite minimal. If a document need does come up, it's often better to do it in a private hotel room to draft it and review it (only an idiot tries to compose it right then and there to get it signed - these things normally have to be drawn up and agreed upon and other things).
4) The most common use will probably be fulfilled by the tablet's default gallery application - load up product photos, slides, etc as images and then swipe through them. Add a bit more for product brochures and stuff and that's it.
5) Said gallery app is often useful to automatically run a slide show when placed on the booth, similar to digital photo frames.
Gates is probably looking for a reason to not justify releasing Office for iOS (and Android). I mean, his criticisms apply to every tablet as well, including Surface. That, and a touch screen demands a different user interaction than a keyboard/mouse, so UIs have to change to accommodate both. E.g., touchscreens, resistive or capacitive or inductive are imprecise (resistives can use styluses, but even then the point's inaccurate) making small targets hard to hit. A mouse is a lot more precise. A touchscreen doesn't have "right click", and likewise, Fitt's law doesn't apply to touchscreens. In fact, hitting edges and corners is harder on a touchscreen.
People who use their PC for nothing but browsing the web, occassionaly sending email and posting to Facebook or Twitter are perfect candidates for a tablet. People who do real work use a "fully functional PC".
The problem here is that the popularity of limited-purpose tablets made it unprofitable to continue to produce a "fully functional PC" with a 10 inch display. A 10 inch laptop can be easier for a bus or carpool passenger to use in cramped quarters than a 13 inch laptop.
Are you seriously implying that touchscreen is the new, better method of input?
What exactly do you do on a computer? Im gonna guess its not
Or anything, really, that involves rapidly moving data from your brain onto a computer. Or does the new Lightning connector have that capability built into it?
Get back to the fundamentals. Quit trying to copy Apple. You lost site of what made your ecosystem worthwhile on the desktop:
1. Hardware vendors that had to meet your standard, which was relatively open. Result? Lots of hardware that works with Windows.
2. I can develop anything I want without paying you anything except of course the OS and hardware. I buy your development tools because I like them, not because I have to buy them. I can develop with 3rd party tools if I want to do that. Result? Tons of software that runs on Windows.
3. Things take a long time to become obsolete. It seems like just yesterday that DOS applications still ran on Windows. I don't recall when this went away because by the time it did, all my DOS apps were gone because I didn't want them anymore; not because you forced my hand.
No, you're not Free/Open Source; but you're "open enough" and it was working.
You and your company got side-tracked by "app store envy". You thought you could be like Apple. You started clamping down on what was open, gripping too tight. Result? You have a lame Apple clone, and you alienated the people who liked you because of the numbered points above.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
He should check out windows users sometime. They can't:
- find the very files that they just saved
- or even just browse the contents of their machine
- switch between programs without a mouse (I alt-tab and they go "woah, how'd you do that!?")
- change the toner catridge in the network printer themselves
- climb under their own dirty desks to plug things in
- be trusted to install their own software
- understand why IE is a poor choice
Yes, I did work as a support monkey for a little while.
Netbooks didn't "die" on their own.
They were designed with crippling "birth defects" (weak CPU, limited RAM) so as not to eat notebook market share. It worked and after the initial surge, sales dropped off.
Many people still like them, but when I can get a used Thinkpad X2whatever for cheap it makes no sense for me to buy one.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I really dont think you want to stack an iPad's specs up against a $400 laptop. Maybe you do, but it wont be pretty. Just so you know, $400 is "core i3" range, which will slaughter just about any ARM proc on the market.
But you're not comparing to a $400 laptop. iPad Mini = $329 + Apple Wireless Keyboard $69, = $398. iPad 2 = $399 + $69 (AWK) = $468. So, you're comparing to a $200-$235 laptop. Which is going to be both underpowered, and cheap quality. So, I'll stick with my original statement.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
That's only half the story. When Android first came out on phones, they rapidly overtook Apple because there were a bunch of new players jumping into the game. Now that the market has stabilized, the pendulum is swinging back the other way. In the United States, iPhone sales are actually growing again, and now exceed Android phone sales. Worldwide, the numbers are also trending back in that direction. Chances are, the relative mix of sales will oscillate back and forth for a while before hitting some magic point of equilibrium in which a certain percentage of devices are iOS and a certain percentage are Android, and that won't change much until there is some major disruptive innovation. That's generally the way mature markets work.
Similarly, right now, Android is growing much faster in tablets because it's really easy to grow from zero to nonzero. Once that market ceases to gain new players (and eventually, it will pretty much stabilize), there's no reason to believe that we won't see the same pattern emerging.
You're half right. Microsoft wants their duopoly back. Right now, it's pretty much an Android/Apple duopoly, and Microsoft is just warming up the bench. As far as I can tell, Apple doesn't really care who their competitor is, so long as they have one. Competition drives Apple to provide a better platform, and in the end, that's good for pretty much everyone, whether you're an Apple user or an Android user.
If you honestly think that iPad is a dying platform, I have a bridge to sell you. Dying platforms don't tell 70+ WWDC tickets per second at $1,599 a pop.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Earlier this year I was involved in a collaborative writing project where all three authors were using iPads and the documents were hosted as goggle docs in a shared repository.
One author was using a 3rd party bluetooth keyboard, myself and the 3rd author were using the onscreen keyboard. For edits and proofing the workflow with the iPads and google docs worked really well.
I have subsequently purchased one of the Logictech keyboard for when I travel and want the capability to type longer documents. I frequently type shorter documents on the iPad onscreen keyboard directly.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
One thing I've noticed since switching to a Windows tablet is how lousy the onscreen keyboard is. On most platforms, touchscreen keyboards try to incorporate things like predictive text, auto-capitalization, etc to help you type, because they realize that a touchscreen with no tactile feedback is a less-than-idea way to type. The Windows onscreen keyboards have none of that. What's more, they seem wildly inaccurate ... the visual feedback seems to be telling me that I'm hitting the right keys, but when I look up at what I entered, half of the letters are keys right next to the ones I thought I was hitting (and although I can touch type on a physical keyboard, I do have to look at the keys on a tablet).
What exactly do you do on a computer? Im gonna guess its not
Writing proposals
Writing code
Doing financial work
Doing systems administration
Screw all of that. Before you can do any of that, you have to enter your password to login to the system first. Try that when you have a strong password and you can't be totally sure what keys you're pressing.
Breakfast served all day!
Are you seriously implying that touchscreen is the new, better method of input?
What exactly do you do on a computer? Im gonna guess its not
Or anything, really, that involves rapidly moving data from your brain onto a computer. Or does the new Lightning connector have that capability built into it?
You don't need a keyboard to post cat videos with your iProduct.
Netbooks didn't "die" on their own.
They were designed with crippling "birth defects" (weak CPU, limited RAM) so as not to eat notebook market share. It worked and after the initial surge, sales dropped off.
Many people still like them, but when I can get a used Thinkpad X2whatever for cheap it makes no sense for me to buy one.
They didn't have birth defects, they were strangled in their infancy by Microsoft.
MS made it a requirement that netbooks had to have weak CPU's and RAM limited as not to eat the notebook market share because MS charged more per license for a $500 notebook than they did for a $300 netbook.
But this did not last as we now have 11" "ultrabooks" which are basically netbooks without the weak CPU and RAM limits (and price tag).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The clock is turning back: we used to call these things "workstations," a name that stood for a powerful but small computer sitting on a desk somewhere, definitely not something that everyone had or needed. We should call them that again: most of us won't need "workstations," but some us do.
The word "PC" has run its course. Tablets and phones are far more "personal" than a big clunky desktop would ever be. So, yeah, I would say that conceptually the PC has died, or rather has become a workstation again.
By the way, I'm one of those people who will always need a workstation... :) But it doesn't mean I begrudge or don't understand the changes in the industry. My mom sure as heck doesn't need a workstation for her email and web browsing.
One thing I've noticed since switching to a Windows tablet is how lousy the onscreen keyboard is. On most platforms, touchscreen keyboards try to incorporate things like predictive text, auto-capitalization, etc to help you type, because they realize that a touchscreen with no tactile feedback is a less-than-idea way to type. The Windows onscreen keyboards have none of that. What's more, they seem wildly inaccurate ... the visual feedback seems to be telling me that I'm hitting the right keys, but when I look up at what I entered, half of the letters are keys right next to the ones I thought I was hitting (and although I can touch type on a physical keyboard, I do have to look at the keys on a tablet).
When you say "Windows tablet" do you mean Surface? Because there are a lot of other products out there that run Windows 8. In any event, predictive text IS available in the vanilla Windows 8, you just have to enable it in the "Ease of access options" app. Here is a video that shows how: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60zFkIOzvTo
Screw all of that. Before you can do any of that, you have to enter your password to login to the system first. Try that when you have a strong password and you can't be totally sure what keys you're pressing.
In Windows 8 there is a small eye icon in password fields when they get the focus, if you click on it you can see the field content in clear text.
Seriously, WIndows 8 has plenty of issues but people who can't STFW for basic tutorial information are just adding noise to the discussion.
lucm, indeed.
I have noticed that, on many devices, when you enter the Wifi Key, you have the option to view it why the hell can't I have that for passwords? (especially on my Andoid Phone) If I am the only person in the room, it doesnt need to be converted to asterisks. (and if I am tyuping it over a 300 baud acoustic coupler in plaintext, hiding the echo won't help either).
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII