One of these. You can plug your regular headphones into it and still answer the phone and listen to the iPod.
Posted on 02/14/2009 9:38:57 PM PST by Swordmaker
It’s enough to make you rub your eyes, blink and squint to make sure you’re not hallucinating.
But it’s true. Microsoft plans to open its own chain of retail stores. On Thursday the Redmond company announced it had hired former Wal-Mart executive David Porter to make it happen.
Microsoft seems to think it can duplicate Apple’s retail success, using a chain of stores to improve the “Microsoft retail purchase experience” and to combat the stereotypes – artfully reinforced by Apple’s “I’m a Mac” TV ads – that owning a Windows PC is fraught with difficulties.
I hardly know where to begin, so let’s start with the first thing many people will think when they hear of a Microsoft Store: “Oh, just like Apple.”
Contrary to the goal of improving public perceptions, the announcement of a Microsoft-branded chain of stores screams “copycat” – historically one of the worst knocks against it. Not the best way to start rehabilitating your image, guys.
(Excerpt) Read more at weblogs.baltimoresun.com ...
*There are, of course, people who reflexively hate anything MS related, and they post general gripes about Gates, Ballmer, and the way Lyndon Johnson used to act all the time. I know, I'm one of them.
It is also good to have a physical interface with your customers in your biggest markets. If MS made the PCs that Windows runs on I could understand this move, but otherwise I think they will just piss off Best Buy and Fry’s.
“I don’t know if Apple will come out with a web book, but the iPhone is unreal in it’s usefulness.”
It wouldn’t take much for Apple to get into the eBook business. Just come out with a expanded iPod Touch with a 6” screen and start selling eBooks on iTunes. iPhone/Touch is already the 3rd or 4th place device used for reading electronic books after Sony, Amazon and eBookwise. That says a lot considering that the other devices are designed for that purpose and are bigger screens. I wonder if Sony and Amazon worry at night the day that Apple does enter into this market. Not to mention that most eBook readers are very archaic hardware wise. Even the new Kindle coming out soon is way behind the iPhone in storage and processor. It makes one question how they justify their high selling price. In fact that is the only reason the eBookwise reader even sells. It is under $150.
One of these. You can plug your regular headphones into it and still answer the phone and listen to the iPod.
Cool. Thanks much!
They are $5.50 from a seller named everydaysource. I’ve bought three of them so far. All of my friends with iPhones who see mine have to have one. I give them the one in my car and order another. Shipping is free and it takes about 3 days to get one.
The sound is good on both ends. My only complaint is that the wire is just barely long enough to reach my iPhone if it is in my hip holster.
Thanks for the info Poser.
The things I notice most about switching from Mac OS 10.4 and Windows XP are the memory build-up in XP that leads to sluggishness and a restart (whereas the Mac just goes in and out of sleep-mode for months without a hiccup), and window compositing with Windows vs. using the 3D card with Mac OS. It's painful to see a re-draw as you resize and move windows after moving from a mac. I think Vista handles this, but I haven't seen anything above Home Basic (which still has the compositing issue).
Moving from Linux, the first thing I see is the lack of a sane software repository with haphazard apps strewn about on the Mac, and strange cruft on every install for Windows. It seems like each platform gets something right, but a host of other things wrong. You would think that Microsoft was in the best position to fix all their issues, but they can't seem to bring themselves to force people out of old API's to break free.
And what are they going to sell? Their software and peripherals? Are they going to stock the exact same Dell and HP systems that other retailers already have? Are they going to copy Apple's "Genius Bar", and flood themselves with broken and infected systems to fix? How did anyone think this was a good idea?
“And what are they going to sell? Their software and peripherals? Are they going to stock the exact same Dell and HP systems that other retailers already have?”
Just like Apple does. They sell Apple computers and peripherals... Just like Best Buy and WalMart.
But are they going to sell HP, Dell and the other PC manufacturer’s hardware or are they going to just pick one? Also are they going to support those PCs?
I think the big thing holding it up is that the book retailers don't want to get put in the same situation as the music and movie guys. They want you to pay $30 for a new book. I suspect the eReaders (haven't checked on them) are VERY oriented to attaching the text to the device and preventing people from letting others download their books. In general interest books that are public domain, for two bucks I got more books than I could read in a year. I prefer the size of the phone now, as it fits in my pocket. A bigger screen would mean I'd have to carry it, and possibly lose it. In summary, the only thing keeping the iPhone from being the golden electronic book that everyone's looking for is the copyright holders fear the cost of the books dropping too much.
On Thursday the Redmond company announced it had hired former Wal-Mart executive David Porter to make it happen.The sales slogan will be, "watch out for crashing OSes". ;')
Oooh, look, some moronic troll put “lowqualitycrap” into the keywords again.
Windows 7 is great and Microsoft also still makes a great mouse, Intellimouse Optical.
Because everywhere MS products are sold and probably sold cheaper than what MS plans to sell in their stores. I am imagining things but didn’t they already try this about a decde ago only for it to end up being two stores that went belly up?
OOOPPPPSSS that should be “Am I imagining things?”
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