Time to short Morgan Stanley...
I have an iPad, using it right now, in fact. As soon as Win8 comes out, I’m selling this thing.
A tablet is only as good at the market it connects to.
Apple owns the #1 spot because the Apple App Store is 100 times better than the alternatives. Especially if you like free stuff.
As much as its going to tick off the anti-MS people to hear this, it really is isnt a bold call that is being made. It’s more of a duh.
MS came out with the very first of these devices (a handheld about the size of an IPhone), way back in the 90s, and then they got scared and backed off. They even had an e-reader, but they never supported it and were never able to get publishers involved. I am an early-adopter type so I had one but they never even upgraded the earlier users to their second version, and they never got into the fact that consumers wanted good displays and readable text, so they never entered into agreements with publishers or made it easy or even possible to buy media.
That said, I had a Droid phone and got rid of it and bought an IPhone. The Droid just didn’t give me the connectivity, at least in part because while it was originally a very open system, Google started closing it up to “protect” its space, and things simply ceased to work well or even at all.
Apple was famous for its closed loop, so to speak, but I find that even Apple is making more of an effort to connect cross-platform. And it provides a lot more apps.
This could all change, but at the moment I’m happy with my IPhone, IPad, etc, although I have a Windows based PC which is my “home port.”
I don’t know exactly where Android/Google went wrong, but they did, and maybe MS will turn out to be the next rival to Apple once again.
My overall Microsoft experience is poor, and so many people have the same sort of very poor experience that i expect Win8 devices to get good penetration only where their use is compulsory and dictated; i.e., corporate issued devices.
I refuse to go to Win8 because the reality has never met the promise - from windows 1.0 to 3.0 to 3.11 to 98 to xp to that abortion that followed to win 7. I expect it to suck.
I am moving to all Apple OS and Android OS devices by end of year.
I’m in the market for a new cell phone in a few days. I was leaning Samsung Galaxy S II, but then I hear so much about Windows phones. HOWEVER, the dealbreaker for me on windows phones is that they are apparantly incapable of wifi calling (UMA) and I need that. My house is in a cell dead spot. So I think, issues aside, it will be Android and Samsung for me.
I’ve always equated Microsoft products with number 2
Of course, the MS tablet will be brown, and that will kill it regardless of the technological superiority, if any.
“Bold” is close. Insane is more like it. I have been a Windows developer for 20+ years. Windows 8 RT (the tablet variant) will be an unmitigated disaster. Windows 8 on desktop will as well. The branding confusion on the tablet variant will be a major source of buyer’s remorse (”what do you mean my new Windows 8 tablet won’t run my Windows programs - that is why I bought it !”). The bipolar switch from desktop to Metro to desktop will doom Windows 8 desktop to the dustbin along with Microsoft Bob, Windows ME, and Vista.
This will offend some but I am speaking not just for my self.
Many people are barely able to feed their families, barely having enough fuel money to get to work or just cannot find a job.
And being true conservatives will spit on the socialists handouts for loyalty ideology.
I gave up my Tracfone several months ago for a Galaxy S II, its a great piece of work, it actually helps me with my job and I thank the Lord for that....not Obama.
But still I just cannot comprehend where I would or could have the funds for the latest tablets or a new puter with the latest software, mine is old enough it uses Vista.
I’m just saying what I feel, when the idiot leave the Whitehouse and some normalcy returns to America maybe then I’ll see the need for a tablet, but for now I will defer to keep my kids fed, clothed and comfortable.
Windows 8 is going to be a flop on a massive scale.
Not a “Windows Vista” kind of flop, but a “Windows Me” kind of flop.
Meanwhile, while always admiring the technology of Apple, I have never been a fan of Apple the company, and never saw amy of it's products as "mainstream" until the iPod, iTunes and iPad.
And, I have always been even less enamored of Google and more unfavorable toward Google than possibly any information technology company.
If mobile phones and tablets will be platforms for a stronger Microsoft against Apple and Google, the now dominant operating system players in those platforms, I will applaud the greater market competition.
Also, with the telecom service providers no longer willing to keep up the big subsidies to handset makers, maybe we will now also begin to see greater reduction in the unsubsidized retail prices for mobile phones and tablets.