
Mac and the iPad: History Repeats Itself - mbrubeck
http://www.asktog.com/columns/082iPad&Mac.html
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mattparcher
Great lesson:

 _Probably the strongest character trait of Steve Jobs is his absolute lack of
fear. While every other CEO in America, it seems, shakes in his boots at the
very thought of not having a good next quarter, my experience in knowing Steve
Jobs is that, frankly, he could care less about the next quarter. He’s much
more focused on the next five years, rather than the next 90 days. But even
more than that, it is his quest to change the world, and he’s willing to do
whatever it takes to accomplish that end even if he risks failure in the
process._

~~~
hugh3
I hate to get off-topic but it depresses me so much every time I see someone
still failing to realise that the expression is "couldn't care less", which
makes logical sense, instead of "could care less", which doesn't.

~~~
jpeterson
Does it really matter? I mean, few people will misunderstand that phrase,
since it's used so often. Proper grammar is just a transitory convention;
what's important is that the message gets across.

~~~
chipsy
I've been trying to reduce my usage of idiomatic English lately so that I can
communicate better with non-native users.

"Couldn't care less" is a kind of idiom, in that a literal interpretation
leads you to conclude the opposite of what is meant.

~~~
cubicle67
> leads you to conclude the opposite of what is meant

huh? "I couldn't care less" =~ "The value of my caring is so low, no matter
how I tried I couldn't make it lower". To me, the phrase and its intent are
equivalent, not opposite

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aduric
In the late 80's Apple faltered because they had a closed system, while
Microsoft's products worked on every important platform and thus quickly
became ubiquitous. I am simplifying things a little but it seems to me that
history will indeed repeat itself.

~~~
raganwald
> I am simplifying things a little

An important simplification you omitted: Microsoft used illegal monopolistic
tactics to become ubiquitous. Do not skimp on the word "illegal" when thinking
about this. We are not talking about one company being better managers than
the other, we are talking about one company breaking laws that were designed
to give the marketplace a say in the outcome.

Another thing was that Microsoft used many tactics for achieving ubiquity that
may have been legal, may have been brilliant management moves, but the outcome
did not reflect the marketplace choosing their products freely.

For example, they routinely imposed a clause in their contracts that hardware
vendors had to license Windows for each CPU they shipped whether their
customers wanted Windows or not. The net result was that any competitive OS
would by necessity cost more than Windows because the customer had to pay for
the competition and for Windows.

This created the illusion that Windows was more price competitive and that
customers preferred the more affordable OS, when in reality customers had very
little opportunity to make an informed choice based on true cost.

Apple made many choices that hurt them, but I really think we must be careful
to make explanations as simple as possible---but no simpler.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
>Microsoft used illegal monopolistic tactics to become ubiquitous.

No. Microsoft used sound business practice (with a generous serving of good
luck and timing) to become ubiquitous. Only then did they exploit that
ubiquity through illegal monopolistic practices.

~~~
dejb
I'd go further than this an say that Microsoft actually became ubiquitous by
facilitating an open and compatible hardware ecosystem. One that prevented a
monopoly from occurring in the computer hardware market. Without an MSDOS, IBM
and probably Apple would have duked it out for dominance with closed boxes
full of mutually incompatible hardware. Prices would be a lot higher as the
competition amongst hardware (RAM, Hard Drives, motherboards graphics cards,
etc) makers would be limited to 'getting the contract from IBM or Apple' as
opposed to pleasing consumers and/or a large range of OEMS.

... and then they exploited that ubiquity through illegal monopolistic
practices.

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mattparcher
Summary:

Bruce "Tog" Tognazzi draws on his experience of working at Apple in the days
of the original Macintosh to provide a better understanding of Apple's
success, the iPad and what Apple must to do remain successful.

From the site: _During his 14 years at Apple Computer, he founded the Apple
Human Interface Group and acted as Apple's Human Interface Evangelist._

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melvinram
That's a few insightful article. Breaking existing apps/content so you can
craft a different experience for your device is something that most would dare
not do. It's a chess move.

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spot
> Among the many product reviews, the best was the one with a two year old
> having a first encounter with an iPad
> (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT4EbM7dCMs>). For her, the iPad was a
> natural, as natural as month tongue,

uh, that kid already knew how to use an iphone so taking to the ipad is no
surprise at all. my older son (not even 2 yet) can use both android and ipod
touch without problem. there is no doubt that touch-screens are great in small
form factors like these, and apple deserves a lot of credit for popularizing
them.

~~~
dennykmiu
Excellent point. I absolutely agree with you. Touch is the new mouse is my
humble opinion. Thanks. <http://buzz.dennykmiu.com/touch-is-the-new-mouse>

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aaronbrethorst
Hilarious:

"Rodentiometer: Early technical term for a mouse"

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poundy
The last time Apple was beaten by Microsoft (although it had partnerships
originally) as it considered IBM its major threat. This time around I think
Apple will be beaten by Google as it is having most of its focus on Microsoft.

~~~
WildUtah
_Apple was beaten by Microsoft (although it had partnerships originally) as it
considered IBM its major threat. This time around I think Apple will be beaten
by Google as it is having most of its focus on Microsoft._

Much more likely is that Apple will once again be beaten by Microsoft because
it considers Google its major threat. Apple has a blind spot for the idea that
a company without any quality technology can crush it. Accordingly today's
Apple considers Google its major competition. The thing that can do in both
Apple and Google is that Microsoft still owns the Desktop and can extend its
monopoly onto other platforms.

Bing wouldn't have any traction without the ability to control IE and install
itself by default. Lucky for Google, manufacturers can change it; if it hadn't
been for the Clinton Justice anti-trust suit they would still be prohibited
from changing it and Microsoft would have already killed Google.

IE has had as its main mission for a decade the prevention of HTML/DHTML/AJAX
applications that run with Web standards just as well as Desktop apps and
resistance to quality standard versions of HTML5 will be led by a raft of
subtle Microsoft incompatibilities. That will extend the Win32 API monopoly.

If Google and Apple can't understand that, all the tech and design in the
world won't save them.

~~~
raimondious
"IE has had as its main mission for a decade the prevention of HTML/DHTML/AJAX
applications that run with Web standards just as well as Desktop apps"

I don't think that's accurate since IE introduced XMLHttpRequest, vital to
AJAX.

~~~
WildUtah
1) I wrote AJAX apps before XMLHttpRequest. It was simple enough. You opened
an invisible frame and downloaded 'HTML' pages that consisted of a couple
opening tags and whatever JSON you wanted (we didn't call it JSON back then,
but that's what it looked like). Then you read the objects and updated your
main page.

2) Sure XMLHttpRequest is nice. IE implements good things like that to
maintain market share but then ensures that it is never up to standards in
order to cripple the possibility of a capable open standard platform emerging.
Witness the slow response times, lack of support for Canvas, PNG (still),
broken box models (still, through at least IE7), broken message model, and
more. That would all be easy to fix if MS wanted to. They make more money
without a widespread good, fast standards-based browser in the market.

~~~
contextfree
er sorta. it has more to do with the fact that most of the IE team (along with
the GDI and USER teams) was moved into the WPF team after the release of IE6.

by that time they weren't really trying to tie the web to Windows anymore,
they thought the web was obsolete and were trying to replace it entirely.

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dhess
There are parallels here to Twitter's evolution as a service.

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dennykmiu
This is an excellent article. For many of us who have been around long enough
to remember the launch of the original MAC and perhaps even before, we do see
history repeating itself. But perhaps we each have our own interpretation.
<http://buzz.dennykmiu.com/ipad-is-the-prequel>

