Exclusive photos, video from Microsoft Store grand opening - Page 8

Yes. How illogical of the Apple Extremists to notice that the MS store is a blatant copy of the Apple Store.

Stupid fan boys, noticing things!

Yep, releasing a bunch of new hardware is just like opening a store that slavishly copies your rival.

I'm not really one for "Apple users are smarter/cooler/whatever" theories, but I'm starting to wonder if using a PC makes you a little stupid. The MS defenses/Apple snark being mounted in this thread are appallingly moronic.

Not really interested in engaging my point, I guess.

At any rate, at current trends Apple's market cap is likely to exceed MS's next year some time.

Hope this works for them, but I do wonder what they plan to sell. Of course, Windows and Orfice but what else? Keyboards, mice, XBox & accessories? Oh, that Zune thing probably too. But, even then what's the attraction? Once you have your copy of Windows, it's not like you have to go and get another in a week or two. They are a software company, albeit a one with few of their own original ideas.

It's like the "Hot Dog on a Stick" place at the mall; Hot Dogs, Lemonade and Fried Cheese, almost a one trick pony. Honestly, I've never been to an Apple Store either, so I'm not familiar with what they sell. I live in rural Arizona, I bought my Mac Mini at a local computer shop and had to wait a week for it to arrive. The nearest Apple and soon Gateway, umm, I mean, Microsoft store will be over 100 miles away.

Yes, I own and use Macs and will never use anything else, except at work (Windows XP.) So all of you MS fanboys, throw your stones, but my 2009 Mac Mini has nearly 5 months of uptime without a single crash, (got it in May 2009.) No software re-installs and no viruses, malware, worms and so on... I just run my firewall and it's all good.

The Windows machine that lives in my house requires monthly maintenance and has been restored (drive wiped, windows re-installed) twice since it came home from ahem, Best Buy, but I can't its owner to see the light, which is too bad. Life is good on this side of the fence.

P.S. - it ain't my HP!



So good luck MS, I'm sure someone will shop in your store, but it won't be me.

Uh, no this is like Ruth's Chris Steakhouse fanboys bashing every new McDonalds for advertising McRib sandwiches.

Everybody needs to realize that the trouble with ALL of these video media devices is not technological. The problem is that the CONTENT IS STILL CONTROLLED BY THE STUDIOS, and they'll be damned if they give over as easily as the recording studios did. Of course, give technology a couple more years to make bandwidth and hard drives sufficient to make video piracy a no-brainer, and they'll be singing a different tune. THAT's when it will pay off for Apple and others to have had its foot in the door enough to garner some mindshare. Bottom line: the video wars right now are purely about mindshare. The control is still with the content owners. That will eventually change, and then we can stop bashing the device makers for being so lame.

Thompson

No you wrong with one detail the "blue screen" is a brand image of MS alone, Apple will never try and take that image away

Well, it doesn't look exactly like the leaked Microsoft store concept sketch I saw, but it's hard to tell with the crowd inside.

It'll be fascinating to see whether the crowds stay in the months ahead, and whether the "open right next door to Apple stores" results in some fun head-butting between the companies.

You so wrong. Apple is controlling the content on the Apple TV. Why are my files listed at the bottom of the menus and why is search throwing me into the iTunes Store to buy more Apple DRM? Why can't I rent or buy from anywhere else? iTunes catalogue is extremely limited for FILM.
The APPleTV is a 3 year old Flop which was supposed to be in everyone's home , not Blu-ray. It's DEAD. 3 years old and sill a "HOBBY" - WHAT A JOKE!

Surely the MS store has the same flaw as the MS ads: Everyone who would visit an Apple store already knows what MS do. Many who would visit an MS store would be first timers in an Apple store.

It's a win-lose for Apple-Microsoft marketing.

Who forced you to buy one?
It was far more limited when it was released, but yet you still bought one.
All those upgrades you have had for free, some people are never happy.

No kidding. The layout, the staff t-shirts and the thing hanging from their necks. How original. Kinda makes MS lose whatever credibility they have left, eh?

I seem to be missing something here.....

Is techstud a moderator or does he have total immunity.

His posts I have read here and in other threads are very rude and frequenty ofensive, but nothing seems to be done about it. Are there double standards at AppleInsider?

Bill

I just felt that I needed to correct something here. Just like Microsoft copies Apple in some cases, whether or not you choose to believe it, Apple also copies Microsoft.

The finder sidebar, two years after Windows had it.
The path bar OSX 10.5, about 1 year after Windows had it.
Back AND Forward navigation buttons in folders OSX 10.2, Windows had it in Windows 2000.
Documents minimizing into the app icon instead of creating a new icon OSX 10.6, Windows has been doing it for a while with the taskbar.
Screen sharing with remote desktop 10.4, Windows has been doing it since the launch of XP and even created a free Mac version that did this before Apple included it in an OS.
Backup and restore, Windows had it first.
Putting all the systems preferences in one place 10.0, ever since Windows had a control panel they were there.


The list goes on and on and on. You can also compile a list about things Apple's OS had first that Microsoft copied.

The bottom line is, I guess it just depends on how objective you are, and if you are willing to seek out all the facts, and not just the facts that back up your personal beliefs.

Both of these companies have been copying good ideas from the other one for quite some time now, it's not a one way street.

In the UK we have been targets of terrorisim for many, many years, much of it funded by the New York Irish community. I have experienced 2 IRA bombs first hand (Manchester and Warrington).

It is easy to poke fun at others, but you also have to be sensitive and thoughtfull about what you say because often it can make you look silly / angry / ignorant.

I suspect there were many Canadians lost in the 9/11 attacks, and remember these are not the first terror acts in the world and the USA is not the only county to suffer.

It does pain me sometimes to see the USA making out as though they are the only ones to suffer loss from terror. Many thousands have died around the world from terror attacks, it did not all start on 9/11. Yes it was a terrible day for the world. It is just that the USA seem to have missed the many other terrible days that happened before 9/11.

1945
Aug. 6, Aug. 9, Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan: Altogether, the two bombings killed an estimated 110,000 Japanese citizens and injured another 130,000. By 1950, another 230,000 Japanese had died from injuries or radiation.

1945
Jan. 30, Baltic Sea: Nazi passenger ship Wilhelm Gustloff, carrying German refugees and soldiers, was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine. As many as 9,000 to 10,000 may have died. World's largest marine disaster.

1949
Aug. 5, Ecuador: An area of some 1,500 square miles was struck by an earthquake measuring 6.75 magnitude. 6,000 people were killed and about 100,000 people were made homeless from the area at Ambato and four other towns.

1960
Oct. 10, East Pakistan: Cyclone and tidal wave killed about 6,000.

1944
Jun. 29, off the coast of Japan: Japanese troop ship carrying troops and crew was torpedoed by American submarine USS Sturgeon. An estimated 5,400 to 5,600 sailors were killed.

2004
Apr. 22, Ryongchon, North Korea: Two fuel trains collided at a North Korean railroad station near the Chinese border, igniting a deafening explosion that rained debris for more than 10 miles around, South Korean media said. As many as 3,000 people may have been killed or injured.

1889
May 31, Johnstown, Pa.: More than 2,200 died in flood after South Fork Dam of the Little Conemaugh River collapsed, causing a wall of water 40 feet high.

1984
Dec. 3, Bhopal, India: Toxic gas, methyl isocyanate, seeped from Union Carbide insecticide plant, killed more than 2,000, injured about 150,000.

1944
Oct. 24, South China Sea: the Arisan Maru carrying 1,800 American prisoners was torpedoed by a U.S. submarine and sunk. The Japanese destroyer escort rescued Japanese military and civilian personnel and left the POWs to their fate. It is estimated that only ten prisoners survived the disaster.

1990
Jul. 2, Mecca, Saudi Arabia: a stampede in a 1,800 foot-long pedestrian tunnel leading from Mecca to a tent city for pilgrims killed 1,426 pilgrims who were trampled to death.

William- Neither. I have received my share of warnings. However, just because I may something you don't agree with or written in a manner you might not like, I never resort to ugly and rude personal attacks like those hurled at me left and right. Put me on your ignore list.

Poke fun of others? Dude, Gazoobee compared the USA to Nazi Germany for crissake! Please critique your own antiquated Queendom. If any country at all has a hstory of terrorism, it's your own. Where's you listing of all the atrocities in World history committed in the name of your Kings and /or Queens?

Finally, 9/11/09 was an attack on US soil and nowhere else. Your house of cards with all your lists has just collapsed.

Yeah? Where are they then?

To be frank USA and UK are the same, never had a good reputation at resolving issues and most times, actually cause more harm then good, e.g. Israel - UK selling of the land to Jewish community via USA.

BUT I would not play down 9/11, since it first time terrorism had reached such terrible highs and involved so many innocent people.

Any back to apple discussion.

Why are you here on these forums? maybe you should go over to the microsoft forums and enjoy life there. Obviously something is eating at you, maybe you're hating for no real reason?

Sorry my friend, but you're comparing poilcy as opposed to philosphy. We couldn't be more different than that Kingdom of Royals with their socialist health care system.
The only royal we have is a Royale with Cheese and that's seved in EU.

Actually, it's quite the opposite, those screens use so much energy (at least when you have 200) that MS had to get some sort of variance for the amount of power they were using in the mall. Not to mention all the heat created by these monitors. The amount of energy required to build, transport and maintain a monitor outweighs the cost of some paper/plastic a few times a year.

Shame on them.

no offense to americans, but they tend to see themselves as the center of the world...and some of them tend to over victimize over issues, like terrorism...

Enough people have answered this really artless and naive assertion here, but, what the hell, my two bits is below.


1) They're knocking on the double digit market share door even as you split semantic hairs, and are 2) tearing up the revenue share of computers over $1,000. It's not that you can't buy a $3,000 PC (Velocity, Alienware [super Dell], etc.) or some gearheads can't cobble near the same one together for half that, it's that Apple is winning big in this area and (shock) only a miniscule number of PC-using people actually build their own PC's (or cars, or HDTV's or washing machines).


It has nothing to do with pride and everything to do with their biz model. MS is a software maker (despite their occasional largely unsuccessful forays into hardware) farming out products to hardware makers with their success hinging on a near monopoly (Win, Server and Office have been a huge % of their profits forever). Apple is a hardware maker using refined OS'es, industry leading support and a unique hardware industrial/product design process to sell machines.

And yes, they once forgot that and entered the clone market. And it just about did them in.


Which is why Apple sticks to their biz model - so they CAN have that rating - and be a one-stop service shop, which no one else is. Last I heard they were making a few bucks tending to that knitting.


I hope they're not fighting for Al Qaeda!! Or maybe it was just a bad dream after I ate that Windows 7 Whopper.....


No, chips would be a more likely market for Intel. But just the thing to gnosh along with the burger above.


At least when no context is provided to single stats.


MS ain't going anywhere. They're huge, they make huge $$, they have huge $$, they can buy many threats that arise whether they use them or deep-six the tech - and Apple's still an afterthought in the huge Enterprise, SMB and computer gaming markets. Not to mention that Win 7 is a useable product.

Also, don't forget MS is probably Apple's largest revenue ISV!! (Office and all the Bootcamp/Virtualized copies of Windows).

They are on the defensive in many markets, though, and not just from Apple (Google, Sony, Nintendo, etc.), and may have already missed the iDevice revolution. But even so MS and then Compaq and others rocked IBM's world a few decades back and drove them entirely out of the "IBM-compatible" market, but Big Blue's bigger than ever and very successful after refocusing and rebuilding.

Also, their advertising is actually getting better and along with things like Bing, sometimes of late it even seems like they're starting to (gasp!) grasp the concept of cool......



Saying MS doesn't have or never had an original thought in an AI post long ago ceased to be an original thought.


Actually maybe more on Bill Gates not firing his long-time friend, Steve Ballmer. S' the only reason I can see he's still there.

I climbed out of my iBed this AM, took a quick trip to the iFlush, had a refreshing iShower......


Yes you do. I'm happy for you.


MS: the PC for climate change deniers! Now there's a marketing slogan for you.

LED + ISP has multiple technical (and power-saving) benefits. More even lighting, increased gamut, wider angle of view, etc. Characteristics of (dare I say it) "premium computers."

No they don't. Most are buying $4-500 desktops, $4-650 notebooks or netbooks.

Hmmmm.....No offense to the rest of the world...but when ever something bad happens..... flood, earthquake...finacial collapse......coup attempt.....security threats from other countries. Who is always the first one they contact....USA. Then later they complain....about everything!!!! No matter what the USA does it is always wrong...we should have done something else or we didn't do this or we didn't do enough. But then some other threat happens in the world and everyone turns to the USA to fix it....
Don't get me started......So "douyourownthing" what country are you from?
I don't want to turn this into a nasty little discussion but I will defend my country from potshots from others. The USA has made mistakes just like everyone else so let end this at that.

I would rather get back to discussing TECHNOLOGY

There are some real and perceived reasons for this phenomenon.

For starters, the US has the largest GDP. So large, in fact, that our economy can go to shit, affect the rest of the world in a domino effect and end up making our dollar stronger because of it. Only in America!

Other reasons revolve around entertainment mostly coming from the US. From TV to Movies most Americans mostly get to see things from a US-centric perspective, while much of the world receives our TV shows and movies.

Then there is sheer size of the nation. Other countries are larger, but the US is well populated with 300M people through most of the contiguous 48 states, unlike Canada and Russia where much of the land is virtually inhabitable. For better or worse, most Americans never leave the country yet can travel by car for several days without reaching the end, while in comparison, I see Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower with only a few hours difference via the Chunnel. Its just too easy to get exposed to other cultures if you live in Europe.

I've never had the need to visit an Apple genius bar once for any purpose to this day. The Genius Bar is a place that offers assistance, upgrades, and other things to a user where he/she can get hands on help. 'For the people; not for busted hardware (which would only seem to happen if one were to abuse his/her Apple).

On the other hand, it would seem that Microsoft's "Guru Bar" (a title bursting with originality) would offer an official Microsoft location for a highway of a large volume of virus infected machines or those bearing the "Blue Screen of Death" or some other "Fatal Error," and give the plethora of independent "PC repair shops" something to compete against.

1995 just called they want their talking points back.

That's the problem with America; It's a nation built of money, and one that cares only about money. Money is the root of all evil. Thus, an evil nation. In other select cultures where certain manners and standards of behavior are common knowledge, here live wasteful hillbillies in large gas-guzzling trucks with money set as their number one goal in life. Feel free to attempt an argument, but from what I observe in my everyday life here those are the facts currently.

...Not that that has anything to do whatsoever with the new Microsoft Store.

Unfortunately I don't understand your reply.

Clichés and stereotypes are the root of all ignorance.

Anyway, in a few years you wont have to worry about it because China will have the largest GDP. Per capita and/or by land area, there are many, many other nations that are more wealthy than the US. Likely the one you are from, but go ahead and hate on the US I have to get back to wasting fuel and having sex with sister anyway. \

Pros: Cool logo. Unfortunately it is very reminiscent of another retail store that sells Macs.

Cons: Do they seriously call it a "Guru Bar?" ...And if that store design doesn't look frighteningly like a common Apple Retail Store (wood flooring, small recessed can lighting in between fluorescent panels, uninterrupted front-of-store window panes) then I don't know what to say. There are an infinite number of ways to design any interior space architecturally, so one must admit that this is strikingly similar in the broad view.

Are you sure your from Oaktown and not Berserkley?

I live in the Tampa Bay Area actually, hacking on all of the air pollution. Separately, it may be beneficial to review the origin of this break-away discussion a few postings ago. China, since you mentioned it, seems to be a culture that enjoys a high level of respect among its citizens. I don't know why you would be offended by me having mentioned the existence of hillbillies in the first place, unless you are one; It seems they are everywhere here. It's a matter of education. I'm not one to insult certain stereotypes, or anyone really, but people are given the gift of self control when they are born and have the ability to make decisions about how they project their personalities and behaviors.

Of course you see hillbillies, you are in Tampa. Pasco, Lutz, Plant City and all the little ares between have plenty of “rednecks”. There are plenty of other stereotypcial groupings in the TBA, too. America’s wang is not responsive of the US.

So then....are you living here in the evil USA?
What country are you from or living in?
If you ARE living here in the US then LEAVE.........we evil americans don't want you here.
We are so evil and only care about money....why would you want to live here or buy any of our products to support such an evil place!! So hopefully you are NOT living here and NOT typing on a US made computer or operating system but one made from YOUR country. Becuse of course YOUR country is so much better. So just where are you from?

What decade are you living in??

As of over a year ago, Apple (with iPhone biz factored in) had over half Microsoft's profits, over three-fourths Microsoft's revenue, and more cash than Microsoft. Since then Apple's kept growing like crazy, setting new records almost every quarter (profit up 47% in latest). Microsoft's quarters tend to be like its latest: bad (net income down 17%).

I don't know what the current comparisons are for profit, revenue, cash, and market cap (anyone have a full comparison?) but if the trends of the last few years keep up, Apple will soon beat MS on all of those. I repeat: Apple may very soon be a larger company than MS.

None of which has much to do with anything, but do please try to join us in the current decade, OK?

He was told to contact Dell because his Vista is the OEM version.

Gads, but I'd love to see a poster blowup of <i>that</i> up at the Microsoft store!