Bill Gates: There is 'a strong possibility' Apple needs a Surface-like device - Page 8

Surface RT is very similar to the iPad. It's the Surface "Pro" that's sufficiently differentiated.

The iPad keyboard question is covered by standard behavior, not specific to that brand of product. If you have a Bluetooth keyboard paired and turned on, the virtual keyboard does not activate, it just reads the BT keyboard.

If that model doesn't suit you, there are plenty of competitors.

I think the stand property of the Logitech has a distinct advantage, you can set the iPad in either portrait or landscape. Surface doesn't seem to have that ability, it's landscape only that I've seen.

It's odd that so many tablets are sticking with the 16:9 aspect ratio for a tablet when it's a great disadvantage to it usability in portrait mode.

Surface Pro is is more differentiated because it has the legacy app support. But RT has a lot of the same factors over the iPad. It's sharing metro apps with the desktop, it has the same physical keyboard support for people using on the road that need a tablet for meetings, but then also something they can take back to a hotel room and do some work for a longer period of time with the benefit of a full screen. It has the same USB connector to link up with other devices.

To me in the comparison of the Logitech keyboard, assuming the Microsoft one works as described. The Microsoft one looks like something Apple could have made. It activates when the magnets hook it on, no need to mess around with paring. It knows when it's wrapped round the back of the machine so you won't be using it. It looks great and has this extra special touch of updating the windows colour to match the keyboard. These things are like the little things that Apple do which make me love Apple products so much, like iPods pausing when you unplug the headphones.

In comparison the Logitech keyboard is thin, but that's all it is. There's nothing to make me love it, no extra perfect detail about it. So as a person who loves Apple products for the detail that goes into them, I wouldn't dream of attaching one of those things to my iPad, in the same way that I can never understand why someone would buy one of the greatest tablets and then hide it in a case that covers up everything that's good. So to me using it in a discussion about a product Microsoft have made that actually looks really good, doesn't do anything to win an argument, but instead actually degrades the iPad, by saying this is good enough.

Pairing of a Bluetooth device is done once. After that, I'm pretty sure the most you have to do with any Bluetooth keyboard is tap the power button.

You don't understand cases? Because in the real world, sometimes shit happens. I really don't understand how that is so hard to understand.

Keyboards aren't for everyone, I don't have a permanent keyboard for my iPad, but it's nice to have on occasion.

Yeah shit happens, and if you use it on a contruction site then that makes sense. But people using the device in an office makes no sense to use some of these cases I see. Giant things that completely cover the thing up, makes me just think what was the point in them buying something thats so thin, or has had the edges curves in such a way to make you want to pick it and easier to pick up. They may have as well bought something cheaper.

 

It may get scratched on the back on the side at some point, but so what? If you cover it up you don't see the back anyway! I'd rather take the risk and get the most out of a device rather than getting to the end of the 2 year lifespan and still have a shinny thing that I've never seen shine.

 

 

I think that's what's nice about the Surface RT keyboard though. It's the same size and soft like my iPads smart cover, but is also a keyboard. 

I'm happy that you haven't had any troubles, but frankly, I think you're being silly. Construction site? That may as well be a straw man. The device falling to any non-carpeted floor risks damage. My iPhone most often held up pretty well to falls, but it only took a fall to a wood floor to shatter the screen. It certainly wasn't a construction site. What about parking lots? Sidewalks? Marble floors? Shit happens and I was referring to much bigger things than scuffs.

If I take that comment at face value, that suggests you don't think the OS is worth anything. Besides, iPad 2 & 3 also have a pretty crisp bevel on the perimeter curves, I never liked the feel of that, kind of like a blunt blade.

No I like the OS although the extent of what it does on the iPad is fairly limited. Other than a sort of modern windows 3.1 start screen, keyboard and notification bar, you don't see much of the os. Apps are all faily unique and isolated with the os doing nothing to help make them work together. But that's a different subject.

I've always liked apple hardware for its design as much as what runs on it. And personally I think the guys designing it meant it to be that way.

There's a strong possibility that Microsoft has become irrelavent.

if businesses buy this failed metro tablet garbage , more fool them, all they will doing is making thier employees even more unproductive. One thing to look out for start selling stock in big companies that buy into MS mobile. I wonder who they are?

why would anyone working on the Intel tablets be any less productive than they currently are?

 

If you are referring to the arm version then I guess they would be as unproductive as any other user of a locked down finger prodding tablet.

 

With regard to windows mobile (winCE), that will be around for years to come, with its resistive screens, it remains the OS of choice for delivery drivers and alike.

 

 

I wonder how he feels now that the numbers are starting to come out in terms of sales for that Surface RT. They don't seem very 'exciting' to me. And something tells me that the Surface Pro won't do much better. Especially if you adjust for returns

 

And real women know that 'work' is a flexible term. Real women are also smart enough to figure out that in some cases yes the iPad is just what we need to do that work we are doing, better than we could with a laptop. While the real men are still scratching their balls etc.

 

In fact, I used an iPad Mini (yep a Mini) to do some work just yesterday. And it was better at it then the full sized iPad. 

 

On an iPhone even. 

Edited by charlituna - 11/25/12 at 1:09pm

 

It is what some consumers want. 

 

Apple's 'magic' is that they don't give a hoot about trying to make all consumers happy. They pick the group they want to please and focus on that group. And that group with the ipad are the ones that don't need the power of a 'real computer' to do what they want to do. They want email, some web browsing, play music, watch a movie, blah blah. If the rest of the consumers can figure out how to make what they want work with what they were given, so be it. But if something isn't of use to Apple's core group or if it will degrade experience for that core group, it is not happening. Like putting a retina screen on the iPad Mini. I have no doubt that Apple could have done it if they really really wanted. Certainly the more snobbish minority has declared it as 'needed', but the majority can't really pick out a major difference between the screen provided and a retina display and putting in a full retina would kill battery use. Having that up to 8 hour battery was deemed more important than the display quality for the majority so that was what Apple went with. 

 

On the flip side, Microsoft is trying to make everyone happy at the same time and created a mess that doesn't really work well for anybody

Sarcasm, or an argument by dick swinging?

In what way was the ipad mini better?

Maybe lighter and more compact? I haven't played with the keyboard, but I believe thumb-typing on the mini would be easier, even for my giant hands.

Creating the substance that helped dig the canals of Suez and Panama, greatly improving fret systems, and saving hundreds of lives of seamen, no counting millions of lives via prompt delivery of food when famines menaced? Creating the substance that was used in digging most tunnels in the USA, establishing a modern railroad system without (too many) slaves/chinese workers?

 

Sounds good and innovative to me.

Will you eat your hat when iPad Mini Retina comes out? You can put the video on Google's Youtube, since Apple Video doesn't exist.