7 ms·

Apple seem to be in the same state of denial now that Microsoft were when Windows 8 came out. They believe touch-screen tablets are the future, and the way comp

Apple seem to be in the same state of denial now that Microsoft were when Windows 8 came out. They believe touch-screen tablets are the future, and the way computing should be done, and ignore the desktop and laptop paradigm works much better for getting work done for a lot of people. Microsoft realised their mistake and came out with Windows 10, which works well across both tablets and desktops/laptops. Apple seem to have doubled-down. The future looks prettier for the former.

SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
There's just no real replacement for a keyboard and mouse. And if I'm using those, why wouldn't I want a laptop?
- cptskippy 10y ago
  The opposite is also true. Keyboards and mice are no replacement for a touch screen. I have a laptop with all three and I love it.
  - kinkrtyavimoodh 10y ago
    The tie-breaker is this—would you rather have a 'laptop' with no keyboard or mouse but a touchscreen or the other way round.
    - cptskippy 10y ago
      There's no tie to break. They're different overlapping forms of input. They co-sign just fine on a laptop and you don't have to choose one over the other.
      - kinkrtyavimoodh 10y ago
        There's a tie to break because the discussion was about iPads, which offer a touchscreen but not a KB or Mouse.
  - Jare 10y ago
    My touchscreen Chromebook has been the most cost-effective and versatile computer purchase I've ever made. And with a crouton chroot I can do anything I'd do on a regular Ubuntu laptop outside of high performance and games.
  - michaelmrose 10y ago
    Actually mice/touchpad are a direct replacement that doesn't require you to hold your hand up awkwardly or get nasty fingerprints on your screen. The only things touch does better is allow gestures which could be input on your touchpad instead of directly on the screen. Of course its useful on convertable tablets that can be used in tablet orientation.
    - delecti 10y ago
      Have you used a laptop with a touchscreen? Because I thought the same way you seem to until I did. A decade of getting used to touchscreen phones and tablets has made it feel really natural to interact directly with a screen. It's not world changing, but that extra input stream is a very pleasant addition, and sometimes it's just more natural to tap the screen directly.
      - 300bps 10y ago
        Have you used a laptop with a touchscreen? I have for about 18 months and I never use the touch screen functionality. In fact the only time it ever gets used is when someone else tries to point at something on my screen and of course that causes a click and they awkwardly say, "Sorry, I didn't know it was a touch screen."
    - cptskippy 10y ago
      > The only things touch does better is allow gestures That's not true at all. There are plenty of Apps that work better with touch than using a mouse or touchpad. When you don't have a 9 Key, such as on a laptop, then touch becomes the preferred method of input for calculator apps or dialers. Media player applications work much better with touch than mouse. There are many apps that don't have keyboard shortcuts and custom UIs that are difficult to navigate with keyboard or mouse. When using a laptop I use to naturally keep my left hand next to the keyboard with thumb on CTRL, index on TAB, and middle finger on ESC. After using a touchscreen laptop for 3+ years I now keep my hand rested next to the screen with for fingers behind the screen and my thumb hovering over it. I can use my thumb to flick the screen or slam the ESC key and change screens with a gesture.
  - criddell 10y ago
    I have a Windows laptop because there's a few key pieces of software that I use that's Windows only. There's some interesting iPad Pro software that I think will be useful, so I'm probably going to buy one of those. The software I use has always dictated the hardware I buy.
- PKop 10y ago
  Exactly. Unless and until the input of text ceases to become a primary function of computing devices, touch screens will never be as effective as a laptop with keyboard. Sure, add on keyboards are an option, but it is a second class citizen and apps aren't primarily designed with them in mind.
  - UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
    Second class citizen is right. In my OPINION the add-on keyboard on the Surface Pro 4 is the best attempt, but even that pales in comparison to the Surface Book, and real laptops like last year's MBP and Thinkpads. 3-in-1s might have a legitimate future (e.g. Surface Book). But they have real keyboards, not sketchy addon ones. Real laptops aren't going anywhere for people that actually need to be productive.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      >3-in-1s might have a legitimate future It does seem as if you're going to have two devices with basically the same hardware there ought to be some way to converge them. I agree that Microsoft has probably come closest but no one seems to have fully cracked this yet. OTOH, I often travel with an Asus Flip Chromebook and I find it sufficiently awkward as a tablet that I usually travel with my iPad as well unless I'm going very light in which case I take my Kindle Paperwhite.
Shorel 10y ago
Apple stellar sales and profits with the first generation of iPads caused that state of denial from one side. Gaming profit going away from PCs (to consoles and tables) was the other side. Even apple neglected their laptops in favor of the profitable divisions. Everyone wanted to have one 'App' store to profit as much as Google and Apple. Even Amazon has one nowadays. Steam filled a void. What Microsoft realized is that they could add good hardware and a store to the Windows experience and get some of that profit.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  And are getting it back with hybrid tablets and the new type of netbooks. I seldom see Android devices on that category at local computer stores.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Well the Android tablet market got hung out to dry by Google during late 4.x Android, while at the same time Intel was trying to get their foot in by selling Atoms at a loss. Thus everything just kinda got stuck in a doldrums. I hope Android 7 and a renewed attention to tablets by Google will help some.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  MS has been trying to get tablets to work since the days of Gates. His last act before handing the chair over to Ballmer was to launch UMPCs and convertible laptops, with a variant of XP to complement them.
  - MrRadar 10y ago
    Yep, this goes all the way back to "Windows for Pen Computing"[0], a version of Windows 3.1 for very early tablets. Here's a video of Bill Gates showing it off: https://youtu.be/eenDjMXfVBQ?t=2m22s https://youtu.be/eenDjMXfVBQ?t=2m22s [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_for_Pen_Computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_for_Pen_Computing
frik 10y ago
How has Microsoft realised their Windows 8 mistake? Win10 and WinPhone10 are more of the same (Win8), just even more buggy. Guess how many control panel dialog styles has Win10, oh right more than 5, dating all the way back to Win95. In what universe asked consumers to be spied by Microsoft, the "telemetry features" that cannot be turned off (just Basic or Full) and forced automatic updates that basically reinstall the full Windows and reset many settings - must be a dystopian 1984 universe where consumers are mindless slaves. No Microsoft has NOT learned from their mistake. They make more and more as the go the wrong direction. Will they (be forced to) make to do a 180 degree U-turn?
- Chyzwar 10y ago
  Problem is MS business model. They cannot remove stuff because of compatibility and cannot build new OS because they already have competition. Most sensible would be to remove cruft in Windows and move to ARM hardware. Because Bill was not in power, new windows API(UWP) and Edge were too late. Now MS stuck with Win10 that have backward compatibility with win98 and IE11.... and dead WP. It is already to late for MS to recover.
  - jodrellblank 10y ago
    Too late to recover, except their Windows non-pro revenue was up 27% last year: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2016-Q4/press-release-webcast https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2016-Q4... ?
    - Chyzwar 10y ago
      But net profit is down [0]. Problem is losing competitive edge. They cannot do vertical integration like Apple because they lost mobile. Traditional enterprise is moving to cloud and Azure is only propped temporary[1]. Edge is bleeding users and Internet is already belong to Facebook and Google. Chrome and Mac slowly eat desktop market[3]. MS already already lost all chances to do a comeback. Current CEO lack product vision. Buying LinkedIn is silly where for the same price they could have ARM. [0]https://revenuesandprofits.com/apple-vs-microsoft-revenues-and-profits-1995-to-2015/ https://revenuesandprofits.com/apple-vs-microsoft-revenues-a... [1]http://uk.businessinsider.com/leaked-microsoft-cloud-sales-firgures-2015-3?r=US&IR=T http://uk.businessinsider.com/leaked-microsoft-cloud-sales-f... [2]http://uk.businessinsider.com/chromebook-sales-versus-other-pcs-2015-10?r=US&IR=T http://uk.businessinsider.com/chromebook-sales-versus-other-...
tluyben2 10y ago
> Microsoft realised their mistake and came out with Windows 10, which works well across both tablets and desktops/laptops. Apple seem to have doubled-down. The future looks prettier for the former. Do you use Windows 10 on tablets? Because compared to iOS I find it very touch unfriendly and fidgety. I use it because I develop for the 3 eco systems, but Windows I for one cannot really use it without for anything useful without a mouse. I do not have that issue with iOS or Android.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  Yes. I use Windows 10 on three different devices, one of which is a tablet. It's not quite as nice as iOS is, but it's also more flexible, which makes up for it. For instance, I can run “desktop” Windows applications on my tablet, which means I can use actual Firefox.

SomeStupidPoint 10y ago

There's just no real replacement for a keyboard and mouse. And if I'm using those, why wouldn't I want a laptop?

cptskippy 10y ago
The opposite is also true. Keyboards and mice are no replacement for a touch screen. I have a laptop with all three and I love it.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 10y ago
  The tie-breaker is this—would you rather have a 'laptop' with no keyboard or mouse but a touchscreen or the other way round.
  - cptskippy 10y ago
    There's no tie to break. They're different overlapping forms of input. They co-sign just fine on a laptop and you don't have to choose one over the other.
    - kinkrtyavimoodh 10y ago
      There's a tie to break because the discussion was about iPads, which offer a touchscreen but not a KB or Mouse.
- Jare 10y ago
  My touchscreen Chromebook has been the most cost-effective and versatile computer purchase I've ever made. And with a crouton chroot I can do anything I'd do on a regular Ubuntu laptop outside of high performance and games.
- michaelmrose 10y ago
  Actually mice/touchpad are a direct replacement that doesn't require you to hold your hand up awkwardly or get nasty fingerprints on your screen. The only things touch does better is allow gestures which could be input on your touchpad instead of directly on the screen. Of course its useful on convertable tablets that can be used in tablet orientation.
  - delecti 10y ago
    Have you used a laptop with a touchscreen? Because I thought the same way you seem to until I did. A decade of getting used to touchscreen phones and tablets has made it feel really natural to interact directly with a screen. It's not world changing, but that extra input stream is a very pleasant addition, and sometimes it's just more natural to tap the screen directly.
    - 300bps 10y ago
      Have you used a laptop with a touchscreen? I have for about 18 months and I never use the touch screen functionality. In fact the only time it ever gets used is when someone else tries to point at something on my screen and of course that causes a click and they awkwardly say, "Sorry, I didn't know it was a touch screen."
  - cptskippy 10y ago
    > The only things touch does better is allow gestures That's not true at all. There are plenty of Apps that work better with touch than using a mouse or touchpad. When you don't have a 9 Key, such as on a laptop, then touch becomes the preferred method of input for calculator apps or dialers. Media player applications work much better with touch than mouse. There are many apps that don't have keyboard shortcuts and custom UIs that are difficult to navigate with keyboard or mouse. When using a laptop I use to naturally keep my left hand next to the keyboard with thumb on CTRL, index on TAB, and middle finger on ESC. After using a touchscreen laptop for 3+ years I now keep my hand rested next to the screen with for fingers behind the screen and my thumb hovering over it. I can use my thumb to flick the screen or slam the ESC key and change screens with a gesture.
- criddell 10y ago
  I have a Windows laptop because there's a few key pieces of software that I use that's Windows only. There's some interesting iPad Pro software that I think will be useful, so I'm probably going to buy one of those. The software I use has always dictated the hardware I buy.
PKop 10y ago
Exactly. Unless and until the input of text ceases to become a primary function of computing devices, touch screens will never be as effective as a laptop with keyboard. Sure, add on keyboards are an option, but it is a second class citizen and apps aren't primarily designed with them in mind.
- UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
  Second class citizen is right. In my OPINION the add-on keyboard on the Surface Pro 4 is the best attempt, but even that pales in comparison to the Surface Book, and real laptops like last year's MBP and Thinkpads. 3-in-1s might have a legitimate future (e.g. Surface Book). But they have real keyboards, not sketchy addon ones. Real laptops aren't going anywhere for people that actually need to be productive.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    >3-in-1s might have a legitimate future It does seem as if you're going to have two devices with basically the same hardware there ought to be some way to converge them. I agree that Microsoft has probably come closest but no one seems to have fully cracked this yet. OTOH, I often travel with an Asus Flip Chromebook and I find it sufficiently awkward as a tablet that I usually travel with my iPad as well unless I'm going very light in which case I take my Kindle Paperwhite.

Shorel 10y ago

Apple stellar sales and profits with the first generation of iPads caused that state of denial from one side. Gaming profit going away from PCs (to consoles and tables) was the other side. Even apple neglected their laptops in favor of the profitable divisions. Everyone wanted to have one 'App' store to profit as much as Google and Apple. Even Amazon has one nowadays. Steam filled a void. What Microsoft realized is that they could add good hardware and a store to the Windows experience and get some of that profit.

pjmlp 10y ago
And are getting it back with hybrid tablets and the new type of netbooks. I seldom see Android devices on that category at local computer stores.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Well the Android tablet market got hung out to dry by Google during late 4.x Android, while at the same time Intel was trying to get their foot in by selling Atoms at a loss. Thus everything just kinda got stuck in a doldrums. I hope Android 7 and a renewed attention to tablets by Google will help some.
digi_owl 10y ago
MS has been trying to get tablets to work since the days of Gates. His last act before handing the chair over to Ballmer was to launch UMPCs and convertible laptops, with a variant of XP to complement them.
- MrRadar 10y ago
  Yep, this goes all the way back to "Windows for Pen Computing"[0], a version of Windows 3.1 for very early tablets. Here's a video of Bill Gates showing it off: https://youtu.be/eenDjMXfVBQ?t=2m22s https://youtu.be/eenDjMXfVBQ?t=2m22s [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_for_Pen_Computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_for_Pen_Computing

frik 10y ago

How has Microsoft realised their Windows 8 mistake? Win10 and WinPhone10 are more of the same (Win8), just even more buggy. Guess how many control panel dialog styles has Win10, oh right more than 5, dating all the way back to Win95. In what universe asked consumers to be spied by Microsoft, the "telemetry features" that cannot be turned off (just Basic or Full) and forced automatic updates that basically reinstall the full Windows and reset many settings - must be a dystopian 1984 universe where consumers are mindless slaves. No Microsoft has NOT learned from their mistake. They make more and more as the go the wrong direction. Will they (be forced to) make to do a 180 degree U-turn?

Chyzwar 10y ago
Problem is MS business model. They cannot remove stuff because of compatibility and cannot build new OS because they already have competition. Most sensible would be to remove cruft in Windows and move to ARM hardware. Because Bill was not in power, new windows API(UWP) and Edge were too late. Now MS stuck with Win10 that have backward compatibility with win98 and IE11.... and dead WP. It is already to late for MS to recover.
- jodrellblank 10y ago
  Too late to recover, except their Windows non-pro revenue was up 27% last year: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2016-Q4/press-release-webcast https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2016-Q4... ?
  - Chyzwar 10y ago
    But net profit is down [0]. Problem is losing competitive edge. They cannot do vertical integration like Apple because they lost mobile. Traditional enterprise is moving to cloud and Azure is only propped temporary[1]. Edge is bleeding users and Internet is already belong to Facebook and Google. Chrome and Mac slowly eat desktop market[3]. MS already already lost all chances to do a comeback. Current CEO lack product vision. Buying LinkedIn is silly where for the same price they could have ARM. [0]https://revenuesandprofits.com/apple-vs-microsoft-revenues-and-profits-1995-to-2015/ https://revenuesandprofits.com/apple-vs-microsoft-revenues-a... [1]http://uk.businessinsider.com/leaked-microsoft-cloud-sales-firgures-2015-3?r=US&IR=T http://uk.businessinsider.com/leaked-microsoft-cloud-sales-f... [2]http://uk.businessinsider.com/chromebook-sales-versus-other-pcs-2015-10?r=US&IR=T http://uk.businessinsider.com/chromebook-sales-versus-other-...

tluyben2 10y ago

> Microsoft realised their mistake and came out with Windows 10, which works well across both tablets and desktops/laptops. Apple seem to have doubled-down. The future looks prettier for the former. Do you use Windows 10 on tablets? Because compared to iOS I find it very touch unfriendly and fidgety. I use it because I develop for the 3 eco systems, but Windows I for one cannot really use it without for anything useful without a mouse. I do not have that issue with iOS or Android.

TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
Yes. I use Windows 10 on three different devices, one of which is a tablet. It's not quite as nice as iOS is, but it's also more flexible, which makes up for it. For instance, I can run “desktop” Windows applications on my tablet, which means I can use actual Firefox.