5 ms·

This isn't a technical spec, it's a pitch deck to be delivered to managers/execs at another company. They're talking to their audience.

by lmkg 16y ago

avar 16y ago
It looks even worse when viewed in that light. Is "we're going to try to rip Apple off, badly" really the pitch they're giving HP and their other OEM's?
- wvenable 16y ago
  Maybe they are answering the exact question the OEM's are asking: "How can we be more like Apple?"
- kenjackson 16y ago
  Except there are almost no Apple features listed in this deck. The only thing they really copy from Apple is to create brand loyalty. I'm not sure any company in the world would argue against trying to get the brand loyalty that Apple has.
- encoderer 16y ago
  Oy. I'm _so_ sick of people talking of one software company "copying" another as if it's a bad thing. Look around in the rest of the world mate. Look at the checkout lines at Target! They're exactly like Walmart! Which are exactly like Safeway! Look at the layout of every grocery store you've ever been in. Look at each boutique in the shopping mall. All the same! When people say "intuitive" they mean "familiar." They may not realize it, but that's what "intuitive" _actually_ means. You've got an e-commerce site? You should liberally borrow/steal from Amazon's checkout process. You've got an OS? Take from Apple who've been setting a baseline for OS usability. Christ. "X is copying Y" is about as inane as it gets to me.
  - avar 16y ago
    It's not the copying that's the problem. It's the part where they're doing it badly. If the best Microsoft can do is to struggle to keep up with what Apple was doing two years ago they're not going to look very impressive to OEM's like HP as they decide to move forward with their products, with our without Microsoft.
    - encoderer 16y ago
      If that's the case then it's just a question of implementation. Why does the "copying"/"stealing" meme even introduce itself? It confuses your point IMO. However, your "doing it badly" is a matter of opinion, no? I use a mac at work as I mentioned elsewhere. I enjoy it a great deal. It's hard to go back and forth between the Mac there and Windows at home because the way the mouse moves is just... different. But I do it... I was planning on dumping my Vista laptop at home for a macbook but then I gave Win7 a try. You can scoff at my experiences if you'd like, but Win7 is the only OS i've ever purchased. I think Vista is one of the worst OS experiences I've ever had (2nd to ME) and hands-down I think Win7 is the best. It's built-in keyboard shortcuts for moving and docking windows across multiple monitors are invaluable to me. I installed the 3rd party app to give me similar function on my mac and it was... dismal. My Win box is as reliable as my Mac. I restart them both on average once a month or so. There are several places Mac kills Win7. Tasks like adding a network printer, for example. But those are rare, relatively speaking. The Win7 taskbar is no doubt inspired by the Dock but it's far more useful IMO. The context menu per taskbar item is brilliant. And once my cache is warmed (a day after restarts maybe) it's faster to/from Hibernate/Sleep than is the Mac. If you've not used Win7 and you're criticizing, eh, you're entitled. But as an analytical guy, as a software developer, it seems odd to me.
      - loewenskind 16y ago
        Wait some months and see if the experience is still the same. Much to my surprise, a lot of people still say that windows 7 has the age old "bit rot" problem of Windows 95, i.e. the longer you use it without rebooting the worse it starts performing.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - tgt_ 16y ago
    Look at the checkout lines at Target! They're exactly like Walmart! Which are exactly like Safeway! Are they? Because I see some fairly large differences. Target: http://www.treesfullofmoney.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/checkout1.jpg http://www.treesfullofmoney.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/c... The checkout counters are stacked two deep, have a short conveyer, and a small bagging area. Small amount of merchandising. The lines (if present) are easily visible as you walk into the store. This indicates that they expect most people to be buying only a modest quantity of goods, and that they're confident that they have enough staff on hand to avoid having long, scary lines that will cause some customers to re-think their shopping trip. Walmart: http://mike.creuzer.com/uploaded_images/SSPX0019-787334.JPG http://mike.creuzer.com/uploaded_images/SSPX0019-787334.JPG Single layer, with a larger conveyer and bagging area. Large amount of relatively tall merchandising displays that also serve to obscure the presence of lines to new shoppers. This tells me they expect to be selling a fairly large amount of goods to each person, and that they expect to staff it so there's a queue to checkout. They use the merch both to monetize the checkout, and to obscure it somewhat, so the lines don't look as long to people who are coming into the store. Safeway: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2611/4147295724_b4ea1e5e79.jpg http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2611/4147295724_b4ea1e5e79.jp... Smaller amount of merchandising, single layer. larger bagging area than target, shorter conveyer than wal-mart. They appear to be somewhere in the middle. Big differences I see in checkouts: How visible is the checkout itself as you walk into the store? Are the lines (if present) clearly visible? Did they design it so they have the option to add a large number of staff to handle rushes (like pre-christmas or pre-thanksgiving), or did they design it so there's just going to be some long lines during high traffic? Do they cater to people with kids by having a couple aisles that have children's books and such instead of candy bars? When there is a line, does it block access to any parts of the store? (just the other day I saw a long line that backed up into a pharmacy counter... does anybody really want to fill a potentially private prescription with a line of bored shoppers next to them?)? Not to mention things like differences in self-checkout. Sometimes it exists, sometimes not... and sometimes it's so poorly designed (receipt, coupons, paper change and coins in different spots... oversensitive fraud checker that makes you re-scan items, etc) that you regret using it. I could go on a rant about the other things too, but the reality is that these things only look the same if you're squinting very, very hard.

This isn't a technical spec, it's a pitch deck to be delivered to managers/execs at another company. They're talking to their audience.

by lmkg 16y ago

This isn't a technical spec, it's a pitch deck to be delivered to managers/execs at another company. They're talking to their audience.

avar 16y ago

It looks even worse when viewed in that light. Is "we're going to try to rip Apple off, badly" really the pitch they're giving HP and their other OEM's?

wvenable 16y ago
Maybe they are answering the exact question the OEM's are asking: "How can we be more like Apple?"
kenjackson 16y ago
Except there are almost no Apple features listed in this deck. The only thing they really copy from Apple is to create brand loyalty. I'm not sure any company in the world would argue against trying to get the brand loyalty that Apple has.
encoderer 16y ago
Oy. I'm _so_ sick of people talking of one software company "copying" another as if it's a bad thing. Look around in the rest of the world mate. Look at the checkout lines at Target! They're exactly like Walmart! Which are exactly like Safeway! Look at the layout of every grocery store you've ever been in. Look at each boutique in the shopping mall. All the same! When people say "intuitive" they mean "familiar." They may not realize it, but that's what "intuitive" _actually_ means. You've got an e-commerce site? You should liberally borrow/steal from Amazon's checkout process. You've got an OS? Take from Apple who've been setting a baseline for OS usability. Christ. "X is copying Y" is about as inane as it gets to me.
- avar 16y ago
  It's not the copying that's the problem. It's the part where they're doing it badly. If the best Microsoft can do is to struggle to keep up with what Apple was doing two years ago they're not going to look very impressive to OEM's like HP as they decide to move forward with their products, with our without Microsoft.
  - encoderer 16y ago
    If that's the case then it's just a question of implementation. Why does the "copying"/"stealing" meme even introduce itself? It confuses your point IMO. However, your "doing it badly" is a matter of opinion, no? I use a mac at work as I mentioned elsewhere. I enjoy it a great deal. It's hard to go back and forth between the Mac there and Windows at home because the way the mouse moves is just... different. But I do it... I was planning on dumping my Vista laptop at home for a macbook but then I gave Win7 a try. You can scoff at my experiences if you'd like, but Win7 is the only OS i've ever purchased. I think Vista is one of the worst OS experiences I've ever had (2nd to ME) and hands-down I think Win7 is the best. It's built-in keyboard shortcuts for moving and docking windows across multiple monitors are invaluable to me. I installed the 3rd party app to give me similar function on my mac and it was... dismal. My Win box is as reliable as my Mac. I restart them both on average once a month or so. There are several places Mac kills Win7. Tasks like adding a network printer, for example. But those are rare, relatively speaking. The Win7 taskbar is no doubt inspired by the Dock but it's far more useful IMO. The context menu per taskbar item is brilliant. And once my cache is warmed (a day after restarts maybe) it's faster to/from Hibernate/Sleep than is the Mac. If you've not used Win7 and you're criticizing, eh, you're entitled. But as an analytical guy, as a software developer, it seems odd to me.
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      Wait some months and see if the experience is still the same. Much to my surprise, a lot of people still say that windows 7 has the age old "bit rot" problem of Windows 95, i.e. the longer you use it without rebooting the worse it starts performing.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- tgt_ 16y ago
  Look at the checkout lines at Target! They're exactly like Walmart! Which are exactly like Safeway! Are they? Because I see some fairly large differences. Target: http://www.treesfullofmoney.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/checkout1.jpg http://www.treesfullofmoney.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/c... The checkout counters are stacked two deep, have a short conveyer, and a small bagging area. Small amount of merchandising. The lines (if present) are easily visible as you walk into the store. This indicates that they expect most people to be buying only a modest quantity of goods, and that they're confident that they have enough staff on hand to avoid having long, scary lines that will cause some customers to re-think their shopping trip. Walmart: http://mike.creuzer.com/uploaded_images/SSPX0019-787334.JPG http://mike.creuzer.com/uploaded_images/SSPX0019-787334.JPG Single layer, with a larger conveyer and bagging area. Large amount of relatively tall merchandising displays that also serve to obscure the presence of lines to new shoppers. This tells me they expect to be selling a fairly large amount of goods to each person, and that they expect to staff it so there's a queue to checkout. They use the merch both to monetize the checkout, and to obscure it somewhat, so the lines don't look as long to people who are coming into the store. Safeway: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2611/4147295724_b4ea1e5e79.jpg http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2611/4147295724_b4ea1e5e79.jp... Smaller amount of merchandising, single layer. larger bagging area than target, shorter conveyer than wal-mart. They appear to be somewhere in the middle. Big differences I see in checkouts: How visible is the checkout itself as you walk into the store? Are the lines (if present) clearly visible? Did they design it so they have the option to add a large number of staff to handle rushes (like pre-christmas or pre-thanksgiving), or did they design it so there's just going to be some long lines during high traffic? Do they cater to people with kids by having a couple aisles that have children's books and such instead of candy bars? When there is a line, does it block access to any parts of the store? (just the other day I saw a long line that backed up into a pharmacy counter... does anybody really want to fill a potentially private prescription with a line of bored shoppers next to them?)? Not to mention things like differences in self-checkout. Sometimes it exists, sometimes not... and sometimes it's so poorly designed (receipt, coupons, paper change and coins in different spots... oversensitive fraud checker that makes you re-scan items, etc) that you regret using it. I could go on a rant about the other things too, but the reality is that these things only look the same if you're squinting very, very hard.