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Ask HN: What if the iPad came from Microsoft, first?
Many commentators is stating after the fact that the iPad succeeded because it had less features. Somehow I think it was because of the brand. So the question is, what if the iPad came from Microsoft or HP, or say Sony. Would it have caught on?
- sz 16y agoThat depends; are you supposing Microsoft/HP/Sony had the iPhone and App Store too? Part of the reason for the quick uptake was what already existed that made it immediately useful.
- mcav 16y agoIf it was as polished, fluid, and well-thought-out as the iPad, I think it would. Microsoft is doing well with the XBox; it's not completely incapable of cranking out new innovative products. (Kinect, for instance.) It's just that they don't do that very often. Microsoft doesn't have the aesthetics to build something like the iPad; it's completely foreign to the way they approach almost all of their products. They're not known for the thing that makes the iPad successful: simplicity. Simplicity in hardware, software, and product positioning. If Microsoft made the iPad and its ecosystem, it would be successful. The trouble is, they didn't -- and they don't seem to have any cohesive, likely-to-succeed strategy to attack it.
- lzw 16y agoWhat made the iPad successful is that it works, and rather well. Apple has been making products that work-- specifically, the user understands how to use them and gets the results they intend. This is a single feature that very few companies include in their products. Usability is not a trade secret, it is simply not in the culture or preferences of the leadership of microsoft or google to make products with usability. Sony used to, but is more hit or miss these days. Asking, "what if the iPad had come from Microsoft first" is a question that doesn't work. Microsoft introduced their iPad almost a decade ago, with windows for tablets. It was q flop. If that doesn't fount because it isn't like an iPad, then the question is like asking "what if an orange tree bore apples?"
- twidlit 16y agoFor some reason, I forgot that MS did make tablets. Anyway, I think the perception that the iPad succeeded because it had less features is false. The reason it succeeded was because it expertly worked on top of an existing ecosystem of the iOS and boosted by the Apple brand. If you take those two out I think it wouldve had a hard time in the market hence touting that it succeeded because it had less features is misleading.