"Jobs called Android a 'stolen product', but theft can be a tricky concept when talking about innovation. The iPhone didn't emerge fully formed from Jobs's head. Rather, it represented the culmination of incremental innovation over decades - much of which occurred outside of Cupertino." Nothing particularly new in there for regular OSNews readers, but still handy to have it in one place.
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Member since:2005-07-12
Do you have any hard facts? TCO or productivity studies? Anything?
Based on my personal experience I can safely say that due to Apple there are more people able to successfully use complex devices like computers, smartphones and tables without or with only minor tech support.
E. g. I worked in a company having about 50% PCs and 50% Macs. Mac support was done by a single person, PC support needed a team of four. Your point was?
Of course there are those horrible examples where Windows supporters try to do / have to do Mac support without any knowledge and support costs starts to get ugly expensive due to that.
The fact remains: Since Apple's iPhone there are hugh numbers of users now able to surf the web, doing e-mails and stuff without the "friendly neighbor" doing PC support and reinstalling Windows now and then. This is a hugh productivity gain (you can always quarrel about the usefulness of what people to with their devices) not seen before with Symbian, Windows, Linux, etc.
Member since:2005-11-14
Member since:2005-07-06
You don't seem to realise how this works, you have it backwards.
You make an extraordinary claim, you have to provide "hard facts" - but all the metric you give is some personal anecdote.
While the dynamics you imply would need to be seen in a larger picture.
And, BTW, what I would call "productivity of nations" (that's decently large) isn't exactly coming with adoption of Apple products (yeah, it might seem so at first sight, but this correlation appears because Apple targets virtually only affluent places, openly states as its goal to ignore "lesser" and not profligate enough people).
But it's clearly not a rule - for example, Israel (a place which I would definitely consider among most productive / innovative, great per capita) has very low OSX adoption for some reason (I'm sure some would say it's due to their stereotypical frugality & thoughtfulness with spending ;p ): http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-IL-monthly-200812-201203 (a level also typical throughout the world).
South Korea would be another such example that I'm aware of.
And Symbian is still at the top BTW ( http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-ww-monthly-200812-201203 ), it actually regained some of the lead and keeps it steady, but I guess you wouldn't know this spewing anecdotes instead of actual metrics.
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"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.
The day has finally come: Google has started shipping Google Glass to the lucky few early adopters. Now that it's shipping, Google has also unveiled a lot more about the API and the specifications of the device itself. While the company had already given out substantial details at earlier occasions, there are still a few surprises here.
Almost exactly three years ago, I wrote about why OSNews was no longer OSNews: the alternative operating system scene had died, and OSNews, too, had to go with the times and move towards reporting on a new wave of operating systems - mobile, and all the repercussions that the explosion of smartphones and tablets have caused. Still, I was wondering something today: why aren't we seeing alternative operating systems on mobile?You can say what you will about Windows Phone and Windows 8's Metro interface (I refuse to drop that name) - it's inefficient, unpopular, cumbersome, beautiful, ugly, organised, clean, limiting - but there's one thing we can all agree on: it's unique and distinctive. CNet has published a profile of Microsoft's Albert Shum, the man behind Metro, and he highlights what I think is at the very core of Microsoft's problems in mobile right now.
Member since:
2005-11-14
The "just works" myth of Apple products is just a myth. And if it really existed and really trumped everything, it would have real-world consequences which in fact it does not have. Apple users would be more efficient in the workplace (they are not), they wouldn't need support (they do, often for the most trivial things), in short using Apple would be more economical and efficient, which it is not.
Your "argument" is that people who aren't geeks magically "just know" that it is so, and since geeks just "don't get it", it's simply impossible to discuss these things. I say you're full of shit and cliched marketing tricks.