Monthly Archives: January 2010

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Potential

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I find it so interesting how so many of my peers in the Microsoft software development arena fail to see the potential of the iPad. Some of the things they have said include:

  • I have notebook computer running my home network.
  • I’m not going to carry my laptop, my phone, AND an iPad.
  • iPad seems anticlimactic; but I sure do love my Windows 7 tablet!! 🙂

Let me just comment quickly on these three (and I could do all 200 that I found, but you have to stop somewhere).

  • Good for you. The iPad isn’t a laptop to run your home network.
  • You’re not supposed to.
  • Seems anticlimactic because you’re not able to see the potential. And by the way, I’m pretty sure I have the exact same Windows 7 tablet you do, and the touch screen is a complete disaster on a machine where two of the five people I know got one 3 months ago have had to send their unit in because the touch screen broke.

To these people I say this:

Just like me, you are not the target customer for the iPad v1. But if you can’t or won’t see the potential of the iPad for the general consumer, I honestly don’t know that anything but 2012 will open your eyes, after it’s had two years to take hold and mature.

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Proactive Versus Reactive

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“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” – Steve Jobs

This quote that I read from this blog entry really got me to thinking.

So many products are built this way. Ask people what they want, build it, and then give it to them months or years later. Times change, however. In today’s world so much can change in a year.

“Pioneering” is a completely different mindset. People that see a future clearly and are able to deliver that will either win or lose. If you lose, you’re out of business. But isn’t that a risk everyone with an idea and passion should take? If I have an idea and I think it’s great and I execute on the idea and then nobody else likes it as I envisioned, doesn’t that make me wrong? I’m saying that’s a good thing. I should learn from that and move on.

Some just aren’t willing to assume that risk and are happy to deliver things that are already outdated when they’re released. Others wrongly assume the risk, because they’re just too stubborn to see certain things. Then there are those who take calculated risks and have tremendous vision. Those are the people that change the world.

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Halo

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I had never heard the BeyoncĂ© song “Halo” before the Hope for Haiti Now telethon. As I listened I remember thinking that I couldn’t tell what this song was supposed to be about. She was singing “Haiti we can see your halo” and how she was surrounded by its embrace and how it was her saving grace and I just didn’t get it.

So today I went on the web to see if perhaps it was a song that had already been released. It was. Quite some time ago, I might add (just goes to show you how current I am with BeyoncĂ©). The real lyrics make so much more sense! Apparently, for the benefit telethon, she just did a find & replace on the word “baby” and changed it to “Haiti”.

And that reminded me of this:

http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/103772

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Lackluster? 'Scuse Me?

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About two hours ago Apple reported their best quarter ever. Part of that was due to the iPhone, and sales of the iPhone were up 100% from the year-ago quarter. How does Edwin Chan describe a double in sales? “Lackluster”.

In an article he titled “Apple posts record Mac sales, iPhone lackluster” Edwin quotes Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu: “What we do know is the iPhones were light. People were looking for closer to 9.5 (million).”

What people? Analysts like Shaw who don’t work for Apple? A company just had its best quarter ever and DOUBLED its iPhone sales from the year-ago quarter. How in any sense of fact-based reality, can that be “lackluster”? How is that “light”?

But the truth is that the stock market doesn’t function based on fact. It functions based on people with microphones and whatever they choose to say.

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HP's New Slate PC (Tablet)

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As reported ahead of time by many sources, Steve Ballmer showed a new Windows 7-based tablet PC from HP at CES 2010 this evening.

Notice anything?

There’s a Windows Task Bar on the bottom of it. There’s no keyboard (although I’m sure you can plug one in somehow if you wanted to), so this device is meant to work via touch. There’s just one problem (and I think it’s a REALLY big problem): Unless I’m mistaken, it’s the Windows 7 touch technology. They haven’t developed a new version for this device as far as I know.

I wrote about the touch in Windows 7 after I received a free tablet PC with Windows 7 when I attended Microsoft’s PDC event a few weeks ago. They didn’t do this right.

I think the Daring Fireball John Gruber says it very well in his post on the subject:

“Anyway, all these “slates” announced tonight are just tablet PCs running Windows 7 — a terrible interface for a touch screen. Nice job, Ashlee Vance of the New York Times.

Maybe Microsoft thinks they’re somehow sticking it to Apple by taking the “slate” name first, but everything tablet-related they announced on stage was boring non-news. The only cool stuff they announced (Natal) isn’t going to ship for close to a year. This is a comparison they want to draw with Apple? I’m left with the impression of a company that’s flailing.”