It is arguable that from MS has been more innovative than AAPL

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micrometers

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Nov 14, 2010
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Over the past four years or so.

AAPL's main period of innovation was from the introduction of OS X through 10.5. That's what, 2001 to 2005? The iPhone of course was innovative. Since then it's mainly been process improvements and supply chain improvements. Which is why I'm typing this on a Macbook Air.

But MS in the period has had some innovative products.

1. Win 7 mobile is far different than Android and the iPhone.

2. MS Courier

3. MS Surface

4. Xbox Kinect

Surface especially is noteworthy and is genuinely a revolutionary computing paradigm.
 
lxskllr

lxskllr

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Without question. Apple refines existing tech for the user, and MS refines/creates core tech.
 
Jodell88

Jodell88

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I agree with the OP. However, only the kinect could be considered to be a commercial success. That is the difference between Microsoft and Apple at the moment.
 
Nothinman

Nothinman

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Apple's innovation in OS X is even questionable because all they did was take NeXt and FreeBSD, change the UI layer so that it's difficult to run existing unix apps, apply their own aesthetics to it and magically people love it.

That's where Apple excels, taking commercially questionable or failed products/ideas and making them pretty so that people fawn all over them. And it works even better now because the iPhone and iPad have expanded their cult-like userbase a ton in that area. Smartphones and "apps" aren't anything new, just ask MS and Palm, but Apple managed to take a technically inferior product (which iOS still is, IMO) and make it the segment leader. Just how smart is a phone that can't do more than one thing at a time? Apparently more than smart enough for Apple's users...

MS deserves a lot more credit than Apple in the area of innovation and just plain research work. However, they do have severe problems executing them and getting the masses to buy them. Apple is the opposite, they can get their cult members to buy virtually anything with their logo on it but pretty much all of it has been done before and usually better from a technical perspective.
 
Red Squirrel

Red Squirrel

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Apple is good at taking something that exists, adding a cherry and some icing on it, and making people buy it believing it's the only one of it's kind. MS inovates more imo, but Apple beats them at marketing.

One thing I will give Apple credit for though is when they do something, it works, and it's easy to use. You plug it in, turn it on, and it does what it's suppose to do. Not more, not less.
 
Nothinman

Nothinman

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You plug it in, turn it on, and it does what it's suppose to do. Not more, not less.
Click to expand...

Except when it doesn't. And then you're left with virtually no options to figure out why. Take printing for example, OS X doesn't even have an option for printing a test page, wtf?
 
Red Squirrel

Red Squirrel

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Nothinman said:
Except when it doesn't. And then you're left with virtually no options to figure out why. Take printing for example, OS X doesn't even have an option for printing a test page, wtf?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I would not say their stuff is 100% flawless. One problem I do have with Apple which is actually why I would not buy any of their products is that you do not have access to look under the hood.
 
lxskllr

lxskllr

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Apple makes appliances. If you like what you see on the box, and don't want to change anything, it'll work pretty well for you. If you want to do something unapproved, you're on your own, and your dream may be impossible.
 
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micrometers

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Nov 14, 2010
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Nothinman said:
Apple's innovation in OS X is even questionable because all they did was take NeXt and FreeBSD, change the UI layer so that it's difficult to run existing unix apps, apply their own aesthetics to it and magically people love it.

That's where Apple excels, taking commercially questionable or failed products/ideas and making them pretty so that people fawn all over them. And it works even better now because the iPhone and iPad have expanded their cult-like userbase a ton in that area. Smartphones and "apps" aren't anything new, just ask MS and Palm, but Apple managed to take a technically inferior product (which iOS still is, IMO) and make it the segment leader. Just how smart is a phone that can't do more than one thing at a time? Apparently more than smart enough for Apple's users...

MS deserves a lot more credit than Apple in the area of innovation and just plain research work. However, they do have severe problems executing them and getting the masses to buy them. Apple is the opposite, they can get their cult members to buy virtually anything with their logo on it but pretty much all of it has been done before and usually better from a technical perspective.
Click to expand...

having used Palm and MS Mobile products, I can say that iOS is heads and shoulders above both of them. And overall vision in knowing what is important and what is not important is good as well.
 
Nothinman

Nothinman

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karmypolitics said:
having used Palm and MS Mobile products, I can say that iOS is heads and shoulders above both of them. And overall vision in knowing what is important and what is not important is good as well.
Click to expand...

iOS is ahead in usability, but Windows Mobile was more capable with things like multitasking and acting as a wifi hotspot easily doable without anything like jailbreaking required.
 
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stevech

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Microsoft's sheer size, appeal to investors, appeal to Enterprise customers (high margin), dwarfs Apple's. Microsoft should ignore the consumer apps and OSes for phone/tablet/PDA market, and all, except for generic home computers.
MS Office and Server is their cash cow.
 
Jodell88

Jodell88

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karmypolitics said:
having used Palm and MS Mobile products, I can say that iOS is heads and shoulders above both of them. And overall vision in knowing what is important and what is not important is good as well.
Click to expand...
Are you talking about the recent palm (webOS) and MS mobile (Windows Phone 7) or the older ones?
 
M

micrometers

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Nov 14, 2010
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Jodell88 said:
Are you talking about the recent palm (webOS) and MS mobile (Windows Phone 7) or the older ones?
Click to expand...

older ones.

A lot probably is tech advancement in processor speeds and capacitive touch screens, but still, the iOS's user interface was revolutionary.

But again, the main period of innovation on that front was from what, 2004-2007? Since then it's mainly been refinements.
 
Jodell88

Jodell88

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Jan 29, 2007
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I haven't used webOS so I can't comment on it. However, Windows Phone 7 is so great, it's actually a bit difficult to believe that something so smooth, sleek and good looking can come out of Redmond.

The pictures on the internet cannot do it justice. I encourage you to go to a store and try one out. You'll be amazed.
 
M

mosco

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Sep 24, 2002
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Nothinman said:
Except when it doesn't. And then you're left with virtually no options to figure out why. Take printing for example, OS X doesn't even have an option for printing a test page, wtf?
Click to expand...

Open the printer, then go to the printer menu and select "Print test page".
 
M

mosco

Senior member
Sep 24, 2002
940
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karmypolitics said:
Over the past four years or so.

AAPL's main period of innovation was from the introduction of OS X through 10.5. That's what, 2001 to 2005? The iPhone of course was innovative. Since then it's mainly been process improvements and supply chain improvements. Which is why I'm typing this on a Macbook Air.

But MS in the period has had some innovative products.

1. Win 7 mobile is far different than Android and the iPhone.

2. MS Courier

3. MS Surface

4. Xbox Kinect

Surface especially is noteworthy and is genuinely a revolutionary computing paradigm.
Click to expand...

I am not really sure I understand this. Windows 7 mobile is pretty nice, but I don't think it's as big a step forward for the phone industry as the iphone compared to what existed in the market. If you look at android before the iphone came out, it was a blackberry competitor, and then turned into what it is today because of the iphone. Windows mobile 7 is where it is because of the iphone.

The currier was barely a product, and there have been a lot of rumors that it was no where near being ready to release as some MS "sources" said it was. What we do know is that each part of it was being developed separately inside MS, and there wasn't a single working copy of all of it working together. Releasing fake future videos isn't "innovation".

MS Surface is cool, but I am not really sure its innovative.

Kinect is cool, I think that's innovative.
 
M

mosco

Senior member
Sep 24, 2002
940
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Nothinman said:
Is that a fairly new thing? I never noticed and none of the Mac guys I've ever talked to knew about it either.
Click to expand...

That's a good question. I only have lion machines, and I have never needed to print a test page before (on a mac or pc).
 
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