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Comment by cmdrfred | Hacker News Reader

I've been thinking about this lately. Microsoft is doing the same thing if you look at it's enterprise products. Low innovation, high cost seems to be the business model of late. I wonder if it has to do with the founders of the company leaving and the reins being placed in the hands of MBA types. It seems like Bill and Steve weren't as afraid of a bad quarter as the current leadership is and took more risks as such.

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Since I swithced to Surface earlier this year I haven't looked back. True, Surface is not as good as Macbook but it does the job and is much lighter to carry around as a full laptop (iPad is not a full laptop). Now with Surface Studio coming out soon it's a real challenger to the iMac. The iPhone is the only remaining reason I want to stay within the Apple ecosystem.

I personally don't buy high end products like the iPhone or Surface. I have used them for work, and pound for pound, I still prefer my Cyanogenmod OnePlus 2 and Chromebook running Debian. I get easily 8+ hours of heavy use out of each (12+ for my chromebook) and I have a far greater level of control over my data. If you look at some of the things coming out of Shenzhen lately they are hitting price points that allow almost everyone to own a relatively high end phone or computer (Remember this is what Microsoft used to be all about, they cut the cost of a PC to a third of what it was before them). That's what innovation looks like to me. Not some feature you will forget about a week after you have the device.

Out of curiosity which Chromebook?

Surface series and the hololens are non-innovative?

I liked the surface better when it was called the iPad. That said I was speaking about software products mainly, what was originally Microsoft's bread and butter. Windows 10 is just Windows 8 that spies on you more and includes advertising. I'll believe hololens when I see it, but that seems to be more of a Xbox product than something I'm going to see in someone's office any time soon.

Are you actually comparing a tablet with a limited and locked OS to a device that can run any consumer OS/Application?

Windows Tablets have existed for a decade. They just did not have the build quality of an iPad. Now they do. I don't call that some major innovation.

Again windows tablets before the iPad weren't tablets, they were Table PC's they were effectively a laptop and so the build quality was what was possible with the hardware limitation of the day. I honestly didn't find the build quality of the iPad's until the Air/Air 2 to be that appealing as far as tablets go, always felt to bulky and heavy for what they were.

I also find it pretty disappointing where people talk about the build quality of Apple devices, it looks great, and feels good, but it doesn't mean it's built great, have you ever tried to take an MBP or an Iphone apart? I love my MBP15 and Iphone but if I need to take one device with me and have my life depend on it it wouldn't be either of those since I would not take a device I cannot disassemble and repair myself without having access to an electronics lab.

The Surface was innovative the pen worked great, the formfactor was pretty amazing for the power in it and the OS was pretty good, the Surface Book was also pretty innovative even tho it wasn't the first detachable screen they really worked on the mechanics, electronics and software to make it as good as it can get, the Surface Studio is also not the first but it looks to be near perfection for content creators of nearly all types and every content creator I know was pretty excited about it.

The sad part is that for some reason I have a strong suspicion that if there was an Apple logo on the back of the Surface Studio instead of 4 squares some types of people would be drooling all over it even if 99% of what it offers would be utterly useless to them.

>The Surface was innovative the pen worked great

Thank Wacom, not Microsoft. They invented and perfected the tech for that years ago.

>the formfactor was pretty amazing for the power in it

Thank Apple for pushing the envelope on the form factor and Intel for creating the hardware. There isn't anything there that hasn't been done before.

>the OS was pretty good,

I disagree, it is ad supported and spies on users.

>he Surface Book was also pretty innovative even tho it wasn't the first detachable screen they really worked on the mechanics, electronics and software to make it as good as it can get, the Surface Studio is also not the first but it looks to be near perfection for content creators of nearly all types and every content creator I know was pretty excited about it.

That doesn't sound at all innovative. To be honest that sounds like regurgitated marking speak.

>The sad part is that for some reason I have a strong suspicion that if there was an Apple logo on the back of the Surface Studio instead of 4 squares some types of people would be drooling all over it even if 99% of what it offers would be utterly useless to them.

I don't buy either so it doesn't influence me. Innovation looks like what Tesla is doing. Make something great then drive the price down as low as it can go. Microsoft and Apple products seem to cost more and more year on year. Teslas keep getting cheaper.

>Teslas keep getting cheaper.

The Model S costs more with every new model/improvement, the in march this year there was a price hike, and there is another one expected now with the newer hardware platform being ready to ship, the price of the AutoPilot upgrade alone have been increased by over 20% this year.

Sure you can put the Model 3 here and claim victory but this is like saying that because Apple released the iPhone 5C the iPhone 5S overall price was somehow cheaper.

>The Model S costs more with every new model/improvement

The model S is a luxury vehicle. That's how he had to start and that is what a luxury consumer expects. The people buying those want to spend more. That is an entirely different product.

>Sure you can put the Model 3 here and claim victory but this is like saying that because Apple released the iPhone 5C the iPhone 5S overall price was somehow cheaper.

Does the iPhone get cheaper each model that is released? Nope, more expensive. Does Apple try to reach out to the working class consumer? Nope. What's so innovative about that? Rose gold? Fuck outta here.

Plausible. So if that's their intention, open up the OS to be put on ANY hardware, and stop fucking around with your loyal user base. I hate to break it to Apple, but the people making all of those silly apps for their iPhone, aren't developing them on the iPhone!

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