All His Life Has He Looked Away, to the Future...
daringfireball.net
daringfireball.net
>"Me? I’d be appalled if Apple were to unveil something in the half- (if that) finished state of Windows 8 for tablets. I enjoy writing about what’s real"
What Gruber claims to understand, but actually doesn't, is that the Microsoft ecosystem is a very different beast than the Apple ecosystem. Microsoft, unlike Apple, does not control the entire vertical stack. They don't really have direct control over hardware or retail distribution (some notable exceptions - Xbox, Microsoft stores etc., but you know what I mean - it's nothing like Apple's top-down approach)
There are OEM's, partners, developers that need to get their hands on this technology - to test it, to ensure compatibility with existing platforms. There are IT admins that need to figure out how to start deploying this to their orgs.
Windows can't just launch a new OS 'when its done'. Secrecy is a very Apple approach, and it doesn't work for other companies that are reliant on many 3rd parties to complete their ecosystem. Yes, Apple is reliant on devs to write apps, but its not the same as needing hardware partners ot manufacture devices. Not saying that either approach is better, you just need to acknowledge in some cases, secrecy will work against you. Just look at the fallout over the whole Silverlight / HTML5 issue after All Things D
There's a reason that Windows initially won the application development battle with Mac OS, its because the company's commitment to backward compat, partners & developers is solid. Windows is built on a legacy of backward compatibility - Joel Spolsky has a fascinating article about this that explains things more eloquently than I can - http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html
>"Show me something real, I say. Look at Amazon. Everyone knows they’re building a tablet. What have they said, though? Nothing. What have they shown? Nothing. When will they say something? When it’s done. What will they show? Something real."
Amazon can afford to launch a new Kindle tablet in secrecy, because the 3rd party ecosystem is not a main part of the kindle. How many authors need to upgrade their books to support the new Kindle? Zero. Amazon will make sure of that. Content creators & publishers need to do nothing to support the new kindle. Amazon can afford to be secret, and is better off being secretive until it launches. It works for them in this case.
[Disclaimer: MSFT employee]
Microsoft's Windows platform makes money chiefly by selling OS licenses to hardware companies like Dell. Every month these companies write 8+ digit checks to Microsoft. The multi-year roadmaps involved make surprise a disadvantage. This approach seeks to maximize $100 licenses.
Sony's Playstation platform makes money chiefly by taking a cut from other developers. Sony convinces someone like EA to develop for their system and makes $5 every time one of us buys an EA game for $50. The development lead time involved means the announcement has to be at least a year in advance.
Amazon's Kindle platform also makes money chiefly by taxing the ecosystem (in this case e-books). However the lead time to produce an e-book is minimal and so surprise again works.
Nintendo puts another twist it -- they make money chiefly by selling blockbuster first party titles on their own platform.
Google makes money chiefly by selling ads. A company or ad agency writes Google a check with an expected level of visibility. This approach seeks to maximize units and industry growth (even competitors). Facebook I guess we can expeect the same approach, trying to get aunt millie with the 10 year old cel phone onto a smartphone.
Maybe I should say something about phone hardware vendors like HTC who sell phones to carriers complete with rebranding, etc.
I've never really understood this line as applied to Apple, since I don't recall them dropping prices after the initial release. If they did I'd expect a "wait two months for the prices to drop" meme, but I've never heard that recommendation.
Even so sometimes your margin goes down but the consumer price is the same like when Apple expanded ipad sales thru Walmart/Best Buy/Target/whoever 6 months after the ipad launched when their supply started to ramp up. Their margin for an ipad at Best Buy is what 15% lower then if they sell it direct but the customer pays the same price.
Apple obviously would prefer you to buy it in an Apple Store, because they have more control over the consumer relationship and experience - but running a physical retail store is not cheap, and that's a cost Apple has to cover if they sell direct, which they don't if they sell via Best Buy.
1. Shipping Windows, Office and XBox.
2. Showing demos of revolutionary "coming next year" technologies that never ever ship.
3. Occasionally shipping something that's not Windows, Office or XBox, and then killing it as quickly as possible.
The last two have especially dogged Microsoft's mobile efforts; every year we hear that "next year's Windows for (this year's hot mobile category) will revolutionize everything", every year we hear the cries of "at last! History will repeat and MS will crush Apple again!", and every year we realize they either never shipped last year's great mobile hope, or shipped one version of it and then announced it would be replaced by next year's great mobile hope.
So at this point, why should anyone in this industry be taking Microsoft seriously?
[Disclaimer: not MSFT employee]
At this point MS has a 580bn ecosystem. I know that America only deals in trillions now but still 580bn is nothing to scoff at.
[Disclaimer : former intern]
Were you an intern in the marketing department, perchance? ;)
I think most people in our field, including Gruber, are well aware that MS doesn't have full control of the stack. It's good to note, but at the end of the day if you're just judging product A from product B; no one, especially the customer, gives a crap about excuses no matter how good they are. Unless you're my family or friend, you either deliver or you don't. I don't care if you have to let the dog eat your homework or not.
Yes, customers will judge them equally when the product ships - but the developer release isn't for customers. Its for developers and partners
Seriously?
Because tech bloggers are morons that want to sensationalize their story but can't seem to come up with a new way to do it. You might as well ask why every vaguely scandalous political story is labeled "something-gate." Spoiler: it's probably not because the comparison to watergate is in any way interesting.
I was railing on Gruber's snide remark about "ship something real", where he is subtly making the point that shipping when a product is final is the right way to do things.
EDIT: Typos
The whole article was about how different expectations are, and the process... oh, and, ironically, both user bases are equally passionate.
but noticeably they don't unveil new hardware until it's ready and stable for the public. the knock on most competitors is that the overall experience is underwhelming or way too beta, which hardware is a big component.
The point of his polemic is not that Microsoft is fundamentally different than Apple in approach and execution. Anyone can see that plain as day. It's not obfuscated in the least.
The question is: which approach is right? Removing for a minute the preconceptions of "that's just how they are," which produces better products?
I don't think its cut and dry really. Apple currently has some MS type approaches with iOS because of their third party dependencies on software, and Microsoft has Apple approaches (i.e., XBox) because of their lack of such.
The problem is asking that question. It is irrelevant when they products are fundamentally different. Its like comparing, well, apples & oranges. You cannot compare the methodology of a hardware launch (iPad) to a software launch (Windows 8).
You do not launch major pieces software without a beta / dev preview release. No one does. Even Apple doesn't do it - Lion, iCloud & iOS5 were released in 'unfinished states', which Gruber claims to abhor. So instead of comparing above mentioned software launches (in an unfinished state) to Windows 8 (also in an unfinished state), Gruber chooses hardware.
Compare the Xbox & iPad release schedules, and iOS5/Lion & Windows 8 schedules. I doubt you'll find that the hardware ships with a public beta. And I doubt that you'll find that software ships without a beta.Gruber is twisting examples to suit his arguments, and this is fundamentally flawed logic.
Don't conflate what is reality with what could be. If that was the case there wouldn't be an iPad (or X-Box, or Metro).
Microsoft launches unfinished Windows builds (software). Apple launches unfinished Lion builds (software).
The question is flawed in that it assumes that they companies have different release methodologies for the same class of products. Both Microsoft & Apple are making similar choices for similar classes of products.
What Gruber is doing is comparing release methodologies of different classes of products that are in the same market space. What drives the choice of release method is not the market space, but the nature of the product being released.
Would it have been better to wait till manufacturers were ready with their ARM based tablets that run Windows 8 rather than something PC like that runs Windows 8? Especially since based on the current demo device we will have no idea what Windows 8 will be like on actual low power hardware...
Its job is to let developers use the functionality of the OS, and develop/debug right on the device. It's not there to run coolest or use specific SOC. For Metro Apps it won't matter what SOC you are running underneath. And I am sure ARM brethren of Samsung tablets will come out sooner or later for porting Win32 apps.
The more 3rd party applications you need on your platform, the longer a lead time you need to give to those 3rd parties. And for that matter -- Apple does launch unfinished iOS builds/features.
Microsoft Spot
Digital Home
Courier Tablet
And don't get me started on their abandon-ware hardware projects (Networking, WebTV, Digital Photo TV, Zune, Microsoft at Work, MS Automotive, etc)
Your current argument now is about a different problem (one that Longhorn / Vista faced), which is about announcing features before they were actually implemented and ready for release.
I'm not going to continue this, I believe my point has been made.
Tell that to the millions of Xbox 360 owners whose consoles died with the red ring of death.
On the other hand, I have a 3RL'd XBox which was promptly replaced with a newer one, since it's still an amazing product and have some friends who had the same problem.
Gruber is unpopular because many of his pieces contain enough smug to choke a small giraffe.
Is that why many of Gruber's posts are consistently upvoted on HN?
Out of all that was displayed during the keynote, he got only one thing to dwell on.
The demo tablet given out has a fan and gets hot? That is like criticizing Windows because Dell makes a pink laptop. There's going to be immense choice.
And this going to put pressure on Intel and other OEMs to reduce heat and power consumption to get closer to ARM.
What if you want a more powerful iPad? You're SOL.
Explain how putting this out with substandard hardware does anything to bolster confidence from either users or developers? Why not wait until an Arm chassis was ready?
Besides no one is explaining why is demoing a preview OS bad? Because it is out of style? It's not like Microsoft is pushing the preview down the throats of average Joes and Janes.
I actually like Microsoft's no surprises approach. It bolsters the confidence of their OEM and Developer demographic. That's how they have been doing it since long time. You would have to be too unrealistic a Microsoft Developer to say "oh that Samsung tablet had a fan. I am just going to ignore Windows 8" - it doesn't make any sense, it's a developer unit and for that it is pretty nice - you can develop and debug on it!
http://www.windows8update.com/2011/04/28/windows-piracy-chin...
I am fascinated how much the same people who rail on about how strange it is when people don't understand the "Apple way" don't understand that there are also other ways. Beyond drama, what real advantage is given by releasing a product as soon as it is announced? For Apple, that secrecy and drama is an advantage. It is what brings the fans back, it is what drums up media attention. But that isn't the Microsoft way. That isn't what sells Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't need to win over consumers to sell a piece of hardware, they need to convince OEMs and enterprise to jump on the latest greatest. And those people need a decent lead time. Being nice to devs and manufacturers and business is what makes Windows. Releasing a product as soon as it was announced would be odd and slightly disconcerting. I'll bet a decent amount that if it were to happen, the blog posts wouldn't be effusive praise, from Gruber or Thurott or whomever. And that is okay.
Different strokes.
I can't believe that Gruber can write such self-satisfied tripe without more self-awareness. His quote is more true than he realizes - the incredible smugness of both Gruber and Apple is very striking. Rabid fanboyishness combined with pretension to some kind of superior aesthetic taste in how product announcements are handled shows that DF is reaching the point of self-parody.
It's not smug when Thurott says "Hello, Windows 8? This is iPad. You win."?
It's not smug when Ballmer dismisses every Apple product when it's released only to watch that product become a smash hit?
Don't get me wrong Gruber's smug as all hell in this piece but Apple itself? I'm not so sure that shoe fits although a couple examples come to mind (like Steve's projection of Safari browser share).
The difference is that only Gruber's posts get highly upvoted on HN. Thurrott? No one cares.
Most people, instead of being the star of their own lives, want to follow a cult or religion or leader.
That's why people get such strong illogical feelings about a brand.
I'm not especially happy I upgraded. I find myself working against Lion's new features more often than with.
That said, I hereby reserve the right to come back in a few days under the unlikely circumstance that my machine blows up and (further unlikely circumstance) that I replace with a mac and tell you that it turns out I also find it to be an "incoherent mess".
Don't sing its praises until you've tried it. Knocking my opinion based on your derivation of "consensus" is pretty dishonest.
Launchpad/Mission Control are simply poor implementations of some sort of iOS-type experience that simply make no sense. Full screen mode on most apps is worse than Snow Leopard, the odd movement into a new screen as a sort-of context switch is plain odd. Restoring windows on Preview/Quicktime leads to you simply having a mess of windows appear as soon as you open the apps.
It is a half-way house between Mac OS X of old and iOS, and it shows. I don't often agree with Gizmodo, but their review seems most like my views on it. I wouldn't have spent the $30 if I didn't want to like it.
I haven't upgraded from Snow Leopard based on what I've read and seen on the UI. I'd basically have to turn off most of the Lion "features" and then what would be the point of even upgrading?
Don't forget about this, which basically resets Lion to better defaults: https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/master/.osx
Regarding both Thurrott and Gruber, they both acted like fanboys today. There's nothing wrong with preferring a platform but it was more than a little thick. Thurrott was going back and forth with Apple fans in his tweets and Gruber made a post earlier calling the Samsung tablet an iPad 3 prototype while ragging on the fact it had a fan. Other Apple bloggers picked up on it and ran with it the whole day as a talking point.
I prefer to wait and see what happens. There isn't any need for hasty judgements either way. No one knows what the final product will be like when it's actually released. The touch-centric part was amazing but there are questions of price (at least with Intel models with SSD's), weight, battery life and how well it performs under ARM processors. There are also questions of whether consumers will be interested in it.
The point is, it's far being shippable, and if you can't ship it, it's not "real".
So - no, that's not the way Apple would do it, and while it's certainly a Good Thing for developers, it's not unreasonable to argue that compared to the pre-release iPads, the developer-preview Win8 tablets and software are not 'real.' Many, many things about both the hardware and the software can be expected to change. They're still being formed, and it'd be very premature to make predictions about the final user-facing experience at this point.
This is fairly ironic, when just a few paragraphs earlier he was discussing the "as-yet-unannounced iPad 3".
Most Apple writers (Gruber included) spend a great deal of time writing about imaginary products. They are in the business of compiling rumors, wish lists, Taiwanese newspaper speculations and divinatory readings of Cupertino teacup leftovers into a coherent whole that could be an Apple product in development. There's nothing "real" about that process, though.
Windows 8 has a credible story, a visual identity, a unified API, and it's available for download today. It's clearly a real product for developers, who were the target audience of the Build conference.
The Metro "Theme" which is attractive but I wouldn't call it mind blowing. It basically plays off a trend that had been developing since the web gained prominence which is to ditch the pseudo-3d interfaces for a flatter look. Again, I don't deny its attractive.
The Interface Elements - As far as the UI Metro doesn't change much. It basically boils down to Widgets instead of icons. I mean, Android already had desktop widgets. Again not saying what Microsoft is doing is bad (it isn't) but is it really "a breath of fresh air"?
The real innovation of Metro in Windows Phone 7 is the wall concept where people can scroll in every direction. But that doesn't seem to be present in Windows 8.
It's refreshing because it is, simply put, different. Android and iOS much more closely resemble each other than either resembles any recent Windows phone OS.
That's my take, anyway.
EDIT: By "tweaks" I mean "under the hood", as far as I can tell.
http://images.yourdictionary.com/images/computer/_PROGMAN.GI...
That is why Metro is such a breath of fresh air. If it came from Apple everyone here would be praising Apple for breaking the status quo, being the UI disruptor, etc. etc.
I feel like every journalist who expresses this sentiment is hoping beyond hope that this time, this article, is the one that turns out to be timely and correct. But it's been a stupid bet thus far.
Paul Thurott's track record when it comes to making predictions about the iPad is terrible. There's simply no reason to take him seriously, and perhaps we should really be criticizing Gruber for the tech blogging equivalent of being a prominent biologist stooping to debating creationists.
There should be an "Analyst" flag on posts like this.
If Windows 8 is a success he has a great chance to replace Ballmer. If (and when) that happens is when people should start paying attention to what Microsoft does again.
Sinofsky is no Steve Jobs, but he is one of the few people who are proving able to consistently produce good products at Microsoft. If he ran the company they'd be a force in the industry again.
That said, I think a resurgent, non-monopolistic MS would be good for the industry as a whole.
I lost a few brain cells on this one.
How are they going to stand out in non-traditional PC markets?
I love my current Asus Transformer -- the convertible notebook/tablet form factor is the perfect system for doing the stuff tablets are good at while also being usable for doing actual writing and content-creation type tasks. The missing piece in the current Transformer is productivity software, like real IDEs. Windows 8 + x86 fixes that. I've been an Android fanboy for the past couple of years, but the promise of really melding mobile with desktop has me super jazzed for Windows 8 and I really hope Microsoft pulls it off.
It will be interesting to see how much of the first party software runs on ARM tablets. Will we get a full featured Office, or will it be PowerPoint/Word/Excel "lite" or viewers only? Will you need a stylus or will they actually redo the interface to be touch compatible?
There is an awful lot of software ecosystem that is completely incompatible with a touch UI. This is probably a bigger engineering task than the original change from 16-bit to 32-bit for Windows 95. I'm not so confident that Microsoft can pull it off in less than 18 months.
My current ASUS Transformer is great for tablet stuff (touch UI games, the stereotypical 'couch surfing', etc) and the the keyboard dock makes it great for things like lengthy email writing, web forum participation and the basic types of word processing I do (not very demanding in that area). Where it falls down is that I can't really use it as a serious self-hosted development box. A similar system based on x86 and Win8 could be my everything-box: tablet, notebook, development machine, etc.
One of the Zunes (maybe ZuneHD? maybe the 1st one), was announced at a specific price and they made it clear this was X dollars cheaper than an iPod. Problem is, it wasn't shipping for another year..guess what Apple did?
They are in a hard position though (of their own doing)....they are far behind [the tablet market], so they need to do something. Unfortunately, all they can do is show something that'll be available later on.
It was a silly tweet and I think that it may be a little bit too soon to call the race run. For now iPad is solidly in the lead, let's see how it plays out.
Who releases what in which way is probably not a factor in the long run.
Thurrott isn't an idiot either. He has long been frustrated by Microsoft's boneheaded mistakes and tweeting his excitement over all the things Microsoft seems to be finally getting right with Windows 8 in a humorous way doesn't equal some kind of prediction. However, he conflated a software-only platform (Windows 8) with an integrated hardware/software platform (iPad/iOS). No doubt decent tablet hardware will arrive for Windows 8, but we'll see how well they'll work together.
There's a lot to discuss/praise/criticize about Windows 8 so it's a shame he got into the discussion by rising to flamebait and flailing at something resembling a criticism of MS's strategy.
I'd respect Microsoft more if they'd actually imitate that facet of Apple.
Apple is doing exactly the same thing as Microsoft when it comes to os. First beta version of iOS 5 was released 3 months ago at WWDC, Apple's equivalent of Build conference, and is not shipping yet. The same goes for Mac OS X - beta builds are available to developers long before the final retail build. Neither Microsoft nor Apple can just ship their OS without giving developers enough time to test their apps for compatibility and fix inevitable issues.
As to why Microsoft doesn't follow Apple's hardware release strategy: it's because Microsoft doesn't do hardware. They don't make PCs. They don't make tablets. They don't make phones.
The release strategy for hardware is up to the companies that do make the hardware: Dell, Sony, HP, HTC, Samsung etc.
Yet I constantly think about the various companies that hype their Windows-powered tablets which never are released. Due to that happening a number of times with HP, and others, I've been expecting Microsoft to one-up the hardware companies and make their own tablet. Just get done with it. Or, stop the idiots from hyping incomplete products.
That's why I mixed issues like that together.
For me the Thurott comments are just Microsoft vapourware being cheered on by an MS groupie. I'll believe in the Windows 8 tablet when I see it, and if I ever see it I'll compare it to whatever is available from other suppliers at the time.
For now the iPad has no credible competitor. When, if, a Windows 8 tablet comes along I will be astonished if that claim can be made about that product.
Microsoft seems to be, for once, trying to make something nice and different from the rest of me-too pads out there. Even if it were to launch two years from now, what if they have something so differentiated from the iPad at that point that it might attract its own following? Is iPad the end of all computing innovation?
I'd say Go Microsoft! Give Apple a run for its money if you can!
Then why was he writing about iOS 5 from a long time?
And I guess the below is a figment of my imagination.
http://wdp.dlws.microsoft.com/WDPDL/9B8DFDFF736C5B1DBF956B89...
What is important to me is to realize how quickly microsoft has reacted and how convincing the reply sounds. Compare what they showed today to the vaporware of Vista. Microsoft has come a long way since then and its impressive turnaround for a company that size and that has such legacy baggage.