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Where was this story 50% ago? Its cover showing a tombstone engraved "R.I.P. PC," Barron's says...
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Saturday, October 20, 2012, 10:12 AM ETWhere was this story 50% ago? Its cover showing a tombstone engraved "R.I.P. PC," Barron's says DELL and H-P (HPQ) will fade from view. Next up for trouble could be Microsoft (MSFT), seemingly cheap at 9X 2013 earnings, but which reported sales at its Windows unit off by a third Y/Y after backing out pre-sales for Windows 8. The world awaits the launch of Surface at midnight on Friday. More winners/losers here.
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PCs are in decline, but it will never end. Ignorant to say RIP to something that is very much needed. The issue is that PCs isn't a growing sector. Big difference from a sector that is going to end.
Barrons is really bad at stock picking in my experience. WSJ does more reporting so that is helpful.
Does that mean it is the end for the human race?
the Barron's cover years ago , Apple RIP
and
the Newsweek cover , Death of Equities
famous last words
"..A BigTrends.com analysis of bullish and bearish cover stories in the past three decades found that the stock market moved in the opposite direction of the article's call more than 70% of the time..."
http://usat.ly/XCxhiI
Also, Microsoft still grew, as did NOK. Check your facts.
Whether copying someone's work and selling it opposite them is ethical or legal is a whole other question. To a certain extent, copying is inevitable and a healthy part of the competitive process. I think Google has been pretty good about staying on the reasonable side of copying with Android. Now Samsung... that's another question
If I set up a hotdog stand across the street from you, I've copied your idea but did I 'steal' it? Clearly I'm taking customers from your stand and forcing your price to be lower, is that unethical? If you create a secret recipe for a sauce you put on your hot dogs and I'm able to duplicate your recipe, is that stealing?
Google has set up a hot dog stand across from Apple and tried to replicate Apple's hot dog recipe.... I'm not sure I would call that stealing.
Now one thing which I do find highly unethical is sitting on the board of directors at one company and being privy to trade secrets and early product design while your company is producing a competing product. IMO that's a pretty clear ethical breach. I have no idea how much information Schmidt brought over from Apple to Google during that time, but that was a huge breach of trust and it's right at the root of the huge schism between Apple and Google.
I'm of the opinion that if you can get away with that sort of thing in business, that's just the way it goes. Stealing or not stealing, it doesn't really matter. It was a pretty sneaky trick and Google deserves whatever treatment they suffer at the hands of everyone who saw that happen and now no longer trusts them (Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook). It is clear that they leverage their dominant position in search to move their company forward, but it is also clear that it is open season on Google among the other tech elites. What goes around comes around.
Me on the other hand. I look out for quite a bit.
That is my take on it as well....Google and Apple have businesses that by nature are more complimentary than competitive, but Google set upon this path that both sides knew would be quite detrimental to Apple's business....to me, that inevitably brought them into conflict rather than cooperation....and now years later, I can see no benefit that this has brought Google that they would have been denied had they remained a more friendly partner...instead this adversarial path motivates Apple to eliminate Google maps from iOS, has cost Google billions to develop Android, and billions more to acquire Motorola mobility, all of which results in draining away money from the profitable ad side of their business.....
Say you were a professional artist and you made a special unique vase that is of your own design, and the ideas are revolutionary. You make it out of red clay (Unix), then someone else that you helped mentor really likes your ideas, and they are "inspired" by your vase and decides makes his own vase out of white clay (Linux).....does that mean that it wasn't copied?
What if they changed the color of the glaze and added a few details that were different, just enough to satisfy the legal standards? Then he decides to sell many similar vases on their own stand right next door (same industry) to your goods?
Say that they think that your display table (app store) is really nifty, so they do the same thing, but they say to themselves, "Hey, we will just make our money by putting our brand on the vase, but we'll give it away for free....shoot too bad for that artist next door, we'll take away most of their business....too bad for him that he gave us so many good ideas?"
I don't know about you...but I would feel ripped off....
Silliest theory ever
Welcome to free enterprise and capitalism! and I'm sure you have heard this many times before: "life isn't fair". If I had a penny for every time I felt screwed I'd surely be very wealthy now but that's just how the cookie crumbles.
However, from having an intimate knowledge of iOS and Android (I run an app development company) I can tell you with certainty that Android is FAR from being a copy of iOS. It may seem very similar to the untrained consumer eye but in our engineering eyes it's beyond clear that Android is at least one generation ahead of iOS, technology-wise.
I would go even further and say that AAPL's claim that Android is a copy of iOS is no more true than iOS is a copy of Samsung's earlier propitiatory smartphone OS which came out way before iOS and in many ways looks like iOS.
The question was asked, "how do you figure stolen?", so my point wasn't that the world is fair, it was providing a basis why one might consider it stealing.
Since you develop for different platforms, you, of all people, should know that you can get things to operate similarly on different sets of code. It isn't the code that was stolen, it was the concepts....the multi-touch technologies, the combination of functions that made the iPhone a hit. I think that Android Inc. had a different product and later, due to Schmidt having top level access to Apple, it suddenly incorporated the best ideas from iOS into Android, granted, within the bounds that they felt could be gotten away with, legally. I'm saying that Schmidt is a thief, not an imbecile....
How will this be reflected in your apps? What are the ways Android is superior and what does it allow you to do that you can't do with iOS?
Are you able to develop for the latest OS or is fragmentation a problem in your user base? I am just curious. Please be as technical as you'd like.
'Schmidt scratches his head and says "They should have kept our maps", as if he doesn't know the root '
I find that humorous, yet I realize that Schmidt may very well be not very in touch in his role in triggering all this ill will and legal wranggling, people can be funny that way.....he might be telling his fellow colleagues, "look, I told you guys and I was right, look how aggressive and petty Apple is....see....that is why we had to do what we did".....
Your hotdog analogy would apply if there were no such thing as hotdogs before, and you were the first to market....as it now stands, neither hotdogs nor hamburgers could be fairly considered an intellectual idea that deserves protection.
Although an iPhone-like smartphone is probably existed in other places, it was Apple that got the "formula" right and made it work in the marketplace.....much like there were tablets before, but Apple's ideas, intuitions, and ability to integrate technology well resulted in the resurgence if the tablet computer....
Apple acquired companies like "FingerWorks" to vastly improve their concepts.....they didn't just steal the ideas, they paid for them.....only to have a "friend" hijack the ideas and release similar products for free.....some of those who defend free sharing of things may look at Schmidt as "Robin Hood"....I think he is a "Judas"....
I respectfully disagree. Both operating systems were unveiled about the same time in 2007. This type of project takes 3-4 years and it's simply not engineering-feasible that GOOG was able to copy all of the iOS features and be ready at the same time.
Furthermore, as evident by the architecture of each OS, GOOG has implemented their own ideas of key things like Navigation, Mutli-touch etc.
I also want to remind you that if you accuse GOOG of stealing ideas from AAPL, then surely AAPL is the biggest thief since many of the key concepts in iOS already existed on platforms like BB, Samsung, Treo and Windows CE.
The iPhone's success is not so much in offering a new paradigm, but in the outstanding quality of the hardware and tight integration with the AAPL ecosystem. Their quality and attention to details is what created a unique and very pleasing user experience on the iPhone and hence their success (to-date).
And to support this argument, if you dig in the forums, you will find many iPhone fans are replacing their phones with Androids, due to the latest issues with iOS6. User experience is KING, IMO.
Only to happy to explain. I'll do my best to keep it brief as well.
As you know Android used Open Architecture (OA). iOS does not. OA means that one of the key assumptions of the entire design is that 3rd party developers will want to develop around any and all OS functions. That requires what engineering calls "code isolation". Meaning, that each functional set of code must have universal plug & play capabilities since 3rd party developers may very well want to replace entire functional code sets with their own.
This approach makes the entire OS very extensible and highly customisable. This means the core OS is also designed as a hardware independent OS. This can be seen in real life implementations and mutations of Android like this example: http://bit.ly/XIe6UG
On the other hand, iOS is tightly coupled with AAPL's hardware that this design approach is inherently absent (it's cheaper to not have to worry about hardware independent code that's only has a limited set of API functions like iOS).
So you're probably asking - what does that mean to the average consumer?
It means that if some key functionality is missing from the core OS, you are stuck with what you have and until and if Apple decided to do anything about it. (This is also lined up with Apple's design mentality).
Here's a simpler level that the consumer in the street would understand. All of these capabilities are not available on iOS6 (or any prior iOS version):
>Want a different, more efficient that will you save you thousands of keystrokes per month? a keyboard that uses Swype technology? Or best in class predictive keyboard? On Android chose from at least a dozen different keyboard apps. iOS = factory only.
>How about VIP call management? Let's say you're in a meeting and have to turn your phone to silent but you still want your phone to ring if your wife or kids (or elderly parent) call. Android = a free app would do that. iOS = Not possible (the API is closed to apps wanting to intercept calls).
>Getting a lot of telemarketing calls and want to block all #'s starting with 888 or 866 or whatever? Or forward certain range of numbers directly to voicemail? or automatically reply with a text to a specific number? Android = download an app. iOS = call your provider for each number you want to block and hope they support that feature.
>Want to look at your calendar without going to the app? or create a shortcut for some actions (like an excel macro)? Android=1, iOS=0.
The list is longer but I'm running out of space here. Hopefully this suffices for you to get the idea. If not, let me know I'll write some more ;-)
Thanks for reading.
There are examples of a lot of concurrent innovation, inevitable as new advances coalesced in touchscreen and battery technology, and even then, I don't discount the possibility of some stealing of ideas on Apple's part, but their executives weren't sitting on the boards of those companies.....remember, there is an extra layer of betrayal involved here, as Steve Jobs and the Google founders and execs were friends and allies at the time, not competitors and enemies....that makes a difference too....
"Both operating systems were unveiled about the same time in 2007....This type of project takes 3-4 years" True, and the timelines make sense....
Actually they were at opposite ends of 2007, Apple in Feb, and Google in Nov. Android was already being developed years prior under Android Inc. and then under Google after their acquisition.....so of course, Android had many of its own unique features, Android was an on-going project that wasn't developed from scratch in 2007.... IOS was started somewhere around the end of 2004 to the beginning of 2005....I am saying that much was "added" due to Schmidt's unique access to Apple.....
Schmidt joined the Apple board in 2006....giving him almost a couple of years to have his Google team incorporate some "improvements" into Android.....
From an Aug 2009 Tech crunch article:Â
"back in August 2006 when he took the seat Google had virtually nothing even remotely competing with Apple’s core products and services. It’s only in the last 20 months or so that possible conflicts of interests really became an issue"
I think you're forgetting that apple declared war on google just as much as google did.
Their introduction of the iAd platform that specifically targets the mobile user was a direct attack on Google's core business.
I don't think there was ever going to be a way these companies wouldn't eventually compete. It's a simple case of billions of eyeballs they each get. When you have so much traffic - getting into the advertising game is inevitable.
i was mistaken between Sony, Samsung, Nokia, etc. rectangular shapes while holding onto my itouch 4g.
oh buy the way i am in Shanghai.
Just like there are incompatibilities between Android ver 2.2 and 4.0 or 4.1, there are just as many issues writing apps that work on every version of iOS. There are incompatibilities and missing API support from release to release as well. If you look carefully in Apple's appstore you will find apps that are not upward compatible (only run on iOS 4.0 but not above) and apps that only run on iOS4 and above etc.
The only real challenge for android developers up until that iOS apps didn't have to worry about it is the size of the screen.
But now with iPhone 6 that's an issue for iOS developers as well.
...in fact after what transpired, I am surprised that Apple haven't entered search as well as maps....
btw, I sounds to me that your claim that Android is a "more advanced" OS is based on you favoring OA rather than closed....that is preference, I would say, and there are costs as well as benefits...
It's not about my personal preference of open vs. closed. It's what the consumer gets out of it at the end of the day.
Because iOS is closed, it is more limited in it's capabilities and functionality and by definition the consumer looses out.
See the list of functions I listed above. Some of these are BASIC phone functionality that a 5 year old Blackberry can do. And yet, some of them are not available on the latest and greatest iPhone5 because of Apple's closed ecosystem mindset.
"SJ was raging mad..."
All the world's a stage.
Also a mission statement for the Apple employees, users, stakeholders, to understand its future direction.
Actually, with SJ, yes, I can believe that....most things were like a passing storm for him.....but things like that are not let go by him....like I said before, I am surprised that he didn't pursue search just to get revenge....
Apple is a very focused company, philosophically, and iAds doesn't appear to threaten Google's Ad words or cut significantly into Google's core business... to threaten Google is to threaten search....
rephinbar,
This is at the core of where I think Apple's approach is superior to the "open source" approach you champion. Any new OS must by definition be incompatible in some way with its predecessors (otherwise there would be nothing "new" about it). But the upgrade % is very much higher in the Apple community than in the Android community. This is not an accident. It is part and parcel of a "closed" OS strategy. Apple controls enough of their environment to make sure there are not a bunch of rogue devices with no upgrade path or undocumented add-ons that break when an upgrade is performed.
I remember enough of my Windows programming days to know that 3rd party extensions are rarely bullet proof. My brief experience with Linux only strengthened that belief. Since Apple cares very much about the end user experience, I know it does not want to be blamed for being buggy when the bugs appear in some 3rd party library that is supposed to add some bell or whistle to another party's app. This is what caused many of the headaches for Microsoft's Windows, after all. It's not only "cheaper" for Apple but it makes a higher quality user experience in the long run, at least by their way of thinking.
Still I can see how you would want to have access to API functions that Apple does not currently support. The wild west world of Android probably serves as a proving ground for the desirability of some features or API calls which become implemented in later versions of iOS. But when these features are implemented, iOS developers can know that they will exist in the vast majority of devices they are developing for. Android 2.3 and lower still has twice the market share of Android 4.0. That has to make an Android developer scratch his head a little, doesn't it?
http://bit.ly/QLQwBh
(And the next version has to be "Kruller", right? )
The tablet was so dead that I bet most don't recall tablets prior to the iPad....they totally reworked the concept, which is why it became such a hit....
The only reason MS can release a surface tablet is because a new market was created by Apple that wasn't there before.....
Assuming you are talking about the Samsung/Apple debacle: Android, as phone software, started in 2003. That's years before iOS if you're keeping track.
You are conflating "Android" and Samsung's "TouchWiz", which is their custom Android GUI, which was designed with similarities to iOS baked in.
Edit: Oh wait, your old comments indicate that you think Google "stole" Android from Apple. Not sure where that comes from.
I don't know who you are talking to, because you haven't specified, but we already covered that ground in detail, already....all of this started as a reference to the time of the iPhone introductions, nothing to do with Samsung.....
I was the one who pointed out that Android Inc already was in development, but that Schmidt stole many ideas and had them added to Android in the 2006-2007 timeframe....a little more careful reading would serve you well...
You're talking to the choir. I'm not an apple fan either and particularly don't like their closed monetize-to-death ecosystem and their "we know what's best for our customers" arrogance.
We have to keep AAPL hardware in our shop for development purposes but I personally use Windows/Android.
Apple monetizes other things, but they are mainly meant to support their ecosystem costs, they are not primary income generators in Apple's business model.....Google and Apple have contrasting models...
Apple already very effectively monetizes....because opposite from your own preferences, lots of people WANT their devices and will pay for them.....Ads, in contrast are thins that people tend to NOT want...which is why Google has been playing tricks on companies buying ads, using "fat finger" tactics to get paid for mistakes.....
So, Google and Facebook have their work cut out for them....and is why Google should have "played nice in the sandbox".....but since Google decided to kick sand in the face of Apple....they might find that road tougher than it should have been....same is happening with Samsung....
"Any new OS must by definition be incompatible in some way with its predecessors (otherwise there would be nothing "new" about it)."
Not so. I can add an encrypted file system, and better Wi-Fi firmware without ever impacting any API's and therefore remaining totally transparent to all apps running on the platform.
So no, app incompatibility is not a given with OS upgrades.
@Ronin,
"...in fact after what transpired, I am surprised that Apple haven't entered search as well as maps...."
Gee, for Apple customers sake I hope they don't do this ;-)
I don't think everything needs to be a "rip the bandAid off" approach...there can be options or even a couple of search windows, especially with all that iPad real estate....Apple could improve its offerings without denying its customers Google search....then when their own tool is just as good, they can make it the default search engine with options for Google search and others.....
You can already change the search engine in Settings under Safari...
In fact, Just for Marissa Mayer, I will change to Yahoo for now.... :)
That approach with maps would have been better too....
...among other things.....
Let's all switch over to Yahoo and try that out!!! Google has been pretty shady in the past and seems to be worsening.... this "fat finger" scam is getting too much, and I can't even delete emails in Gmail, Google seems to want to archive them instead....Even for women, I notice that Google's women execs seem to have to go elsewhere to avoid a glass ceiling at Google....I think Mayer was passed up and was disapointed....
Let's vote with our clicks....
You too Luke....you like Mayer, right? ;)
You are correct though, my sweeping generalization was not correct in theory, only in practice. You could (and did) devise a very artificial circumstance where a "new" OS would be effectively 100% compatible with the previous version.
You occasionally take me to task for wordplay or technicalities, so I guess I had it coming :)
Sorry, all the mitten talk has given me some bad habits....
Read the two posts again Scott.... Heh heh
That's the first one I ever used.
Some set-ups are irresistible.... ;)
Not netscape?
For a masterless samurai you seem to be totally serving AAPL. Time will tell but I think sooner than you think, a significant enough number of Apple users will get tired of the expensive, limited ecosystem wall that apple built around them and they will move away to other platforms.
My assessment is based on human nature - we ultimately do not
want to be told what's good for us. We also love "Free" more than ever which is anything but what Apple is about.
Their innovative daring spirit died with SJ and their products will no
longer command the same 'wow' factor the iPhone/iPad did. Even the iPhone5 was a catch up product: LTE support and bigger screen? been around on Androids for almost two years. And they screwed the maps in the process. Doubt a product like this would have made it to the market under SJ.
Like I said, time will tell.
"I remember enough of my Windows programming days to know that 3rd party extensions are rarely bullet proof. "
>>We're WAY past those days. Software engineering is much more advanced than its used to be. 500,000 Android apps are proof that you can write 3rd party code that is reliable and used by billions.
"Since Apple cares very much about the end user experience, I know it does not want to be blamed for being buggy when the bugs appear in some 3rd party library that is supposed to add some bell or whistle to another party's app."
>>SERIOUSLY?? after the recent iOS6 abomination of their native MAPS app do you think this statement has ANY MERIT WHATSOEVER? And we're not even talking 3rd party!!
"It's not only "cheaper" for Apple but it makes a higher quality user experience in the long run, at least by their way of thinking."
>>Ahem...one word: iOS6 MAPS. Their closed OS mentality didn't prove any better then Android, did it?? They failed miserably with that one and proved categorically that iOS is no better (I claim much inferior) than Android.
"Still I can see how you would want to have access to API functions that Apple does not currently support. The wild west world of Android probably serves as a proving ground for the desirability of some features or API calls which become implemented in later versions of iOS. "
>>Dude! some of the features I describe above have been available on Blackberry's of FIVE YEARS AGO and they're STILL NOT on iOS6!!! And these are downright BASIC PHONE FEATURES, nothing exotic. Just check the Apple forums to see how loud and unhappy apple users have been about the absence of these features for YEARS. But apple knows better, as always, and even though some of these features can be considered safety related - they're just not a priority and almost SIX YEARS after iOS has been out - the latest iPhone5 still doesn't have them!
"Android 2.3 and lower still has twice the market share of Android 4.0. That has to make an Android developer scratch his head a little, doesn't it?"
Actually, it's no more of an issue than iOS adoption. The link you posted shows 90% of android phone uses Android 2.2/2.3 and 4.0. 99% of apps written for 2.2 would work on 2.3. And 90%+ of apps written for 2.2/2.3 would run well on 4.0, unless some very specific 4.0 functions are used.
The exact same applies for iOS. Here's current fragmentation of iOS versions: (http://bit.ly/TDzqWN)
iOS6: 61%
iOS5.1: 25%
iOS5.0: 4%
iOS4: 9%
There are many API calls that are N/A if you go down from 6.0 to 5.1 then to 4.0. Any app using API calls that are N/A in an earlier version will simply not run.
As we develop for both platforms, I can assure you we scratch our heads equally when new iOS/Android versions come out.
"Doubt a product like this would have made it to the market under SJ."
Seems like either your memory is selective, or that you are very new to following Apple. Don't you know that the 5 was planned under SJ, and that there were imperfections in previous phones? Why do you think we say mapgate or scuffgate? The suffix, "gate" came from somewhere more recent than "Watergate"......
What do you know about the 5? Probably very little....I use one daily and know how it performs firsthand, not via "Google"....
I will guess that you are a newbie who doesn't know any better....because there is a reason for the name "Ronin" and it has nothing to do with serving....those who have been around for a while knows what was the main purpose because I was constantly engaged in a different activity... it used to be stated on my profile, but I recently removed it....
I speak my mind, which is often positive regarding Apple because I find it warranted....there are many reasons they dominate tech and have the largest marketcap on the planet....if you fail to recognize that, then it is you who's mind is enslaved....
But, similarly to the rest of what I am saying, if you were truly familiar with my attitudes, then you would know that I don't deny having praise for Apple's accomplishments, yet I don't lack criticism for Apple and their managers nor for Steve Jobs....just because I disagree with you, means nothing....
" I think sooner than you think, a significant enough number of Apple users will get tired of the expensive, limited ecosystem wall that apple built around them and they will move away to other platforms."
At $329 the iPad Mini it's too damned expensive. I would rather have the higher resolution Kindle Fire HD for $199 http://amzn.to/UpSmOv with the Amazon ecosystem and Whispercast http://bit.ly/RTcjs7
Not only that, but just 6 months ago Apple introduced the New iPad; and it was just Osborned today by the 4 generation iPad which blows it away for the same price.
I don't think your data supports your argument. To begin with you show that fully 60% of devices are running the latest and very recent OS from Apple. The adoption rate for iOS is much better than Android which is two full versions off of current.
Why is this relevant? Because of your contention that the OS is at least a generation ahead of iOS. If your contention is that Android 4.0 is far better than iOS6, then the fact that most folks are not running that OS version is important.
I didn't want to get into a platform war. You obviously have your preference as a developer. But when it comes to how satisfied or unsatisfied users are, I'll let sales speak for themselves. If folks stop buying the iPhone 5 because of the things it can't do, your point will be made. But I'm not worried about that happening. Maybe it's because people are too stupid to know what they like and they just spend money they don't have on products that are overpriced. Or maybe its because those features you are concerned about are not actually important to many consumers and Apple knows what its doing. Time will tell. So far the advantage has to go to Apple on this.
But I'm glad there is a platform for those who want the kind of experience you describe. It's healthy for a market to have choices. And now W8 and WP8 will also apply. Consumers will have no shortage of options.
When we were saying it would be less, the permabears said that it is bad for margins; now that it is priced slightly higher, margins will be fine, but now you are saying that it is too expensive....
Regardless of which direction they go, anti-Apple guys will say that it is bad....that just doesn't seem like useful feedback to me...
This is somewhat misleading. iPhone users had the choice to adopt iOS 6, Android users do not have any such choice.
For instance, every iPhone 4S owner has the choice to 'adopt' iOS 6, however Verizon has not provided my original Droid an upgrade for 18 months.
So it's not as though us Android users are rejecting the new OS, it's simply that we have no choice to upgrade.
Too cheap is a problem *because they themselves have a competing product*
Too expensive is a problem *because there are better values out there*
See Apple has painted itself into a corner with it's premium pricing. They are now forced to compete on features, but must still charge more than their competitors.. I don't think this bodes well for AAPL.
What I am saying Luke, is regardless of what the information is, I find that you guys will interpret it as bad....that is the epitome of bias....making the feedback useless,or probably detrimental to anyone trully open-minded and trying to make valid investment decisions....
In an earlier comment I refer to whether an "upgrade path" exists. This is exactly the point. If the comparison is supposed to be about what you can do with an Android device because of its OS versus what you can do with an Apple device and its OS, then the notion of whether the latest and greatest OS features are available is completely germane. This is not a debate point or technical gotcha. It is a real consideration about the available features on each platform. You could argue that Android 2.0 still smokes iOS 6 if you want, but any discussion of "latest and greatest" needs to consider whether the features are actually available to users. And if more than half of the installed base is not using the OS in question, it also pertains to whether developers can use the features in the manner they would want.
"Why is this relevant? Because of your contention that the OS is at least a generation ahead of iOS. If your contention is that Android 4.0 is far better than iOS6, then the fact that most folks are not running that OS version is important."
That's not my point. My point was generally that the Android architecture was much more advanced than iOS, regardless of version.
"So far the advantage has to go to Apple on this."
How could say that with Android having over 65% market share?
"Maybe it's because people are too stupid to know what they like and they just spend money they don't have on products that are overpriced."
I think the iPhone is designed for unsophisticated user so it certainly and obviously has its place in mobile. However, I still believe that many people bought the iPhone mainly because of the "cool" factor, rather than functionality vs. Android.
"Or maybe its because those features you are concerned about are not actually important to many consumers"
You need to visit the boards to see how loud people are screaming about these features and for a very long time. The real trouble is we, as a developer, can't even write apps to address these functionality gaps because of the closed API.
We have 4 iPhone5's in house and already developed 3 apps for it. So I know a fair bit about it, and most likely a whole lot than you, who just uses the device.
And I take no issue with you disagreeing with me :-)
I just hope to impart a perspective of apple and their technology as a developer that many consumers don't know and in a lot of cases don't want to know because they're blinded by the shiny object syndrome.
You may not like what I have to say, and you may resent me saying it, but you must agree that for whatever the reason, the stock market was not impressed with the iPhone 5 and the stock market was not impressed with today's announcement of the iPad Mini. I’m apparently not alone in my negative view of Apple’s new trajectory.
I have one general comment and then I will let you get the last word.
My interest in Apple when I come to seeking Alpha is as an investor. I am a user too, but that is beside the point. Well, it's not always beside the point, because obviously issues like usability and feature sets can impact on customer adoption rates and customer satisfaction rates.
However, when I say something like "advantage Apple" (for pleasing the customer) and the retort is "How can you say that with Android's 65% market share?" We need to come back to the beginning.
This is an investment site. Apple wins when it sells to customers. Apple sells to customers by making them happy. Apple makes huge profits by selling its wares. When I say "advantage Apple" I mean "it sure looks by how much money they are making selling tens of millions of devices to customers that they are giving the people what they want." No other company is yet able to do this. To actually make great money selling these devices. Samsung does okay in phones, but Apple smokes them in terms of profitability and adds in ipods and ipads as well. I meant "Does Apple know what its doing or not" and so far the answer seems to be "Yes, it does."
One can get very caught up in technical discussions that ultimately don't have any impact on the big picture. Of course, this is called "failing to see the forest for the trees". I read a lot of technically educated people with backgrounds in IT and programming assuming that "the dumb masses" are making bad decisions. But by any measure that counts to an investor, Apple is superior to any Android manufacturer.
As an investor, I am not interested in what programmers assume consumers want. I am interested in measurements of consumer satisfaction (Apple wins), consumer retention (Apple wins) and consumer enthusiasm (Apple wins).
I enjoy learning about the technical aspects that matter to developers and the specs the differentiate the different products available in the marketplace. But until these issues are reflected not on message boards of vocal minorities but in sales figures, I will rest assured that Apple is providing the product that consumers want.
Your perspective seems to be that Android is superior and *therefore* consumers will migrate to Android devices over time. The first part may or may not be true, but the second part is being contradicted by consumer data. The flow is actually away from Android devices. (Win 8 will only accelerate this trend, I suspect.) If you are an investor as well as a developer, that matters. As of right now, it is "Advantage Apple".
To summarize and illustrate, you can argue that a banana is a perfect food. It is portable, affordable, high in vitamins and fiber and gives a great energy burst from delicious but comparatively slow burning fructose. But if your investment choices are a banana stand and an ice cream cart, the virtues of the banana may not be important. The ice cream is costly, loaded with the worst kind of sugar, and has zero fiber. It is clearly not the "smart" consumer choice.
But tell that to the people lined up around the block. You can lose a lot of money waiting for people to wise up and come around to the banana.
Your previous post seemed directed more at who I am, rather than bringing a developer's perspective....it was making a lot of erroneous assumptions, about my name, what I do, and my objectivity....all of that is different from what you seem to assume....
It shows me that you may be too quick to come to your conclusions based on very limited information: me, the phone, and probably SJ....
Yeah. Sloppy word choice. Thanks for making me clarify.
I think this is reading a lot into the price action. Buy the rumor/sell the news is very common for AAPL. Apple was up big on Monday. It started down today but actually hit just about even during the presentation. Then afterwards it sold off, as is fairly normal.
There is a great deal of anxiety in the market right now. The S&P has been sloping down sharply since 1460. Folks are concerned not just about earnings in general but also AAPL earnings in particular.
There is certainly a lot of bearish sentiment in AAPL since it broke 700. But the funny thing is that like clockwork you will see the impact of Apple's record quarter in the stock. Maybe sooner, maybe later depending on external factors (and their q 4 results). But when it happens it will leave the casual observer asking "how is the market surprised by AAPL earnings when everything in the world pointed to a record quarter?"
It happens all the time. The signs are that Apple is doing very well yet the market is "nervous" about it. Then the numbers come out and it is like it was some sort of surprise. "Wow, Apple sold a lot of stuff!" chime the analysts. It is silly. Getting caught up in the fear that "Apple may not come back" is equally silly. In January they will announce TTM earnings of 47-50 dollars. And folks will be falling over themselves to talk about how great a quarter it was. As if no one saw all the lines for iPhone 5's or could possibly imagine that people would give Apple products as gifts.
I don't know where Apple will be next year. But in the short run this is a very easy call. The market gets bearish. Don't know why. Don't care. I don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
Luke, to me, price matters the most, but where you think the overall mobile business is headed is not defined by short daily movements. Selling on the news is the common pattern...the long-term business has been prospering, and the charts show this....you think Apple is going to do poorly going forward, and I can't tell you how many times people try to call the top on this and have been wrong...
I think that it is based more on what you would like to happen than on solid reasoning....
Also, I would be foolish to judge a product by the pundits or the immediate stock action....they thought the iPad concept would crash and burn, they thought the 4S wouldn't sell because it was barely an upgrade....what turned out to be the reality to the bottom line?
I maintain that both the 5 and the mini will probably sell well, the media says everything is wrong with the iP5 and if they are unimpressed with the mini......why should I care or listen to that?
http://seekingalpha.co...
http://seekingalpha.co...
http://seekingalpha.co...
etc.
Some of us call a spade a spade, or a turd "a turd"....and no amount of buffing from fans will put a shine on a turd....
I will admit to bashing RIM....is that really comparable to bashing MSFT or APPL? I can bash RIM without feeling like I'm being unfair or overly critical...
Besides the Black Knight Troll came here and drew us into battle over at the RIMM threads....notice, regardless of how Nokia's business is faring, I don't troll or persistently bash them....I don't see a point in doing so....
I hear you and concur. When it comes to pure investor perspective AAPL has done very well for anyone that got in earlier on.
My entire rhetoric regarding technical superiority and the true reasons the iPhone has been a hit, are to lay the landscape and put to the investors on this site (I am one too), that the euphoria around Apple and some of their products (iPhone, iPad) and their dominance as a result are being challenged as we speak, and while I still see some growth for the company in the short-term, I do believe that they will not be able to keep up the initial innovation the took the world by storm. So as one investor to another, I would caution you about thinking this train is never slowing down.
My take is there are some stops coming up soon (mid-long-term) for Apple where we will see some reversal in the market share and growth curve. I know fans think this is impossible but to remind you this closed ecosystem mentality is what kept apple a niche player back in the day and I believe we will some some version of that again.
That's just my sense of humor and I am a big fan of Japanese martial arts and the movie "Ronin"
My comments were not about targeting you but rather general comments about iOS vs. Android from the vantage point of an app developer.
Apologies if it offended you.
I don't serve Apple, or any other company like was suggested....as you can probably tell by the posts that followed between the others and myself, there is a lot of unpleasant history here, and that is what Ronin used to be about....hopefully, that can change now....
I haven't seen the movies, but I know of the legend based on fact about a large group of Samurai who took revenge on a warlord for the death of their previous master....
As far as the guys on this thread, I can say this: there is a world of difference between "bullish" and "blindness", most can't tell the difference until there is more conversation....I will tell you definitively, that you are not jousting with any blind cult followers here on this thread....however, we have been through a lot of ups and downs, and there has always been stops and retracements along the way....every time folks claim that the end of the line is at hand....
Some of us are looking for signs of changes, and watching the landscape and taking note....because we are actually investors that look like fans to you....
Anything that resemble the extreme side of things tends to be wrong most of the time, particularly when either side's voice starts get loudest and most amount of playing time.
Barron's ads plastered all over this site. Guess we know what's really going on now.
If you don't need mobility then a desktop is fine.
So are iPads toys or PC's? You can't have it both ways.
My point stands. If you're Apple, and you are selling an expensive device that runs the same OS & functionality as your music player, then you pretty much have to position it as a "post-PC" device. When people buy it, their expectations are pretty low, and you can easily exceed the expectations... "I bought it to watch movies, but, wow, I actually can do some real tasks with this."
If, on the other hand, you try to sell it as a PC (which it is easily capable of being), it falls quite short. Printers, external storage, external displays, keyboard, ability to pull images off your camera, running desktop replacement software... it doesn't do most of those things very well at all. It wasn't intended to. It's just a toaster.
"isn't doing great"
First, I meant when Steve Jobs made his comment which wasn't at the end of last quarter. Second, your stat is relevant in the US, but not internationally. Third, most of the profit at Apple is not coming from PCs, nor is it likely to anytime soon. Fourth, comparing to HP isn't exactly fair -- they're barely in the same market.
And on an unrelated note, I agree that Apple makes good stuff and sometimes has brilliant strategy. I'm a shareholder too. But, I think the strategy that a tablet isn't a PC will be proven wrong.
An 800$ self-built desktop is still by far the best value for high-end performance.
PCs aren't going anywhere.
Consumers don't care what your arbitrary definition of "useful" is, they just want to do stuff and based on the number of iPads sold... they find it better at doing 'stuff'.
For the more serious business stuff - PC/Laptops are IT and no iPad can compete with that functionality/power.
>> "What broke the camel's back was the iPad, because executives brought it into the company and said 'Hey, you've got to support this,'" Ted Schadler of Forrester said. << -- http://bit.ly/VfUDrc
It'll be interesting to see how the high end Microsoft surface tablets do in this regard when they come out, powered by Intel chips.
There is a high correlation between the introduction and popularity of the iPad and reversal of the growth rate of PC sales. This year most major PC vendors had declining sales while the iPad's sales have accelerated. – Only correlation isn't really definitive.
There is a lot of other evidence out there, surveys, (http://read.bi/MGMXMt),
anecdotal accounts (http://bit.ly/T9cYZB). – but those aren't really 'proof'.
People are going to draw whatever conclusions they want from the data. From what I've seen, the iPad is plenty of computer for a ton of people who never really needed most of the flexibility/ expandability/ configurability which is a PCs strength.
"the iPad is plenty of computer for a ton of people who never really needed most of the flexibility/ expandability/ configurability which is a PCs strength."
Exactly! the iPad is a slimmed down, simplified personal computer in a tablet form for when a person doesn't need all the capabilities of a full blown PC/Laptop.
It's a convenience factor, not a paradigm shift especially considering that iPad's cost about the same as much more capable entry level Laptop.
What made the iPad so popular is the entertainment factor, not the business function. It's a toy for grown ups for the most part with the occasional business application and I don't see that changing anytime soon because BY DESIGN, iOS was never built to replace Windows or MacOS.
Yes there is correlation, no - Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo are not all going the way of Tandy or Commadore. I believe they will introduce consumer driven devices or continue to take their medicine if they don't (although Dell seems to be emphasizing services rather than hardware).
The ipad is excellent for downtime, but when you look at productivity it falls short and this is where MSFT is setting up their offensive into the market. Work AND play is the next area of growth.
That being said, as long as AAPL can dupe customers into buying their stuff, they'll do well. May even buy some shares of AAPL <$600 tomorrow.
And quite often, surveys don't mean squat - they only reflect what people think is cool for one example. 90% of the people surveyed think that solar power is good, yet less than 1% have actually purchased a system.
One thing that probably does have some real cause and effect is the simple fact that there are a lot more neat toys out there now than there were 10 years ago - but the amount of money that people have to spend on those toys may not have expanded near as much, so people make choices on what is the most important to them.
Barron's is essentially predicting we monkeys will prefer to type with two fingers on a tablet, whilst abandoning productivity PCs. Intel said it is seeing 100 tablet-PC designs. That's hardly the end of the PC era. It's only just evolving to the next phase.
Are we going to have another 5 million articles on the death of the mobile devices once Google releases their hands-free goggles PC?
Then everyone will walk around like blind cattle, waving their hands around in mid-air navigating web pages, looking like Frankenstein to outside observers. They will be shrieking at phantoms on streetcorners like homeless people.
These are all PCs. Just slightly different modifications/ergonomics.
All these other competitors need to do in re to this also-ran Apple topic, is just make their stuff smaller with touchscreen. Now, I guess to the secret magazine people society, they will be no longer PC either, but the real cool kind of tech hipsters.
I think the issue is that Barrons believes this is a zero sum game. That is not necessarily a good assumption.
Take the phone industry for example. Decades ago we had only 1 phone in the house and then we added more phones in each house so you had 1 in the bedroom and 1 in the bathroom. Wow! We were living large!
Then we added a cell phone and then we added multiple cell phones in each family. We basically have many multiples more devices than where we started.
Point is we are seeing a proliferation of tools and devices and it is not necessarily a zero sum game. They do impact each other but not necessarily as a full replacement. It is much more complex.
everyone's daily computing will be simplified to just web surfing and youtube!
productivity be damned!
throw away your pc's. Your children only need an ARM tablet for college. hahaha
Interesting in the Great Depression people used horses to pull their cars because they could not afford the gas. I still see the Amish on the road.
I like my iPad but it is not a serious machine for work. It is just an additional tool I use.
And those who said that farriers would become obsolete because the car was invented were wrong. But there certainly are less of them than there used to be. Lots of people have never even met a farrier.
Don't they call them carnie's now?
.
(yes, jk)
I remember when Nokia ruled the mobile and posters here swore how "huge" Nokia would crush Apple
Heck, I even remember when, eons ago, the PCs were dismissed as useless toys buy the serious computer users/vendors...
Make no mistake, the death of PCs and its purveyors is closer then it appears.
Who dismissed PCs as useless toys? When I started in computing I was writing Fortran code on punchcards fed into mainframes. I owned an Apple II back around 1980, and I was at IBM shortly after their release of the first IBM PC. Did anyone believe the pc would replace the need for the System/360 at the time? Of course not, but that didn't mean the pc was dismissed. Your view of the world is deeply clouded.
As to your last claim, what is your evidence? PCs come in many form-factors. I know of no one that is forecasting anything other than pc market growth over the long term. This is the typical "sky is falling" hysteria that occurs every time we have a global economic downturn, such as appears to be the case now.
But yeah, keep believing what you want, rubicon59. Keep believing that an underpowered, overpriced iPad will take over a nice, slim Core i5/i7 based ultrabook. If I had only $700 to spend, I'd take this http://bit.ly/VsXJhp over http://bit.ly/Seo78N any day of the week.
I hate to say it, but you could go back to articles written just before and after the introduction of the iPad here on SA, and you will see plenty of people touting that their netbook does everything a tablet could do and more. Not one or two people, mind you, but dozens. That theme actually comprised the thesis of some of the articles.
You could try to explain this by saying these folks were just a bunch of Apple haters who were in denial about the paradigm shift occurring in the mobile space, but this is a hard argument to make when many of these people were commenting on the mere rumor of a tablet coming soon.
No, netbooks were real. The sales figures from Acer prove that. They may have been pieces of junk, but that's not what the people who bought them were claiming. The argument that "nobody liked netbooks" is simply false.
People like me will continue to buy computers.
Intc positioning is interesting as they try to advance to cloud servers but will do poorly if they don't innovate ultra books. They realized dell and hp are useless In competing with macs so came up with their version. Will it succeed? We don't know yet, but kudos for trying. But if they fail shareholders will give a kick than kudos
The person that was opposed to touch screen laptops was Steve Jobs. Intel was pushing for touch screen laptops and they now exist.
HP is the biggest PC maker in the world. Both HP and Dell had reduced sales declined last year. Apple shipped more iPads than HP shipped computers last quarter.
The average consumer has spoken and she disagrees with you vehemently.
You know, that Occam's Razor thing.
The simplest explanation is that PCs are not a growing industry anymore, and these companies have been facing declines in growth and profits for years now.....not only since Intel's relatively recent Ultrabook implementation....
I thought it was widely accepted that PCs are being cannibalized by tablets? I myself will stop buying laptops as soon as tablets achieve a higher degree of functionality.....I can't help but think that a lot of folks who require less than what I need have already made that transition.....
The idea that an iPad or a Nexus 7 will outright "replace" a PC seems a bit farfetched. Convertibles, like the Lenovo Yoga or the Microsoft Surface, seem like the best bet. But at that point, is it a PC or is it a tablet?
To say this is to ignore what some consumers are saying....and even I am saying that I fully intend to scrap laptops as soon as possible....
Though, I think that you are right about upgrade cycles lengthening...laptops are good enough that even ones several years are good enough if batteries are replaced and improved, and heat problems are resolved.....the lengthening of upgrade cycles may happen with smartphones as well....Isn't the 4S and the Galaxy S3 good enough? Anything more and tablets might be a better choice....
I agree with you that convertibles are the next step in the evolution of computers....but see, that will take us ever closer to the decline of the laptop and the desktop....
I think that in a year or two, tablets replacing PCs will not seem far fetched at all...even to you....
Desktops have become powerful enough to do some functions that mini computers used to do, and laptops have done all I need them to do for years now, which is why I haven't purchased a desktop in a decade....Only a scant 5 years ago, most people wouldn't have imagined the functions that our pocket computers now can do....
What makes you think that "smaller, lighter, more powerful" will stop now?....someday, wristwatches may have the power of your current PC that you are using.....
Than who or what sells the best?
If you make that assumption today, Apple is the leading computer seller in the world. Just adding together PC's and tablets into one category (and forgetting about the little computers we call smart phones) means Apple is the company that sells more computers each quarter than anyone else. Amazing isn't it?
If you take the very reasonable view that smart phones are also computers with small screens and which happen to be able to make phone calls, the lead for Apple is astronomical.
People argue that Apple is vulnerable because its profits rest on too few products. But if you accept that Apple sells computers and is the largest computer seller on the planet, suddenly it doesn't seem like such a risky proposition anymore.
Well put. Then who would be number 2 and/or 3? I don't believe Apple will sell to everyone because margins are not that great in some markets that are large. There is also a market for more open systems that Apple is not very good at.
I think you are right. OEM's are not keeping up or being innovative enough and are slowing MS down at this point.
I don't have enough current data, but HP and Lenovo rule the PC space globally and at least Lenovo has put out a tablet. But of course Samsung is the smart phone king and they also have tablets but not really PC's. So it is a bit of a horse race. I think Lenovo is in a pretty good place but Samsung may overtake them (or they have already).
The entry of Win 8 tablets may shake up the race. If HP came out with a popular version, they could cover some ground, but if Samsung beats them at this, they could crush all companies not named Apple. And then it becomes a pretty much two horse race.
Dell, Acer, and Asus round out the top five PC makers, so their tablet offerings would have to figure in as well...
You cannot survive for too long on selling product for free. Google has cornered itself by selling its products for free and now competition want allow it to invoice for it. It is a matter of time that government agencies will find a way to squeeze it for providing a product for free. Remember Internet Explorer?
The EU regulators are a money making machine and run off the huge fines that it charges American companies for what they do outside of the EU also.
Microsoft will survive and its revenue growth will be the most in the last 5 years due to the new products being launched. Even a disappointing sales numbers will add 5 billion dollars to revenues in 2013 and that is not a small number.
I like intel mainly becos they are risk takers. Intc saw dell and hp suck at laptop design they bought out ultra books. What remains to be seen is will this payoff. Analyst have downed estimates significantly but if global macro comes thro this may change. The way I see it is emerging economies will find MacBooks too expensive which explains how Lenovo grabbed market share and topped hpq. I still see Asia Africa driving laptop sales. And ultra books with sprint partnership- intel news release July- will power more sales as these are innovative. For the time being- I am loading up this company
Who uses them. I rarely saw it in the SF Bay Area, same with Beijing, Shanghai. Said to be #1 HK laptop, at least Lenovo says that. ...
When it didn't happen in a time span that many considered "soon," reader outrage was intense and Forbes must have received many angry notes from (probably) those who acted financially on their individual definitions of the term.
Forbes responded that "soon" could be a description that would be one thing in terms of, say geologic time and completely different for other activities of man, the financial world and nature!
I learned at that time that financial journalism has its own definitions of "what 'is' is."
After all, Intel has made a huge investment in chip design and production, and they have every reason to maintain their leadership.
He is the largest shareholder and the richest man on earth when he sells I'll sell.
Microsoft will continue with:
1. Office and business software
2. Communications software
3. XBox
4. BING
5. Server, desktop, tablet and phone operating systems
They will be getting more into hardware with tablets, phones, televisions, and eventually automotive software consoles
Google TV, Apple TV move over for MS TV with Xbox, MS Services, Apps, DVR ...
Microsoft is poised to enter many consumer electronic arenas because they are all converging together into fewer and fewer devices.
Watch the patent filings ...
http://bit.ly/OSzqFG
Google TV, Apple TV move over for MS TV with Xbox, MS Services, Apps, DVR <<<
The most dominant product in any given market this year is almost always going to keep dominating unless there is some massively disrupting force. If someone had told you five years ago that Apple was going to take over the PC industry, you would have laughed in their face, and rightfully so. Microsoft's chances of breaking into a new market with established dominant players is equally slim.
Apple and Microsoft face the same issue with regards to breaking into the television, unless they can release a truly groundbreaking product, neither is going to make a big dent in the industry. The cable companies seem pretty determined to prevent anyone from releasing a big game changing television so I'm pretty skeptical either Apple or Microsoft can create a big market changer in that industry.
>>>>> The most dominant product in any given market this year is almost always going to keep dominating unless there is some massively disrupting force. If someone had told you five years ago that Apple was going to take over the PC industry, you would have laughed in their face, and rightfully so. Microsoft's chances of breaking into a new market with established dominant players is equally slim.
That is exactly what they did with XBOX. The came from out of nowhere and took on Nintendo and Sony. Worked out pretty well for them
If Gates were to head for the exits, so would everyone. If he quietly creates a hedge against Microsofts losses and keeps selling shares every year then he makes money every year and outsiders need not know that his fortunes haven't been tied to Microsoft's success for years.
Also, Gates has options that he is cashing in on for income for whatever reasons where Balmer is still getting stock and monies for being employed by the company - Gates just has the stock.
Thank you
Thank you so much for this:
http://bit.ly/Vfw6T8
This gives me the assurance that Intel and the personal
computer are very far from dead!!!
But it is good to be a believer.
Now they are talking cock about tablet to replace PC. This means that the traders in the near future will be using tablet only (imaging PC is dead and can't buy anywhere). My advice is to better stock HP and Dell PC by now for another 20 years.
You can't affort to buy car, buy iPad and iPhone to rework yourself from your Mc's Jobs. Earning $1 from every poor country man, you can be millionaires.
Tablet is only good for Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Groupon and Coupons. Especially for coupon mom, teens. My contractor uses iPad and yet I don't own one.
Yes people love mobile devices. They are great for consumption and communication, but their size makes them less ergonomically suited for productivity and creation. The companies mentioned above do more than just laptops and desktops, They are involved in mobile devices (hardware and software), entertainment devices, server (hardware and software). Laptops and desktops will decline or stay steady but they won't go away anytime soon.
In this decade it's the growth and use of Cloud technology, current very powerful and reliable processors allow the development of virtual OS and application technology (Cloud), the need for massive real time storage requirements for instant access of information. The changes still to come in networking and information delivery speeds. How consumers are using electronics to enhance their life styles. Desktop PCs, Laptop PCs, smart phones, normal size tablets, smaller sized tablets, flat paneled TVs, smart TVs. It is all changing at lightening speed. Our kids think this has always existed and is inventing new ways to use it.
What's the big deal? The Barrons article is looking at this and selling a paper that is reporting current trends. They are saying the trend is away from some companies and in favor of others. That is what they are all about. While I agree with this conclusion I disagree that these down arrow companies will disappear. I do agree with Barrons current picks for the companies with up arrows. While they are in the best positions to take advantage of the current technology trends the other companies have managements the can see what their competition is going and have lots of free cash flow for M&A. They are not going to stand by and let the competition eat their lunch.
As long as the government does interfere with free market competition we will have a chance to make money.
For those who do not understand my sarcasm, Microsoft's first foray into a market does not necessarily seem as though it could possibly be competitive with the established players. There can be no doubt, however, that Microsoft has always specialized in taking over markets.
Microsoft Word was not the first word processor. Excel, not the first spreadsheet. DOS was not the first PC operating system and Windows was a take-off on the Mac.
So MS was not the first to the mobile computing market. That does not spell failure. It spells opportunity.
Circuit City is gone. Best Buy is struggling. CompUSA went bankrupt and came back as a ghost of its former self. And all of these companies sold more than PCs. They sold all the hottest mobile stuff.
In short, the decline in electronic sales is generic, across the board, secular.
Except it's not. Smartphones and tablets have exploded during this time. If the economy is so bad that no one is buying a PC -- if this is your explanation for that decline -- then how do you square the explosion in mobile computing devices?
To me, that does not sound like "nobody".
The point remains that the economy alone can not explain the slow down in PC sales while mobile devices are exploding. It is obvious upon even casual inspection that mobile sales are eating into traditional PC sales. This is precisely why Microsoft is making a push into mobile.
If you assume that the traditional PC market is just as good as ever and it is only a sluggish economy that has sales lagging, then you will make the mistake of thinking that these PC sales will come back as the economy rebounds. That is just not going to happen. The "new PC's" -- the mobile devices have forever replaced a percentage of old PC sales. Companies and individuals will still replace their desktops and laptops, but they will be also replacing mobile devices, which will slow the upgrade cycle of PC's.
You can call tablets a new kind of PC if you want to and say that PC sales are doing just fine. But this adjustment has the effect of making Apple the leading global PC seller, and some folks are just not ready to accept that yet.
Gateway had stores. They did not last either.
Circuit City did not know much about PC's but I think that is where they filmed 40 Year Old Virgin. Or at least it looked like it.
Apple will last longer for sure. But nothing is forever.
My heart remains with my PC. But my IRA is full of Apple.
Such is the way of the world!