Could Apple’s problems with the iPhone and iPad create enough of a window for Microsoft to produce a competing touch screen tablet device or capture more market share?

Yeah, if we all fell asleep for a year

lol
asH

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Well, I think we’re seeing history repeat itself here. Apple came out with the Mac a couple of years before Microsoft launched their own GUI clone. Today’s defacto standard office suite (Word, Excel and Powerpoint) were introduced on the Mac two years before they appeared on Windows PCs. The first Windows machines were inferior clones of the MacOS — BUT they were good enough for the general public and PCs were cheaper, had more software (even though most of it was crap), and unlimited hardware options, and were easily hacked to do other things. Now consider the iPad: still pretty expensive — costs more than a Dell laptop, can run Flash, can’t run “unauthorized” software, can’t connect hardware to it (e.g., cheap generic keyboards, external drives, additional RAM) — you get the idea. The same thing happened with the Sony Betamax. A superior product, but VHS had more brands to choose from and that drove down prices — oh, and don’t forget you could get 8 hours on a tape instead of 4 (later 6) on a Betamax tape. So even though the picture was 80% snow at the ELP speed, it was good enough for the average consumer. The key phrase here is “good enough.” The winner in the tablet wars won’t be the best product, it’ll be the cheapest offering that’s “good enough.” So, as with the Mac, I’m afraid Apple will end up being an also-ran in both the tablet computer and smartphone categories unless they can open up their gated community to provide more consumer choices and offer stripped-down, bare bones, entry-level solutions. I think the biggest problem at Apple, and many of these other high tech firms, is the people making these product decisions are among the chosen few who enjoy seven- and six-figure salaries. Most people (and companies) struggle from paycheck to paycheck and have to settle for “good enough.”

I will safely say Apple will sell 10 MM ipads before MS ships one single touch base device and the chances of it being riddled with problems are 80% or more.

Hey just happy see to that the people aren’t listening to all the anti-Apple stuff all the competitors are paying them to dish out. The iPhone 4 is no different than any other smartphone when it comes down to signal strength & reception or drop calls.

For MS, it’s all about it plans to transform its panic over a competitor’s product released in the present. Then it’s all about copying the present, followed by fake enthusiasm during announcements promising to introduce it in the unknown future, and you get shut down of its own phone, the limping Zune, and HP’s shut down of its own tablet.

When it finally does introduce something, it’s good enough only for corporate purchasers who like bland products which workers hate, with ordinary, non-corpo citizens yawning over them.

[...] do to so, and no one is encouraging illegal activity. But this news should be known to Apple, people involved with software design, the cellular phone industry, consumers and [...]