Alfiejr's Profile

Keep it simple. that's the only possible way to compete with iPad. Honeycomb's fatal flaw is that it is - everyone agrees on this point, even Android fans - somewhat more complicated than iOS. and then tie it in seamlessly with your other stuff. which is Google's great strength in smartphones - all its very convenient communication cloud services. but tablets are not primarily about communication. they are about the rest of your life ... 90% of consumers don't want "more" - they want "easy." they don't want "create your own" - they want "just works." i honestly don't see who other than Apple can really deliver that today. MS might have the pieces, but they have proved totally unable to put them together seamlessly. no one else even has the pieces.

Running iOS apps on a big screen TV via iTV plus an iThing remote offers a lot of great possbilities, some immediate, some potential: - easy web browsing. many efforts have been made to display web browsing on TV screens (e.g. PS3 and even ATV hacks). but the clumsy inevitable crude cursor controls ruin it practically. problem is solved via app touch screen control just like your iThing. opens door to "group" surfing together in your living room. - info-type apps displayed like widgets. not great, but not useless. real potential for future expansion with a wide range of extra in-app content (some monetized). - media content apps of all kinds. obvious immediate potential here. aspect ratio and screen resolution factors can be optimized with a new generation of iTV-specific apps, but iPad apps will work decently right away. all the video stuff, the magazine stuff, and more. - and games of course. like media apps, current iPad apps will work decently until iTV specific apps are offered. graphic intensive action games obvisouly could look great. being a life-long TV-loving couch potatoe, i can expertly adivse you that with an iTV like this i would not need my Mac Mini HTPC plus blutooth mouse/keyboad anymore. so, ultimately one less computer in the house. save some money. the one other nice iTV feature i would hope for is a live USB port to connect a huge external drive to hold all my media files that could then be streamed anyplace on my LAN or via the web. right now it is plugged into the HTPC. but that means that computer has to be running all the time and that user logged in, which is not ideal. however, Jobs seems to have some bias against this - the ATV USB port has been left unused - so i don't have much hope.

you forgot fact #3: the effect disappears if you simply get a case for your phone. which maybe a majority of people do ANYWAY.

everyone has anecdotes, but those aren't the same as stats. of the dozen or so Mac products i've purchased, three failed. two during warranty and easily replaced on the spot at the Apple store, one after three years (dead PPC motherboard), which was one year sooner than my four year replacement cycle. so i was unhappy. anyway, you can find bitter buyers of every brand of PC in the world on any blog forum with similar tales of woe. the people who think it's all about them get nasty. the rest just chalk it up to the law of averages. things break. reliable stats on the hardware reliability of various brands and models of computer gear are hard to find. to the extent they are available, Mac products fare well compared to others. that's about all one can say definitely. (and that the 2007 XBox 360 was definitely a lemon.)

"If you argue that OS X makes the Mac much more valuable, I'll argue "go stick it on a PC then"" well, yeah, you can try that comeback, but then you'd be really stupid, since reality does actually matter. 99.99% of buyers of all kinds are not ever going to even try to install Mac OS on a PC. a significant number tho do install Windows on Macs - since it is fully supported by OS X and can be seamlessly integrated on the desktop with third party software. the obvious bottom line question for all buyers is, is the quality of the Mac OS and its ecosystem (including its near perfect integration with its own hardware, and the convenient tech support at your local Apple Store, etc.) worth the extra cost of the hardware, whatever it is? for most buyers, when you add up all the various expenditures involved, including software important to them, the cost difference is some hundreds of dollars. obviously, you're cheap (or maybe just another blogger scraping by). so several hundred dollars is a big deal for you. i'm not cheap, and i make a decent living. i always buy better/best quality products if i can afford them, and several hundred bucks is not a big deal at all. and backing up to look at the big picture, the price of both PC's and Macs have gone done over the decade, especially when you discount for the impact of inflation, while their powers and abilities have increased dramatically. at this point, whining about what you get plus or minus a few hundred bucks compared to Win 2000 PC's and OS 9 Macs that actually cost quite a bit more in constant dollars is just so silly. i don't think i ever want to split a restaurant bill with you.

well, you're right, but you missed the other half of Ballmer's strategy. Since Windows 7 is going to be a blatant knock-off of Leopard for much of its UI, his argument then will be Win 7 is 'just as good and $500 cheaper.' which the generally pro-windows media will eat up, along with the current meme 'there's is no real difference' between Mac OS and Windows.

Correct! all we really need is a bigger Touch - a 7" or 9" screen - plus some improvements everyone has already asked for, like running at least a few apps in the background. someone will then provide the necessary 'Office' style app suite - a simplified GoogleWorks or even Apple's iWorks. this would take half the netbook market almost immediately if priced at, say, $499.