Marco.org: Microsoft didn't lead the way to the iPad

As usual a well written article by Marco Arment, but I don’t completely agree with his conclusions.

Microsoft didn’t lead the way to the smartphone-to-tablet approach, and they didn’t lead the way to the iPad: they led the way down their own path that got them somewhere completely different, irrelevant, and unsuccessful.

In my opinion it’s hard to argue that Microsoft’s and other’s efforts, at creating a tablet directed at consumers (by downsizing PC hardware), have nothing to do with Apple’s approach or didn’t influence it.

There were a few good tablet computers which used Windows and pushed the technological boundaries of their time — remember the Compaq TC1100? What hindered these devices from being considered by consumers, was generally bad marketing and high prices.

I’d say that the constant failures to create a vital tablet market, have more to do with a generally narrow-minded approach to the concept of a tablet, than with the finer points of the technological execution.

Microsoft’s (and other PC maker’s) error was never having thought about creating a device that isn’t fully self sufficient, with a form factor bigger than a PocketPC.
At the same time, Apple gained experience in this area by creating the client-host-based ecosystem of the iPod, when nearly all competitors created portable recording studios, for consumers that simply wanted to listen to music.

Apple did —back then and lately— what it does best; take a step back and examine not only a device by itself, but evaluate how a device could be used and the environments in which it might be used.

marco

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  1. morrick reblogged this from marco and added:
    Very good analysis from Marco.
  2. mattprice reblogged this from marco and added:
    Marco Arment makes some excellent points about
  3. 2arrs2ells said: I’m with you 100%, but let’s keep in mind that Microsoft wasn’t capable of going the smartphone—>tablet route, because their smartphone software (windows mobile 6.5) was really a port of Windows for tiny screens.
  4. andrewsardone reblogged this from marco
  5. alexanderhoffmann reblogged this from marco and added:
    well written article by Marco Arment,...I don’t completely agree
  6. mdt reblogged this from marco and added:
    money Marco quote:
  7. tuaw reblogged this from marco
  8. jimcloudman reblogged this from marco and added:
    Marco’s bold-face edit making me feel like...jackass. Really, I
  9. caseyliss said: I think it was sarcasm, as others have said. Consider an equivalent being “Casey is great at Ruby, he just happens to have never written a single line of Ruby code.”
  10. whitneymcn said: I’m not sure that Gruber was actually giving Microsoft credit: that final sentence that you quote reads a lot like sarcasm.
  11. quietbabylon said: I took Gruber’s comment as sarcasm.
  12. singulus reblogged this from marco
  13. boy-withtheboominsystem reblogged this from marco

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