Microsoft Besting Apple?

[Steve Adams]

So, because you didn't have the problems, they didn't exist (and I don't know why you're sorry. I no longer own Apple products and will never own one again)? Every time Apple releases an OS update they have bugs. I've had a great experience with W10M on my phone, but I know there are others who've had problems so I'm not going to pretend that they don't exist. Spend some time on Apple's forums and you'll find they have lot's of problems. I teach high school video production and run a Mac lab. Twenty-four brand new 27" iMacs and within three months I had to send three back for service and another for the screen falling off. That's nearly 17% in the first three months! I also have to do daily hard resets because FCPX frequently freezes up. And before someone says I just don't understand Macs, I have been using them and running labs for the past 28 years in an educational setting. All technology has problems. No company is exempt. More proof? Apple sells refurbished products (which means they were products that failed).

I went full apple a couple of years back when the ip4s was the new "thing". I bought 2 iphones, an ipad, a mac mini which apple updgraded the hard drive and ram, and a 27" cinema monitor. I had the exact same experience as you. daily lock ups, spinning beachballs, etc. The software was horrendous and expensive, OSX was a nightmare to navigate. Close a program in windows It's hit the x, done. Close a program in OSX is do some sort of keyboard code, or hit the red "x" that just minimizes it to the taskbar, then click on it in there to close it out right. Really user friendly. NOPE. Lost my shirt selling it all. So much for apple resale value. That's also a joke. I am very disappointed with MS lately. When 10 was being released, oh the promises that were flung around. NONE were backed up. All 8.1 phones will get upgraded to 10, NOPE, we have developed islandwood and Astoria to close the app gap easily for android/IOS developers...NOPE, Your phone and tablet/computer will communicate flawlessly....NOPE. yada yada yada.

 

[Paul May]

Did anyone else noticed batman was using a windows phone in the fight club scene of batman vs superman? That made me geek out a little.

 

[Mike Gibson]

Interesting anecdote. I have a neighbor/friend that has been a big Apple fan for a long time. Showed off his iPhone when they first came out, has Macs at home, etc. He was in the business side of a high tech company that used Apple and did well for his family. I've always been an MSFT guy and truly hated Apple. Anyway, I recently ditched WP and purchased an iPhone 6 for development of an iOS version of my mobile app. At dinner I showed it to him and said, "never say never"! What he said in response surprised me: "Apple's quality is going downhill". He pulled out his iPhone 6 and laid it on the table. It was bent diagonally, with one corner curved upwards. I guess "BendGate" is real. A year or so ago his company (he was an exec, not owner) was bought out and after taking time off he and his former boss moved into another healthcare tech company at a high level. I asked if they were going Apple at that company, too. He said, "nope, we use everything" and that they had switched to Google Docs and Services.

It's interesting to see this ebb and flow in the tech world. No one can stay on top all the time. I think what happens is that when people switch to a new product family, like from Windows to iOS/OSX, they have an extended honeymoon period where little problems are dismissed. After spending a longer amount of time with one product family you accumulate those issues, build up a catalog of problems mentally, and that's when the "grass is always greener on the other side" kicks in and you go elsewhere.

One final note. I've had several Windows Phones, a Galaxy S5, and now an iPhone 6/iPad 2 Mini (and Mac Mini for iOS development). The best single piece of tech is the iPad Mini. The battery lasts forever on it. The thing does its job without issues. The iPhone6 is fine but the lack of a back button is a total pain in the a** (doesn't seem to be as much of an issue on the iPad Mini, not sure why).

 

[tgp]

The best single piece of tech is the iPad Mini.

I agree. I am no Apple fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I have two of these, an original iPad Mini and an iPad Mini 4. This device is indeed a technological masterpiece.

 

[Chintan Gohel]

Did anyone else noticed batman was using a windows phone in the fight club scene of batman vs superman? That made me geek out a little.

I noticed alright and on Instagram Henry Cavil uses a 950 too

 

[Mike Gibson]

I agree. I am no Apple fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I have two of these, an original iPad Mini and an iPad Mini 4. This device is indeed a technological masterpiece.

What's funny is that we also have an iPad Air but don't like it as much. It's a little too big for extended usage (or something, we can't pin it down to a single issue). Of course, this is totally subjective. I would hate being a hardware designer for consumer products!

 

[Ioannis Christopoulos]

One has to give Apple credit for the way it handles OS updates. There are no issues with waiting for carrier approval, which might never happen if one uses a Windows Phone/Windows 10 Mobile device or an Android device from an OEM that is branded to a particular carrier. Apple releases iOS updates, and everyone gets them at the same time without any interference from the carriers..

WaaS is a big step towards this right?

 

[Laura Knotek]

WaaS is a big step towards this right?

It will be if it comes to fruition. The US carrier branded devices that are eligible for the official update to Windows 10 Mobile still aren't getting the updates. Many people are seeing "working with your operator".

 

[downhillrider]

I love these threads. Apple used to be a hype marketing machine. I bet say over a 5 year period Microsoft has outspent Apple in the Marketing department. How do we all feel about MS marketing? Ya... Sure Android has the numbers, mostly from low cost barely working phones. Something MS is trying to do, funny how that works. I have no real issues with Windows. The live tile UI I loved so much has been bastardized and I cant get myself to put it on my laptop. I used to feel the whole iOS UI was boring and out to date. You know what, it works. It works mostly perfect. People who say the OS is buggy are dumb for a lack of a better word. They are the ones with 10 search bars on their outdated Internet Explorer. If my iPhone was stolen or broken I could get a new one and with my icloud backup done every night I wouldnt miss a beat. I found that the people who complain about Apple are the ones who cant afford Apple products.

A couple of years ago I thought I was on the cutting edge. I had a Surface RT, WindowsPhone and a Windows 7 laptop. One by one I kept getting dissapointed to the point where now I dont have any of those items anymore. I got tired of the where are the apps for my OS complaints, the just wait til next yeat promises from MS about WP largely. I find it liberating that I dont have to constantly visit various MS fan sites to see if theres any news about something thats missing. Being part of the Apple system can be boring, and after years of stressing and complaining about my MS products its sort of refreshing not to have to worry about anything.

 

[asyl15]

That sounds like my school's computer lab! In my business school up here in Canada, we have a computer lab with about 40~45 PCs and 3 Macs. I tell you even if it's crowded in that lab, the three Macs would always be free. I use the Macs when I'm there to casually browse Bloomberg News or Yahoo Finance. Perhaps the most serious Mac need for me was when I was making a VBA macro for a Mac-using client. Still, I made the code on Excel 2013 for Windows and just checked if it works fine on Office 2011 for Mac (that was back when 2011 was the latest version).

 

[prasath1234]

Microsoft is following apples way of pushing older windows phone devices to update by not pushing then win mobile 10.

 

[Steve Adams]

Microsoft is following apples way of pushing older windows phone devices to update by not pushing then win mobile 10.

That would be cool if they said in the beginning that not all phones will get w10. But to come out, and state all 8.1s will get the switch to 10, and then 180 to the shenanigans we have now, is unacceptable. When I bought into the apple "ecosystem" I was expecting a 2 year life cycle of devices. MS promised more, and never came through. They released w10 with all these so called promises regarding apps, updates, etc and NONE of them pushed through. NONE. Sure we have universal apps, but if IOS dev's cannot easily port to UWP, Then its all for nothing as they still have to put in considerable time for not much return initially. If they could easily do it, it would make it more feasible.

Oh well. I love my surface, I love my 1020, I will ride the 1020 train until apps no longer work, etc. I will also be sporting a new android phone as well.

 

[Steve Adams]

changed my mind, I am getting a new android phone NOW! After reading the latest article about Terry Myersons comments, I am out. WP is NEVER going to get app parity, its probably going to fall behind bb10 soon. Its a joke, and Microsoft should just end it. All the BOLD claims when they were developing were just vapor. They should have just kept 8.1 for phones and be done with it.

 

[Mike Bourbon]

Honestly, Apple still has a shine to it (but it's dimming) and Microsoft is in a better position for future growth then it has EVER been. Seriously, MS is in a spot right now where it can offer a better more standard experience across devices then it ever has been in 40+ years!

Now, if you were to own an Apple Watch, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, MacBook and an iMac you could somewhat manage all of them from a Mac Mini with Server tools enabled. As an ecosystem they are somewhat fragmented. They have nothing to offer in the VR/AR experience and we all know how serviceable their products are.

MS, on the other hand has a truly unified experience across the band, IoT, Windows Phone, Tablets, Laptops, Desktops, AR/VR, XBOX, Surface HUB and Servers. Most of these products are made by different vendors at different price points so access to entry is low for the average consumer. All of this is held together by Windows 10 which integrates in with MS services (OneDrive, Bing, Office 365, Azure).

You can better live in a single ecosystem if you go solely Microsoft. This brings cost down for businesses, education and government because it requires less people to manage and gives more options to integrate things into their environment. If you were developing machinery or programs, windows is the future. From small devices that track and give telemetry data for devices/machinery to simple profile management, MS is providing the only real option to standardize across devices. As a long time MS fan, it's really cool to watch this play out......

 

[jacky_h]

So WhatsApp crashing the phone is the OS fault? possibly the app's fault

You've tried how many different builds?

Not a ******, but owning a Lumia 1520 on 8.1 (with a 640 on the latest stable Win10 build .164), and working in IT (System Analyst, formerly C#, .Net & JAVA coder), I take exception to your convoluted logic. I only agree with, from what I've heard, the Lumia 950 is a bit of a disappointment. Waiting for the (rumored) Surface Phone, or the HP Elite launching later this year.

Yeah maybe Whatsapp's fault but that isn't the half of it. Having said that, not sure if MS applies a decent level of quality control on apps (especially must have apps) because whatsapp on WM10 is a huge battery hog. The resume issue is across lots of apps, but whatsapp is unique in that sometimes is actually NEVER resumes.

I've tried fast and slow ring builds ... and after the latest slow ring update, 'Settings' stopped working entirely; which as you can imagine was just awesome!! Finally reverted to one of the previous release builds via MS recovery tool and did a hard reset which ended up not improving things much at all. Sorry, as oversold as the 950 is (particularly on forums such as these) the device is way, way beyond 'a bit of a disappointment'..

 

[Chris Brace1]

Utter rubbish. Most people I know with windows phones avoid apple deliberately. Also pcs for that matter, bought with their own money that is.

 

[Ronald Kenwood]

Microsoft dominates the Personal computer market (including 2 in 1's), the Cloud services market (when compared to Apple and Google), the app development market, the Android OS market (Microsoft licenses Android OS and Chrome to all Android vendors), the AI market, the productivity software market (Office etc), the console gaming market (again when compared to Apple and Google) and the Augmented reality market. Google dominates the internet/digital adds market. Apple does not dominate in anything. Samsung dominates the smartphone market. Microsoft seems set to dominate the bots market and the connected car market with deals for cloud services to Volvo, Nissan, BMW, Delphi, Ford, Toyota, Harman, IAV, Qoros and Harman, oamong others. My choice is thus Microsoft.

 

[fdalbor]

They do dominate the profit market.

 

[Tsang Fai]

I think HoloLens is an amazing product. Looks cool, lets say $599 at retail as a guess. Should sell OK.

Option 2: Licence it to Apple, very importantly- paint it silver and add the Apple logo. Charge $1,999 and watch it become the next biggest thing to sweep the world. The lemmings and hipsters will be tripping over themselves to buy 2 each, camping out for weeks in advance to be the first to own one of Apples new world leading inventions.

Hololens could replace smartphone in the future as it eliminates the problem of physical screen size. It is even more "mobile" than smartphone as you don't need to hold the device with hand (prolonged use would make your head fatigue, though). The potential of Hololens is not just limited to the enterprise and indoor usage.

Field of view will surely improve as hardware becomes stronger. It is not a big deal for non-game usage, as one only focuses on a particular part of an app window.

Battery may be the biggest challenges. Hololens currently only offers 2 hours of continuous usage. But as a mobile device, it is in standby mode most of the time - we can safely assume it may last for a whole day. And, there is workaround, e.g. embed a secondary battery in clothes.

And most importantly it is AR instead of VR - with AR you can use apps while walking on the street, with VR it is very dangerous to walk outdoor, and also boring as you cannot see any people and things around you.

While many vendors have launched their VR headsets recently, I think Microsoft has made a wise move to focus their efforts on AR only.

I guess Apple and Google should be developing their version of AR headset. They should have already seen the strong potential of AR.