Beeblebrox's Profile

You can go to your local supermarket and buy gift cards from just about every retailer on the planet. Starbucks, Macys, Toys R Us*. Near as I can tell, Toys R Us is not being done in by gift cards being sold at Kroger. And unlike Toys R Us, Apple is legendary for its profit margins on their products. It seems illogical to me that one can both brag about how much money they pocket off the saps who buy their hardware and then argue that they'd suffer massive losses at the hands of a slightly marked-up gift card. But I find that, historically, the reasons people ascribe to why Apple does or does not do something are usually dead wrong. It's very unlikely that profits have anything to do with why Apple would want to lock you down to the iTunes store with a gift card, considering Apple's default position on anything is to lock you down. *I realize that this is an international readership, so my apologizes if you are unfamiliar with these retail names. :)

"Also: as someone who used Windows for a decade before switching, it doesn’t really have many superior features to OS X to advertise to the world" I use both systems every day and do not agree at all. For one thing, the sheer volume of apps available on Windows vs OS X is overwhelming. And while you could make a quantity vs quality argument here, keep in mind that Apple itself has undermined that argument by touting the sheer volume of apps available on the iPhone as a selling point, and indeed Engadget recently gave the iPhone the edge over the Droid based SOLELY on the number of apps available. In terms of other features and use, I consider them basically at parity. I hop back and forth between the machines, doing roughly the same tasks with roughly equal ease. In that case, I don't think it's MS's responsibility to tout superior features. Given MS's 90% market share, OS X has to prove why it's good enough to make you switch. This has also been my argument for the iPod over the Zune. Just as good isn't good enough unless you're cheaper, which is not true of either the Zune or the Mac. That would be my argument for the Droid as well. Just as good isn't good enough. I think it's a great product and on par with the iPhone, superior in some ways and less compelling in others. Not enough just yet for me to regret my iPhone, but certainly good enough to pick over the iPhone if I were in the market for a new smart phone and weren't having to make a switch.

The only people who even use the words "iPhone killer" are Apple fanboys and the media. I've looked at the spec sheet and I really like the DROID. I bought my iPhone a month and a half ago, but if I were still in the market, I'd be seriously considering it. My friend is replacing his iPhone with a Droid tomorrow. Whether or not it can be beat is another question, but it's certainly possible. If there's a lesson to be learned in the tech industry, it's that no brand leader is every beyond reach.

"What's interesting to me is how this commercial, the only DROID ad I've seen thus far, is primarily anti-Apple." You mean like Mac OS X, whose "I'm a Mac" ads mostly feature the depressed and lackluster PC guy to the hipster Mac? What kind of pathetic company would need to spend all its time bashing the competition? Must be a testament to Windows world class design, eh? ;)

"Want to get to your hard drive? You have to click on a folder icon in the Window's dock or go to the Start menu and select a folder." Or, you know, Windows+E, which launches a new Explorer window. In OSX, it's CMD+N. I'd call that a draw. "Because Windows doesn't ship with all the gazillion drivers it needs." I can only imagine the howls of protest (actually I don't have to imagine) if you were comparing a release candidate of OS X to a released version of Windows and complaining about driver issues. Also, this fails to mention the vast array of choices in hardware with Windows vs OS X. Depending on who you ask, that could be considered a huge plus. Which is kind of the problem with an article like this. It's inherently cherry-picking. "Out of the box after you buy Windows you need to buy an anti-virus application." No you don't. "After using both platforms extensively, I've had zero issues with Snow Leopard and a number with Windows 7 (RTM)." I have numerous problems like this on both platforms. I use both systems every day and they are about the same in terms of stability. Again, I'd call it a draw. From someone who legitimately uses both systems every single day, they are both very good, very reliable, mature systems. Each has strength and weaknesses but both get the job done as far as I'm concerned.

"Netbooks are the fastest growing segment of the desktop market at the moment....” So when discussing netbooks in terms of competing with Apple in the low-end space, "Netbooks are such pieces of crap and they're just a fad that's going to die out by this afternoon." But when discussing taking marketshare away from Microsoft, "OMG! Netbooks are so 'the shit' right now!" Google OS sounds like it could be a really promising solution for the netbook space, but it seems like it would run basically like a browser extention, since any app for Chrome OS would work in any compliant browser on any platform. Also, I'm sure it would make heavy use of the cloud, but I hope they build in a really solid off-line mode as well. I love Google docs and spreadsheet, but I haven't liked the implementation of their offline mode too much. If that gets better, I definitely see myself shifting away from the Office/Pages desktop app paradigm permanently.

(iMac + Dell mini + phone) vs (MacBook Pro 13 + iPhone) (PC + Dell mini + phone) vs (13” PC laptop + Palm Pre or and Android) Chris, you're shifting the goal posts. Your argument was that the NETBOOK alone would be replaced by an iPhone+Macbook. Now you're suddenly deciding to lump in a PC and another phone to go along with the netbook just to even up the price comparison? So without the phone plan but including the data plan (required for an iPhone), you're still looking at them replacing a $300 netbook with a $2200 solution, instead of them just moving to a slightly more expensive $500-600 Vista or Linux laptop, which seems much more likely.

"but you certainly could save a bit of money getting a 13” Windows laptop from Dell, HP, Acer etc. " No doubt. In fact, for maybe $200 more than a netbook, you could get a "full sized" laptop with more than enough power for the average user. But that wasn't your point in the article, Chris. It was that users feeling let down by their $300 netbook will turn around and spend $5000 on two Apple devices (it takes two?) that could do a better job of surfing the web and sending e-mail. Oh, but not that you have to be made of money to do that. ;)