There’s a lot of Apple in Microsoft and especially in Windows. However, when Apple started branching out into other fields, Redmond’s photocopier seemed to malfunction; while Apple blazed ahead with the iPod, Microsoft stalled with Zune.

Cult of Mac reports on Microsoft’s latest me-too blunder: opening retail stores across the way from Apple’s own stores.

John Brownlee:

The problem here is that Microsoft isn’t really a brand the same way Apple is: with the exception of the Xbox 360 and a few accessories, Microsoft sells software, not hardware, and so their stores aren’t showcases of their corporate inventiveness… they’re merely the same as any other big box electronics retailer.

Of course, he’s right. Microsoft is a big, successful company, and a hugely profitable one. Despite people saying Microsoft is ‘doomed’, it still has income and profits that are the envy of many in the industry. However, it’s not Apple. It doesn’t control hardware and software relating to its most important product (Windows), and it doesn’t have end-to-end product lines in the consumer electronics space, nor a strategy that’s nearly as coherent as Apple’s.

When you go to an Apple Store, you’re primarily looking at Apple products, augmented by third-party items that Apple doesn’t care to produce itself. When you go to a Microsoft Store, you’re instead largely looking at third-party products that Microsoft is somehow associated with. The Apple Store is unique. The Microsoft Store is a prettier version of Best Buy or Currys.

So:

• The new Apple TV, slightly larger than a Club bar and only £99.
• The recent iOS 4.2 upgrade, with AirPlay, enabling you to send video from your iThing to your Apple TV, just by prodding an on-screen button.
• The spiffy Air Video, enabling streaming and live conversion from Mac or PC to your iThing.

In the world of non-idiots:

• User buys all of the above, and happily plays anything stored on their computer on their TV, wirelessly.
• User also buys and rents stuff from the iTunes Store with absurd ease.
• Buyer is now hugely happy.
• Apple makes buckets of cash.
• Everyone who likes TV loves Apple.

In the world of Apple:

• AirPlay video is blocked to developers, out of pure spite and stupidity.
• Apple TV considered a waste of time by loads of people.
• Buyers left with other equally problematic products.
• Apple makes buckets of cash, but fewer buckets have Apple TV written on them in marker pen.
• Everyone who likes TV hates Apple.

Maybe iOS 4.3 will change everything, but I think it’s more likely Steve Jobs will broadcast a live video of him smashing an iPhone to pieces and announce Apple is to become an Android-based company.

On TechRadar, Gary Marshall asks the question “Why can no-one make an iPad killer?” His argument hinges, rightly, on the fact that most companies are looking at the wrong things.

What makes the iPad special isn’t the hardware. It’s the software.

This is key. It’s the reason Fraser Speirs has a school that arms every pupil with an iPad rather than a competing device. While everyone’s rattling off lists of specs, Apple’s continuing to enhance the user experience of its devices and ensure developers have a reasonably good means of getting product out there, meaning users have a ton of stuff to actually do with their devices. (There are shortcomings and problems, obviously, but the App Store is so far ahead of the competition that it’s almost painful. It’s telling that most of the top-selling apps on Android are admin tools, whereas on iOS they’re games, entertainment apps and productivity tools.)

However, the most important point in Marshall’s piece is this:

Apple has spent years thinking about what tablets should do, and it’s built an operating system from scratch to make the tablet experience as pleasant as possible.

Relatively few people realise the iPad came first. The device started life as a skunkworks project called SafariPad, but Apple didn’t see a market for it at that point, and so they shrank the form factor and created the iPhone. Crucially, no-one else did the same—instead, they ripped off the iPhone. The net result is we now have Android unable to scale, because it wasn’t designed to, but iOS happily works across a range of devices (including the new Apple TV).

Of course, other tablets will sell well, and others in the market will catch up (at least to some extent) next year; but until other companies sit down and design from scratch, considering the user experience key, their products won’t hold a candle to Apple’s.

I’ve been a staunch defender of the Royal Mail, and am against privatisation. But then stuff like this happens:

A delivery wrecked because the (Fleet-based) postie was too fucking lazy to post this and another item separately. Instead, he did what he always does and shoved everything through together. This from a local depot whose employees have already smashed to pieces one letterbox (which Royal Mail eventually grudgingly agreed to pay for) at our address through similar deliveries.

I get that these people are in a hurry, but it would actually be quicker to post each item individually than to pile them up and wedge them into the letterbox, before shoving them through. Sadly, I’m still pro-Royal Mail, if only because the other delivery companies in this area somehow often manage to be worse.

Some choice quotes on Cult of Mac from RIM CEO Jim Balsille:

For those of us who live outside of Apple’s distortion field, we know that 7” tablets will actually be a big portion of the market

That must be why the iPad’s been beaten into fifth place by 7-inch tablets. (No, wait.) And it’s also why everyone loves using 7-inch tablets, rather than thinking them a cramped mess and rubbish form-factor that’s got more in common with a big smartphone than a tablet. (No, wait.)

and we know that Adobe Flash support actually matters to customers who want a real web experience

Fair enough. I don’t know how I’d do without Flash for my “real web experience”. It’s not as though Flash brings my Mac to a grinding halt every damn time it’s used, forcing me to use a Flash-blocker on all browsers these days, leaving poor old me with websites using rubbish technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript. (No, wait.)

Do you need a set of proprietary tools to bring existing assets on to a device, or can you use known tools that you use for creating websites?

Yes, because if there’s one thing the iPad does, it’s block websites. Man, if only there was a really good browser engine on the device, which not only gave you a decent browsing experience, but also provided the means for standalone HTML5 (etc.) web apps. (No, wait.)

Cult of Mac reports:

RIM released a video of its unreleased PlayBook tablet appearing to show faster web browsing capabilities. However, Balsillie refused to answer just when its tablet would go on sale.

Gosh! That’s showing them. You’re sure to smash the iPad to pieces, RIM, by not yet having your ‘better’ competing device in the market, perhaps instead releasing it when the iPad 2 arrives in April, which will of course be faster than the iPad 1.

…

…

(NO, WAIT.)