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I'm amazed to discover that Microsoft is still making the Surface. To judge from the uses listed on the website, nobody has told them about Google Maps. I'm also concerned to see that either it or Microsoft stores cause children to lose their teeth!

"Foofaraw" -- nice word.

Samsung:

Most visitors of last week's CeBit trade show here in Germany, who had a chance to play with the 10.1" Galaxy Tab, described it as an extremely cheap feeling hunk of plastic with a bad screen and obvious performance problems. All previews / hands-on articles I have seen were unanimously negative, even without any mentioning of a price (and quite a few of these publications are generally rather anti-Apple, and especially now, with all the subscription charges hoopla going on) and even before the iPad 2 announcement.

The device was obviously "inadequate", even without the iPad 2 being a fact. If they really intended to sell this device for north of $800 (which was a common price for their 7" large smartphone flop in most of Europe), then I consider the iPad 2 to be a welcome excuse, not the real reason for paddling back at lightning speed.

Anyhow. Something was even more interesting here. A Samsung executive gives an interview, just hours after Jobs has publicly used a wrong quotation concerning Galaxy Tab sales, and he does not even attempt to make a little fuss about it? What does this tell us?

MS:

Not exactly sure why BusinessWeek considers this news. MS was talking about 2012 right away, when they announced that they are porting Windows 8 to ARM. As Intel is still far behind in energy consumption, it was pretty clear that MS will not have a competitive tablet offering any earlier than that. If the target for the OS (not the SDK, etc. needed to be anywhere competitive) is mid 2012, then it is pretty obvious that we will not see products (and apps) before the holiday season 2012 (and this is assuming flawless execution and tight project management, nothing MS has been able to achieve a single time since Gates left - the only successful and timely launch was the Kinect, and that has been bought). Heck, they can't even release a software update for 10 almost identical WP7 phones (all based on the same reference platform and all running the same version of the OS), without screwing it up royally twice (and the only reason for the software update was not new features, but preparing for future software updates...). No two-man shop operating from a shack would get away with this.

This post has been edited by dreyfus: 04 March 2011 - 05:51 PM

At least Samsung executive Lee Don-Joo admits that the iPad2 just raised the bar and Samsung is going to have to re-think its strategy for the 10.1 device. You want to read the vitriol the Apple-hating, frothing-at-the-mouth, cry-baby droidnerds on ZDNet and the Guardian website are spewing.
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The in-app purchase foofaraw -- RTFM and set up the iDevice to prevent in-app purchases, or just sign-out of your account after the download is complete. My grandkid has an iPod Touch and I get everything for her on my Mac and then transfer to the iPT -- no direct purchases allowed on the iPT.

I can't imagine how many people have gazed longingly at the listing of all the tunes they've paid for yet have been unable to redownload after their hard drives crashed. Backing up is a great idea, but even an account holder if you can prove that it is really him/her and that they have already paid for the tune, they really do deserve a break here.

John, on 04 March 2011 - 06:19 PM, said:

Well, have you tried? I did have this situation two years ago (I did have a back-up, but I was relocating internationally at this time, and I would have had to wait three months for my backup disks to arrive by ship)... Apple's support authorized my re-downloading within less than 3 workdays, and I got almost every single song back (with the exception of one album, which was no longer available on the iTunes Store).

Top Secret news: I just saw the MS tablet prototype. It has three screens with hinges connecting each screen, 50 usb ports, and a floppy-disk drive. It is THE iPad killer because it has things that the iPad doesn't AND because it runs the (in)famous Windows OS. Apple shares will plummet when this news hits the street.

I don't see the point of Netflix using AirPlay. You have to use an Apple TV 2 for it to work. Netflix is already baked in. What is the issue? Going from left to right just to end up in the middle sounds pretty stupid.

Doesn't Samsung provide parts for the iPad? Maybe net sales will increase if Samsun gets out of that part of the retail channel entirely.