Ms. Gates: 'Bill does not use a Mac' Bill's better half, Melinda Gates, is no fan of Apple's magical and revolutionary tablet. "Of course not," Ms. Gates told The New York Times when asked if she owned an iPad. There's no love for Apple products at Chez Portes. When asked about the persistent urban myth that her hubby uses an Apple laptop, the co-chairwoman of …
"Actually, all the kids have iPods - it's really revolutionised their music listening. They never go anywhere without a fully charged iPhone, and they can't wait to get their hands on an iPad! Bill wouldn't dream of using anything other than an iMac to surf the 'net in his free time!"
Pull the other one - of course the Gates clan aren't going to endorse their main rivals - in much the same way as you'd never catch Steve Jobs claiming he owns a Windoze PC or an XBox. Why is this even considered news?
With the Windows flavours around 90% and MacOS/iOS/Linux making up the other 10%, even the "evil" Vista is 3x more popular than OSX not sure if "main rival" is really appropriate when there really isn't any competition.
Besides if she wanted to put "spin" on it she would have said, "We don't restrict our children at all, if they want an iWhatever that can have an iWhatever, we think children should be able to make their own choices even if it's a mistake and they end up with an inferior product to a Microsoft one".
While it isn't news it does give a credibility to iWhatever products that isn't there, besides, my Galaxy is better for me than an iPhone, my Zen Vision was better than an iPod and my Vista Business does everything I need (and my hacked 32Gb iPod mini running Linux still rocks).
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The iPods were / are pretty run of the mill, average quality, nothing special devices. they were lucky in putting the after-thought of the dock connector, which 3rd parties pounced on.
Similar thing happened with the Atari ST and it's MIDI ports, after all, how many Amiga's were found in recording studios?
"run of the mill, average quality, nothing special devices. they were lucky ..."
With sales now heading towards 300,000,000 (three hundred million), just think what they could have achieved had they produced something special...
I really wish I could invent, develop & market something so equally un-special
Quality product does not always equate to popular product.
Something that came up in Private Eye a while back:
The Sun - 3 million copies sold per issue
Private eye - 210000 per issue
Which one is of a higher quality?
Also, possibly more applicable here:
Windows 90% of the desktop market (possibly more)
Linux 5% (possibly less)
Which do you think is felt to be a more quality product by many commentators here?
what a ridiculous thing to be defensive about - whether there are apple products in your house or not because your husband is chairman of microsoft. so what? maybe he wants to check out how they perform against his products? in fact, i'd be worried if he didn't have a few apple things knocking about simply for evaluation if nothing else. silly woman doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about.
Apple's idea of style: being able to navigate lists quickly and easily. The contemporaneous competitors: having to press a discrete button once for each list item, to navigate gigabytes of music. Even up to and including the original Zune, which has discrete push buttons but designed to look a bit like a scroll wheel to the unwary. Which definitely isn't style over substance, honest.
I don't really see how Apple can come off worse in a Microsoft versus Apple debate. Even the least generous commentator would surely say they're as bad as each other?
Ms Gates should have just feigned ignorance or made some sort of comment that the issue had never really come up. She should be arguing that Apple are completely irrelevant in order to convey the necessary confidence.
Wow. It sounds like fanboi-ism, but I think it's worse: it's fear.
What's pathetic about it is the degree of paranoia and insecurity that it reveals. If ever there was a clear confession that Apple products are pretty good, it's that Gates (apparently) won't allow his kids to use them and compare them to Daddy's toys. It's shameful, too, that he's stunting their minds by forcing them to use one single interface and one single set of products -- monocultures dull the brain.
Just wait until they get to college and have access to all the stuff that Papa & Mama wouldn't let them use!
iOS is an OS for mobile devices and as such it is one of many. If you don't want to use it then by all means buy another product, there are tonnes to choose from out there.
Apple does not bully all phone manufacturers into using it thereby removing all consumer choice.
If they did that they would create an iOS phone monoculture.
I'm sure that we can all agree that this would be bad for businesses and consumers around the world.
Choice is a good thing.
We can see the end results from when such monocultures evolve when we look at what has happened to the PC market and its Windows monoculture.
The PC market is a stagnant, user hostile place that has achieved few of the lofty ideals that were imagined during the 80's under the stewardship of Microsoft.
FTA: Back in March 2003, she told Vogue: "There are very few things that are on the banned list in our household...But iPods and iPhones are two things we don't get for our kids."
Since the iPhone wasn't launched until 2007, Mrs Gates is showing incredible foresight here, or else she has some inside knowledge of Apple's future product line. You'd have thought that she'd have informed Ballmer, so that the WIndows Phone 7 development could have started earlier. Or perhaps she did and it's taken them that long to not-quite catch up.
He immediately set his best writers to work. You don't think you can come up with "(laughs) it costs how much? And it doesn't have a keyboard, so it doesn't appeal to business users." just off the cuff, do you? They were in a room for over two years trying to decide what number of times to say 'developers' to achieve maximum impact.
Remember, Melinda is the person who was responsible for Microsoft Bob.. For those who don't remember it (and you don't know how lucky you are) it was sort of the Win95 equivalent of the Kin cellphone. Only worse. Much worse. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob> for more. It made #7 on the PC World list of the 25 worst tech products of all time. Windows ME made #4. I'd have switched their positions. It should be noted that MSIE v6 made #8.
And, oh, yes... just to make things complete: it should also be noted that Comic Sans was developed, produced, and intended for MS Bob. Yes, Melinda is responsible for Comic Sans.
The world does not need any further innovation from Melinda Gates.
"She must really hate iPhones... what with banning them three years before they were launched."
That's the Gates household for you - visionary and prescient to the last.
Apple fanbois will be laughing out of the other side of their antennae when Gates reveals the historic world-beating meta-uber-product that is currently incubating in a secret underground lab at Gates Towers.
The wilful crappiness of the Zune and the rest were just a decoy to lull world+dog into a false sense of security.
Mark my words, doubters - when the Gatesotron announces time travel or anti-gravity or a cure for Larry Ellison or whatevs, you'll all be eating digital crow pie.
Couldn't agree more. Zune is a far superior music service to iTunes.
- Zune Pass (annual subscription) costs £7.50 per month, allows you full access (in an all-you-can-eat model) to more music than you can shake a stick at, and lets you permanently keep 10 tracks a month. It's so satisfying to find an album in the Zune Marketplace, and just drag it to my Phone, and let it download the whole thing to my phone for no extra cost.
- On iTunes, those same 10 tracks would cost £7.90, and you would get nothing extra at all...
This reminds me of the old story about the Queen asking Prince William what he wanted for Christmas. He replied that he would like an iPod. "What is that?" asked the Queen" William explained that it was a device that enabled him to have all his favourite music with him at any time wherever he went. "Oh" said the Queen, "do you mean a Scottish pipe band?"
Come off it folks, I'm with the second post here. What is she going to say "Actually we've all got iPhones and IPods"? I can see that going down stunningly well with Bill and the Boys!!!! Let's just hand a howlingly huge PR coup to Uncle Steve of the Apple!!!
Don't be so bloody silly.
The kids probably DO have iPods, but Microsoft cannot afford them to admit it. This is Big Business boys and girls, not Cecil the Carpenter vs Bob the friggin Builder. So quit with this "it's disgusting they're depriving the kids" crap, wipe your mouth of foam and get back to trying to figure out why you bought your iPad.
Ok, I feel better for that rant... just not a lot.
If the scrollwheel was soooo much better, then where is it now, huh? Right...
And you like to misrepresent facts: you don't need to press a button for every item, how about holding it down until it scrolls into view. Takes less effort than moving your thumb around a circle like an iDIOT.
Lots of Apple 'inventions' are so hyped up nobody dares to quietsion if they really are that great at all. I absolutely hate pinch-to-zoom and using touch to rotate. I mean, how many useful zoom and rotation settings are there. Not much. So I'd rather just double-tap the portion I want to zoom in, and have it done for me (hint: works when using device with one hand!).
Wake me up when they 'invent' something that isn't 99% marketing hype
... the scroll wheel is on the iPod Classic, the only remaining non-touchscreen iPod. I suggest you reconsider how well you understand the extraordinarily simple concept of progress. Your argument is as valid as "if the audio tape is so much more portable than the vinyl record then where is it now?", "if Netscape was so much better than Mosaic then where is it now?", "if 405-line television is so much better than 30-line television then were is it now?", etc.
"There's nothing that the iPod does that I say, 'Oh, wow, I don't think we can do that.'"
This is a particularly meaningless statement. Essentially Apple did the hard work in terms of functionality, usability, style etc. and then Bill Gates said "yeah, we could copy that". Well done Microsoft, except that your attempt was poor.
…tell your kids they can't have something.
Seriously. If you tell a kid (actually, this works with adults too) that they can't have something, they'll only want it more. And if the thing that is denied to them is cool and sexy, and the sanctioned alternative is slight naff rubbish that can't handle leap years - well, you're just undermining your own authority.
I really respect them for all the good they are trying to do with their foundation. To me, this is much more worthy than whether they like macs or not. Cue a load of comments like 'they are only giving away money they stole from their evil monopoly'
The kids, hiding their iPods under the mattress... Mrs. Gates knocking on the bathroom door for the 7th time:
Mrs. Gates: "why is it taking you so long in there!?"
Lil' Gates: "Nothing, Mom, er... just washing my hair!"
Mrs. Gates: "Do you have an Apple in there, don't you!? Come out here, let me see your hands!"
LG: "No, Mom, NO! I hate you! This is not fair!!!!!"
(note the FIVE exclamation marks)
Cool kid: "Hi new kid, what's your name?"
New kid: "Erm, spawn of satan"
Cool kid: "Ha haaaaa, betcha got a Zune, loser!"
Cool kid: Twack, right in the guts New Kid
New kid falls to floor clutching belly and invokes Beelzebub, as the daemon owes Bill a favour...
Beelzebub towers over Cool kid, wearing a black sweater & blue jeans.
Cool kid: "Er hi big guy, my Dad told me all about you! , you want to be my friend?"
Beelzebub: "You got an iPad?"
Cool kid: "Uh huh!"
Beelzebub: "Your going far sonny, lets talk..."
-- ANTI-DRUG STYLE PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT --
SCENE: Teenager's bedroom. Bill Gates enters and is holding a small "stash" box full of electronic ephemera.
Bill G: I found these in your bedroom: an iPhone, an iPad, and OS X install CDs. You know this is verboten! Who showed you how to do this!?!? Come on! Answer me! Who showed you?!?!?
Bill Jr: You, Dad! I learned from watching you, Dad!
Voice over guy's voice: Have you talked to your kids about "Apple" or its street name, "Cider", or has your teen been asked if he's "holding any Johnny Appleseed"? Its the newest thing your kids are hooked on. Even Bill Gates is not immune!
END SCENE
Ah I never though about this - of course what nowadays no kid can live without is an iPod - my elder kids already have one, and now the youngest has start complaining. Walkman, MP3 players - that was a long time ago. Nonono nowadays it must be an iPod.
And while my wife and I are rather strict (and restricting) with lots of things, iPod is one of those must-haves. To forbid your kid to own an iPod - that's really like never ever buying them any ice-cream.
Just imagining how Bill and Melinda again and again are suffering by their own principles makes my day - this is the best possible punishment for those on the evil side of software development.
Can I write documents/use spreadsheets/browse the web/get my mail??
Does it effing matter if I want to use Windows/Mac/Linux? If I can do any of those, do I fuc*king care?
That's why corporates are using XP still. It does the jobs (?) they need, on legacy hardware.
"User Experience" as I've seen it so far is how much the users' wallet suffers when she/he gets the bloody thing.
I think that's possibly where they all lost the plot.
Just an opinion by a luser, but - us lusers buy the damn things.
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