David Pogue:
Truth is, considering how stripped-down the Samsung is, you have to wonder why it’s as big, heavy and expensive as it is. You can find plenty of full-blown Windows laptops with the same price, weight and size.
Maybe the Chromebook concept would fly if it cost $180 instead of $500. Maybe it makes more sense if you rent it (students and corporations can lease Chromebooks for $20 to $30 a month). Maybe it will fly once this country gets free coast-to-coast 4G cellular Internet, which should be just after hell freezes over.
For now, though, you should praise Google for its noble experiment.
Really? Why? Would everyone have praised Apple for its “noble experiment” if the $500 iPad had been too big and heavy, felt like it was worth only $180, and was “a 3.3-pound paperweight” when offline? Fuck that. This is the big leagues. There is no credit for trying.
It’s a fair comment. Why do pundits hold Apple in a different category when it comes to reviews? Like their expectation is that Apple products have to change the world every time and then every other manufacturer is permitted, sometimes forgiven and even praised for releasing a product that performs poorly, wears software bugs proudly, flaunts its lack of a software ecosystem and looks worse both in software and hardware than the competing product. And, get this, when the Apple stuff is cheaper (like for example the instance with the Galaxy Tab and pretty much all of the first tier Android tablets out there). And if you’re not getting your tablet from a first tier manufacturer then you’re in for a world of hurt next time new malware is discovered.
Where is the universal scorn for Samsungs initial tablet offering which was more expensive in a 7″ model than the iPad with a 9.7″ screen? It didn’t happen – and that’s because Apple, beleaguered Apple, started to do something right. While their success has been like a freight-train due to holding their principles of hiding complexity away from the end user in software, in hardware and even in packaging, their competitors only seem to thrive among the markets where you gain kudos for being “not Apple”.
I’m sick and tired of the lies that competing companies spew out.
Vic Gundotra, Google VP Engineering said:
If we did not act, we faced a draconian future. Where one man, one company, one carrier was the future.
Nokia chief Stephen Elop during a speech at the Open Mobile Summit said iPhone had effectively been responsible for making Android. He argued that Apple had “created Android” or, at a minimum, had “created the conditions necessary to create Android.” Companies decided they couldn’t play along with Apple and had to do something else, leading to Android becoming the de facto standard.
Bollocks. Android was part of Google’s plan since they acquired Droid in 2005. iPhone wasn’t even released to the public until 2007. It’s like both Nokia and Google feel the need to justify their own questionable markets by trying to paint Apple as being the big bad company out to dominate everything. People are surprised when they realise that Apple is only a tiny percentage of the mobile phone market and only a tiny percentage of the smartphone market. But the problem is that both Elop and Gundotra know that Apple has something that neither of them do – customers who love them for who they are and not for who they are not.
A great example of that? Merlin Mann (@hotdogsladies) wrote:
Another salient difference:
Google: Thanks for looking at 100s of ads you hate.
Apple: Thanks for buying 100s of dollars of stuff you love.
Next time Elop or Gundotra spew out a lie to their worshipping hordes, you owe it to yourself to ask why. Is it because Nokia, a 800lb gorilla, has just jumped from the burning platform to a tiny life-raft that is too small to maintain it? Is it because there’s wisdom in repeating the “We’re open” mantra to people who Google can then sell to advertisers? Is it because Elop knows that Microsoft did well by telling everyone that the next product, only months away, would be kick-ass, if only you would wait and buy their new gizmo rather than plonking your cash down now for a competing product that works now.
Don’t give Google praise for selling you a stripped down laptop that requires a 4G data plan to even work. Don’t give Nokia praise for dooming themselves to nine months without a decent product release because their CEO couldn’t keep it in his pants.