Basic Instructions by Scott Meyer for July 10, 2023

I still have never bought an Apple product.

‘Cause I’m old. Frickin’, frickin’ old.

Gotta go, my rotary dial phone is ringing on the wall.

That has a familiar ring to it.

This was not the product that we didn’t know we wanted and needed. Sorry Apple, this one too will be a dud.

At $3500, normal people aren’t the intended market for this product. It’s for high-powered executives who have a desperate need to appear “ahead of the curve”.

Apple’s first smartphone was a glorified phone/mp3 player/web browser. The only “apps” it supported were web apps, which were not ready at the time. MS had a decent thing w/ Win Mobile, but got complacent and thought there was no possible competition. Even their “WM7” that they were working on looked pretty much like WM6 – still needed a stylus and such to work. Part of that was the capacitive touch screens were much more expensive than the ones in use, but they really saw no need to try to innovate. I’d argue that the Zune HD was a better media player as well, but MS had no idea how to market/license things so it failed pretty badly. (And other companies did things better as well, but Apple markets really well.)

The Vison Pro is a VR headset that’s paving the way for an AR headset.

Meta, rather. Facebook is just the social network side of it.

Poor Scott is having a little trouble dealing with the fact of Apple’s dominance. He did a comic years ago with a proposed motto for Microsoft: “In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve already won.” Now? Just compare!

And let’s face it, the iPhone was a VASTLY superior smart phone. It wasn’t just “a few improvements,” it radically changed the way phones were designed, built, and used. The most advanced had actual tiny keyboards. Apple eliminated all that. The idea that they didn’t invent the smart phone depends merely on your definition.