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Reading headlines like this really emphasizes just how lost Microsoft is right now

Microsoft Tablet OS Not Due Until 2012

This tells me two things.  One, Windows Phone 7 was nothing more than a reaction to iOS.  Two, they had no further strategy than that.

Apparently it simply didn’t occur to them that Apple might take their new mobile operating system and bring it to a tablet device, the same type of device Microsoft has been trying to create *for years* and have failed.  Unfortunately for Microsoft, and everyone else for that matter, Apple doesn’t just have a great mobile OS, they also already have an entire supporting ecosystem adding tremendous value to their mobile OS.

Clearly Microsoft, who has been trying build a tablet people actually want to use for years, simply doesn’t know what they’re doing.  “Redmond, start your copiers” is really real.  You have to feel a little bad for Microsoft.  They’ve been trying for years and Apples launches one out of the park on their first try.  But the difference here is that Apple has their own vision.

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Seth Weintraub writing for CNNMoney.com wonders if Steve Jobs distorted the truth during his iPad 2 announcement.  He starts by trying to examine Job’s “First dual core tablet to ship in volume” comment.

“First dual core tablet to ship in volume.” That’s funny, I tested a Dell (DELL) Streak 7, which had a dual core Nvidia Tegra 2 chip in January. They’ve been shipping ever since on T-Mobile.

In volume.

Of course, the Motorola (MMI) XOOM also has this same dual core processor and is certainly shipping in volume as well. In fact, I’ve been using an Android phone (the Atrix) with a dual core chip for weeks and it wasn’t the first to ship in volume.  As for Apple (AAPL), they haven’t shipped one iPad 2 yet — iPad 2’s hit shelves on March 11.

Seth isn’t the only one to latch onto this quote and try to debunk it but what a lot of people are failing to realize is that, while others may be shipping dual-core tablets, it’s very safe for Steve Jobs to say that Apple will ship and sell a higher volume of iPad 2’s than any other dual-core tablet available today simply based on sales of the first iPad.  Indeed, if previous iPad sales are any indication at all, iPad 2 is going to be a huge hit. What other tablet device can claim that today?

And to say that Apple hasn’t shipped any iPads is completely naive.  Apple has a stock pile of second generation either en-route to stores or in stores already.  This is very common for any product.

Seth also tries to pick apart Jobs’ “>90% market share” bullet point.

Apple would have needed to sell 3.2 million more to reach 90% of 2010’s tablet market share against just Samsung alone (in triple the time).  That’s not including all of the Android-powered Nooks out there, those cheap $100 Androids you can buy at Walgreens or Amazon and even Windows-powered Tablet PCs (which are mentioned two bullet points above!).  If you choose to include the Kindle, Apple may not have even reached 50% of the market.

While he might have a point about the actual market share number his supporting arguments are just ridiculous.  First, the sales of “cheap $100 Androids” don’t even register, to the point where nobody is actually tracking them.  Second, there is no such thing as a Windows powered Tablet PC when you consider how tablets have come to be defined because of the iPad.  Nobody is selling a Windows powered tablet.  And last, attempting to bring in Kindle sales simply doesn’t make sense as the Kindle is a reading device, not a general purpose tablet device.  Talk about skewing data in your favor.  “Pot, meet kettle.”

Seth goes on to point out hardware specs and pricing.

Perhaps Jobs could have also compared the iPad 2 to other Android tablets’ prices? Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and Dell’s Streak both now start at $499 and have better cameras, 3G radios and GPS, which seem to compete well with Apple’s $499 Wifi-only offering.  Reality distorted.

Know why the Tab and the Streak both now start at $499?  Because they’re not selling.

But hey the XOOM has better specs right?

But then consider that the XOOM has a much better, bigger 720P+ screen compared to the iPad’s 1024×768 job (it has less Retina™).

Where Seth wants to pick on Jobs’ use of the word “volume” saying it is subjective, so to is saying the XOOM’s screen is “much better.”  The iPad’s screen is an IPS panel giving it a much wider viewing angle where as the XOOM does not.  While it is true that the XOOM has a 720p display Seth, like so many other reviewers and Apple nay-sayers, fails to realize is that the iPad’s 4:3 format display makes much more sense than a 16:9 display format.  By giving a tablet a 16:9 display format you’ve essentially limited the device to a horizontal layout.  The iPads 4:3 format allows developers to create apps that favor either layout and still get good use from it.  Remember, the iPad is a general purpose device, not just some common movie player.

The only thing Seth got right in his troll piece is that Jobs misquoted Samsung’s CEO.

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A fantastic description of what is wrong with some companies in how they create things.  I’ve been really disappointed with a number of products I’ve tried or even purchased recently because so much of it had a half-assed feel.

It’s not that the NFC-based, phone-to-object interaction didn’t work. Of course it did: it had been engineered perfectly. But what it hadn’t been was designed. Those responsible for imagining the interaction apparently wanted to protect users against the (edge case!) contingency of someone making off with their phones and running up a huge vending-machine tab. They failed to understand that, for low-value transactions like this, at least, the touch gesture is a useful proxy for consent — and that if someone’s got physical possession of my phone, I’m likely to have bigger problems than whether or not they order a few cans of Coke with it. A designer committed to the user and the quality of that user’s experience gets this in a way only the rarest engineer seems to. Designers are also, by training and predilection, inclined to design for the usual, where engineers are taught a kind of rigor that compels them to account for, and overweight, low-probability events.

This example really sums up the issue with a lot of companies.

Read more at http://speedbird.wordpress.com/2011/02/19/nokia-culture-will-out/

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I’ve been putting a lot of time into this little project. Nobody uses it (yet?) and truth be told I barely use it in the house but it’s been such a great way to learn a number of different things including python, mDNS (bonjour), creating installer files for debian and OS X systems and even git that I can’t stop working on it.

I’m now releasing version 0.3.0. This version brings a few changes but most notably the Linux client is now ready. The next release will be coming shortly and will focus on making the client the more robust about how it deals with network disconnects.

You can read more about the 0.3.0 release at https://github.com/dustinrue/Dencoder/wiki