Bill Gates not impressed with the iPad

John Brownlee ()

Bill Gates not impressed with the iPad

Billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates has never been shy about commenting on Apple’s products, and now, in response to the iPad announcement, he’s pretty much towing the line of the general Windows world response to Apple’s new tablet: meh.

“You know, I’m a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard — in other words, a netbook — will be the mainstream on that,” Gates reportedly told Brent Schlender of BNET.

“So, it’s not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with iPhone where I say, ‘Oh my God, Microsoft didn’t aim high enough.’ It’s a nice reader, but there’s nothing on the iPad I look at and say, ‘Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.’”

That’s not a surprising reaction. Microsoft was one of the first mainstream computer companies out there to really embrace tablet computing… but the way Microsoft’s tablets and the iPad encourage users to interact with them are totally separate paradigms.

Microsoft favors the kitchen sink approach: a tablet, to them, is a Windows laptop you can use with a stylus. Apple’s approach is to deliver a cohesive user experience unburdened by legacy pre-conceptions.

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It makes sense: Microsoft is primarily in the business of selling software. For them, a tablet, a PC, a phone is all about the OS: their partners make the hardware choices, and the OS needs to support all of them. But Apple’s business is the elegant fusion of both software and hardware… which is why no one looks at Microsoft to revolutionize the way we interact with our devices. They’re only bothering themselves with half the equation.

My prediction is that Microsoft, yet again, is going to be playing catch-up here. Gates can say he believed in the iPhone now, but that’s not what Microsoft CEO Ballmer thought, predicting it would never garner any real market share. Now, three years late to the game, Microsoft’s scrambling to get their Windows Mobile operating system up to the standards of even the first iPhone OS. Bill Gates may not run Microsoft anymore, but his complacent attitude is indicative of the problems plaguing the whole company that he founded.

26 comments »

About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in iPad, News |

  • http://necessarycool.com Jef

    And yet every tablet I’ve used so far has sucked. Lol I completely agree with you, he’s everything wrong with the PC world.

  • http://necessarycool.com Jef

    Where was that photo done?? Lol I love it.

  • http://ObamaPacman.com ObamaPacman

    @Jef,

    Exactly. The windows tablets that use stylus are a complete market failure.

  • Paul

    Bill Gates is not impressed by the iPad, but was impressed enough with Steve Ballmer to have him run Microsoft. I don’t put much credence in what Bill Gates finds impressive, or otherwise.

  • mongo

    If you do a search for his reaction to the iPhone unveiling, Gates has the same sort of reaction. He thinks it should have buttons so he can dial phone numbers, that it will all be about the software, and that only Microsoft has shown that it can make software (February 2nd, 2007 Businessweek interview). He also said he 2005 he’d definitely not buy an iPod.

    I’m on the boat that it will all be about the software, but I think the iPhone has it, and so will the iPad.

    Bill Gates couldn’t see past CD players in 2005, phone buttons in 2007, and now the stylus/physical keyboard in 2010. At least he’s consistent. Smart man who’s had tremendous success improving on already existing ideas.

  • Joe-bin

    Did not Gates have a similar public response to the iPod almost a decade ago?

  • http://www.howiesweb.com Howie Isaacks

    Of course he’s not impressed. His own tablet computer failed, so he’s going to bash the iPad before it even ships. Just more FUD B.S. from Microsoft. I thought this guy retired.

  • nabil2199

    the ipad has nothing on tablet computers, it’s a toy

  • Plummer

    “So, it’s not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with iPhone where I say, ‘Oh my God, Microsoft didn’t aim high enough.’ – Bill Gates

    WAIT. Did Gates actually imply (in this statement) that he was IMPRESSED with the iPhone??!! (but not the iPad)

    Are we talking about Bill Gates having an “Oh-My-God” impressive opinion of the iPhone?

  • Plummer

    Bill Gates needs to die of prostate cancer already. His time in this world has long expired.

  • fotostuf

    No one seems to understand what market the iPad has been made for. It ISN’T a tablet, it isn’t made for the traveling business person, it isn’t a replacement for a laptop… get over it.
    It is made for the thousands of people who are attached 24/7 to their iPhone/Blackberry/whatever and do nothing but Twitter, Facebook, surf the Internet, and play games. The end. Any other comparison is just leading you down a dead end path.
    Oh… and listening to anything Gates says will do the same! The best he could come up with after spending millions was the overpriced Surface? PLEASE!!!!

  • Plummer

    Bill Gates is too loyal to his “Windows baby” to ever admit that anything Apple produces can possibly be superior to the crap that MS makes. Kinda like Torvald just loves his OS way too much to ever admit that it’s total birdshit crap of a failure OS that has gone nowhere, it’s so bad that it can’t even make any dent into the much-disparaged and maligned Windows (itself the worst kind of birdshit crap).

  • nabil2199

    @Plummer: it’s a well know fact that most servers powering the internet are macserves, idiot

  • CaryMG

    I’m sorry: we started to care about what Gates thinks *when*, exactly ?

  • TheBrew

    @Plummer – please dude, some respect. Gates was an important part of the industry. He’s out now and is spending his time working on helping people. Much love in his direction.

    That said: Bill is not impressed. So? If his opinion had ever mattered, Microsoft wouldn’t be in the mess they’re in now.

    The only reason MS is the giant we all know, is because they were the first to put an OS on IBM compatible PCs – and then see it go mainstream without any real competition.
    And here we are: people have no idea that they have a choice of OS when they buy a computer. Worse yet – if they are told about it, they’re afraid of trying something new. So MS has grown big and fat. Jabba style. Burping green mucus and pulling people’s chains.

    You almost started to feel sorry for MS but then I remember how many times I yell and roll my eyes when working with their software – and gone is that sympathy.

  • TheBrew

    @Plummer : please dude, some respect. Gates was an important part of the industry. He’s out now and is spending his time working on helping people. Much love in his direction.

    That said: Bill is not impressed. So? If his opinion had ever mattered, Microsoft wouldn’t be in the mess they’re in now.

    The only reason MS is the giant we all know, is because they were the first to put an OS on IBM compatible PCs – and then see it go mainstream without any real competition.
    And here we are: people have no idea that they have a choice of OS when they buy a computer. Worse yet – if they are told about it, they’re afraid of trying something new. So MS has grown big and fat. Jabba style. Burping green mucus and pulling people’s chains.

    You almost started to feel sorry for MS but then I remember how many times I yell and roll my eyes when working with their software – and gone is that sympathy.

    @nabil2199 : Sometimes I’m in awe of how an enormous lack of vision some people have. It’s like watching the humanity eating bananas and smelling their fingers. Note to self: just don’t mate with them! No matter how sexy that fur is..

  • Don Pope

    The expression is “toeing the line”, not “towing the line”.

  • Cody

    The photo had me wondering at first…”How did they get Bill Gates in that shirt?”, Then I took a second look! SO FUNNY!

  • Robert

    Here’s Bill’s reaction to the introduction of iPod back in 2004:

    “There’s nothing that the iPod does that I say, ‘Oh, wow, I don’t think we can do that.’” – Bill Gates, September 02, 2004

    He’s even copying his own comments!

  • mark

    Let’s make one thing clear: the iPad is not a revolutionary device.

    The ‘uniqueness’ lies in the fat that it is the most simple device for those who want to watch, read, mail, browse, game and whatever on a device that does not take up a corner in the room, you can switch it on and work with it, download for little simple programs that yet do a lot of the work for oyu and so on.

    That Bill Gates is not impressed with it is because he is still thinking too advanced. If he had thought more from the bottom up all Microsoft products would be much more user friendly and solid.

    Apple has created a device that that is revolutionary to the extend that it is something that many have tried and this one will succeed. Besides that have a look at the very first generation iPod and the ones available today. The same will happen to the iPad (which in itself is a continued development of the iPod).

  • Nathan

    I wouldn’t call myself a Mac FanBoy or whatever, but I hate Windows with a passion. With that said, I am totally unimpressed with the iPad as well and will definitely not be getting one.

  • http://hercules.gcsu.edu/~flowney Frank Lowney

    Bill is probably right about what will be mainstream. The thundering herd of Lemmings will buy netbooks and never know that they could have done better.

    This is also why Apple owns the $1K + computer space.

  • MikeP

    @nabil2199
    “the ipad has nothing on tablet computers, it’s a toy”

    You’re just bragging because your stylus is bigger than mine.

  • fakestevejobs

    “640K should be enough for anybody”
    - Bill Gates, World Class Moron opinion

    “there’s nothing on the iPad I look at and say, ‘Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.’”
    - Bill Gates, More World Class Moron opinions

  • nabil2199

    @fakestevejobs: the quote about 640kb being enough for anyone is a fake

  • imajoebob

    There’s a nonsensical part to this: how can Gates be impressed by the iPhone but not the iPad. It’s just a freakin’ giant iPhone!!