Earlier today, Microsoft released a new ad that attempts to show how much better the ASUS VivoTab is at getting stuff done than the iPad. A similar TV spot was aired last night with Siri being used to mock things like the iPad’s lack of Powerpoint (a Microsoft product).
Alongside its TV ads, Microsoft has put up a new webpage called “iPad vs. Windows.” At the bottom of the comparison it says that the ASUS ViviTab “has a bigger touchscreen” than the iPad.
There’s no denying that iTunes for Windows is one of the most important projects Apple has ever done. It allowed Apple to sell iPods, then iPhones, and then iPads (as well as billions of dollars worth of movies, books and music) to owners of Windows PCs at a time when the iOS ecosystem was much more tethered to the desktop than it is today.
But iTunes on Windows isn’t quite as important as it used to be, especially now that the iPad is king and Windows 8 is here, which has cratered PC sales thanks to the general confusion around its new “Metro” UI.
Any surprise, then, that Microsoft’s having a hard time convincing Apple to update iTunes for Windows 8?
Your next iPad keyboard might come from… Microsoft! That’s right: this minimal, great-looking, tablet-specific keyboard comes from Microsoft. And while is is designed to be used with Windows 8, it "also works with iPad and most Android devices.
There may not be a lot of agreement on whether or not Mac sales are up or down right now, but one thing’s for sure: the overall PC market is dying, with the latest quarter seeing the largest overall contraction in PC sales in the last two decades.
That’s not to say you can’t make a lot of profit still selling PCs, but as the chart above proves, profit is no longer linked to volume… and as they do in the smartphone and tablet markets, Apple owns the largest share of the profit to be had.
Microsoft is planning a new lineup of Surface tablets that includes a 7-inch model designed to compete with Apple’s iPad mini and Google’s Nexus 7, The Wall Street Journal reports. The device will enter mass production later this year, according to people familiar with Microsoft’s plans, but it’s unclear when the company will bring the new slate to market.
For the past few decades, Microsoft has absolutely dominated Apple when it comes to the number of Microsoft devices sold versus Apple devices, but 2013 will be the year that everything changes.
A report from Gartner claims that Microsoft’s reign is coming to an end, as 2013 will be the first year that more Apple devices are purchased than Windows devices.
Teardown specialists iFixit have published a new tablet repairability guide that quickly tells you how difficult it’s going to be to mend your broken Android, iOS, or Windows 8 slate. The guide features 18 popular tablets, which have been given a repairability score between one and ten. The higher the score, the easier they are to repair.
Unsurprisingly, Apple’s iPads are some of the hardest tablets to fix, second only to the Microsoft Surface Pro — the only tablet with a score of one. Amazon’s Kindle Fire’s, on the other hand, are relatively easy to repair, as are Dell’s devices.
You just got a new laptop with Windows 8 pre-installed. The new UI is beautiful, but you’re confused. Everything’s weird. You can’t find any of your files and apps. Things don’t work the way they have for the past 20 years. It’s a nightmare and you just want the old Windows back.
Don’t worry, there are Microsoft Certified Professionals out there who will help you out. And by help you out, I mean they will charge you $125 to downgrade your PC to Windows 7 so you don’t have to have Microsoft’s latest and greatest operating system. This can’t be a good sign for Microsoft.
When Microsoft launched the Surface with Windows RT, it was supposed to be the answer to all of their iPad problems. It runs on cellphone chips, yet still looks like regular Windows 8. It’s supposed to be awesome. But sales of Windows RT tablets haven’t been strong, and now Samsung is saying that they’re second guessing the platform.
In a recent interview at CES, Make Abary, Samsung’s senior vice president who oversees the company’s tablet business, said that Samsung has decided they won’t launch their Windows RT tablet in the U.S. after discovering there’s not much demand for them.
