News Microsoft's Surface hits trouble

Please provide me an information about Amazon selling the device at loss. I have a statement of their CEO about them selling it at cost, what you guys have ?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/12/us-amazon-kindle-idUSBRE89B01K20121012

iTunes revenues were at 1.16 billion per quarter at the time. Versus 1.8-1.9 billion now. Unless Apple costs doubled, then their profits increased a lot. Sure, iTunes revenues are only 4% of their whole revenue, but that is not surprising at hardware company. No one is saying it has to be their current cash cow, but you can bet they are not losing money on the hardware itself. The point is to get you in THEIR product ecosystem and not have investments in the opponents ecosystem(s), because that means your upgrade path will be inside their ecosystem. You can already see that when people are unwilling to swap from iOS to Android or WP7/WP8 because they have bought apps for iOS and vice versa.

That is the whole point of MS trying to get in the tablet market, with a help of desktop PC's where you get interested in their ecosystem and then you will probably choose the known system (Windows 8) instead of iOS or Android for your tablet. And when you upgrade, you will probably choose Windows again,... Same for other systems.

 

In regards to the Fire HD it may well be break even now (the original Fire was a loss maker), which is good, but still isn't making a profit on each sale. It still means Amazon rely on content for income in this sector.

iTunes costs have indeed gone up - Apple launched iCloud (which is free), and have extensively invested in data centres (and still are - this one cost 1bn to build, and will have large running costs). Your 1.16 versus 1.8bn figures sound huge, but when you knock the 70% off for content holders we're still talking relatively small amounts of money (348m to 540m). Simply put, it's always percentages, and as more stuff gets sold, more investment needs to be put in place on the backend to handle the load - and then you throw in a free cloud storage/sync for every iOS device on top.

As for the argument here, I'm not bothered. Literally just saying that despite huge volumes, content isn't a sure fire way to make money, as Apple prove (and Amazon, due to leaking money)

 

Thats exactly the reason why BS marketing specs shouldn't be used. Because people are expecting one thing and getting another. While the BS marketing is always technically correct, it can be misleading. Which is certainly the case with hard drives. People like ourselves with technical knowledge know that the formatted space on a hard drive will be smaller than whats written on the box. We also know that system takes up space on a tablet and smartphone so we expect the available space to be smaller. Other people don't realise that. In other words we have the capability to see through the specs and interpret them correctly, most people don't and thats why the specs should be stated simply, openly and correctly.

 

They are stated correctly. It's just that most people don't understand them. So how, pray tell, would you describe those specs in a way that an ordinary user can understand?

 

LED monitor is a false statement. As they are not LED at all. They are LCD with LED backlight.

 

Of course they are correct they are always correct. No one is going to publish incorrect specs. That's against the law. No one is going to publish transparent specs either unfortunately.

Space: Total Space plus usable space (or just usable space)

Hard drives: 1024MB per GB as per the O/S (500GB hard drive is stated as a 488GB)

Or perhaps we should tell every average user to **** off and print all the specs in a binary representation of ASCII and let them take responsibility for figuring out what they actually mean.

You can't obviously break specs down to a point where you essentially give the user an education on technology. Just because there is a possibility that they may not understand is not an excuse to blur the specs. Being straight forward with your technical declaration makes life easier for all users be it tech enthusiast or not.

 

The WiiU has 2GB of RAM, 1GB reserved for the OS. I see no people freaking out.

Also even their storage space.. if you think the Surface is bad.. oh boy don't look at the WiiU.
The WiiU Basic has 8GB storage. You have 3GB of usable space. That is less than HALF! And unlike Microsoft, Nintendo didn't say any about it, EXCEPT in a video exclusively in Japaneses, hidden in youTube. Yet people line up to get it, and no one has any problem with it. You can attach any external HDD via USB or USB flash drive or SD card to expend the system memory. Do you see people taking to court Nintendo?

So why it is a special case for Microsoft with it's Surface?

 

I bet that people will still moan: why can't I use all the space? Perhaps Microsoft should have just partitioned the Surface into two: 16Gb for the OS and updates; 16Gb free space for the user, and sell it as a 16Gb tablet. People can then moan that 16Gb isn't enough even though they will never fill it in the lifetime of the device, and buy an iPad because Apple lumps memory together in one single figure, which nobody ever thought was a problem then.

 

Its not. The problem is industry wide.

 

TBH, the space thing is a pain in the ass, but not worth going to court for. It even explains Microsoft's pricing, pitching the 32GB surface against the 16Gb iPad, as the end user gets approximately the same amount of accessible space.

 

So why is Microsoft taken to court? Microsoft follows the industry standard. Weather it's right or wrong that is the standard now.

 

Because the person taking them to court owns a Microsoft surface.

You can't take an entire industry to court either.

 

Sure you can. You press the government to take the companies to court. Like they do when companies are found guilty of price fixing and such... ok bad example as you have an agency that takes care of that.. but I mean the process of taking all at once to court. Or press the government to lunch a public inquiry, which is what is done here in Quebec with construction companies corrupting the system.

 

Same thing as when Apple took Samsung to court for standard android features.


Anyway, kind of unavoidable that Windows RT takes up more space on the Surface tablet than lets say ios on the iPad, Windows RT is after all a slightly trimmed own version of a desktop os as where android / apple tablets run on operating systems originating from mobile phones.

 

I agree that suing one company isn't going to bring about change. The reason I approve of the law suit and the reason the guy is bringing it to court are more than likely two different reasons. The law suit is trivial at best. I don't think suing anyone brings about change. It is something that needs to be done in a sort of EU regulation kind of way.

 

Greetings!

Pages of discussion and no one comments on the WiFi problems and the cover/keyboard quality problems?


As for the space, the user will start losing free space once updates start eating the available space. And lets not forget that when updating metro apps the more recent olders versiona are left on the drive, taking space. The need for a pagefile and a swapfile dont help either.

 

Personally I think that the lawyer, being in effect a professional asshole, is just seeking some publicity and an opportunity to make money. Like he would have not bought the 32Gb Surface if he had realised only 20Gb of it was available. The guy is a lawyer; I'm sure he would have sprung for the 64Gb model if capacity was such a big deal for him. I'm also fairly sure that he is not that concerned with consumer rights (beyond how it keeps him in a job) that he feels the need to go on a crusade for them.

The whole thing is a First World Problem, and he is just out to make a name and a buck.

 

We did. You missed it.

The iPhone 5 has wifi problems. And the case chips easily. And there is purple blow-out on the camera in bright light, and some of the batteries rattle. The Nexus 7 had screen separation and light leak issues. Every new gadget has its childhood illnesses.

 

Yup.

And it was concluded that the Surface touch cover is limited problem. So it's bad batch, or QA issue with the manufacturer who wanted to do a quick buck by ignoring QA process, which Microsoft probably already rectified. Microsoft is offering free replacements, no question asked, and the cover has a year warranty.

WiFi issue sounds like a specific router compatibility issue, as I had exactly, but like exactly the same issue with my wireless card in my laptop when my university updated their wireless to N. This was solved with a replacement of the wireless card where a Dell tech came and did it in front of me. The Surface issue can probably be fixed in a revision of the wireless card or firmware. So a replacement is done or firmware update will be released. Nothing that can't be fixed.

 

No. Apple took Samsung to court over standard iOS features. Features that (like it or not) were written down in a patent that was granted to Apple.

The US Patent System sucks. The marking spin on mobile device capacities and capabilities suck.

But it's a free(isn) world. The uneducated sheeple among us can buy the devices that have been pitched to appeal to them, and the rest of us can dig a bit deeper and buy whatever we darn well please.

Just never tell the sheeple of the world to wake up... it doesn't end well if you do:

http://xkcd.com/1013/