Microsoft exec criticizes Apple for giving customers old tech

[c134nb0y43]

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.

Apple CEO Tim CookEnlarge Image
Doing his customers a disservice?
James Martin/CNET
It's not easy when you're 40.

You can't keep up with things the way you used to.

You start to peddle old ideas instead of new ones.

This, perhaps, is at the core of criticisms leveled on occasion at Apple.

Oddly, the latest comes from Microsoft's general manager of the Surface line, Brian Hall.

In a tweet on Thursday that sounded in equal parts exasperated and bemused, he said: "I compete with Apple and respect them. but they ARE doing their customers a disservice at times with old tech..."

Apple didn't respond to my request for comment.

I confess to being somewhat in sympathy with Hall. I'm writing this on a MacBook Air that is nice enough, but it's as if it's been around for longer than Donald Trump.

It feels utilitarian rather than exciting, functional rather than stylish.

Perhaps that's a symptom of the expectations that Apple has engendered across its whole product line. Perhaps we humans should just chill a little and let Apple do its thing. Or perhaps Apple is slowly weaning us off certain sorts of computers altogether.

MORE TECHNICALLY INCORRECT

Tinder users have a lower sense of self-worth, study says
Marissa Mayer says the secret of success is working 130 hours a week
IKEA's brilliant mockery of Instagram food pics

Indeed, Apple did have a (sort of) response to Hall only this week.

It released a new iPad Pro ad in which it claims that its tablet is now actually a computer. It's a miracle.

Yes, this means you'll have to buy a stylus (Apple translation: pencil) and invest in a keyboard. It almost seems like airlines that nickel-and-dime you for the extras.

For many, though, a computer is still a single thing that isn't heavy, that you can carry everywhere and that works as soon as you open it up.

There again, we used to think computers were things that sat on your desk and left no room for all the Economists you haven't gotten around to reading.

 Follow
 Brian Hall @IsForAt
I compete with Apple and respect them. but they ARE doing their customers a disservice at times with old tech... http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/4/12373776/2012-macbook-pro-still-alive-not-dead-why …
10:24 PM - 4 Aug 2016
Photo published for Apple should stop selling four-year-old computers
Apple should stop selling four-year-old computers
One thousand, five hundred and fourteen days. Or: four years, one month, and twenty-four days. That’s how long it’s been since Apple released the last MacBook Pro to come without a Retina display....
theverge.com

 

http://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-exec-criticizes-apple-for-giving-customers-old-tech/