Apple is the “just works” company.

My experience has been that I have plugged hundreds of hardware accessories into my Mac, iPad, and iPhone and they all just worked. This includes electronic drum kits, which plug into a Mac or iOS device very easily and just work. MIDI-over-Wi-Fi between iOS devices and Mac devices just works.

My experience has been that I have run hundreds of apps on my Mac and they just worked, and hundreds of apps on my iPad and iPhone and they just worked. I can't remember ever attempting to run a Mac or iOS app and they didn't run.

Also I have run Perl and Python and PHP scripts on my Mac and they just worked. I have run Apache websites on the Web Sharing feature of my Mac and they just worked. And I've shared files with other Macs, Windows PC's, Unix systems over the network and they just worked. FTP sites — whatever. All just worked.

I have definitely opened a broad range of professional audio and video file formats on my Mac and they just worked. Even right-out-of-the-box with no additional software installed.

Rendezvous — zero configuration networking — just worked. AirPlay just works. AirPrint just works.

The Google ecosystem just works. The Yahoo ecosystem. Netflix, Xfinity, MLB, Qello — they all just work.

What am I missing out on? I don't know that I have time to use any more stuff.

Oh, right — VIRUSES. I can't run any viruses. I need to be “open” to run all the viruses.

None of this should be a surprise:

* Apple is the PC and iPod manufacturer, and so their phones and tablets are tablet PC's with iPod features and iPod phones with tablet PC features
* Samsung is a phone and TV manufacturer, and so their phones are phones with TV (media player) features and their tablets are TV's with phone features (Java apps)

  duh.

Or are you saying I can do the exact same things with a stone tablet that I can do with an iPad? How about with an Advil tablet? Same features as an iPad?

> > My iPhone can do everything I can do on my workstation.

> No it can't. It can't even run CUPS

CUPS is there inside the core operating system of every iOS device since before iOS 5. Apple is the maintainer of CUPS.

Maybe his workstation can't run AirPrint, but his iOS device can run CUPS.

Maybe you are looking for a serial cable connection from an iOS device to a printer? That makes as much sense as an electric car with no battery that you plug into a very long AC cable. That is why iOS devices have AirPrint wireless printing. Which is based on CUPS and can be made to work with any CUPS printer if you like.

> Any apps it does have are scaled back "starter" versions compared to what's available for a real PC.

That is not true. The apps are not scaled back, and they are not starter versions. And many iOS apps have features that you can't get on any Mac or Windows software.

Pages/Keynote/Numbers have the same features whether running on the Mac, Web, iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.

GarageBand for iOS has features that don't exist on any Mac or Windows music composition software. It's the best PC songwriting software, period.

iMovie is great on the Mac, but it really shines on iPad, which has a built-in movie camera, complete with the large viewfinder screen that is found on real movie cameras. So you see a real TV view of what you are shooting, then when you edit you can drag clips around with your finger, and before you know it, you are uploading to YouTube over 4G from the very location you were shooting. BETTER.

Photoshop on Mac/Windows may seem to be much bigger than any iOS app, but keep in mind that Photoshop for Mac/Windows is actually dozens if not hundreds of individual apps combined into one giant interface. Any particular user only uses some subset of that large suite of apps. The equivalent on iOS would be to run about 10 iOS apps, and that is what Photoshop experts do when they use an iPad. They choose the 10 iOS apps that match up to the parts of Photoshop for Mac/Windows that they actually use.

The size of apps is a ridiculous metric, anyway. I could just as easily say that Unix is not a real PC operating system because the typical iOS app is much bigger than diff or echo. You do realize that App Store (the iOS app) is much bigger than apt-get (the Unix app,) right? So what you are saying doesn't make any sense. Even if you were factually correct about anything, which you are not.

You also forgot to mention that Advil tablets outsell both Apple tablets and Samsung tablets. I bought 200 Advil tablets yesterday, and I only have one Apple tablet.

Yes, I know an Advil tablet is a pain reliever and has nothing to do with an Apple tablet which is a PC (aka “tablet PC,” it runs native C/C++ PC apps from the Mac and other PC class systems on a PC class OS) or a Samsung tablet which is a TV (aka “media player,” it plays video and has Java phone apps,) but if you want to lump all tablets together and pretend they are all one big market, I don't know why you would leave out the Advils.

Also there are stone tablets. Adding them in may also enable you to imply that iPad sales are dropping when they are not.

iPad has about 99% of tablet PC sales. All the other tablet PC's run Windows. Apple pretty much doubles their iPad sales every year, and then doubles them again the following year. Everybody should have such problems.

> Apple, allow me to use 3rd party app stores, give me a decent built in file manager, give me something like AirDroid(and not iTunes),
> allow script languages, and let me customize the "desktop"(widgets, no Win95 like icon grid), and I will become a full fledged
> Apple fanboy and shower you with money

Apple already has that product — it's called a Mac.

You can run apps from any developer on the Mac, or make your own. The Mac may have the only decent file manager, and there are 3rd party alternatives if you like. The Mac has the most music and audio support of any system, you can playback audio in any one of thousands of apps. The Mac has Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby, and other scripting languages built-in. There is even a GUI app scripting language called AppleScript with which you can automate Mac GUI apps like Photoshop and BBEdit to work together as one app that runs like a player piano while you are at lunch or sleeping. The word “widget” (in the context you are using) comes from the Mac. By default, the widgets are confined to their own desktop space (called Dashboard) but if you like you can override that (with developer mode) and run them on any desktop space you like.

iOS is for the times when you don't want the power/complexity of a Mac. For some users, that means having an iOS device and no Mac (or Windows PC.) For you, it likely means having a Mac and also having iOS devices that act as accessories. For example, on my desk right now is a MacBook Pro that is running Web development tools and just to the right of the screen is an iPad on a vertical stand that is running a Web browser, showing me the consumer view of what I'm working on with the Mac.

This shouldn't be hard to grasp because it's the same thing as with the iPod. When you are walking around and want to listen to music, you don't want to use a Mac, because an iPod is better for that in every way. When you are sitting on the couch surfing the Web or watching Netflix, you don't want to use a Mac, because an iPad is better for that in every way. However, if you want to do some coding, you put down the iPad and the iPod and you open up a Mac. It's pretty straightforward.

At least his or her bank account won't be cleaned out by Windows malware as they use Facebook.

Android devices != PC's. Java apps are not PC apps.

iOS devices == PC's. They run the same apps from the Mac, but with a touch interface, on top of the same operating system core from the Mac. If you say an iOS device is not a PC, you are saying a Mac is not a PC, and therefore Windows — a Mac/NeXT clone — is not a PC. To some extent, Windows 8 is also an iOS clone — is a Windows 8 PC not a PC?

You are thinking too literally and too office-centric and traditional PC -centric.

Yes, sometimes a general office worker gets an iPad and drops the Windows PC on the same day. Especially if they are very mobile or had very few traditional PC skills. But all the iOS device has to do is replace the user's main PC app and the user is mostly done with the traditional PC. For example, a writer who moves his word processor from a Mac to an iPad is now an iPad user who also has a Mac. The iPad is his main computer now, and the Mac is secondary.

But there are all kinds of other scenarios:

* a limo driver who used to keep trip notes on a paper clipboard, and at the end of the day go into an office full of Windows PC's and do data entry replaces the paper clipboard with an iPad and drops the office and the Windows PC immediately — other examples of this kind of workflow are car and real estate sales people, who can have an iPad with them at the actual point of sale (with the client at a new car or house) and don't need to go back to a desk

* people who used to use a desktop PC and a notebook PC have now often replaced the desktop PC with the notebook, and replaced the notebook with an iPad

* people who had one notebook PC they used 100% of the time and replaced every year are now using the notebook PC 25%–50% of the time and an iPad for the rest and replacing the notebook PC every 2–3 years, or ultimately replacing the notebook with a second or even third iPad

* users who have computers that run just one specific app all day — a salesperson who spends all day in Salesforce, a photographer who runs a photo viewer tethered to his or her camera during shoots — have now often replaced a big heavy notebook with 4 hour battery that begs them to be at a desk with a lightweight iPad that runs the same exact app for 10 hours on a charge

If you are a computer expert of some kind, you think in terms of a PC workflow. You try an iPad and you try to impose that same PC workflow on it. That is not what most users do. Most users are actually frustrated by the traditional PC most of the time. Most cannot grasp the file system hierarchy. Most try an iPad and they can do more with it, not less.

And keep in mind, it is not just 1 iOS device replacing 1 PC. I write music and lyrics, and I use an iPad for the lyrics and an iPhone for the music (with Apogee hardware) and I work for many hours without switching apps at all, it is a very focused and enjoyable and productive workflow that replaced a Mac that I had only for writing. Later, when the writing is done, the music and lyrics go to a Mac for editing, production, and publishing like they always did (the documents open right up in the Mac-based tools,) but I only have one Mac now, not two. I'm not letting go of the production Mac with tools like Logic that I have complete mastery of, but I recognize I'm in the minority of users. Most people, even if they have used traditional PC's extensively, have not mastered a single app, let alone mastered the Mac or Windows. The first time they feel the kind of mastery of a computer that you might have felt with some server software or the command line is when they get an iPad or iPhone.

Hamburgers also outsell iOS devices. What is your point?

We are talking here about the dominant PC class product — the Windows PC — being matched in installed base by the newest PC class product: the iOS device. We're talking about Apple and Microsoft PC products being on parity in installed base for the first time in decades. We're talking about OS X shipping in 2001 against a Windows installed base that looked insurmountable, and yet less than 15 years later, OS X -based systems are about to pass Windows in installed base.

Yes, that is news. Apple beats Microsoft in installed base is “man bites dog.” The licensing of DOS/Windows to generic hardware makers was the “deal of the 20th century” and Apple was ridiculed for years for not making it because it was thought that they would never reach parity with Windows by making all their own hardware.

Android has been extremely successful at doing what it was supposed to do: replace other phone systems on generic phones. Same as hamburgers are very popular. But Android is off-topic here because it is not PC class by any definition. PC apps are native C/C++, not Java. PC's have apps with full-size views. PC's have centralized system updates that patch bugs regularly. I know there is this thing where Android wants to pretend it is iOS, but it is not.

Yes, OS X and iOS are essentially the same system:

  OS X (aka Mac OS) is a mouse-based user/app interface on top of the xnu kernel and OS X subsystems and libraries
  iOS is a touch-based user/app interface on top of the xnu kernel and OS X subsystems and libraries

  this is a key benefit of Apple's mobile strategy. Instead of using a baby system like iPod OS on iPhone, they put their PC class system onto iPhone. That has enabled, for example, apps like GarageBand (which depends on CoreAudio and CoreMIDI subsystems of OS X for a lot of its functionality) to be quickly ported from mouse/Intel Mac OS to touch/ARM iOS. That's why so many Mac apps arrived on iOS so quickly and with so much power.

If someone were trying to say that iOS and OS X are different systems, they would be denying what is probably the greatest strategic move by a technology company in the 21st century.

The best analogy to understand what Apple did is to imagine that when you booted up Windows 8 on a notebook, it only showed the desktop interface and the desktop Win32 apps and purposefully hid the Metro interface and apps, and when you booted up a Windows 8 tablet, it did the opposite, showing Metro and hiding the desktop. Underneath, it is still Windows 8.

> Android devices still outnumber Apple in the phone/tablet world

iOS devices are replacing PC's, not phones. That is what you missed in this article, which is not about the phone market, but is actually about the PC market. Apple, BTW, is the oldest PC vendor. The phone features of an iOS device are essentially free, like the Web browser. Nobody pays for that. They are buying App Store and PC class native C/C++ apps — PC replacement features. These features are now available on devices that are not traditional PC's — that is the “post PC” thing.

Android is an operating system, not a device. Android is replacing other phone operating systems. Android runs Java apps and viruses, like other phones. Android devices replace other phones. They are better phones in many cases, but still just phones.

If you think about it for a second, if an iOS device is the same as an Android phone, then why would anyone buy an iOS device to make calls and send texts and visit websites if they can get a cheaper Android phone to do that? That is why you think Apple users were brainwashed into a cult. You're refusing to admit that the reason people buy iOS devices is their very real and practical need to run PC class apps, and their very reasonable preference to do so on a 600 gram, 10 hour battery iPad instead of a 3 kilo, 4 hour battery PC notebook.

From my own experience, my iOS devices spend most of their time running apps that were Mac-only until they came out on iOS. Literally 95% of the time, my iOS devices are replacing a Mac. That is why I only buy one Mac at a time these days, when I used to buy 2 at a time before iOS.

> Most meaningless statistic ever

Lumping 2 very different things like iOS devices and Android operating system software together is what is meaningless.

Noticing that people who would have bought a Mac or Windows PC in 2007 are now buying an iOS device to do that same work, and even to run the same exact native C/C++ apps, is actually quite meaningful. It explains why iOS devices are selling so well and why Mac sales growth has slowed and why Windows sales have really slowed. When people need powerful native C/C++ apps, they now have a choice of Mac, iOS, or Windows, not just Mac and Windows.

No, that is wrong. You are forgetting that most users use only 10% or less of the features of the Mac/Windows apps they use. You're forgetting that most users have been asking for *fewer* features for a long, long time, and have been terribly frustrated by the training time that is required just to do something like write a short document or make small edits to a photograph.

It is iOS that leads in the PC class software that users want, not Windows. The PC class software advantage is all iOS. And Android has nothing to do with it, because it has no PC class apps. You're mistakenly lumping iOS with Android when iOS goes with Windows and Mac OS. Android devices attempt to look like iOS devices, but they are just phones, running the same old voice calls, SMS texts, Java apps, and viruses as previous phone systems. iOS devices are PC's.

Also, you're underestimating the value of App Store on iOS. Windows software is much harder to install, and comes on CD/DVD or in untrusted Web downloads that most users don't know how to use. And App Store makes apps much cheaper. Apps that are $50 on Windows are $1.99 on iOS, and the iOS versions are equal or better. And any user can install an iOS app that they want/need as easy as buying music for an iPod. Windows software requires some I-T skills.

> Photoshop

I happen to be a Photoshop expert, and I can tell you, there are almost no consumers who use anything more than 1% of the features of Photoshop. In the past, they would run a cracked Photoshop because they didn't want to pay $599 for Photoshop because, again, they only want 1% of its features — they want to pay $5.99. Then they would struggle to workaround a forest of unwanted features as they used the one or 2 trees that were of interest to them. The consumer is much, much better off spending $5.99 on a handful of photo editing apps on iOS, and they get a focused, more-productive editing setup and much better security (no viruses, no malware-infested cracked software.)

The fact that iOS devices also have very high-quality photo/video cameras only makes the switch from Photoshop to iOS apps that much more natural and productive. Instead of importing a photo or video from a camera and struggling with formats and the file system, they shoot a photo or video with an iOS device and it appears like magic in an editing interface.

> MS Office

MS Office has been running on the Mac since 1985, yet over the past 3–5 years, Pages/Keynote/Numbers have become the dominant office software on the Mac because it is the version of MS Office that users (not CIO's) have been demanding for many years: focused on the 10% of features that users actually *use*, easier to use, faster to use, cheaper to buy, runs on smaller devices with 10 hour batteries, and makes better quality work output.

> but these are just toys,

Android apps may be toys, but the native C/C++ apps on iOS are not toys. The versions of Pages/Keynote/Numbers on iOS have the same features as the Mac versions, yet are much more mobile, so you can work anywhere that inspiration strikes. I used to have a second Mac that ran Pages most of the time, and it has been replaced with an iPad that runs Pages most of the time.

Further, GarageBand (songwriting tool) on iOS is actually better than GarageBand on Mac or similar Windows apps because it uses the touch interface to morph into hundreds of playable instruments as you write. It replaces not only a Mac, but the hundreds of MIDI instruments you'd have to plug into a Mac to be able to arbitrarily record any of them as you work. And the GarageBand documents open in Logic on the Mac for additional editing and mixing. Not a toy.

iMovie on iOS is better than any consumer video editing software on Windows. iOS also has a version of Avid that is better than any consumer video editing software on Windows. Even pro video editing people use iMovie or Avid on iOS as a scratch pad.

Why is iOS hosting these powerful apps and Android is not? iOS has the multimedia subsystems from the Mac — CoreAudio, CoreMIDI, CoreVideo, etc. — so the app developer doesn't have to know how to connect his or her app to MIDI interfaces and instruments or audio interfaces like Apogee Duet or MiC or Jam because the operating system does that for them. And the software developer can reuse their existing native C/C++ code from Mac or Windows — a giant library of PC class code that doesn't exist in Java.

So what you're doing is very much like a Blackberry user (or executive) from 2008 proclaiming that iPhone is a toy because it has no mechanical keyboard built-in. Or in 1984, people saying the Mac is a toy because it didn't support character-mode command-line software. You're espousing a traditional, conservative position that has absolutely nothing to do with what most users want and need and are willing to pay for. And now that the users are typically choosing their own devices and apps rather than having them chosen for them by a traditional, conservative CIO, the users are making their wants and needs and dollars felt throughout the industry.

He meant that most Windows devices were bought in lots of 10,000, chosen by CIO's (impersonal) and most iOS devices were bought 1-by-1, chosen by the user (personal) of the device. And even when a user bought a single Windows PC for their home, they were often buying it because that's what the CIO had chosen at work or at school. With iOS devices, it is the reverse: CIO's are buying iOS devices for workers because the workers bought them for themselves at home.

If you want to discuss Android, which is an operating system designed specifically for phones, there's a great success story there about how it dominated the phone market, *replacing* other phone operating systems and Java and becoming the king of of the hill in the generic phone market. But that is off-topic, because here we are talking about the PC market.

Here, we are talking about iOS devices, which are not phone operating systems like Android and do not replace other phone operating systems like Android did. iOS devices *replace* 3 other devices: a phone (even an Android-based phone,) an iPod, and a PC (a Windows-based PC or even a Mac-based PC.) iOS devices can replace a phone because they have phone features built-in, but these are essentially provided for free. iOS devices can replace an iPod because they have iPod features built-in, but these are also essentially provided for free. What the iOS device buyer is paying for are the PC replacement features, which are unique to iOS/Mac devices and Windows devices alone: PC class operating system, PC class native C/C++ app platform with a full range of apps in every category and full-size views, PC class support including centralized software updates.

Speaking from my own experience, I used to have 2 MacBooks (and an iPod) that I used for work all day, but now I have only 1 MacBook. The apps that I used to run on the second MacBook have moved over to an iPad and an iPhone. The exact same native C/C++ apps, with full-size PC views. Not phone apps, not Java apps. Further, the money that I previously spent on that second Mac is now the money that I spend on the iPad and iPhone. About half the time, I'm not using a Mac at all. In fact, I do all my writing solely on iOS devices, and that includes music writing and recording. So in every way, my iOS devices have replaced other PC class devices — it has nothing to do with phones or even Android-based phones.

Just as many Democrats hate the ACA for being too right-wing as Republicans hate it for being too left-wing. That is the biggest problem with ObamaCare: nobody really supports it except President Obama. Nobody is willing to fight for it. If the Medicare eligibility age had been changed to zero (like it is in all other countries) then that would have had the support of 70% of the American people, and everybody would already have health care. We'd be building more hospitals and clinics because of all the new patients and doctors and clinics would be competing for patients instead of patients competing for health care.

Anyway, the ACA is not going to fix the health care in the US, and US Americans will continue to be sick and obese and infectious as well as famous for that the world over.

It is common for laboratories to be pits of suffering and despair. It is common for scientists to be emotionally-detached sociopaths. We should just be thankful this experiment has a cockroach, not a mouse or a monkey or a fellow human being.