Due to some technical issues, we had to temporarily delete our FaceBook page. Our Twitter page is still working, so please follow us at http://www.twitter.com/AppleScoop until we can get our FaceBook page working again.
Thanks,
Dan Uff
Senior Editor
The paradox of Hewlett-Packard only gets more pronounced with each high-profile product announcement: its TouchPad tablet is the latest head-scratcher. Meanwhile, Apple continues to spit out one stunning product after another.
In practice, HP has kept the garage door locked all of these years.
(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)
HP's paradox is that it sits in the cradle of innovation--Silicon Valley--but fails to innovate. And HP is the original Valley start-up, founded in a garage more than 70 years ago, long before Apple's legendary start.
Fast forward to the reign of former CEO Carly Fiorina. She talked a lot about going back to the garage but never actually went back. And nothing in device-design innovation changed with her successor, Mark Hurd.
I'm hoping, as always, for change with the current CEO Leo Apotheker. But his focus is still the on the enterprise--which demands design stability--the antithesis of innovation. A profitable segment, yes, but not one that can create an iPod or even a MacBook Air.
And a recent statement by Apotheker doesn't offer much hope. "If you use a state-of-the-art laptop it is as sleek, as slim as [an iPad]," he said at the D9 conference last month. Really? I have yet to see an HP laptop that comes near the iPad in thinness (0.34 inch) and portability (1.33 pounds). In fact, the only thing that gets close is another Apple product: the 11.6-inch MacBook Air.
He then added as a parenthetical: "There's a whole new product refresh coming out." Yeah, I've heard that one before. He's either so disconnected from product design that he believes HP actually has a laptop that rivals the iPad, or he knows about some truly groundbreaking newfangled product in the pipeline. Should we give him the benefit of the doubt?
That brings us to the TouchPad. Probably the first high-profile product to emerge with his imprimatur. In a word, disappointment. I listened to HP's Jon Rubinstein talk for most of an hour about the virtues of the TouchPad (before it was announced as a shipping product) at a Qualcomm conference in San Diego last month. And I stood with an HP product manager later in the day as he demonstrated the TouchPad (and got some hands-on time, albeit brief, with it, too).
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20078052-64/hp-fiddles-while-apple-innovates/#ixzz1RiiANQCi
Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry made a contentious claim Friday that Apple's back-to-school promo was showing signs of being much more effective than Microsoft's. Despite Microsoft giving away free Xboxes with PCs, research in an investment note from GER showed that 80 percent of incoming students were buying Macs, not Windows systems. Trends were up for online-only colleges and universities, while returning students later into their studies were very interested in getting iPads, Chowdry said in AppleInsider's copy of the note, which didn't mention the size of the study sample.
Via: MacNN
No, you're not seeing things. The move to a new blog host has been complete, and we're in the process of learning the new ways we can bring you updated news, rumors, and more.
For those of you with an iPad, you will notice some new features as well.
Thanks, and here we go!
Dan Uff, Senior Editor
