That said, with Apple’s first retail stores turning 12 this past Sunday, I thought it’d be interesting to present a few impressive factoids about the current state of Apple’s retail operation.

TUAW

Interesting statistics.

And if there is a scandal, I suppose it is the very ordinariness of these transactions. Apple’s tax avoidance shop, it seems, is a lot less innovative than its phone designers.

Tax Policy Center

Exactly. There’s no indication Apple’s doing anything other than reducing their tax liability just like any corporation (or individual) would: using the laws currently available.

What always amazes me isn’t the [Apple] bashers’ lack of vision or imagination, or their misreading of the target market… or having learned nothing from previous Apple products’ successes… No, it’s the complete lack of originality in their arguments. I mean, it’s been 25 years since the Macintosh and they’re still calling Apple’s products “toys”

Dear Apple iPad Haters: Please Get A Grip (And A Thesaurus)

Touch devices need that input method close to their core, and an API to back it up. That’s why the iPad will be an incredible hit while tablet PCs will continue to fail, no matter what flavor of Windows you slap on them.

The Windows XP, Vista, or 7 UI Is the Tablet PC’s Biggest Weakness

I can’t understand how anybody can watch the videos for Keynote, Pages and Numbers and claim the iPad is “just a big iPod touch”. This device is going to change everything.

Apple iPad Guided Tour Videos: Don’t Tell Me This Can’t Do Serious Work

Right now the iPad is one-of-a-kind, no matter how many pundits blather about “tablets” having been around for 10 years. Those are laptops running a desktop OS with the keyboard snapped off. You don’t build the new paradigm with the old paradigm’s thinking.

iPad alternatives? Only if you stretch the meaning of “alternative”

However, I believe the fact that [the iPad] performs respectably for [some pundits] means it can be a laptop replacement for millions of non-geeks. They just don’t know it yet.

The iPad as a productivity tool

The result is the first and only practical tablet computer.… Apple rightly deserves credit for building what makes sense now, and not chasing failed “visions” from yesterday.

Microsoft: Getting tablet PCs wrong since 2002

Remember when tech pundits used to lead the charge for change, and get excited about new, powerful technologies that made things easier for non-technicians? Yeah, me neither.

What can we learn from the “moderated” Windows SuperSite blog?

increasingly, [iOS] is becoming “mainstream”. By this, I mean there’s less concern in the mind of the average consumer that a purely touch interface can work. No more garbage about how the screen will get too oily, you can’t use a software keyboard, etc. Put simply, the paradigm shift from keyboard/mouse to touch screen—at least for tasks most consumers do—is less of a question. As more and more consumers understand this, iPad sales will continue to roll.

What Sales of Two Million iPads Can Tell Us

It’s this [desktop OS] confusion that a touch OS simplifies. It isn’t just about touch, but about removing the complications of GUIs that have accrued over the years. To me, when I use the iPad I see something with current faults (just as the GUI had faults in the beginning), but it’s clear to me that every computer will eventually work this way.

Every Computer Will Work This Way

The tablet form factor is going to be huge. I’m already on record that it’s how “all” computers will work someday, and I don’t think critical mass will take as long as the GUI did, which is apparently what Forrester is expecting.

Forrester Research: Tablets Will Only Steal Sales From… Desktops?

For starters, let’s see where a Chromebook differs from the leading post-PC device:

Software

Chrome OS doesn’t approach the rich app ecosystem of iOS. This is further diluted when no Internet connection is available, as some apps require. The basics are there, but the beauty of post-PC—like the beauty of PC—is a wealth of third-party additions to make the machine “yours”. In this regard iPad’s versatility goes way beyond a Chromebook.

Privacy
Chrome OS is from Google. Let’s not pretend a primary function isn’t to gather data about you for sale to ad agencies. It lacks iOS’ easy user-controlled granularity of privacy settings per app, photo access per app, location access per app, etc., as well as default third-party cookie blocking, ability to reset device identity and more.

Hardware
Cheap hardware built to look like a “real” laptop. A major design goal is to beat out the cheapest Windows laptops while not appearing to be a tiny netbook.

Mobility
This is one of the tenets of post-PC, yet Chromebooks are bulky and heavy by any iPad standard. Further, battery life is no better than a “regular” PC notebook.

Netbooks are cheap PCs with small screens and cramped keyboards. They fizzled in the marketplace when it become clear they don’t offer the UX of a conventional Windows laptop. Meanwhile, Chromebooks are “regular” laptop size to avoid the netbook stigma, but remain cheap by ditching the PC OS for Google’s data-gathering tools.

There are many ways to cling to a familiar past while cheating the experience in an attempt to reduce cost and appear “new”. Netbooks and Chromebooks take different approaches but the result is the same: their UX is unlike the laptops they’re designed to imitate. In many ways Netbooks and Chromebooks are the ultimate skeumorphic design. Designed to look like the familiar laptop form we’ve known for 20 years, but in reality being no such thing.

If you want a laptop for its usability and legacy functions, by all means get one. Mac or PC, there are plenty of excellent choices on the market. But be realistic on either cost or functionality. If you’re not, then one way or the other you’ll be disappointed.

How does the competition determine a “missing” feature? They look to what Apple removed, and assume it was a mistake; that in fact everybody wants it. I expect the design meetings asked questions like this:

• “Who wouldn’t want a card slot to add more storage?”
• “Who wouldn’t want a replaceable battery?”
• “Who wouldn’t want an FM radio?”
• “Who wouldn’t want Flash?”
• “Who wouldn’t want a hardware keyboard on their phone?”

In every case, new devices were cranked out touting these “advantages”, and failed to make a dent in Apple’s growth or popularity.

This is because what Apple supplied in exchange for the alleged deficiencies more than made up for them. To the point where many were not even considered deficiencies at all (most people never added storage, or carried an extra battery, and so on).

The good news is that the competition is mostly in line with Apple now. Apple’s changes are more or less given as norms, and this silly strategy is no longer attempted.

Wait, what’s that I just heard from tablet design rooms everywhere?

• “Who wouldn’t want a physical keyboard dock?”

Dear iPad 1 folk:
No iOS 6 for you.
Best Regards, Apple.

Developers meet.
Let’s stop all this software talk,
Get to the hardware.

Play long video,
Announce whatever they want
After crowd’s asleep.

Apple’s MacBook Pros:
Can competitors keep up?
Dell just peed their pants.

Biggest question now
With Retina display MacBooks:
Will Porn sites upgrade?

iOS upgrades
Get to user base quickly.
Android’s never do.

Samsung design team
Brainstorming, they ask Siri
What do we do next?

iOS 6 adds
Ugly faces everywhere.
FaceTime cellular.

Maps’ navigation:
Users love, competitors
Won’t know where to turn.

Finding tablet-oriented apps for Android is a hunt, a chore, and a grind.…

Things get even worse when you realize Google Play shows different apps on its website and on individual tablets; even though the Google Play website claims some apps run on an Asus Transformer Prime, the apps didn’t show up on Google Play on the Prime.

And just because an app claims to run on tablets doesn’t mean it was designed for tablets. Often, after you download an app you’ll discover that it’s ugly or nearly useless because it was designed for a 4-inch screen.

via The iPad Wins Because Android Tablet Apps Suck: An Illustrated Guide.

And on and on. This is why Android supporters claiming it’ll overtake Apple in tablets are nuts, dreamers, or wading chest deep into a river in Egypt.

The Android crowd is waiting for non-iPad competitors like the Amazon Kindle Fire or Barnes & Noble Nook to sell in enough quantities to claim “Android tablets” outsell iPads. Setting aside that the Kindle Fire is not even a real Android tablet, these color e-readers don’t compete against the iPad except maybe in the most superficial way. An iPad sale “lost” to one of these is something Apple wasn’t getting anyway.

Android fans will fool no one but themselves and the usual Apple bashing crowd. It’s there own private echo chamber they’re talking to.

Customers were actually having trouble telling the difference between the two screens.

via Watch as Apple customers try to tell the difference between the new iPad & iPad 2 – The Next Web.

I bought the new iPad primarily for the display. I have WiFi only, so LTE meant nothing to me. I knew from the iPhone how useful the Retina Display is over time, especially for reading. There’s a reason I’d frequently still choose to read on that device than my iPad 2. My 50+ year old eyes need all the sharpness they can get.

I believe anybody would get used to the RD over time (which makes it hard to go back), but I also believe the change is something most wouldn’t notice at first glance. Unless you already know, or can appreciate, the ultimate difference a RD makes, or you need LTE, or the extra RAM is important because, say, you want lots of Safari tabs open, save $100 and get an iPad 2 for now. Better yet, save $150 and get a refurbished iPad 2 with the same warranty as a new model. That’s a phenomenal deal.

The money you save can go straight into the fund for the next iPad.

Nokia design chief Marko Ahtisaari is spending a third of his time on creating a tablet for the cellphone maker, which would stand out among hundreds of iPad-challengers

via Nokia working on own tablet: design chief | Reuters.

I guess the other two-thirds of his time is spent on marketing?

Committees just don’t work, and it’s not about price, schedule or a bizarre marketing goal to appear different – they are corporate goals with scant regard for people who use the product.

I couldn’t get the essence of this quote into a tweet.

It perfectly explains why Apple’s competitors are struggling to keep up. “Bizarre marketing goals” are why we have Pico projectors, or 41MP cameras, or styluses, or whatever crammed into new devices. It’s something different for the sake of something different, but it’s no way to build something better.

But Foxconn doesn’t exist solely to produce electronics for Apple. All of the largest Android OEM’s also contract Foxconn to produce their devices in factories in China, Brazil, Mexico, Poland and the Czech Republic.

HTC, Samsung, LG, Motorola, ASUS, Acer, Lenovo and others contract Foxconn to manufacture products for them in the same complex where iPhones are made. Their devices are made by the same over worked, under paid, under age workers, yet none are mentioned in the Business Insider article. None. Not one. Not even Samsung, the sometimes largest smartphone vendor in the world. Just Apple.

The quoted article (and headline) is in response to Henry Blodget’s piece at Business Insider.

I have a problem with that. 

It isn’t that it’s not true, but rather that PC growth vs. Apple is even worse than reported. To see why, let’s look at the chart from Gartner for US “PC” shipments, where the conclusion is that Apple growth increased 20.7% while PC growth declined 5.9%. 

It makes sense until you realize Apple’s (i.e., Mac) data is included in the same total to which it’s being compared. In other words, Apple’s stellar year is propping up the “PC” (i.e., non-Mac) numbers, making “PC” shipments look better than they really were.

If you truly want to know how Apple did in the US on its own against “PCs”, you must subtract it from the latter’s numbers. Here’s what you get: 

• Total 4Q11: 15,854,964
• Total 4Q10: 17,342,605
• 4Q11-4Q10 Growth: -8.5

The originally reported dismal “PC” growth of -5.9% becomes an even more dismal -8.5% without Apple’s numbers propping it up. That -2.6% delta is not insignificant, it’s over 40% worse than what was reported.

IDC’s numbers are also available. As usual, they do not agree completely with Gartner, yet the trend is the same.

Any way you look at it, Apple is exceeding the “PC” growth rate, and if you pull their numbers from “PC” shipments to get a true Mac vs. PC comparson, the latter’s state is revealed to be even worse than it appears at first glance.

the AT&T version of the Samsung Galaxy S II has 42% more screen area and Sprint / T-Mobile versions of Galaxy S II have 58% more screen area than the iPhone 4S.

Ignore that screen sizes are all over the place, and rest assured the Galaxy is huge. Hope you have big pockets. And hands.

The Galaxy S II HSPA+ network speeds are at least 50% faster with AT&T 21 MBPS and three times faster with T-Mobile’s 42 MBPS than the iPhone 4S’s 14 MBPS HSPA network.

Our theoretical you-will-never-see-them speeds are faster than their theoretical you-will-never-see-them speeds. 

Galaxy S II continues to have the thinnest smartphone design 

We’re huge, but a millimeter thinner. 

Open Ecosystem – Consumers can use the Galaxy S II to buy music from Amazon, Rhapsody, or a variety of other music services, as well as multiple cloud music services supported such as Amazon, Google Music and multiple video chat clients available for use including Google Chat and Skype. The Samsung Galaxy S II is not limited to a single manufacturer’s storefront or app store.

The iPhone uses the #1 music store in the world, Galaxy doesn’t. 

In short, until we add a cheap Siri knockoff and a few other features for which we’ll kipe Apple’s icon designs, just ignore the iPhone 4S.

via Digibarn

And even before the Lisa, in 1981 there was the Xerox Star. The link above has a number of high-quality scans of the system. 

The Lisa, introduced in 1983 and featuring a young Kevin Costner in one of the ads, would sell for $10,000, yet that was peanuts compared to the Star: 

The Xerox Star was not originally meant to be a stand-alone computer, but to be part of an integrated Xerox “personal office system” that also connected to other workstations and network services via Ethernet. Although a single unit sold for $16,000, a typical office would have to purchase at least 2 or 3 machines along with a file server and a name server/print server. 

Interesting that in the above shot the printer didn’t get the bullet points you see on the screen. 

Seeing these two predecessors just three years before the Mac’s launch makes you appreciate the littlest Apple all that much more. At $2,500 it was truly remarkable.