Phil Schiller on Windows 7: 'No matter how you look at it, it's still Windows'
By Nilay Patel 
posted October 15th 2009 12:39PM
posted October 15th 2009 12:39PM
Windows fans expecting Apple to let Microsoft have its moment in the sun next week when Windows 7 launches should probably know better by now -- the Mac maker is actually planning a marketing counter-offensive to hit alongside 7's debut. According to Phil Schiller, the convoluted upgrade path from Windows XP to Windows 7 represents a big opportunity for Apple, since users have to back everything up and reformat. "Any user that reads all those steps is probably going to freak out. If you have to go through all that, why not just buy a Mac?" Well -- we're sure most of you can think of several reasons. Of course, Microsoft has long said that most people will actually get Windows 7 when they purchase a new machine, which is one reason we're seeing such an absolute flood of interesting and innovative new PC hardware -- but Phil seems to remember that was also the company line about Vista, and homeboy isn't backing down. "We've been through these transitions before, and no matter how you look at it-it's still Windows." Harsh burn, amigo. Any last predictions? "I expect Snow Leopard will have an amazing upgrade rate, and Windows 7 won't." We thought you might say something like that. Good thing we're giving Steve Ballmer a chance to respond live on the air next week, no?[Via AppleInsider]
No matter how you look at it, Macs are still insignificant.
Translation. I have Apple envy because all daddy could afford to buy me was this cheap plastic piece of crap from Best Buy.
Apple is crap.
I swear Phil Schiller looks just like Jon Favreau....
stfu , 300 coments stupid ass apple rules
@Fraggle
I'm not trying to be taking sides here, but one of the things that pissed my girlfriend off the most about Apple is that her LESS THAN FOUR year old Powerbook G4 can't even run the newest version of OS X. She really loves her Mac, but it's a sore spot for her that her 4 year old machine which was almost $3k when it was new can't upgrade the OS.
On the flipside, my Pentium III laptop with 640MB of memory can run Windows 7 as fast as it ran XP, which the very same notebook was eaten alive by Vista.
Case? It's one thing to set system requirements high to avoid things running shitty (something MS did not do with Vista, but is doing correctly with 7), but it's another thing to abandon the technology COMPLETELY. Just my $0.02.
Re: "Any user that reads all those steps is probably going to freak out. If you have to go through all that, why not just buy a Mac?"
I have a Windows desktop and a MacBook Pro and an iPhone. After thousands of hours of usage with both systems, I can honestly say that Vista and the Mac OS are about the same. Furthermore, there's no doubt in my mind that Win7 will only be a slight improvement over Vista and that I will upgrade to it immediately, just as I did when the joke-of-an-upgrade Apple called "Snow Leopard" was released. My point is that it's important to stay relevant and these improvements in hardware/software keep us cutting-edge, so just as the Borg said, "resistance is futile." Those who fight the upgrade cycle will be excluding themselves from the R&D money that behemoth companies like Apple and Microsoft throw at it. But, if your goal is to skirt the learning process, you should just go to staples and doodle on a legal pad and avoid computers entirely, because, and this is breaking news, my Mac has as many glitches, if not more, than my Vista machine. I love them both.
Hmm I'm getting mine for $30(thanks, school I went to!). Are Mac owners really willing to fork over >$1500 to replace their computers just to get a host of new bugs since Snow Leopard doesn't work on the PPC macs?
No matter how you look at it, this guy still rocks the mullet.
Oh btw pretty much everyone is predicting no impact at all to Mac sales from the release of 7 and that typically Apple sales pickup whenever a new version of Windows is released. Plus Mac sales are continuing in record numbers in the middle of a recession.
Apple still makes computers? I thought they switched to phones and music players.
@FraggleRock
Yep. At least there is an upgrade path for PCs that are the same age as Macs that have been cut off by Apple and thus have what we call an upgrade cliff.
Well, now I know why most of the Apple users I know come off as cocky, immature teenagers. Well, some of them actually are exactly that, but I have no doubt that a lot of their attitude comes directly from the whole Apple image. Then again, it's always funny to hear them ask why they can't install the $50 game they just bought (with the Windows tag on it) on their Mac, or explain to them the process of drag-and-dropping a file onto an external drive...right before they tell me how much better Mac is...
Come on everyone. Schiller is a douche, but all the "Macs sux!!!!" posts are just as stupid. He has a good point. MS really dropped the ball with the ridiculous XP to Win 7 upgrade path, and it definitely gives Apple an in. Most of us here wouldn't have too much problem, but I bet 90% of XP users will wait to buy a new computer before they get Win 7.
The thing is you pretty much have to do the same thing regardless of whether you're upgrading to Windows 7 or you're upgrading to a Mac. You have to backup your data. The "upgrade path" is the same either way.
OH i hope Schiller has more to dig on Win7 than the upgrade path... that is like saying I hate Mac laptops because they look like a chiclet... Oh wait....
"I expect Snow Leopard will have an amazing upgrade rate, and Windows 7 won't."
lol is he serious???
"Heyyyy 5 ppl upgraded to White KitKat while 50 ppl upgraded to Vista 2.0!"
No matter how u see it, Windows will always be windows, yeah, why not? I mean if windows became MacOS ppl would still say is a POS!
And isnt being a hipocrit to say that no matter how u see it, windows will still be windows, when the same goes for MacOS and its updates?
Whatever man, I just got my free copy today, so im happy... on the downside, they sent me both the 32 bit and the 64 bit, that made me want to get a new computer to instal the 64 bit... damn u MS!
...and all those machines sold with Windows every day will never run OS X.
More users for us, Phil.
..And sorry about 10.7 Lynx. You totally should have seen that one coming.
Do you know many engineers left using Linux on the desktop? Should go to a FOSS conference and play count-the-Macs.
"More users for us, Phil."
*crickets*
"Any user that reads all those steps is probably going to freak out. If you have to go through all that, why not just buy a Mac?"
Google Translate - Business Lingo to English
"PC users are stupid. We are counting on this stupidity to sell more of our product."
Here's the thing: this an artlice on Apple Insider which isn't going to put something Anti-Apple, something which could effect the company as a whole. When you break it down though, people would much rather reformat their computer or take the computer to something like BestBuy to have them back up their computer and install windows 7 if they were that interested in upgrading. The $200ish cost would be FAR less of a set back then to upgrade to a similar Apple computer. For instance if you have a mid range PC -Laptop for the Apple equivilant you would have to drop $1500 to $2000. And a Midrange PC- Desktop for the Apple equivilant you would be shelling $3000 or so... NOT worth it. Also considering all of the negative press that Snow Lepord is getting (Random data being erased and such) will put people that were on the edge more towards Windows 7. This on top of the fact that if you have an older Apple computer, good luck upgrading Snow Lepord unless you drop ATLEAST $1000 on a new laptop... oh wait... i mean... Sub $1000... $999 Gotta make sure i get that right, right Apple?
(Me)Hmmm, lets see....I want to play games, what OS do I get?
(Apple "Genius" responds) "Well, Bioshock just was released for Mac. Yes, it is 2 years old, and yes, we are charging $50 for it...oh, you bought it on PC for $20? Well, I am sure there are some upgrades on our newer version!"
(Me) What about movies? Can I play Blu-Ray?
("Genius") Blu-Ray is data only on the mac. You REALLY want to watch movies on iTunes, its better!
(Me) But its lower resolution and highly compressed, and I actually never "own" the movie.
("Genius") Yes, but you can play it on an iPod too!
(Me) But I dont own an iPod!
("Genius") well, we can fix that!
(Me) [Goes mad, murders every ipod in the apple store, and runs screaming out into the street]
Get a clue!
Is he sporting a mullet?
Ah, I see somebody saw the blurb on gizmodo, but then thoroughly avoided actually reading it or looking at the graph, where it shows that after EVERY major Windows release, the next quarter (you know, the ones when people start buying software/hardware with the new OS) the Mac sales numbers drop.
Here, see for yourself: http://gizmodo.com/5381983/remainders-+-things-we-didnt-post/gallery/1
The Mac sales peak during the quarter the product is released...but that means nothing, because simple logic will tell you that most people don't go out day 1 and buy it, so a lot of the sales happen in the following months...usually around the holidays. So all that graph shows is that Windows actually negatively affects Mac sales soon after a release...not immediately after.
So, I guess if you are switching over to a Mac you don't need to back up your old files? The concern about /doing something/ with your computer magically vanishes into thin air?
This is what I see:
Windows XP to Windows 7: "Oh no, I have to back up everything before I install Windows on this computer, then put it all back!" to...
Windows XP to a new Mac with MacOS: "I have to back up all my files (or transfer them through some other means) to put them in my new MacOS install, then find / purchase the Mac alternative for all the software I used so that I can actually open said files, then learn a new interface."
Yep, sounds like a real winner.
Nice environmentalism there, too. Since we're needlessly wasting old hardware, why not just buy a new laptop with Windows 7 on it? Then, when you start up Windows for the first time, it actually gives you some help to directly transfer stuff from the old computer.
Shit, this industry is a mess.
Phil has clearly never tried (or needed) to rescue his iTunes library. The number of otherwise intelligent people who ask me how to do that is actually mind boggling. (And, alas, I can't help them because I wisely never used that thing). That one is, for that matter, the weakest link for people as far as getting their data from one place to another.
I wonder if Mac will drop the same advertising strategy of the last 5 years -- "Everybody who has ever bought a Windows PC has been tricked into buying it by an evil conspirator... or they're just too dumb to buy a Mac."
I have both Macs and PCs, but Windows and PC's advertisements -- even the "Laptop Hunter" ones -- are less offensive to people who buy the other brand. Fact is, PCs advertise for the sake of buying PCs, Mac's advertise that Microsoft is tricking everybody into buying a PC.
Well, he's right it's still Windows, it still runs the vast majority of software and it's still used by 95%+ of all the computers in the world... LOL
"It's still just a Ferrari"
.....
Unfortunately, every so often, one of those frequent upgrades happens to involve buying a new one.
Win7 is great but IMO Apple needs to worry about this > http://www.imobile365.net/acticles/reviews-and-news/5-nokia/3573-n920.html
Just found it, and its interesting what it has to say. N920 anyone?
Well first of all, I have a nice hackint0sh runnins Snow Leopard and Windows 7 in dual boot. So I'm getting a kick out of the fanboyism. Its a great machine, Quad core, 8gb ram and an 8800GT, runs both os's perfectly.
I like both os's, I really do.. Vista was such an absolute train wreck it pushed me to OSX, which I now find to be the easiest, most comforatable and powerful os there is, and yes I've burned / tried so many distros of linux the stack of disks would fall on me and kill me one day.
7 will win.
This is why.
ION.
Low power ' good enough ' computing which is cheap and decently powerful will rule, especially nettops - Asrock 330, Zotac Mag, Viewsonic VOT132, Acer Aspire Revo, Funtwist Fiona to name a few, small, quiet, power sipping devices which run Win 7 pretty damn nicely. They are a force to be reckoned with for the general population of which Apple has no defences.
*80% of the population double-clicks urls and starts deleting apps when they get an 'out of memory' error. Do you really think they have the slightest care what kind of processor they have?
*Based on a not-so-scientific study of my clients, friends, and family (yes, I'm the sole geek out of my entire group of F&F)
I've used a mac a few times and I don't like it, but I love me some Windows 7.
Mac is good for a mobile os and microsoft isn't but microsoft is good for a desktop os and apple isn't.
um. "why don't you just buy a mac?" er... by that logic, why don't you just buy a brand new pc with Windows 7 (and import your documents to it)?
I just have to say...it "still being Windows" seems to do wonders for the 90% marketshare, the billions of dollars it brings in, and the unending usage of it on basically every computer in the world.
So "It's still Windows" seems to do just fine.
LOL! yes I am going to go out and buy a $2000 apple machine, when formatting and backing up from an XP installation would only cost me a few hours of mine time. Great logic.
People who use Macs don't know how to format a computer anyway.... they just look at the pretty cosmetics.
Phil Schiller is totally wrong anyway. You don't need to format your hard drive to install Windows 7.
You can just do a new install to the same partition Windows XP was on. Your old Windows XP install, along with all your old files, will end up in windows.old folder. Then you can just cut and paste your old documents, pics, music, or whatever else you want to keep to your new Windows 7 folder locations, and delete the windows.old folder when you're done. Just did this last night for my buddy (since he didn't have anything to backup his old files on).
If XP upgrade to 7 is a opportunity to apple, is PowerPC support drop in Snowpussy a opportunity to microsoft?
Btw, simplest way to upgrade, buy a new harddrive with 7. 1TB disks are dirt cheap.
"Any user that reads all those steps is probably going to freak out. If you have to go through all that, why not just buy a Mac?"
If anyone is so STUPID to freak out at that, then they deserve to be on a mac.
Says the tech-savvy person commenting on Engadget.
Reality: most people want simplicity. Dumb users frustrate me too, but there are people that make a living off of them (read: IT departments/consultants).
Sidenote: I like technology and I use a Mac. Know why? I like it more, and that's all it really boils down too. I'm fine with Apple being in a niche as long as they still make a profit (which they do, very much so).
No matter how you look at it, Engadget commenters are still a bunch of Windows fanboys.
I would say close to 90% of them are.
Furious anger and nerd rage!
Linux FTW!
Do you want to know why? Because it is open-source. Yes I do believe thats the way software should go.
If you think I'm wrong Go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs>Firefox>Uninstall.
See 10 years ago I didn't know what the hell Linux was and neither did many people here where I live (Middle-East). Now I can go to a computer, a electronics store, and just about anywhere else and find Linux on more then one machine. That's a sign that in 15 years from today, Linux will be bombing unimaginable innovations on both OS X and Windows, despite the fact that I am using OS X and do find it to be better than Linux, I don't think it will be for long.
;)
There's a lot of very legitimate criticism in the FOSS community about Linux distros chasing after Windows and OS X all the time. I've seen it myself, when I haven't used a desktop Linux distro for a few years, then install the latest Fedora or whatever, every version they try to make it look more like Windows. That's okay if you want people to be comfortable with it, but it's not so great for the UI innovation.
*shrug* I used Linux as my ONLY OS from 95 to 02, but have only used it as a desktop OS as a curiosity since I bought my first Mac in 2002. Obviously I use countless Linux and Solaris systems every day, but not as a desktop.
They're both good operating systems. Get over it.
Thank you.