I'm watching Microsoft's release of Windows 8/Windows RT/Windows Phone 8 with interest. I'm rooting for them, because I like the Modern UI (ex-Metro) design language a lot. Microsoft seemed to be the only company to take the notion of not competing with the iPad on its home turf seriously, that another approach to design was necessary.

Poor Microsoft, they're being hamstrung by their dominant positions both in business and in productivity applications.

Seeking a no compromise design has... compromised their design.

Microsoft, you needed to murder your darlings.

Naturally, I contrast this with Apple's behavior with their signature legacy apps on the iPad. They rewrote and re-imagined both the iLife and iWork suites for the iPad first (for the most part), then rolled them down to the iPhone.

However, Apple did this over the course of years. The iPhone debuted with limited read-only mail attachment support, but left productivity apps to third parties. iWork was introduced with the original iPad (early 2010). iMovie accompanied the iPhone 4 (late 2010). GarageBand and iMovie for iPad accompanied iPad 2 (early 2011), and iPhoto debuted next to the first iPad with Retina display (early 2012).

Apple didn't have the pressure on them to support everything on day one. However, they did establish what was possible through their actions. They led the way by being model iOS citizens.

Microsoft has a lot more pressure on them to do everything, be everything from day one, partially because of their dominant market footprint in business, and partially because Apple relentlessly showed what should be possible in terms of productivity on a tablet.

From the point of view of a third-party Windows developer evaluating Windows RT, I would be seriously insulted by Microsoft's behavior.

"Microsoft," I might say, "You're demanding that I not only rewrite my software to a new API, speaking a completely new design language, but also subject myself to your monopolistic sales channel in order to sell my software to your users?"

And yet Microsoft is not bound by either of these restrictions itself. It's able to keep its legacy software around, and it's able to leverage a privileged distribution channel: bundling with the device.

That bundled software isn't free, by the way. If you're a business, or want to use the bundled Office software for "revenue-generating activities," you must buy a license covering its use.

From the point of view of an industry observer, it lays Microsoft's often-rumored product fiefdoms bare: Windows RT is a Windows OS initiative. The division responsible for Microsoft Office was either not consulted on this or — more likely — insufficiently supportive.

"Yes," they might have said, "We understand that this is a bet-the-company's-future initiative, tremendously essential to the Windows team. However, we will not support the completely new, modern APIs that you are putting forward. We define legacy, and we demand that our legacy is supported."

So untold person-years of effort go into porting Windows 7 APIs to the ARM architecture, bloating the operating system, destroying its conceptual continuity, and confusing the picture for external developers the Windows team is trying to evangelize.

However, I am seriously WTFing at Microsoft right now. Most of my bafflement involves the desktop Windows environment, used solely as a compatibility layer to accommodate the Microsoft Office team's inability to port their software.

There are just so many things wrong with this.

I have been very surprised at the amount of wear that the black aluminum finish has shown in the few weeks that I've had the phone. This hasn't diminished my enthusiasm for the device or for the platform — it's a constant companion when out and about. Everything is nicer than the iPhone 4 that I had previously, but there are no tremendous revelations: it's simply a really good tool.

Post-event

Well, obviously I was a bit disappointed by how things turned out. I am curious as to what the internals look like, still: I will be watching intensely for the first tear-downs next week. However, the bits of the promo video that show shots of the iPad mini internals don't much resemble the iPod touch internals.

I wonder why not.

I often come back to trying to figure out how the price points can work out. Apple always has supremely logical, even elegant, pricing structures at any given time. How can Apple hit the $250 range with an iPad 2-class device without overlapping substantially with other products?

The usual pattern is that you see the maximum price of one class of product be a small step below the minimum price of the next class up. That's currently clearest in the difference between the iPod touch 4th generation (32GB, $249) and the iPod touch 5th generation (32GB, $299).

So if it isn't clear, I'm siding with the speculation and rumors that favor the 1024×768 screen on the iPad mini. That is completely in line with the graphics capabilities present in the chip that was optimized for the iPad 2 and famously underwent a critical die-shrink, lowering costs and improving power efficiency.

I think that Apple hasn't completely solved how to drive a 2048×1536 iPad display cheaply and compactly. The new A6 processor has the raw oomph of the 3rd generation iPad, however, as expressed in the iPhone 5, it lacks the memory bandwidth to support a retina-class iPad display optimally.

First thing: offer some more insight (a preview, a tutorial, or a screencast?) on what to expect from the editing interface. It's subtle and rich and I had no clue how it would be before taking my leap or faith and paying.

The magic of this, the one where you smile and nod knowingly at Tim Cook being the CEO, is that it doesn't matter to Apple whether the newest iPod touch or the iPad mini catches fire in the marketplace: nearly all the parts that matter could be exactly the same.

We potentially have an answer to the eternal question: how does Apple make a profit on a tablet at $250?

Economies of scale, the likes of which we have never before seen in the computer industry.

Even if the iPad mini is an utter "flop", and sells no more than a couple hundred thousand units, the manufacture and assembly of the key components are subsidised by the iPod touch.

So this also becomes a huge experiment: will consumers lean predominantly toward one or another form factor, or will both remain viable in the marketplace?

Bonus question: how far would people have to favor one for the other to be phased out? Two to one? Three to one?

The hypothetical 8-inch iPad really does become an oversized iPod touch, as some early critics of the iPad had asserted.

Forget the Moore's Law strategy for product segmentation, try form factor. We've seen hints of that with iPhones and iPads alternating in roughly 6 month increments (and price comparisons are definitely obscured by the generous margins that phone subsidies provide), but I think that strategy might become much more obvious this autumn.

These are distinct devices: one ultra-portable and pocketable, the other one being a portable mini content consumer. There's a difference, right?

Seen this way, the iPad mini's price points make a lot of sense as being parallel to the iPod touch: 32GB storage for $300, 64GB storage for $400…

And the capper, the must-get feature for the holiday season… an 16GB iPad mini for the magic $250 price point.

(The 4th generation iPod touch having now established a recent precedent for the marginal price of 16GB going to a 32GB device.)

The riddle of Apple's price structure is thus solved. The prices don't have to complement each other in a way that one becomes the upsell target for the other: they are in lockstep.

I think the key is in the 5th generation iPod touch. It is an iPad 2/iPhone 4s-class device, processor-wise (with a lower-quality camera and a higher-quality display).

What if the iPad mini was the same device as the 5th generation iPod touch?

Same internals, cheaper (non-retina) display traded for a larger battery.

I mean: identical boards and chipsets internally for all but power and display/touch surface management…

I've been speculating unhealthily about an iPad mini for the past couple months, like many others.

Will there be a post-aluminum material? Does the black-and-slate design anticipate something away from whitish, matte aluminum?

What's even lighter and stronger than aluminum? I'm no materials expert, so the only thing that leaps to mind is carbon fiber. But it seems to have developed its own aesthetic, and that's been sort of co-opted as a faux-luxury texture. However, if any company can be trusted to generate a new texture, a new aesthetic from a familiar material (that has desirable qualities), that company is Apple.

Update: oh look, seems like there's recent rumors in that area.

The first couple weeks also included the dreaded yellow tinge to the screen. It's cleared up now, I think, but it really got in the way of the out-of-box "delight" I was expecting.

I was actually finding iOS6/iPhone 5 battery life deeply disappointing for the first couple weeks. It turns out that I had really amped up the push email on multiple accounts, and that had done the damage.

Derp.

Email isn't critical on this device for me, so I'm much happier with the tradeoffs in keeping push email off.

I've been using Siri a lot more than I expected I would. It's great for launching timers, setting reminders, and lots of things that take far too many finger-presses.