←back to thread

252 points nivethan | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.476s | source
Show context
JSR_FDED ◴[] No.44419187[source]
I remember the first time I went into an Apple Store.

I was looking at a 17” PowerBook, salivating at the screen and performance but struggling with justifying the price tag. An incredibly nice lady walked up to me and asked if I had any questions. I told her I was thinking it over as it was a large purchase. She beamed and said “Of course, that’s totally understandable. In fact it takes on average 3 visits to an Apple Store before making a purchase”. It was the smartest, nicest, most low key way of saying don’t feel pressure…you’ll be coming back, and then you’ll buy the machine you’ve always wanted.

Very on brand. And surprisingly still not really copied by others.

replies(10): >>44419316 #>>44419328 #>>44419357 #>>44419409 #>>44421052 #>>44421493 #>>44423660 #>>44424898 #>>44425955 #>>44463672 #
paxys ◴[] No.44419328[source]
It isn't copied by other consumer electronics companies because none of them have the brand value of Apple. Microsoft tried the model with its own chain of stores but failed pretty quickly. Most tech is better suited for Best Buy-like megastores where shoppers can browse and try a bunch of products and brands in one go. And for phones (at least in America) most people still prefer to go to their carrier store.

Go outside of tech though and the Apple Store experience is commonplace. Apple itself copied the concept directly from high end fashion houses.

replies(3): >>44419388 #>>44421031 #>>44421914 #
dagmx ◴[] No.44419388[source]
Microsoft stores were abysmal. They felt like Best Buy without the convenience somehow.

I went in to try the (then new) Surface Studio (the drafting table like AIO) and they couldn’t find the peripheral knob. But it kept triggering, but it turned out employees would mess around with customers by spinning it while they used it.

Of course that’s just one store, but I walked by several and they all just looked depressing inside. Layouts felt about as poorly planned as a Best Buy or staples display, and even things as simple as lighting was harsher.

It’s just not as simple as making a store. The store has to provide the right vibe, and Microsoft don’t understand vibe.

replies(4): >>44419413 #>>44420235 #>>44421427 #>>44431247 #
leakycap ◴[] No.44419413[source]
I expected they'd do better at the products with their own name on them, but I the MS Store near me didn't stock even most standard Surface devices

Plus, IIRC their return policy on what they had in stock was worse than other PC retailers

replies(1): >>44420216 #
sheiyei ◴[] No.44420216[source]
You can trust Microsoft to make anything they touch suck. This has been a constant for decades at this point. Please give me contradicting examples, if they exist.
replies(4): >>44420248 #>>44421706 #>>44422925 #>>44424871 #
FirmwareBurner ◴[] No.44421706[source]
>You can trust Microsoft to make anything they touch suck.

That's not entirely true. Microsoft is not just the Office and Windows 11 monolith of trash, but is made o dozens or even hundreds of small teams and silos, some making cool shit even though not all of them survived their niches or kept their quality.

>Please give me contradicting examples, if they exist.

Encarta, Visual Studio, the OG Xbox and 360, windows Phone 10, Zune, Surface Studio, Age of Empires, Flight Simulator, AutoRoute, IntelliMice, trackballs and ergonomic keyboards, Kinect camera systems, Spot Watches, Hololens.

replies(1): >>44422935 #
1. fortran77 ◴[] No.44422935[source]
A lot of Office is very good. Nothing beats Excel.
replies(1): >>44460665 #
2. IIsi50MHz ◴[] No.44460665[source]
Excel is _very_ powerful, …and very buggy and inconsistent, in my experience.

Refreshing a QueryTable object or ListObject that has the filldown option enabled to automatically copy formatting and formulæ to all cells in the same column of the object can cause all or part of the object's header row to be copied into the body of the object. There are workarounds of varying ease and varying reliability.

There's still no visible indication whether an edit box that accepts cell references or formulæ is currently in the mode where using the arrow keys inserts cell references and has no undo stack, or is in the mode where it acts like a normal textbox.

The security model still allows a user to specify that sorting and autofiltering a locked worksheet is allowed, but does not actually implement it. Trying to use those features on a locked sheet fails with a permissions error.

Similarly, if a formula returns an array, you cannot use Autofilter or right-click->Sort. Even if the array is 1-dimensional (and thus, your action applies to the entire array), Excel complains that you cannot modify part of an array. There's a workaround, that amounts to re-implementing both Autofilter and Sort using lambda(), let(), and parameter cells.

Excel doesn't like to switch reliably between sheets that aren't at the same zoom level, sometimes drawing one of them at the previous's sheet's zoom…but using blurry upscaling. Or sometimes just stops drawing part a sheet or parts of the UI, requiring Excel to be relaunched.

The web version is really a completely new spreadsheet …with unfortunately the same name as the desktop application. They have different bugs, and different features.

They have too many kinds of add-ins, each with a different management interface, and too many scripting languages. Actually, the mere number of them wouldn't be a problem…if they all worked both in desktop and on the web. As is, there's no way to script the two Excels that guarantees function in both the online and offline applications. Some of types of add-in or scripting actions can be implemented with lambda().

…Euh…I could go on for far-far too long. (^_^);