All His Life Has He Looked Away, to the Future...

Strategies like "release early, release often" and "version 0.1" don't work for massive corporations that can afford to finish a product before actively hyping it.

I'd respect Microsoft more if they'd actually imitate that facet of Apple.

tl; dr: Is Windows 8 vaporware? Meanwhile iPad is surrendering all the way to the bank.

I lost a few brain cells on this one.

It's the "iPad Killer" syndrome all over again. How many times has the iPad's or iPhone's death (and preceding that, Apple's) been predicted? And how many times has it actually happened?

I feel like every journalist who expresses this sentiment is hoping beyond hope that this time, this article, is the one that turns out to be timely and correct. But it's been a stupid bet thus far.

This is apples (iPad - a hardware device) to oranges (an operating system).

Apple is doing exactly the same thing as Microsoft when it comes to os. First beta version of iOS 5 was released 3 months ago at WWDC, Apple's equivalent of Build conference, and is not shipping yet. The same goes for Mac OS X - beta builds are available to developers long before the final retail build. Neither Microsoft nor Apple can just ship their OS without giving developers enough time to test their apps for compatibility and fix inevitable issues.

As to why Microsoft doesn't follow Apple's hardware release strategy: it's because Microsoft doesn't do hardware. They don't make PCs. They don't make tablets. They don't make phones.

The release strategy for hardware is up to the companies that do make the hardware: Dell, Sony, HP, HTC, Samsung etc.

>What strikes me about Thurrott’s tweet is that the two companies have attracted the writers they deserve. Me? I’d be appalled if Apple were to unveil something in the half- (if that) finished state of Windows 8 for tablets. I enjoy writing about what’s real.

I can't believe that Gruber can write such self-satisfied tripe without more self-awareness. His quote is more true than he realizes - the incredible smugness of both Gruber and Apple is very striking. Rabid fanboyishness combined with pretension to some kind of superior aesthetic taste in how product announcements are handled shows that DF is reaching the point of self-parody.