How the Microsoft Store Urges Customers To Trade In Their iPhones (zdnet.com) 64
"Have you ever wondered how -- or even why -- Microsoft is offering $650 to switch from iPhone to Samsung's latest phones?" asks tech columnist Chris Matyszczyk.
"A Microsoft store salesman enlightened me. It was spiritual, as much as factual." "This is a Microsoft store," I said. "Why are you pushing these?"
"Because three weeks ago, you couldn't do what you can do now," he said.
This was quite some drama. I hadn't heard that my life had changed just 21 days prior, but Oscar was ready to explain. "Now you can have a terabyte, which means this phone improves your mobility and can now replace your laptop. You can now run your business straight from this phone," he said... With a fervent -- and, I have to say, elegant -- enthusiasm, he talked me through my new possibilities. The ability to have everything from Outlook to Word to Excel to One Drive existing simultaneously on every gadget was, apparently, my new Nirvana. He took me over to a desktop and showed me how to dock my new Samsung phone and work simultaneously on the phone and the desktop.
He then led me to the Surface Pro 6. "This is the one I've got. And, look, you don't need a keyboard," he said, as he brought up the on-screen keyboard that really isn't very easy to type on. Oscar's congenital positivity was so alluring that I had to insert a pause and ask him what phone he had. He pulled out the same iPhone XR as mine, but sadly in a case. "I've been with Apple for a long time," he explained. "But I just need to pay my iPhone down a bit more and I'm going to switch to this Note..."
"Switching from iPhone to Samsung isn't easy, is it?" I muttered.
"It's all in your mind," he replied. "You need to have a growth mindset. That's what leaving your iPhone behind represents. Growth." I had to laugh. Not out of insult, but out of sheer admiration for his TED Talk attempt to inspire. He was appealing to my spirit, not my rational mind. He was right, of course. I have a growth bodyset, not a growth mindset....
[A]s I walked out many minutes later, I remembered there was a new iPhone coming out. Three new iPhones. Would any of them represent personal growth?
"A Microsoft store salesman enlightened me. It was spiritual, as much as factual." "This is a Microsoft store," I said. "Why are you pushing these?"
"Because three weeks ago, you couldn't do what you can do now," he said.
This was quite some drama. I hadn't heard that my life had changed just 21 days prior, but Oscar was ready to explain. "Now you can have a terabyte, which means this phone improves your mobility and can now replace your laptop. You can now run your business straight from this phone," he said... With a fervent -- and, I have to say, elegant -- enthusiasm, he talked me through my new possibilities. The ability to have everything from Outlook to Word to Excel to One Drive existing simultaneously on every gadget was, apparently, my new Nirvana. He took me over to a desktop and showed me how to dock my new Samsung phone and work simultaneously on the phone and the desktop.
He then led me to the Surface Pro 6. "This is the one I've got. And, look, you don't need a keyboard," he said, as he brought up the on-screen keyboard that really isn't very easy to type on. Oscar's congenital positivity was so alluring that I had to insert a pause and ask him what phone he had. He pulled out the same iPhone XR as mine, but sadly in a case. "I've been with Apple for a long time," he explained. "But I just need to pay my iPhone down a bit more and I'm going to switch to this Note..."
"Switching from iPhone to Samsung isn't easy, is it?" I muttered.
"It's all in your mind," he replied. "You need to have a growth mindset. That's what leaving your iPhone behind represents. Growth." I had to laugh. Not out of insult, but out of sheer admiration for his TED Talk attempt to inspire. He was appealing to my spirit, not my rational mind. He was right, of course. I have a growth bodyset, not a growth mindset....
[A]s I walked out many minutes later, I remembered there was a new iPhone coming out. Three new iPhones. Would any of them represent personal growth?
I'm confused (Score:5, Informative)
So Microsoft is saying the Samsung phone can replace your laptop... if you also buy a Surface (or Windows desktop) along with the Samsung phone?
Even Microsoft's legendarily bad marketing department can't be quite that stupid, can they?
Re:I'm confused (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't trust Microsoft (Score:2)
Years ago I looked forward to Windows Update keeping my system current and squishing bugs. With Microsoft's new direction, not anymore.
1) upgrade trickery: My wife had a laptop that I didn't want to update to Windows 10 and just clicked the X (close) box. I didn't realize it would just update anyway. How many people were fooled this way?
2) Windows 10 telemetry: No, I don't want Microsoft to slurp my data. Sure you aggregate the data and store is securely on your server. But then I continuously read a
Re:I'm confused (Score:4, Funny)
You made it farther than I did, I've never seen anyone in a microsoft store I had to stop reading there.
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Was thinking the exact same thing at first, but... ...I think the author (And salescritter) were clumsily saying that even w/o the Surface, you could still, via all the MSFT cloud-based crap, use your Note, w/ 1TB if storage, as a laptop.
Now why you would want to squish everything down to a tiny screen (or bluetooth it to the big-screen TV along with a BT keyboard, etc)? No idea.
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That's what I figured he meant, but in context even that doesn't really make sense. Microsoft has had their software on iOS and Android for a few years now, I believe.
Quite some time ago, I actually had to use Powerpoint on an older iPad Mini. It worked much better than I expected (meaning I was actually able to accomplish what I needed to get done) - but I wouldn't want to regularly do that sort of work on a mobile device. And the Mini is significantly larger than even the largest phones of today!
Funny thing about that (Score:2)
I think the author (And salescritter) were clumsily saying that even w/o the Surface, you could still, via all the MSFT cloud-based crap, use your Note, w/ 1TB if storage, as a laptop.
the funny thing is, the same is also true of the iPhone - Microsoft has actually very good versions of the whole office suite that run on the iPhone/iPad. I would warrant it's probably a nicer experience running Word on an iPad than a Surface.
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Except of course that Outlook on Android does not actually connect directly to your mail server. Instead it passes your login credentials to a Microsoft Cloud MITM attack drone which collects your e-mail and which the Outlook client connects to. Even after you delete Outlook for Android the Microsoft Cloud MITM attack drone will keep pulling mail from your account until you change the password or otherwise ban it. Who knows if it ever deletes the stuff it did manage to scoop and what the privacy terms ar
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You are telling us that a Microsoft server pulls email from your Microsoft email service and that is somehow a terrible problem because Microsoft might get to see your email. OK.
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Why would you not?
If you are one of these modern kiddies who has to dilly-dally about with the phone continuously, what better excuse is there than to claim that the phone has all the work crap on it too? Next there will be a dedicated "work" key on the phone that will switch to a "work" program for when you get caught playing Facebook during working hours ...
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I think it's because you can plug your Samsung phone into any old Microsoft Continuum device and then use your phone with keyboard/mouse/1080p monitor with it to use the Office suite.
Re:I'm confused (Score:4, Interesting)
Samsung's high end phones have a desktop mode called Dex, and it's actually quite good. You can run Android apps in windows like a normal desktop OS. Use a keyboard and mouse to control everything, nice big monitor supporting 4k resolution.
That means you can run Microsoft apps for Android on it too, including Outlook, Word, Excel etc.
It's not exactly a laptop replacement since you would need to carry around a monitor, keyboard and mouse for that. But assuming your company was able to provide those things are different offices, for example, you could just take your phone and plug it in to a dock and not have the lug the laptop around.
It's kind of attractive if you want to travel light but use a big screen and full size keyboard when you get there. And of course you can access all the apps and data on the move as well, just on a much smaller display.
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easy come, easy go. (Score:3)
"Because three weeks ago, you couldn't do what you can do now," he said.
And when they decide they aren't making enough profit from you, you'll no longer be able to do that new magical thing and you'll be shit outta luck. Welcome to life with The Cloud! -_-
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And when they decide they aren't making enough profit from you,
You mean the cloud right? As in their single biggest profit centre? I think you're about as at risk of the Cloud shutting up shop as you are of Microsoft suddenly deciding to leave the technology industry and become a burger chain.
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They don't have to shut down their whole cloud business to turn this into a problem for you. Just individual applications and features which you got used to may all of a sudden be discontinued - just think of their Playsforsure music program (wasn't called cloud back then, but it's essentially the same thing), or the whole bunch of google applications which have come and gone.
This is par for the course with MS (Score:5, Informative)
They have a whole facility at their Redmond campus that I was invited to visit with my director. Its called something like the Microsoft Modern Workplace and the entire building is setup as a vision for their futuristic view of the workplace. I was there about a year ago so I'm sure things have changed but it was pretty cool and displayed all of their technologies and how they work together. Android wasn't prominent then so I'd be curious to see how they display it now.
They had a big emphasis on Teams and their Surface devices and Power BI. Cool stuff for sure. Just unfortunate how they nickle and dime people to death and leave critical security features for their top tier E5 licensing. The security features should be baseline E3, just can't consider them seriously when they want to change mom and pop business E5 licensing just for a decent AV dashboard and Office 365 security.
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Cool? Microsoft has nothing that's cool. Just using "Power BI" in the same paragraph as "cool" is bizarre. No one would ever use Power BI if 1) IT people weren't in love with Microsoft and 2) corporations intent on single sourcing everything to the cloud including their toilet paper.
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Are you shitting me? Try fucking stopping some random team in Finance getting all gaga about Power BI even though you're offering them a suite of superior tools that already have access to the raw and curated data.
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I was there about a year ago so I'm sure things have changed but it was pretty cool and displayed all of their technologies and how they work together. Android wasn't prominent then so I'd be curious to see how they display it now.
Android wasn't "prominent" a year ago? Come on.
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Not really (Score:4, Funny)
You can now run your business straight from this phone
Unless your idea of running a business is tweeting the occasional 'covfefe' you your staff.
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Unless your idea of running a business is tweeting the occasional 'covfefe' to your staff.
Er no. That's my idea of running a country!!
Ah Yes (Score:2)
Now You Can Save Your iFriends From iThings =) (Score:2)
POS propaganda (Score:2)
Not new (Score:5, Funny)
Running your business from a mobile phone is as old as mobile phones are. Drug dealers were early adopters.
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Ah phuck, I've dated myself....
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When I graduated high school, the whole concern was about students bringing pagers to school.
Throughout my whole grade school run, I saw exactly one (1) fellow student who had a cell phone. And back then, you made and received
phone calls on them, and that's all you could do,
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Well, reading this summary, it certainly sounded like that Microsoft store salesman was on something.
Marvelous! (Score:3, Insightful)
Marvelous, a singular anecdotal tale.
Let me spin my own personal anecdote. I worked for Best Buy for a bit when I was going to school and unlike any of the other computer sales people I actually knew something about computers. Meanwhile, I watched other sales people flagrantly lie to customers in order to push whatever Best Buy was looking to push at any given moment.
In summary, why should anyone be surprised that a Microsoft sales person was steering customers away from Apple?
Also, when you have a family member who is less than technically inclined, do be a good sport and go shopping with them when they are making a significant tech purchase. The sales people should not be trusted. They aren't payed enough to care and most will casually lie to make their jobs easier.
Re: Marvelous! (Score:1)
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They pulled a scam. I wonder what the cops have to say about it?
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Why wouldn't they? (Score:2)
I would bet behind closed doors the Microsoft stores aren't even thought of as retail outlets and nobody cares if they make retail sales profit.
They're mostly interactive commercials for Microsoft and to try to push an image that Microsoft-centric tech is "cool" like Apple.
The question is whether the store employees or the customers are the NPCs in this virtual world.
Samsungs are fast enough to run Linux containers. (Score:3)
UserLAnd (and the poorly promoted Linux on DeX by Samsung) work decently on my S9+ which I bought with that in mind since I needed more battery life than my old S4.
Flagship desktop distro Linux phones are many years off but Android plus ever more powerful phones will gradually offer alternatives.
Phones will remain crippled relative to notebooks which will remain crippled relative to desktops, but you don't need more than enough power for your personal use case.
... containers. (Score:1)
Fuck, what? Fuck that!
Give me an F(x)tec. I'll run Linux. Period.
Gag! (Score:2)
Sounds like cult speak IMO
Will it replace? (Score:2)
Let's see what I have open right now. I have a tab with two ssh shells. One has a RSS app (Akregator, not very good), one is Thunderbird, one is Firefox (using to post), one is Kicad, one is KDE solitaire, and one is Libreoffice. I use keyboard and mouse. Can this Microsoft crap do this?
It so happens that my emacs editor is not open at this moment. But when I am programming, will the MS crap help me? I doubt it. A real keyboard is decent, a laptop keyboard is crap. And the "phone keyboard"? I don't need to
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I'm missing s.t. You have one tab with two shells. Then you list six apps. How does this work?
I'll agree with you about the keyboard and (reluctantly) the mouse. I do a lot of (programming--ok, I post here s.t. too...), which makes a real keyboard indispensable. Oh, thanks for reminding me--I have a brand new mechanical keyboard sitting outside the front door, courtesy of Amazon. (Unplugs old, plugs in new, types rest of msg with new keyboard. Voila!)
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Samsung Dex dock lets you use your phone as a PC "replacement", plugging in external monitors, USB based things like kb/mice/external storage, wired ethernet - that type of stuff.
With an Office 365 subscription you get 1TB of OneDrive storage plus web browser access to Office products (which you'd get on an iOS devic
Note to self for Next Week: (Score:2)
Avoid upgrades to avoid time loss.
Wrong Way; Go Back! (Score:3)
Why downgrade to a Samsung when you could upgrade to a Google phone?
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One wonders if it might be because Microsoft and Samsung have a kickback agreement in place, and Microsoft and Google do not.
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You might want something like an sd card slot, which Samsung has had for many versions of their phone, and Google has not. That is important to me. I don't like relying on some cloud bullshit to store my data.
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You need an SD Card slot with all the uninstallable bloat they give you. In fact, maybe they could place it all on the SD Card so I could remove it and burn it.
Three new iPhones..... (Score:2)
No, it will represent your participation in the marketing of the product designed for obsolescence.
Or marketing designed so you think they are, until the the application sphere requires you to update.
Like they used to say about MS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Meet the new boss
Growth?! (Score:1)
In fairness (Score:2)
There are a number of nice ways that an Android phone can integrate with Windows 10 - which aren't available when you use iOS. So if you want to get the most out of Windows 10, that means getting Android.
Of course Apple could offer all of that functionality (and more) - but they'd rather limit it to the 10% of the market that own a Mac.
Classic Battle Of Retards. (Score:2)
Where everyone is a loser, and every side retarded.
BOTH Apple and Samsung are utter turds.
No headphone jack, no replaceable battery, easy-break screens, glass everywhere, fingerprint and face spying, crap battery life, NO KEYBOARD, four shitty cameras instead of a real one with a zoom, and *insanely* overpriced and expensive. All because of "thinspiration".
You gotta be either batshit insane, or literally not a person (but a drone of a swarm lifeform), to even consider those turds.
Most average China phones s
couldn't do? (Score:2)
but Office365 just works as well on an iphone as it does on Android.
or if you also have an apple laptop, you also already have very nice integration between the two devices.
Apple or Microsoft or Android/iOS... (Score:2)
They're all just cults at this point, especially hearing this drivel....
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Re: Apple or Microsoft or Android/iOS... (Score:1)
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MS Office (Score:2)
Even Better .... (Score:1)
Don't use technology more than needed which is essentially never unless you are at work. Life is so much better that way!
The slick and hard sell.... (Score:1)
Nothing new here. Ad agencies hire psychologists to help them tune their ads to better sell their products. It's almost it's own science.
A pox on both their houses (Score:2)
I don't have any particular desire to do business with either Microsoft or Apple. I have a Mac at work because that's what I was issued. I have a Windows box at home because that's what Adobe CC runs on. The moment work starts issuing Linux laptops, I'll be first in line. The moment Adobe CC runs on Linux, I'll drop Windows and never look back. In the meantime, its just something to endure.
I've been issued iphones from various companies and hate them. I hate the closed architecture, the "you're a moro
Re: A pox on both their houses (Score:1)
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One of the things I've never understood about modern cell phone design -- every design detail is sacrificed to the overriding goal of thinness. But then you're left with a product so brittle and so difficult to hold that you absolutely must put a case around it that increases the thickness by a factor of three. Had they made the phone that big in the first place, they would have had room for a bigger battery, so it would last longer than 7.5 hours on a charge, and maybe use a rubberized surface so people