I don't understand the "OMG MICROSOFT MADE A TABLET IT IS CLEARLY COPYING THE IPAD" reaction Microsoft's getting here. They're absolutely ahead of the curve with the blending of mobile and desktop operating systems, something which I am extremely happy they are doing, and this is absolutely the logical design choices someone in that position would make.
Yes, it's very similar to the iPad in many ways. But other than some of the marketing, it doesn't seem to fall any closer to Apple than any of the Android tablets we've been seeing for the last year. In fact, the metro UI (extreme minimalism) is pretty drastically different from Apple's style (extreme detail). Apple phased out the bold color designs years ago. (And don't feed me the "Microsoft is just really slow at copying" nonsense - it's clearly as much an original design as any.)
It's pretty obvious where that reaction is coming from.
As recently as last year Microsoft was singing the praises of being able to kinda-sorta-use desktop software on a tablet and pushing the notion that things without desktop operating systems were 'consumption' devices, at best.
So, yes, their sudden reversal on what people want in a tablet is worth noting and easily justifies the same kind of quips and barbs that people lob at Apple over Jobs' similar reversals [1].
And it's pretty easy to be ahead of the curve on blending mobile and desktop operating systems when Microsoft is the only party who sees a problem to be solved in the first place. [2]
Because this entire concept -- that people want both -- comes apart at the seams about a month after you've owned an Apple or Android tablet. [3]
Simply: there's no user-facing problem being solved here.
People use tablets for what they're great at and desktop PCs for what they're great at. And no-one who's ever put their tablet down to use their laptop is looking at that Microsoft Surface tablet and saying "this will mean I don't have to put the tablet down for these tasks anymore". [4]
Microsoft is attempting to solve it's own problem with this blending concept and the degree to which this tablet succeeds, is going to strongly track the degree to which Windows stays out of the Metro experience [5].
[1] "No-one wants a widget."
(Smash cut to 18 months later)
"Introducing Apple's new iWidget!"
[2] That Windows is irrelevant in a growing computing market.
[3] And I say that as someone who has been pro-tablet for a decade and only grudgingly gave Apple's "big iPod" approach a chance.
[4] At best, the typing-heavy market is saying "I wonder how long it will take someone to make an iPad keyboard case that slick."
[5] Metro is a unique, interesting and a refreshing change from Apple's icon grid. And I've heard far more praise for it from the design folks that get written off as Apple fanboys, than I have from the Windows crowd who generally echoed Microsoft's 'consumption' FUD.
At home I use a macbook and an ipad. The ipad is a consumption device- it's great for playing a casual game, looking up a recipe, and better than kindle for reading pdf files. It isn't really usable for programming, writing documentation, or any real work (that I do). It doesn't replace my laptop, it just does some things in a more convenient way.
Microsoft's Surface looks like (for me) it could replace both the ipad and my macbook. It isn't a consumption device- it runs a full operating system. I could remote in to work from anywhere, attach it to a monitor if I wanted to work at home, and easily carry it around. It provides the convenience of a tablet, while allowing real work to be done. It even comes in pretty colors.
Apple wants me to own a phone, a music player, a tablet, and a laptop all to do separate things in separate places. This isn't necessary.
This is not a reversal of Microsoft's position- it's the logical next step.
> "Microsoft's Surface looks like (for me) it could replace both the ipad and my macbook."
Things always have a way of looking like what we want them to, before we get a chance to see them. I know how it works; I spent a lot of time waiting, hoping and grumbling about Windows tablets.
And what I see here, is an ARM tablet that has a real shot as a tablet - provided the Windows side stays out of the way.
And a hand-waved x86 tablet that may or may not be notably improved over last year's Windows tablets.
From that, you seem to be hoping the best of the ARM tablet (size/battery/usability) is implicit in the x86 tablet or vice-versa (does the ARM tablet even allow keyboard/mouse style apps from third parties?).
For me this tablet/surface could see significant demand from students going back to school this fall. As you said, it's not loger Air + iPad when you can get one device that can do both.
I think it's a pretty good strategy from that standpoint. Additionally, with the Intel version being compatible with desktop apps, this should fit in with the business (corporate) environment.
Of course, this is speculation, but I think it has a pretty good chance at being successful.
> People use tablets for what they're great at and desktop PCs for what they're great at. And no-one who's ever put their tablet down to use their laptop is looking at that Microsoft Surface tablet and saying "this will mean I don't have to put the tablet down for these tasks anymore". [4]
I disagree. I see no reason why my mom wouldn't want a single computer to use on a couch for browsing, and on a desk with mouse/keyboard for chatting or photo editing. This seems like an obvious convergence of 2 specialized devices. There are trade offs of course, but if they can deliver a good experience, I think users would be willing to trade the computing power of a desktop for a single all-in-one device.
The next obviously step is to have a phone that can replace all 3, with different docks. And once phone CPU gets powerful enough we will definitely see that.
Why would your mom need a desktop-side to the OS to do chat or photo editing?
Firstly, for anyone not already using at least prosumer photo-editing software, the latest iPad apps are preferred to desktop apps by everyone I've seen use them. So lightroom or photoshop users may not be satisfied, but most people looking to make a few standard adjustments are going to get the job done faster and easier by not putting that tablet down.
And for substantial amounts of text entry, sure, the keyboard is great. But you don't need traditional OSX/Windows style keyboard-mouse interfaces to handle a keyboard.
I'm a gadget nerd and power user and having less devices that get the job done is always better. I own a Transformer Prime which comes pretty close to what the Windows Surface will over in terms of experience.
In terms of media consumption I do not miss anything with the tablet but I find myself so often getting up from the couch walking over to my desk to get some simple tasks done in software XY because traditional software still beats most apps.
Having all those software programs running on my tablet will be so amazing!
How can a product that hasn't shipped yet be 'ahead of the curve'? I have an iPad in my bag right now. Microsoft aren't even on the curve yet.
Apple also started blending elements of the iOS UI into OS X, such as multi-touch gestures over a year ago. Maybe MS will leapfrog them. Surface does look interesting, I'm not discounting it, but we'll have to see where Apple and Microsoft stand relative to each other when Surface actually ships.
I don't know why you'd think that Microsoft is not even on the curve here. Surface is just the hardware aspect of the complete solution. The Software has been out in beta for a few months now. It's the software that is more responsible for the blending of tablet and laptop than the hardware.
Good point, but why label those as "attempts"? A decade ago PDAs were pretty good devices with decent amount of free apps and an interesting range of possibilities. (For one, they were extensible via cards. Something that's not available in today smartphones I know of.) You could read books, play games, use internet via WiFi, plus there was a lot of business applications for them. Heck, my old Asus MyPal has better book reader and calendar apps than I have on my current smartphone.
Sure, there wasn't a marketing hysteria around PDAs, but they were a viable market of their own.
I loved my Toshiba M200 (http://reviews.cnet.com/Toshiba_Portege_M200_tablet_PC/4505-...) way back in 2004! I used to use it during my graduate classes to take handwritten notes. It's a little sluggish by today's standards, but lighter weight distributions of Linux still run pretty well.
Asus MyPal (a relatively high-end PDA) was around $400 when I bought it. That is cheaper than modern high-end phones and roughly equal to the prices of mid-level phones.
The laptop I'm writing this from costs around $400 dollars as well. This is the price of the cheapest iPad.
If the Palm Computing IPO didn't reflect marketing hysteria around PDA's, I don't know what does. The spinoff gave Palm a market cap of over $20B, about six times the entire value of its parent company, 3Com.
Before the iPad, Microsoft was using the "PC interface", to the disadvantage of the tablets they were putting it on.
Now they are doing the reverse: making a tablet interface to the disadvantage of the PC. The "all-in-one" interface for all types of devices and form factors will never work, because at best it's optimized only for one of them, and mediocre or poor for most of the others.
They could have so easily gotten around that by just calling it "Metro" and doing a clean break. Then just promise everyone that windows isn't going away and imply that there will/might still be a windows 8 which would be a continuation of windows as we all know it for PCs.
Then all the ARM devices (phones, tablets, etc) and also XBOX uses "Metro". Just Metro, no mentions of Windows. If people like it, THEN windows 8 could use parts of Metro or start to resemble it in a way. (In a manner similar to the "back to the mac" stuff in OSX Lion and Mountain Lion) If not, well they can still use windows for many years just like people stuck with XP and eventually there will be a windows 7+1 of some kind for them.
But by calling the phone OS windows phone 7 and by completely changing windows 8 people are in a panic. I can only imagine what their "enterprise" customers must be thinking.
Plus now the phone OS is "version 7" which coincides with the old pc-os style windows but it is the only thing actually using Metro and windows 8 has no mention of metro and is the only one that's new style.. so is 7 or 8 or 360 or 720 the number to associate with the new style? Should any number be associated with it? If not, then why _start_ the completely new phone OS at number 7? Why call the near complete break version 8? etc.
tl;dr: If they did a complete break and didn't call it Windows, then no one's first reaction would be "Jack of all trades, master of none."
A clean break would appeal to a lot of people who think that a lack of focus has been part of Microsoft's problems the last few years. But coming out with a tablet only OS was a non-starter for MS. If the Surface was Metro only, then it wouldn't differentiate itself from iOS and Android in any significant manner. This is why Windows Phone 7 isn't getting significant traction.
The key for Surface is the integration with AD, with providing a "desktop" of sorts, and all the other bells and whistles people associate with Windows. Whether the Windows DNA can be successfully combined with a touch based interface is a problem, but at least MS is trying. Muddling along with their old-style tablet software would cede the market to iOS and Android.
I think they should have copied Apple there too: Remember the OS9 emulation that OSX used to have? Just emulate Windows 7 so you can use apps like microsoft office.
Or make a proper Metro / tablet / touch oriented version of Office a priority. Yes it would be a lot of work, but they can throw nearly limitless resources at it.
If I read you correctly, you're basically saying that the desktop and slate/phone should have different user interfaces. Well, that's exactly what win8 delivers.
When you're building a piece of software you can choose to give it a metro-style UI, a classical desktop UI, or both. That way, your application works across desktops, slates, and WP8 phones. IE10 for example can be run as a full-screen metro app, or as a 'classic' desktop application.
The start menu has been replaced by a full-screen view with live tiles. And really, that's all there is to it; it's just a fancy full-screen start menu. You toggle it with the windows key, and you can quickly search for something just by typing. Live tiles are pretty handy to give you a quick overview of mail, world clocks, events, appointments, etc - much like OSX widgets.
These 'surface' slates, as well as desktops and laptops will run Windows 8 (both x86 and ARM varieties). Windows Phone 8 is just another flavor of that. I'm assuming in the near future, phones will even be able to run the desktop environment by docking to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
Alas, I can't suspend disbelief and trust that this time Microsoft will remain committed to their latest greatest new thing, not lose interest and wander off in a few years, and not screw all the developers who bought into the latest pyramid scheme.
I think a lot of other people like Metro too.
I just attended an designer graduate student thesis project gallery exhibit whatever. 2/3rds of the UIs were strongly Metro-esque. Some very cool designs. I have no doubt Metro will spawn copycats.
This. To me, Windows 8 is the first OS that actually makes sense of how people use tablets (and computers in general). Sometimes, I want to use it casually laying on the couch and sometimes I want to use it to be productive.
But they are really forcing you into the Metro interface, and it's quite clear they would like to "phase out" the desktop part in a couple of generations.
I've been using my iPad with a BT keyboard, and one of the thing that excites me about the Surface is that the OS is actually optimised for both touch and keyboard use. With the iPad, you can type text and use a couple of system commands (homescreen, brightness, music controls). But you still have to reach up and swipe through apps and touch the app you want to load, swipe to shift between apps, etc etc.
But with Windows 8, every touch gesture or feature is baked in intelligently to keyboard/trackpad use. Swiping between apps, bringing up charms, splitting the screen, selecting tiles on the start screen, etc etc. I think this will make a huge difference. Microsoft has an advantage here because W8 has been built simultaneously for all of these usage models, whereas Apple started with touch and is still tethered to a fingers-only UI basis.
If MS pulls this off well (and that is a big "if"), it may convert me from the iPad. Right now, I have an iPad and a MB Air. I'm missing having a workhorse (MB Pro), but I don't want three devices and I really like the casual aspects of the iPad.
I'm not sure I'd call it "ahead of the curve". They are on the right track for the most part, but there are key aspects here that are not obvious that I think MS is a little blind to (which is too complex a topic to go into here). Overall though I'd say they are at least partially clueful, which is enormously helpful.
I don't think people realize how big this announcement was.
Yes, MS is still a multi-billion dollar company and a good portion of their revenue is likely secure for years if not decades. But we are at a key juncture in computing here, as important as the mainframe/mini-computer to PC transition if not even more so. And if MS had just blundered on and made half-assed token efforts they would have forever set themselves into the wrong gear and they would have relegated their company to a different market and marketshare than dominating the mainstream PC market as they've done.
MS has made a big play, and it may be enough to keep them in the game and revitalize their brand image. Time will tell.
I think you're spot on with the mini-computer to PC transition. This carries all the same echoes of the frontier-days of early PCs. Initially, people (myself included) wrote tablets off as being a toy for enthusiasts, and now they're reaching a level of adoption that's shifted the question from "Why would I buy one?" to "What's the best one on the market?" which can only be good for consumers and computing as a whole. Microsoft ended up winning PC's for a good twenty years, and have gotten destroyed by Apple in terms of branding and attention in the past twelve years or so. We'll see how they do in the teens.
how are the multitasking issues? I was thinking of getting a One X, but decided to get an HSPA Galaxy Nexus instead. This was for price reasons as well as hearing about strange behavior from One X when multitasking
The main thing Apple did with the iPad was make it work without any major gotchas. Sure, you could have stuck a desktop CPU and desktop OS in a touchscreen device. Other people tried that. It wasn't appealing.
The iPad gave long battery life, a comfortable form-factor, solid usability and reliability, an impossibly low price point for such high-end hardware, and most importantly it was a tablet above all else. Every app becomes the machine. That's entirely different than carrying a desktop around in an iPad-sized box.
Be careful if you think this is simply dumbing down a desktop, because it shows you're missing the point.
What Apple did was remove all of the barriers that got in the way of a good tablet experience for individual consumers. In essence, they made the iPad an application platform instead of a general purpose computer.
They combined that with their amazing manufacturing and engineering prowess and created a real winner.
From my perspective, the iPad is a dumbed down device. I only have access to the underlying operating system via API, don't have an ability to directly access shared corporate resources that are interesting to me, and cannot run arbitrary software without alot of hassle.
Dumbed-down devices are fine -- i own and love my iPad. But they're fine until you need to do something that the vendor doesn't want you to do, and Apple is a vendor who likes to define a single "one true path" to do many things.
OMG: Microsoft preannounced two competing products, with no indication of price, ship date, market availability, processor specs, RAM, etc, etc.
And the Internet goes crazy about it. An iPad-killer at last, hooray!
EDIT: And of course the real question: will it ship with Office included? Or will Office for it cost more than the device itself? And how much cannibalization of their own software revenues will MS accept?
>I don't understand the "OMG MICROSOFT MADE A TABLET IT IS CLEARLY COPYING THE IPAD" reaction Microsoft's getting here.
No, it's merely another try to bite into its market. Microsoft had tablets before the iPad too, but not like that.
Yes, it's very similar to the iPad in many ways. But other than some of the marketing, it doesn't seem to fall any closer to Apple than any of the Android tablets we've been seeing for the last year.
That's because those are already too close.
They're absolutely ahead of the curve with the blending of mobile and desktop operating systems, something which I am extremely happy they are doing, and this is absolutely the logical design choices someone in that position would make.
Ahead of what curve?
They FINALLY have a me-too mobile phone platform, but with horrible market reach, and they are updating their OS into an old (Windows)/new(Metro) mixed UI monstrosity, generally met with "Metro is kinda nice, but what where they thinking?" reviews.
So they're not just going after the iPad, they're also going after the MacBook Air: The Intel version + Touch Cover was repeatedly shown with the regular desktop and apps on it, and generally spun as a sort of light laptop.
Ambitious, and finally makes sense of their Metro/desktop combo OS strategy to a degree. The hardware to go along with it was a missing puzzle piece, and I guess shows just how important it can be.
It strikes me as an entirely natural development and something that will appeal to many consumers.
I get the feeling Apple have always wanted iPad to be an extra - an extension to the desktop experience. But the divisions between phone, tablet, "ultralight laptop" and "main laptop" are arbitrary and increasingly opaque. Many people are starting to see tablets and real possible replacements: for light users, it handles 90% of their computer usage (internet browser, video and photo viewing). Even for "serious" computer users, tablets offer many advantages. They are quiet, keep cool, look good, super portable, and last a long time. People seem quite content with the lower processing power if they afforded these big pluses.
This Surface with integrated keyboard and support for regular win 8 apps could take it the extra 10% for a lot of people.
I've always thought Apple was pretty clear in the direction they were headed when Jobs made his car and trucks analogy at All Things D. The iPad is meant for the 90% of current users as their main device. The PC is for the heavy lifting for those in fields such as audio, video and science. There may be a time where a tablet can meet these needs but I certainly don't think we're close yet.
I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that iOS already works well on x86 and has never not worked well on x86. After all, the core OS maintains ongoing heritage with an x86 OS, and every single app in the store has already been successfully compiled for x86...
> The simulator is not one. It's really a cross-compiling trick.
Uh? No, that's the exact opposite, the simulator is exactly a simulator. What it's not is an emulator: it does not emulate an ARM device, it simulates an iPhone by running iOS/x86.
An emulator does exactly as it says: it emulates. It creates an environment that appears to a running program to be identical to the real thing. This is done by emulating the hardware (e.g. BSNES), emulating the runtime environment for a native binary (e.g. VMware), or most commonly, a mixture of both.
A simulator -- at least in the world of Apple iOS development -- does not attempt to emulate iOS hardware, or even the iOS operating system. All the simulator does is provide a virtual display and launches an instance of Launchpad.app. Your app then runs within that virtual display, and talks with natively compiled copies of the iOS APIs, but otherwise it's a normal Mac OS X process that can be viewed and poked with Activity Monitor, or top, or whatever.
The simulator doesn't need to "boot up". There are no virtual drivers. There's no memory management. There's no emulated silicon whatsoever.
The only downside to this approach I can see is that the simulator can't be used to test some things like resource limits, and some things behave very differently, like OpenGL. But you have to test on real hardware anyway, and Apple have made native testing just as easy as simulated.
Thanks a lot for bringing up this subject. I feel unimaginably ashamed for never considering iOS Simulator was in fact, as the name might suggest, a simulator!
An emulator would be binary compatible with the actual device by emulating the ARM instruction set on top of x86. The iOS simulator doesn't do this but instead runs a flavor[1] of iOS natively directly on x86 that is API compatible but not binary compatible (i.e. compiled binaries for the simulator cannot be ran on the devices).
[1] The simulator OS also has distinct limitations that diverge from the real device or what you would expect from a truly emulated environment. There's no motion detection, no GPU performance, no accelerometer or compass, location data is simulated, multitouch input is limited, some frameworks are not available, etc).
Even if the environment was "truly emulated", there would still be no motion detection, accelerometer, compass, location data or multitouch input.
Nor is it likely for the emulated environment to be able to provide a sufficiently accurate performance analogue to the devices' CPU and GPU.
The simulator is the ideal development environment: stupidly fast, and completely reliable for most day-to-day development tasks. For Apple to provide more accuracy in the simulator would be a waste of their time, when you can just as easily run your app on a device.
Theoretically it would be possible develop your app in Xcode and only ever compile it for ARM and test on the actual device.
But if you use the iOS simulator to develop/test your app (which I imagine every developer does), then you're running your iOS app natively on OS X, linked against a version of all the iOS libraries compiled for x86.
No, actually. There are a couple of third-party development tools for iOS which only compile to ARM (and which therefore can't run in the iOS simulator), notably Adobe Air for mobile, and that Delphi for iOS thing. 99.999%, though; anything written in Xcode, and anything written with the majority of third-party tools, has been run in the simulator.
From what I understand, the problem with x68 is the lack of processors that can compete with ARM on battery life, which is one of the most important aspects of a portable device.
Perhaps not for the Hacker News audience. I'd assert that an iPad -- perhaps with a bluetooth keyboard -- is already enough computer for 70% of western world.
A lot of people around here live most of their lives in the terminal, using Vi and Git. They have no reason to work on a beefy machine, as long as they can access more hardware somewhere else. It could be a server in the closet, or "the cloud".
When I bought my first laptop and started doing webdev in 2001, I noticed that all I needed was enough power to play music, edit text and run a web/database server. It worked great with win2k WAMP on a P2 266 MHz, 96 MB, 4 GB. My much more powerful desktop was suddenly left powered off most of the time.
There is no disappearing division between devices, there is rather a stronger division between mobile platforms (including tablet and phone) and PC platforms. And that division is only going to get stronger.
Maemo and Meego are dead. Chromebooks are not likely to blow up. If small ARM machines get popular it will be by running some weird mobile-type OS. Native apps seem to be much more commercially attractive than pure HTML5 apps. On the other hand, I don't see evidence that iOS and Android are going to become plausible PC platforms. Netbook sales have slowed way down. All the buzz is about expensive mobile devices like tablets, and expensive laptops, and these two categories are not converging. It only appears that a convergence is coming because mobile platforms are cannibalizing the casual uses for PCs and netbooks.
I agree. The division is stronger. Well, the only reason why people build native apps is because it is faster to build native apps. Even when HTML5 is completely published, if you have to write a game on the browser, it can take forever to actually find out the bug you have. Browser bugs are not fun to learn!
Chrome will die, and replaced by Android. Google can't have both.
I don't give a damn about these electronics anymore. I use my iPad for video and books, and my computer for gaming and everything else. I say the new MS tablet will be more convenient to use...
My biggest takeaway from the announcement was that this was a very Microsoft-like approach to the tablet market, and I mean that in a good way.
When I think of an iPad, I think of something that's a natural progression from the iPod and iPhone, running bigger and better versions of the apps you can get from the Apple walled garden. It's a fantastic piece of hardware and a tight ecosystem.
Microsoft isn't just trying to compete by offering its own similar piece of hardware to run its own similar apps. They are looking to offer high-performance hardware (an Ivy Bridge chip in a tablet!) with great design, and they're looking to run full-fledged Windows applications.
They're not just competing with iPad, they're offering a possible desktop replacement tablet. That's a bold move.
Admittedly details are everything but isn't the desktop replacement tablet Microsoft's vision all along？I mean Bill Gates back in the early 2000s promoted the concept heavily.
This is much slicker and powerful enough to amount another try, but "bold"? More like stubborn.
That's just battery life... wait until we see what the heat will be like! Seriously, even my Macbook Air gets hot under mild load -- the only reason I tolerate it is because it sits on a desk.
Fans and vents on a tablet... I just can't see that catching on for many people. The ARM model is more promising, but this competes much more closely with the iPad.
Also, the video was very funny with the pen input -- his palm interferes with the initial demo and 20 seconds later he's talking about their amazing palm rejection technology. Don't even get me started on the fact that none of the presenters seemed able to get the swipe-in-from-the-side gesture to work on the first try.
Maybe not, but they designed it so that it's a tablet/ultrabook hybrid. Do your research on the couch in tablet format, then move to the kitchen table to write it up in Microsoft Word. Read and write emails during a bathroom break, then create an insightful business presentation in Microsoft Powerpoint (don't forget to wash your hands)!
So what will happen when you have Word open in "ultrabook"/desktop mode, but then start using the Surface in tablet mode? Is the same instance of Word still open? Is its interface the same? These are the type of things that MS hasn't proven themselves good at designing. MS tends to overcomplicate their UI (Ribbon etc) and in my opinion, a tablet tends to benefit best from focus and simplicity.
I do wonder a bit, how will this blurring of the laptop/tablet line affect their cash cow, Microsoft Office? The business world is trained to believe: they NEED office, and office == productivity. The iPad, long without these apps, challenged this ideal. How would the tablet world spilling into the laptop world affect Office sales...
Even my boss and my partner, died-in-the-wool Windows fans, are well aware of OpenOffice. The idea that MS Office is necessary for productivity simply does not exist. Anyone in an office still using Windows has at least considered the possibility of seeing Linux or Mac on their desktop. Maybe not seriously, but the thought has crossed their mind.
> The idea that MS Office is necessary for productivity simply does not exist.
If you have thousands of pre-existing spreadsheets in your office, many of them running fairly complex VBA macros, the idea that MS Office is necessary certainly does exist. And I've never worked anywhere where that isn't the case.
And at organizations of this type, the licensing cost of Office per desktop is peanuts. Can't remember what the prices were, but I was shocked how little it costs large organizations.
That's probably a bit different. Anyone who writes or manages "fairly complex VBA macros" (and I have consulted for a company that did) is well aware there are many ways to skin that cat. That's not a definition of necessity. That's a definition of percieved cost of change.
This would have been great a couple of years ago, but it's too late to bring out something that's almost as good as an iPad, but without the momentum or ecosystem. This was clearly designed by people who still don't understand why the iPad has been such a big success, and think the world is just waiting for an iPad running Windows. This is a desperation move, like the Zune, and will have the same effect on third party tablet hardware partners.
Desktop Windows does, but stock windows apps generally don't work well in tablet mode without adaptation. Metro (in the form of Windows Phone 7) is lagging. Windows 8 seems to be something like the two of them running on the same kernel, but unless there are apps on both "sides" that synergize well, the whole may be less than the sum of its parts.
The intel version at least will be able to run all apps- and the keyboard has a multitouch trackpad.
UIs will need to change, for sure. But as long as it's possible to port large portions of the codebase of existing Windows apps (see the demo of Lightroom they showed), there should be a lot of options.
The RT version reminds me of the PC Junior, with its chiclet keyboard, and has no legacy apps. You're right about the Pro version, but it seems to me that's designed for people who need a laptop. Those people will buy a laptop.
All they need is a good product at a lower price. iOS struggles at the tablet form factor. Great for phones, too limited for tablets. No, too limited to be the "main machine". Much of that is apple's fault for locking it down too far.
mkay. I think the market disagrees with you a bit. And your strawman about being the "main machine" is contrary to Apple's goals. They would like nothing better than to sell you an iPhone, iPad and MacBook.
I think the market has spoken. The new mobile world is here. Android phone shipments have already passed Windows PC shipments worldwide, and iPhone will also pass Windows this year. If trends continue, iPad passes the PC next year. Most people don't need some other "main" machine.
Oh god, there we go again. You can forget user-visible filesystem. Normal people don't care about "files". They care about their music, photos, videos and documents.
Filesystems are vestige from the past, not the future.
Perhaps I should rephrase my statement. I'm not suggesting that iOS should provide full access to the entire root directory tree in the way that OS X, Windows, or Linux do. The default setup of these systems literally leaves tens of thousands of files sitting around on the hard disk in a complicated directory hierarchy that no user should ever need to see.
What I'm really referring to is the ability to organise your music, photos, videos, and documents (all of which are files) in a way that is based on topic/project, not application. For content consumption I think the current approach is fine, but for content creation it's often necessary to deal with multiple types of documents (e.g. a spreadsheet, word document, and some photos) and it's really awkward to deal with this in the current model.
If you are working on multiple projects, you want all the stuff for project A in one place, and all the stuff for project B in another place. This is especially important when A and B are for different clients, or you want to collaborate with someone on B but not on A, and easily send others a copy of everything relating to B.
I've seen first-hand how novice users can sometimes get confused about the location of their files, e.g. my documents vs. desktop vs. whatever, and I definitely agree that we need a better approach than currently provided on desktop OSs. But I think iOS goes too far in the other direction, and we're still yet to see a solution that scales well with user skill level and needs.
Pen+touch+type seems like a great idea. It is something no other manufacturer has tried to do. I think the devil will be in the details, but this sure is interesting, because Apple's strategy is "people should buy multiple devices-- iPad, Macbook Air, Mac Pro...". MSFT wants one device that is a lot more versatile.
Pen+touch+type seems like a great idea. It is something no other manufacturer has tried to do.
Apple Newton MessagePad, 1993. It had a stylus, handwriting recognition, you could use it with just your fingertips, and you could connect an external keyboard.
That was almost twenty years a go. Newton was a very expensive experiment for Apple, and they have learned the hard way that styluses are not the way to go.
That was an era of different technology. Stylus alone (resistive touch) is not a good general purpose input system but works really well for inputting hand writing or drawing. Capacitive touch lacks fine resolution so it's not good for drawing but it's fantastic for UI because it supports multi-touch. Today we don't have to be shackled by the technological limits that held the Newton back. The Surface has both types of touch sensors so it can match the appropriate sensor to the appropriate use (drawing/writing or touch-based UI). Also, modern mobile computers have vastly more processing power and storage capabilities so, ironically, handwriting recognition is not necessary. The raw input can simply be stored away (as a vector graphic, perhaps, or even just as raw pixels).
Also, the general pattern of "someone tried that once, and they failed, so nobody should ever do that" is a really terrible way to go about engineering. Wile E. Coyote should not be a roll model. Just because someone failed at something similar. Just because YOU failed at something similar, doesn't mean you should give up on the whole idea.
Being pedantic; the stylus used here (and in the Galaxy Note, etc) isn't working off a resistive screen, but an active digitizer (likely N-Trig or Wacom).
Wile E. Coyote makes for an interesting roll model, considering that he's not round at all, but his body does seem to be able to adapt to a rolling mode when enough force is applied.
Also, he is a SU-per Geeen-ius!
I agree, that a good stylus would be a good addition to a tablet. A crappy stylus is worthless, though. It has to be a good one.
On the other hand, nearly ever doctor or professional I've seen using a tablet was using a Thinkpad with a pen rather than an iPad with their finger. Screwing around with iTunes and doing work are two completely separate use cases, and it seems that Microsoft is more interested in "the Enterprise" than Apple is. So with that in mind, they're trying to accommodate all use cases.
(I did have one doctor that insisted on using an iPad. It took him forever to type notes to the point of it being extremely irritating. Transcribe your notes later!)
You've either both not worked in any large companies lately AND never really used an iPad, or you are just blinded by platform bias.
The fact is that iPads are being massively adopted in Fortune 500 companies. And I can assure you that those users are not "screwing around with iTunes". In fact, iTunes doesn't even exist on the iPad, so you don't really know what you are talking about, at all.
(edit: Two instant downvotes on this, but I notice nobody is refuting my facts.)
That's amazing because of the 11 Fortune 100 companies I've personally done work with in the last few years (and 2 more in that size range that aren't publicly traded), I don't recall seeing a single iPad.
I mean, I didn't work with Apple or Google, so I can guess you'd see them there. Neither bank allowed them on-site, and none of the defense contractors would even entertain the idea. You can also probably rule out obvious ones like Microsoft and HP from being big users of iPads. I can't imagine that the cashiers at Walmart, Target or the Home Depot are spending lots of time swiping around and now I'm quickly running out of companies.
I even did a part-time contract job at a company with 123,000 employees last year and not only didn't see an iPad, but they were forbidden on the corporate network and in most of the corporate offices (as was anything with a camera frankly).
oh, and FYI, jrockway actually does work at #73 on the 2012 list.
A year ago you'd be right - but things are very, very rapidly shifting to tablets, including the ipad, with the appropriate corporate tools to manage/deploy/wipe/control/etc them....
It's going to change, and fast.
it seems clear you are mostly talking about defense contractors. I've been there. Can't take a phone with a camera either. Not really a representative sample is it? Also can't have thumb drives. Probably no fortune 500 companies have ever used one of those either.
I work with a pretty decent chunk of the fortune 500, and I would disagree.
What I've seen is an aversion to the iPads, but there are certain places where they can't keep them out. If wireless is authenticated on AD or PSK, it's very difficult to stop them(though there are a growing number of options). If the executive has the power to override IT policy on approved devices, they have no choice.
For what it's worth, it's commonly referred to as the "Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)" movement or "the iPad problem".
Very few have truly accepted and encouraged iPad use since it's not an enterprise device. If you do have IT sponsorship for it, most companies are having to draw new lines around it rather than simply owning it like they historically did with Blackberries. Examples: you have to pay for your own, it has to be managed by MDM and have wipe privileges, you will have to access all applications through VDI, etc.
That said, enterprises aren't thrilled end users can take them home and sync them with their own iTunes and mess with what IT has built on the tablets. Plus Apple's grip on all aspects of the device don't lend to being controlled by MDM very well.
Enterprises are still looking for a replacement for Blackberry, and Microsoft is looking poised to make a shot. Apple doesn't seem interested in compromising their product to fit into the enterprise market.
What does the presence of iTunes have to do with the ridiculous suggestion that you can only "screw around with iTunes" on an iPad? The logic of your and greedo's replies boggles.
"In fact, iTunes doesn't even exist on the iPad, so you don't really know what you are talking about, at all.
(edit: Two instant downvotes on this, but I notice nobody is refuting my facts.)"
Considering that Bud was spouting out of a bodily orifice, the rest of his argument is suspect as well. This, despite the fallacy of jrockway's argument deserves to be corrected.
You state that users from Fortune 500 companies that use massive amounts of iPads never use iTunes and that "iTunes doesn't even exist on the iPad"... and that is something you state as "facts" that would need to be refuted.
Is that how zero platform bias blindness revealed itself to you. Can we keep this sane instead ?
For a great look at iPad use by doctors read this Wired article. "Canada’s Ottawa Hospital uses close to 3,000 iPads, and they’re popping up everywhere — in the lab coats of attending physicians, residents, and pharmacists. "
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2011/12/apple-ipad-doct...
Probably the best computer ever designed for children. I used one myself in school from 4th grade through 8th grade when I upgraded to a "real" laptop. The main reason for the upgrade: I couldn't program on the emate. Other than that it was in every way superior: Instant on, touch, nice keyboard, no distraction interface, usable in all lighting conditions, ect...
Now of course people would sneer at it since it didn't have any form of internet. However, at the time my teachers were more comfortable with it in the classroom due to those limitations.
Actually, you could program for the eMate (NewtonScript, which is surprisingly powerful -- you do need a mac to build the app but you could write code on the device itself, there were apps for this), and you could connect to the internet, too -- I had a PCMCIA ethernet card with a pop-out jack in mine. I fondly remember printing to a HP laser printer via the IR port in the library, bypassing normal printing limits.
Yeah, so what? If you read HCI papers from the 90s (it's what I do for a job-- I'm a PhD student in HCI), you'll see that a lot of very respected researchers claimed that speech technology is not useful (their claim is well-founded: it is slow, environmental noise is unavoidable, what to say is often not obvious, and there's the Midas problem).
But, here we are, with people praising Siri. It's how technology works-- every input modality is useful for some tasks, and at some level of maturity. Dismissing technological potential based purely on past technology is short-sighted. [For examples of how Pen+touch is a good idea see http://billbuxton.com/Pen+TouchUIST.pdf. Add type, and it could be powerful indeed]
Do people actually use siri? The extent to which I've seen it used has been:
1) Making it say silly things about hiding dead bodies in ravines.
2) Trying to make it text things, only to give up and type the message by hand. Usually done while driving, and usually spanning the course of around a minute.
It's not even remotely close to something usable yet, at least not from what I've seen. Just look at how people use it, they don't even understand [or maybe they just don't like?] the interface for it!
Most people I see address it by name, like you would the computer on star trek. They hold down the button, and then say:
"Siri, where can I get a blah blah blah nearby?"
Which usually doesn't return a useful result. In this time I'm usually searching on google maps, and telling them the instructions before they've finished their attempt at an interaction.
You don't invoke the service by addressing it. The service was invoked by pressing the button.
Seriously I have yet to see a person who uses siri for something useful.
For what it's worth: I'm not entirely convinced that Siri will ever work as advertised. I think the new car smell is gone and lately I've read nothing but complaints. Apple really needs to step it up. I expected more of the iOS 6 announcement, like a Siri API for third party apps and better communication between apps. That is what's needed to even come close to the 80s Knowledge Navigator idea. I mean, the dictation part is nice, but otherwise, I haven't found much use for Siri.
- change playlists when when I'm working out or biking
- set the alarm when I go to bed
- reminders (a lot)
- the weather
- looking up something on wikipedia and imdb
- and sending short sms messages
I'd say my use has grown over the last few weeks as I'm biking a lot more. There was an initial trust issue, and I still sometimes have this weird feeling of being on the spot when I'm dictating to Siri, but otherwise best "app" on the phone for me.
I'm as big a fan of the Newton as anyone (I still have a Newton MP2000 in my nightstand -- I think it even has good batteries in it -- but there's a qualitative difference between something like this and the Newton (and arguing you could use the Newton with just your fingers is a stretch -- it required strong nails and considerable pressure).
I'm also a big fan of the iPad, but this definitely looks like something _worth criticizing_ (to paraphrase Alan Kay).
I think a big problem with this device as conceived is that most of the time I do not use my tablet neatly on a table, so the keyboard/cover is a cute gimmick, but only really of interest in limited cases (in much the same way as all the different keyboard options for the iPad, some quite clever, have proven a waste of time for me).
For crying out loud. Ofcourse styluses are the way to go if you want any degree of accuracy. The difference between yesterday and today is the difference between resistive and capacitive touch screens. In other words, the new type is far more sensitive and doesn't require having to tap a spot ten times to get it to register. Fingers are still good if you're doing things where accuracy is not important - e.g. tapping the screen to pause/play a video.
Good resistive screens are as responsive as capacitive, and they don't need a conductive stylus so you can easily flip between accurate and inaccurate modes. Seriously, if you get a chance to play with a Nokia N900, you'll see what I mean.
And it failed. I think the point is that it's nothing that anyone has tried recently, as the technology just hasn't been good enough. We're in a completely different world than the one in 1993. The question now is whether the technology today is good enough to be usable. No one else has tried it recently, meaning common understanding is that even today it's too complicated/not good enough. Until now.
Microsoft has been trying to sell stylus based tablets for years, and they never stopped: Windows for pen based computers, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, UMPC, Courier, Slate PC, etc etc.
I'm all for experimenting by releasing products in the wild, hoping that the next iteration will finally find its market. But seriously, it's getting a little ridiculous.
Computerized handwriting recognition will never be good enough because even people have trouble recognizing handwriting--even their own.
And once the recognition fails, you're left with computer text that needs to be corrected. How? With a keyboard. So most people just gravitate toward using the keyboard in the first place.
A stylus is better for drawing (see: Wacom) but most people don't draw.
Onenote is a really great compromise. The handwriting remains, and it converts to text in the background. It's not perfect, but it doesn't have to be.
As a TabletPC user and a lawyer, I've been waiting for this form factor for years. IMHO, the only reason the TabletPC didn't thrive is (i) short battery life, and (ii) weight/size. This machine is, to me, the great promise.
Yes. This machine may be The One. I've been craving a handwriting-friendly OneNote Extender for ~5 years. I envisioned it back then with e-ink for good battery life and as a dedicated, OneNote-only device. Times have changed.
I have the Samsung reference tablet from Build. The stylus works very very well. Being able to lay my hand on the screen and write accurately is great.
Stylus is optional on Microsoft's tablet though. You can use the tablet perfectly without a stylus. You may choose to provide some inputs by using a stylus.
Yes, Stylus is optional on my Galaxy Note. I thought I wouldn't use it, turns out I am constantly pulling it out. I think having the option to use a stylus is a fantastic idea.
"they have learned the hard way that styluses are not the way to go."
No, what they learned is that requiring an active matrix behind the screen consuming battery and weighting more(and adding $1000 per device in terms of licenses), is not the way to go.
But I'm pretty sure that Apple is considering it with other technologies(like the same touch tech they use today with hi res for stylus). Not as the main input, of course, but for drawing like you can do on paper.
This is the single most important thing I need on a tablet as an engineer-designer, drawing sketches on a tablet so I don't need paper.
I'm sure someone very early in human civilization thought fire was unviable because you could only get it from lightning. Who's going to go out in a thunderstorm to secure a fire before the rain puts it out? It'll never catch on.
I don't think MS is going after MBA. sure, keyboard may be nicer than bt keyboard for ipad, but that doesn't make it a laptop replacement. the os -- windows rt -- may be as restrictive as ipad is, quite different from the windows for desktop.
There is nothing inspiring in this product, at least they didn't answer a question: is there something new we can do with this tablet?
a) Only the ARM version is running Windows RT. The Intel version I wrote about is using "Windows 8 Pro", which contains the regular Windows desktop.
b) A BT keyboard for the iPad is something you need to select separately, and schlepp around inconveniently. A cover goes together with the device. Stuff like this matters.
As for whether it's doing anything new, dunno. The thing is that with products like this, it's a matter of degrees and refinement - at some point you cross a threshold and a concept works. That's why the iPad works, but Tablet PCs didn't.
The product most similar to the Intel-powered Surfcace + Touch Cover is the Android Transformer Prime with the optional keyboard dock. But the keyboard dock isn't as svelte as the Touch Cover, and Android doesn't have the application base of desktop Windows when used as a laptop replacement. And yet the Prime garnered a lot of interest. Microsoft seems to be in a unique position to offer this refined version of the idea.
This, plus a good SSH client and the Google apps app, makes a laptop redundant, and is a very nice cover and perfect airplane tray stand to boot (thanks to offsetting the screen away from the seatback in front of you).
I get that, but 95% of my iPad use is as a reference/reading device and I really don't need the keyboard or the (comparatively) short battery life of a MBA for that.
On the off chance I'm going to a meeting or an overnight, I swap Apple's smart cover for the Logitech which is also a smart cover.
I am writing this from a Transformer Prime, which has totally replaced my laptop. But I have to augment the Android OS with Debian to make the machine useful to me (which I run in a chroot jail).
I agree that Windows in such a form factor could be quite compelling to lots of users.
I think the Asus Transformer has a better form factor though since it does not need a desk to support the screen/keyboard--you can use it on your lap like a laptop.
It seems like the main advantage of the Surface will be Windows 8's ability to be used both as a mobile OS and as a desktop OS. In your case, Android doesn't let you run unported Linux programs and Debian, if you booted into it, wouldn't support touching the screen. If the Linux kernel supported the Transformer Prime's touchscreen, and if a touchable lightweight window manager were designed for mobile use, and if the Android emulator for Linux were much faster than it currently is, let's say by using full-speed virtualization or something, a tablet/laptop combo like the Transformer Prime would be the perfect computing device for me.
Mac OS X 10.7 and the future 10.8 are converging on iOS's UI, and I wouldn't be surprised if 10.9 or Mac OS 11 or Mac iOS or w/e the next Apple OS will be called will run on desktops and mobile devices. If so, it will be interesting to see if they merge the iPad and the MacBook Air into a Transformer Prime equivalent that has a full OS. If the Microsoft Surface becomes popular, maybe they'd even rush to do this under Mountain Lion and provide an iOS emulator/virtualizer or something. I get the feeling this will happen sooner than Linux meeting my above-stated requirements, but I'm optimistic that there will soon be at least one alternative to the Surface that runs something more powerful than Android
Do GTK and Qt work on it? Do desktop environments and window managers compile and run? Does most graphical software that compiles and runs on Linux, the BSDs, and Mac OS X compile and run on it? If so, this would be perfect.
Honestly I didn't know about a), so thanks for pointing out my mistake.
I just think keyboard cover is overrated in your argument. After all, it is peripheral, iPad can have one too, but that alone doesn't make a MBA killer. Low price + Unrestricted platform (open for all kinds of peripheral development) is the killer weapon. Oh, those USB ports are very nice.
The iPad doesn't come with a BT keyboard, but there are quite a few keyboard/cover combos available. It's not something that you have to "schlepp around inconveniently":
But these all look rather clunky and unattractive, and the point about needing to select among them still stands. They'll always be niche accessoires for that reason.
The Touch Cover is a sanctioned, obvious choice. It's simple to grok. The iPad doesn't have that yet.
It doesn't even matter if the clunky-looking ones perform better, or serve an edge case better.
This is Microsoft learning from Apple. What you're doing is a role-reversal of the situation where anti-Apple folks point to some obscure niche solution as equivalent to Apple integration.
Looking the other way round, any BT accessory created in your language/preference works with the iPad. I'm not holding my breath to see Microsoft covering every keyboard layout flavor existing around the world at launch of the surface.
That's just the edge case argument again, though. Obviously the iPad isn't a success mostly because it works great with your Siberian Dvorak BT keyboard.
Look, I'm not cheerleading Microsoft here: I'm a Linux desktop developer. If anything, I'm saying these things with a tinge of resignation (not about Microsoft specifically, but the way the market works - though I prefer to accept it as reality, and see it as a challenge).
Now, one thing that might be true: A sanctioned solution leaves less room for accessory makers, so that Siberian Dvorak keyboard may be more likely to be available for the iPad than the Surface, leaving the iPad as the obvious choice for Siberian Dvorak users.
jeffgreco's reply addresses it, but just to clarify, I wasn't thinking about mirrored dvorak keyboards or stuff I don't even know exists. More things like Canadian qwerty or japanese JIS keyboards, that are main stream in each country but will need special effort for Microsoft to manufacture. The ipad avoids the problem entirerly.
I don't own any sort of tablet or ultrabook (eg. mac air) or e-reader (kindle) because I don't like throwing money around. What I want is:
- Read ebooks/pdfs
- Browse the web
- Work (a text editor and git)
Ideally I would also like to:
- Download & watch videos/movies
- Something to hook-up to my TV
There is nothing in the market that can do these things. I could get a Kindle for reading, an iPad for browsing the web, and an ultrabook for work. This device is something I would buy (assuming a reasonable price) but the one drawback I see is Windows. Maybe Windows nowadays is a lot better than before and maybe it'll give it a chance. It all depends on the pricing.
I'm not looking to replace my primary computer. I'm looking for a secondary device (one device, not 2 or 3) that can do a handful of things that I most often need.
The main reason I want to hook a device like that with my TV is so that I can download and watch movies (from torrents). AFAIK you cannot do that on the iPad. I'm I mistaken?
You use a real computer to download the torrent. Then you use a real computer to transcode the movie for your iDumb device. Then you use real computer with iTunes to upload the transcoded movie to your iDumb device (you can skip this step and stream the movie to the iDumb device from your real computer which surprisingly is not called iAirPlay).
Either that or you purchase the movie in iTunes on your iDumb device and watch it there.
Finally makes sense? The "missing" puzzle piece was just a matter of time. Laptops are getting thinner and tablets are getting faster, now they are about to blend into one and microsoft was brave enough to make the change in software before the hardware was done.
They have a video on the main page. The video is a minute long. They have asked for my attention for a minute.
In that minute, they have not told me anything about what the Surface can do for me, and why I should care about it. I'm absolutely baffled by that.
Yes, I might know what it is, and have some idea about what it can do, but if this was a television commercial, I'd bet money that such a campaign would be a quickly forgotten failure.
Successful companies have learned that a (shockingly) large proportion of consumers form impressions and make decisions on a primarily emotional, rather than rational or practical, basis. That's what this video is designed for. It inaugurates the brand, piques the viewer's interest, and plants the seeds of desire.
Trust me, there will be plenty of time in the coming months for in-depth product reviews, spec comparisons, etc. ad nauseam.
But the entire site is crap. And I'll admit I'm saying that on a primarily emotional, rather than rational or practical, basis. The images are just straight links, the renderings are poor half-assed CAD drawings, and the colors make it seem like a play-dough ad.
I'm sorry, but this is not professional work. It looks like something I did in high school, in one weekend. As good as the product might be, the site is not good marketing, no matter how you spin it. It's shoddy and lazy. I'm honestly surprised at how poor it is.
It's entirely fair when it's in response to a claim like this: "It looks like something I did in high school, in one weekend."
Personally, I think the site is fine except that I'm getting some pixelation on some of the images (especially the main one, which is scaled to match the screen size). But then, I work for Microsoft.
Oh, I do too. The site is fine, you're right. But for a company with the amount of resources yours has, and for a product launch as important as this is, fine is not good enough. It needs to be exemplary. This isn't—it's just OK.
In other words, see the Verizon Droid ads that pushed android into being a major competitor to iOS..Android didn't do it all by themselves; Verizon put together commercials that evoked emotional responses that brought in the people who wanted the phone that was a robot.
But how much did those adds sell android versus somebody walking into the Verizon store lookinga for a better phone. Can we separate the two as the occured nearly simultaneously?
People weren't really looking for a better phone at the time, though. Everyone knew you had to go to AT&T to get an iPhone, and if they didn't want to change carriers or shell out $$ for the iPhone, they were fine with the cheap feature phone. Cue the Droid advertising campaign, which let people know there was a smartphone on Verizon that did pretty much everything the iPhone did for a bit cheaper. That's pretty much how I saw it go down, but maybe I missed something and it was your average Verizon store rep that upsold it enough to make android a contender.
Ok, your argument is that this stuff works for the other 95% but it won’t appeal to us hackers. My question to you is, how does Apple make ads that appeal to the rest of the world and something like 75% of the hackers?
When the iPhone first came out, there was no nonsense about the brand and emotion without substance. They made EVERYONE want one.
Microsoft may have chosen not to appeal to us. But Apple has shown that you can do both.
> Ok, your argument is that this stuff works for the other 95% but it won’t appeal to us hackers. My question to you is, how does Apple make ads that appeal to the rest of the world and something like 75% of the hackers?
Asking that question is like asking an Olympic sprinter why he can't be as fast as Usain Bolt, or scolding a successful musician for not selling as many records as Lady Gaga.
Compared to Apple, pretty much every company sucks at marketing. So what? Apple is an extreme outlier in its PR success, owing to a number of unique factors other companies cannot realistically replicate.
How would you answer your own question? Do you think there's a simple solution Microsoft hasn't figured out?
I said you, not us hackers. Perhaps an appropriate follow-up is, don't pretend you're HN. :P Others have answered about Apple and I don't remember everyone wanting an iPhone when it came out.
Perhaps it's because I haven't received my crystal ball in the mail yet (Soon! /crosses fingers), but people seem to be making absolute judgments of a few hours. Microsoft can have other ads and other ways to promote it; it wasn't 'one ad or die'.
What I got was mercury, dust/particulates, fractured minerals, and the sense of invasive magnetic fields. I think they were going for power and ... something. Instead I get toxicity, contamination, brittleness.
You're right. Where Apple tends to emphasize family, connectedness, ease of use, utility, and general happiness, Microsoft has chosen to emphasize technology in a harsh, dominant manner that reminds me of the Borg.
The imagery is amazingly negative and oppressive. Especially considering the market they are trying to sell into. The most positive aspect (?) to it is maybe the sense of dominating as opposed to being dominated.
Definitely doesn't make me want to buy one for a child or other family member.
Edit: I could see an image piece like this working as part of an XBox or game machine marketing. But seriously, the thing it makes me think of is a hypothetical Ridely Scott version of The Andromeda Strain.
Beauty != profit. If it makes people productive enough to offset the additional purchase cost (and then some), then I'm sure businesses would consider purchasing prettier devices.
Which one do you think he will understand? To which can he relate more?
(Btw. I don't say iCloud is good. Microsofts Skydrive on win8 (or whatever they're calling their cloud offerings now, I really don't have an overview anymore) seems quite compelling - but it seems to me like they can't really communicate well enough what it does.)
It's a shame the website had a white background, and the video had a black background. The borderless, chromeless video could have looked awesome if it had the same background color as the webpage itself - it would have merged in nicely.
Instead the video stood out as a black box - it looked a little incongrous just 'stuck there' in the middle of the page.
You got more than I did. I got slugged in the face by a demand for a silverlight update and then my browser crashed and I lost all my open tabs. I hate that.
And thank goodness a technologically competent company is hosting the advertising for this new technological product. Such hosting is apparently beyond the technological capabilities of the maker of said product.
Edit: Ok all snark aside, this looks a pretty freaking cool piece of hardware.
Still, the website being off-and-on down on launch day is pretty facepalm.
Still, the website being off-and-on down on launch day is pretty facepalm.
It might actually be a hidden benefit. When I saw the error messages I thought to myself "wow, there is a lot of demand for more news of this..." Therefore, I must know more! (refresh, refresh, refresh... ahh... interesting.)
For all intents and purposes this should never happen on launch day for a groundbreaking product, BUT, in this case the marketing folks at Microsoft should chalk this one up as a success. In a big company like Microsoft, a marketing effort that causes an infrastructure problem is a big win for the marketing guys.
Now, Microsoft has to deliver the product. And the infrastructure guys have to deal with the traffic while the marketing folks are toasting each other with champaign. There aren't any OEM partners at that party though...
If General Motors aired a commercial showing a stationary car, and some bouncing objects, my default reaction is not to go to a Chevrolet dealer to ask further questions. My default reaction is probably a non-reaction, which is to quickly forget what I just saw -- or more accurately, what I didn't see.
That's a misleading analogy. Microsoft's goal here is not to get you to visit a Microsoft store, since the device won't come out for months anyway. This is the first step in a months-long marketing campaign leading up to launch.
The goal is not to convey information, but rather to form an emotional bond, whether conscious or subconscious.
Definitely a teaser. I keep replaying it just for the music and I actually want one now, even though I don't have a use for a tablet. If anything can move me to buy a gadget I don't need it is a video like that. (especially if they guarantee kickstart on the back making that metallic sound :D)
Honestly (and I think I represent a certain segment here--the people that really are interested in a tablet but have to deal with Office and other Windows-shackled things) all they need to show is "Hey it's an iPod + Office so you can do your damn work sometimes without always lugging your laptop about". For the people that understand this, that's implied by the Windows logo. The closest I got to settling on an iPod/Android tablet was when OnLive came into existence. Partly, if I could just use OnLive from my linux workstation, I'd almost reach nerdvana and I wouldn't need my netbook for the windows anchorware. But I still sometimes need/enjoy thinking by scribbling with a pen on paper and I want a device for that. Smearing fingers doesn't cut it.
I wonder how large the market is for buyers with this sentiment. I believe that part of the appeal of the iPad (and iOS) is that it's not Windows on a tablet, but instead, a more intuitive computing experience.
One of the executives in my company was using Citrix on his iPad. He kept expecting the Citrix app to be, well, more app like. Instead he was stuck using a Windows application published by our Citrix farm on a touch interface. It wasn't a good experience, and now we're investigating converting a lot of our in house applications to iOS etc.
Now the Windows administrators? They're all over this type of thing, though they would never give up their workstations.
And do you think it makes sense to convert "a lot of our in house applications to iOS" because "one of the executives" hadn't a "good experience"?
I hope the investigation will take into account the costs and the benefits (benefits other than making this executive happy with his iPad, i mean)
I'm not criticizing you, this sh*t happens to me every time too... (executives that want toys etc..)
I noticed that as well. Us geeks know what it is but non-geeks are probably like, 'Is that a new iPad?' Contrast with Apple's iPad ads that show 'real' people actually doing things with the device.
and the video is a youtube embed.. you'd think microsoft would bother hosting the video on its own server when this is the centerpiece of the page announcing a completely new product.
Remember the original iPod commercials? They were completely devoid of "meaningful content"; it was just people dancing. Consumers went apeshit for it.
That was not the "original iPod commercial" that was an early iTunes-era iPod commercial. The original iPod pitch was "1000 songs in your pocket" which was great copy and got right to the point.
At least there was some convergence with the theme of music and enjoyment. The Microsoft ad is pretty abstract. Reminds me of the Mr. Plow ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTY5EKN6bzM
I'm actually a Windows user (although I own an iPad), but you have to be a bit humored by all this. As usual where Apple has used a feather Microsoft have used the whole chicken with keyboards, screws, different versions, the whole enchilada. I'm only surprised there's no stickers. "ClearType display"? really, you felt you had to brand it just to compete with "Retina display".
Despite all this the tablet might actually be good, and seeing another quality tablet contender is always good for competition. I am however getting a bit worried by Microsofts "me too"-attitude and the reek of desperation these days. They could be making awesome stuff but they lack follow-through and the finer points of taste
It's a pity they won't put their chips down on things that actually were original, like the courier or mainstreaming the surface (the table). In the end they didn't have any choice since they couldn't surrender their enterprise tablet/smartphone customers to Apple. The Courier was innovative but perhaps too niche so its not even sure that was a bad call.
I guess I'm just arguing about the finer points about their attitude and execution, with Microsoft I'm always afraid that in-company bureaucracy will manifest itself into some stupid decision on the consumers behalf. Apple are fanatics (and splending assholes in some cases), but atleast you feel they pretty much set the consumer first and have some taste
Having said all this I'm still kinda rooting for MS since they ironically enough seem to be the underdog nowadays, how the tables have turned...
ClearType has been around for a very long time. It's basically subpixel-rendering that improves the visual quality of text (sort of effectively tripling the LCD resolution). Last I checked, Microsoft had patented the hell out of it (and I last checked a few years ago).
I think they're right about touting a technology that effectively triples text-display resolution.
And for your other observation about the whole enchilada, look around you-- do you see people that use external keyboards with their iPad? These would be willing customers for a tablet that is actually is pen+touch+type (ditto with people who try and augment their iPad with screen pens, even on a screen that has trouble with palm touches).
Lastly, I'm skeptical about "companies-with-taste". Steve Jobs certainly had good taste, but I'm not sure the whole of Apple is comparably good. I think, sans Jobs, Microsoft is doing the best they can-- prototyping for months and trying to understand where they fit into a market.
I don't know how they're going to make subpixel anti-aliasing work if you can rotate the display. I wouldn't be surprised if they just are re-using the ClearType name and it's not actually sub-pixel anti-aliased, just regular anti-aliased (like the iPad).
The OS knows, at some level, the orientation it's displaying the screen in. So in principle, there's no reason it can't use subpixel rendering appropriately. Although it might be hard to achieve - I don't know how the graphics stack works.
Good point, since most pixels are taller than wide (it'd suck even more if they can't sub-pixel render in portrait mode, as it seems the more natural reading position).
Very true, big companies are usually as good as their despot. At least when it comes to taking risks and "saying no". Apple could go all-in because Jobs had the clout to give marching orders to the whole company. Microsoft has Ballmer, who is more of a salesman/business guy and probably with less clout (perhaps fortunately)
I too have a bit of worry for Apple now that Jobs is gone. Ive has taste and seems to have gotten some power to go with it. However, the next time it is time to go from evolution to revolution they won't have Jobs to kick them there.
If it makes you feel better, ClearType was a brand Microsoft has used since the late 90's/early 00's. I know it as some weird pixel display thing designed to make text look sharper in WinXP. But, it was a hidden option that required third-party software to reveal to me.
In Microsoft's world, they assume themselves to be the sun and thereby everything revolves around them and their cheesy need to synergize jargony things. Too bad momentum isn't in Microsoft's favor these days.
Thats what made it so funny. I can see the Microsoft meeting:
-Hey so everyone talking about this Retina thing how are we going to compete?
-Let's make up our own word! Do we have anything lying around we can use?
-Developer: Well, we have this ClearType thing but it's really more about software...
-Marketing Guy: Software Hardware, what's the difference. ClearType Display it is!
-Developer: I quit
All-in-all, it's a big, big play on Windows 8/RT. A kernel that can perform optimally on ARM/Intel on mobile devices and also support PC devices is a huge achievement - the entire thread-library would have to be one super-cool piece of software engineering. That and elsewhere within the OS, is where the innovation lies, in my opinion.
And now you can see why JavaScript was made a first-class language for the WinRT (not Windows RT) API - content-consumption via touch is now going to be a big feature for Win 8 and nothing serves this better than HTML5/JavaScript.
I'm kinda sad though, in a way, I always considered MS an engineering company - now it's gone the Apple way (which for all its merits is technologically ok-ish if not boring).
DOES it perform well though? And by that I mean things like native hardware video decompression without having too much impact on the battery, real-timeyness of the touch UI and overall low power consumption. These are IMO the underlying technologies where Apple innovated the most with their iOS platform and these metrics are yet to beat by others. Do we already have hands on tests with windows 8 on ARM? I at least haven't seen any.
"native hardware video decompression without having too much impact on the battery"
- that's actually where ARM and Intel innovated, not Apple - MS is probably mature enough to deal with processors at least as well as, if not better than, Apple.
As regarding tests, I haven't had access to devices running Windows on ARM - WOA is something of a mystery - they haven't released a full WOA SDK as far as I'm aware - although they do provide a cross-compiler for ARM in the upcoming Visual Studio. So yes, no concrete numbers here.
Yes, they're discouraging Win32 use overall (even in the x86/x64 space). But that does not mean you can't build native apps (ie non .NET) for WOA - you can use C/C++ out of the box. You are just bound to use MetroUI and WinRT as your primary APIs - both of which are native subsystems.
> And now you can see why JavaScript was made a first-class language for the WinRT (not Windows RT) API - content-consumption via touch is now going to be a big feature for Win 8 and nothing serves this better than HTML5/JavaScript.
I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion. I race for a native app when it comes to content consumption, and native is also required to provide the requisite stream DRM used by Netflix, HBO GO, etc.
Heck, I wish Netflix would hire a better development team and stop trying to do their app in HTML. It's poorly designed and frustrating to use.
It doesn't - it provides a perfectly equivalent platform.
In all cases, it will be the codecs registered with the OS that would be used - so the quality of the media cannot be better/worse.
Where this differs is from a developer perspective - you don't have to learn a non-standard UI API (XAML/WinForms/MFC/COM/ATL/Qt/Gtk/Swing/awt/whatever) or a language you're not familiar with (C#/C++/Java - pick any). But you can be sure that the experience will be precisely the same - no API hacks to achieve something specific, nothing at all.
What makes those platform APIs useful are all the tools they provide to simplify the creation of great, well-performing UIs that exceed the user's expectations.
It's an intriguing assertion, but there are too many variables. Which would really look better for rendering video or text at sub-optimal resolutions? 1920x1080 video or desktop stretched on the RD? Surface RT? It seems to me the safer bet would be that it depends on the task and the context. I'd bet money someone will do an appropriate comprehensive usability study within a year.
You mean a compact music player with a 2.5" HDD, room for 5GB of music, with 20 minutes of skip protection, a FireWire port for 50MB per second transfer, a click wheel for navigation, and a user friendly interface?
You're right! I remember it being one size smaller than the other HDD players at the time. I thought it was the 2.5" that had just come out, but it was 1.8".
I had an Archos before the iPod came out. A tiny bit bigger than the iPod would be, but a 30gb hard drive, usb 2.0, and a much better way to find music than a wheel.
Archos killed the iPod. The iPod was one of the first times I distinctly recall thinking that actual fashion (like Vogue magazine) could trump pragmatics and technology in the tech sector.
A lot of people try to compete against Apple in design. Wrong. Apple isn't doing design, as much as they're doing fashion.
If they were doing fashion, they would change to a new look every year. Remember the disappointment when the iPhone 4S kept the iPhone 4 design? Apple doesn't care about fashion, they care about good design.
I'm not going into an originality discussion, certainly that argument has been made thousand of thousand times on forums all over the internet.
Very few companies are truly original. Even fewer are successful while being truly original. But having the guts to go all in, be consistent and going that little extra mile will get you pretty far.
I agree with your thoughts about originality, but people always saying Apple does everything original is wrong. For both Microsoft, Apple and others they'll rarely ever launch something that's truly original.
Apple's timeline was iPod > iPhone > iPad
(You could even argue that without the theft of millions of songs aka MP3's Apple wouldn't be bankrupt).
Microsoft's timeline was DOS > Windows > Server Products > Dynamics etc.
I would say it's very rare that doing something completely different than your baseline business is going to work. For that reason and the fact that the shareholders want you to be profitable is why you'll not see very many established companies pushing the edge.
I occasionally use a Bluetooth keyboard with my iPad when I feel like firing off a bunch of email from my recliner. The keyboard is on my lap and the iPad is off to the side. It's nice because it's literally the exact same keyboard I use with my laptop and my desktop.
The Surface's attached, floppy keyboard wouldn't work for me at all. If I need to set up at a desk then I'll just pull out my laptop.
The concept of a screen-cover/keyboard is interesting, but I'm not sure how practical it is in real life. Virtually 100% of the time I use my iPad it (or its BT keyboard) is on my lap. (As I type this I'm sitting on a lawn chair on my patio). And if it's not a full stroke keyboard then I don't see it as being very comfortable to use.
I also dislike the 16:9 screen. On a tablet, 16:9 is useless for everything but movies: Too wide to thumb-type in landscape, too narrow and tall in portrait.
I also suppose they'll be able to severely undercut OEM manufacturers on price, especially of this thing stumbles out of the gate. If I were Dell or HP I would seriously question how to move forward.
But ultimately success will depend on the software. Microsoft is going to be ramming Metro down the throats of faithful Windows users in a few short months. If users love it, they'll surely flock to Metro tablets where they can use the apps they've already collected on their desktops, and Surface becomes the quick number 2 tablet. If they hate it, Metro and Surface will be about as popular as Vista and Zune.
If I need to set up at a desk then I'll just pull out my laptop.
Then you're not in the target audience.
And if it's not a full stroke keyboard then I don't see it as being very comfortable to use.
Then you're not in the target audience.
I also dislike the 16:9 screen.
Then you're not in the target audience.
Remember when Apple went on about the "post-pc world"? This is that. And that is successful. People like it. They can watch a movie in its native aspect ratio at full screen, and also put this at a desk and type, wherever that desk may be.
I was in a meeting with a division of IBM this morning, and one of their engineers pulled out his iPad, propped it up on the folding cover, and proceeded to peck away on the virtual keyboard while taking notes. I asked him to look up specs and pricing for a bit of hardware. He looked at the iPad, then reached down to pull out his Thinkpad to look up the information.
Even if you don't accept that the general market will buy this, you have to admit that a full-featured desktop Windows x86 OS running smoothly on a 10" tablet with an integrated full laptop-style keyboard that also will keep you entertained watching 16:9 movies on the flight back is a pretty appealing concept.
I could see something like this replacing my corporate Thinkpad just for the sheer convenience of being able to pick it up and move it to someone else's desk while still working. With HDMI-out, I can drive a second monitor as well. That's pretty spectacular.
> Even if you don't accept that the general market will buy this, you have to admit that a full-featured desktop Windows x86 OS running smoothly on a 10" tablet with an integrated full laptop-style keyboard that also will keep you entertained watching 16:9 movies on the flight back is a pretty appealing concept.
They're trying to pre-empt anyone for capturing the tablet/mobile space by rushing their design concept out before anyone else has a chance to produce product, and force everyone to ape Microsoft's claimed, rather than actual, featureset.
Just "who" is it you think they are trying to rush? Certainly not Apple, and aside from the Fire/Nook Tablet is their an Android tablet that hasn't been dead on arrival (800 dollar Xoom anyone)?
If this was vaporware they were pushing in an attempt to get ahead of the market instead of playing catch up they would have put this out in 2010 instead of halfway through 2012.
If they can price the thing realistically (again, 800 dollar Xoom anyone?) it will have a shot otherwise it will fail (I'd really prefer it to succeed) and they'll try and spin it by saying it's targeting "the enterprise".
To dissect the frog for you: the "look at teh shinay" with an absence of (or grossly overinflated) specs was the standard MO for Microsoft through much of the 90s.
I'm pointing out that such tactics are not particularly effective when there are existing products which have not only captivated the public's eye, but also captured much of the market. Yes, I'm aware that Android are registering 900,000 new activations. Per day.
By some reports, Microsoft's prior Great White Hope in the mobile space, the Kin, sold a total of 500 units through Verizon. I'm seeing significant marketing for the Nokia N900 Windows phone while reading about spectacular business concerns with Nokia. I'm not holding out great hopes for Microsoft's Surface. I'm thinking it may prove to be a tad ... unstable.
Sure, there are some nifty design features that might well be ripped off by others (steal from the best, as the Krell say), including cover-as-keyboard, but as for the rest of it, I'll see it when I believe it.
Quick reference for those who don't recognize the significance of Microsoft's previous vaporware abuses. And no, again, I'm not saying that "Surface" is same, at least not in the way of being able to torpedo an existing market. But as they say, history may not be repeating, but it's rhyming.
is their an Android tablet that hasn't been dead on arrival
There have been millions of Android tablets sold. In most product spaces that is an incredible success, and it's only relative to the astonishing success of the iPad could that be called "dead on arrival".
And that was the rather terrible phase one. The incomplete Honeycomb, the rather terrible Tegra 2, and toothing pain hardware.
I've noticed my online electronic store absolutely pushing the next wave - the A700, 7" tablets of all sorts, etc. All of them finally featuring price advantages over the iPad.'
Anyone who buys the Android failed on tablets thing has been misled. It has been an ugly adventure but they're actually doing okay, and have set a pretty good foundation for success going forward.
This is true, only if you compare every android tablet across manufacturers. People who like to tout android vs apple love to do this. But the fact is, android tablets have not been a success for a single manufacturer. There's only so long companies will keep dumping money down this rabbit hole hoping to get lucky.
Android tablets have been a success for Google. for everyone else, not so much.
They're also arguably a success for those who are interested in building off the platform. While Google certainly counts, I suspect this goes beyond them.
As far as the hardware goes, I suspect it's going to be a very low-margin market. Razors to the blades.
Correct. I can see here locally that many, many Android tablets are sold on regular basis. $100-$300 price range, manufacturers that I've never heard of (yarvik gotab, goclever, prestigio, archos, ...), marketed everywhere - even with flyers in mailboxes and so on. And many people buy them.
Anyone know what a Micro HD video connector is? Does that mean Micro HDMI?
Ironic that they go with MiniDP on the Pro when everyone cries for the lack of HDMI on the iPad. On the Pro, 900g is quite hefty, and 13mm is quite tall. Even 676g is tough to swallow given people called the iPad 1 heavy (712g) and rejoiced when the iPad 2 lost 112g.
Also, knowing that the battery is foobar Wh tells me shit unless I know the system wattage. Seriously can't they say about 10h of playing mp4, which actually means something?
I may look a bit bashing, but I'm honestly thrilled to know more about this.
Microsoft always leaves the specific details to the OEM, such as hard drive capacity, screen resolution, hardware components, etc. They may have an increasingly more advanced set within the "Minimum Specs Required", but nevertheless they only provide the licensed OS to the Hardware OEM.
This is a device that Microsoft is building (well, contracting to build undoubtedly) and selling with their own name on it. They are the OEM here, and they'll be setting 100% of the hardware specs.
2012 is the year third party OEMs start to go extinct. First (and always) Apple, now Microsoft, soon Google/Motorola. There may be some niche markets left over for third party OEMs but otherwise I think they're done. No wonder HP wanted out of the PC industry. Maybe they knew something we didn't?
HP went through 4 CEOs, bought and dismantled Palm for no reason and at great capital loss, announced and then rescinded their departure from the PC industry. It's well known HP doesn't know anything about anything.
Industry consolidation is only a good thing when the competition it provides drives innovation. When all the players in an industry wallow around at the same level of mediocrity, that isn't really market diversity. The current tablet market is not a healthy one. It has apple at one end, and a theoretical other end that doesnt really matter. Squeezing out 15 companies that don't matter to make room for one competitor which has a chance is not a bad thing.
I don't think of it as consolidation... I think of it sorta in the way Joel describes consumer routers in his last post http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/06/because-everyone-st.... There's a lot I'm working out in my head about this, so let me spit out some points for you to consider:
- the increasing move to *aaS (look at OnLive, for example)
- the reports that MS wants to charge >$60 for Windows RT licenses even on <$500 devices
- the difficulty companies like Google and MS have competing toe to toe with Apple's vertically integrated devices
It's a narrow consolidation however, that's been ongoing for quite a while. Do you really miss Packard Bell, or any of the other interchangeable Windows OEMs? Sony, for all it's eclectic design decisions is the only memorable one out of the bunch and it typically delivers overpriced junk that has more lock in than anyone wants to remember.
Microsoft knows that Windows 8 has to succeed. Clearly it does not trust Dell, HP, Lenovo et al to build machines that shows the OS in its best light to help it succeed. So long and thanks for all the fish OEMs.
Right now Meg Whitman is probably regretting deep sixing WebOS.
"Clearly it does not trust Dell, HP, Lenovo et al to build machines that shows the OS in its best light to help it succeed."
Who could blame them?
Third party laptop vendors have been manufacturing crap for the last decade. The only exception is the thinkpad line(I own one), which mainstream consumers see as ugly. Hardware wise, every other laptop manufacturer has done little to impress or innovate, they're all about two years behind Apple, and any time they try to innovate they have all failed miserably.
On the software side, many of them bloat an excellent Windows 7 with tons of crapware.
I wonder if Microsoft can compete with Apple on the manufacturing side. Apple's manufacturing operations are highly polished and streamlined. While Microsoft, who do manufacture some very decent keyboards, webcams, and other accessories, are relatively inexperienced with manufacturing consumer electronics on a massive scale.
Edit: For Some reason I forgot about Xbox and Kinect. So yes, they do have extensive manufacturing experience, but boy was the Original Xbox a disaster with the RROD.
> Edit: For Some reason I forgot about Xbox and Kinect. So yes, they do have extensive manufacturing experience, but boy was the Original Xbox a disaster with the RROD.
There's manufacturing consumer electronics and then there's manufacturing consumer electronics profitably.
This is where Apple shines and Microsoft shows that they need to learn a thing or two.
Not only is Apple building far more iPad/iPhone/iPod/Mac than Microsoft is building Xbox, its hardware divisions are profit machines whereas Microsoft makes comparatively little profit on its hardware.
Actually, The entertainment/devices division had a loss of $225 million last quarter.
> "boy was the Original Xbox a disaster with the RROD."
The original Xbox, the one the MS bureaucracy left alone, was as solid as any other consumer electronics device. The Xbox 360, the one the MS bureaucracy pushed through manufacturing despite known problems solely so they could 'beat' Sony to market, was the disaster.
And that raises an unfortunate concern: did the MS bureaucracy rush this out to 'beat' the heavily-rumored first-party Google tablet?
Because user-acceptance of the schizophrenic OS may still be an open question, but it's not going to be remotely answered if this thing shows up with build problems.
So this is hardware manufactured and sold under the Microsoft brand? Wow. That's a big re-alignment. I think you are right about this being the endgame for third-party builders.
Anyone know anything about this side of Microsoft? I assume the actual fab is done by anonymous Asian companies. How much of the design (nuts and bolts engineering, I mean) is done in-house and how much is contracted to established hardware manufacturers. (i.e. Does Samsung or the like have a piece of this pie?)
> 2012 is the year third party OEMs start to go extinct
That's very unlikely for Google and Motorola. Google needs the market fragmented so that Apple doesn't dominate it. In order to maximize it, they need OEMs making slightly incompatible devices so that de jure standards dominate over de facto ones.
Actually I'd say its more likely for Android OEMs. Currently Samsung is the only Android vendor making money, everybody else is barely breaking even or is losing money. At some point basic economics will kick in forcing the vendors to get out of the market while they still can.
As a happy iPad owner, and with knowing next to nothing just from first impressions, I can say this genuinely looks like a very intriguing effort by Microsoft. I love the smart cover with keyboard and it looks to be a perfect platform to showcase Win8 on. Hope this gets some real success, would be great to have some decent competition in the tablet space to keep Apple on their toes (I know there are other tablets, but they suck or are just trying to be ultra cheap etc).
Shit website, shit marketing, and shit video aside, I'm seriously intrigued.
Microsoft has five cards to play here:
- REAL Windows (TM) and Massive Microsoft Developer Mindshare
- Ports, ports, ports!
- REAL Microsoft Office (TM) INCLUDED FREE on the low-end model
- PEN AND KEYBOARD!
- Billions of dollars in cash to burn making this happen
And they have three huge challenges in front of them:
- Windows 8 critical reception
- Their ability to execute
- They will be shipping these, at best, about two months before iPad 4 ships
Execution is going to be everything. Make this a work-friendly wonderbox that effortlessly supports Exchange, remote management, SharePoint, SkyDrive, SMB, OneNote, and Communicator/Lync? The iPad will blow off conference tables like crepe paper.
Make a fussy little piece of shit that takes the same amount of work to set up as a laptop or otherwise scares off IT? Doom.
> Shit website, shit marketing, and shit video aside, I'm seriously intrigued
Given the last statement, it appears the marketing has done something right. It is a 'coming soon' product. All it is a tab running windows 8 so making someone seriously intrigued is a marketing win. At this point they don't want to give you all the facts to make your purchase decision. They want to build interest and excitement.
Personally I think they will have messed up if this is not for sale very soon as interest and excitement are quickly lost.
I'm not quite that charitable. Any marketing firm worth their salt can put 60 seconds of good sizzle in a tape. This is classical vapor without pricing, models, specifics, premiere launch titles, retailing partnerships, or even a launch quarter.
I'm interested because Windows has an avalanche of great software, and I think it might be great having Windows In Glass With A Pen And A Keyboard.
The biggest problem with everything presented today is that it's going to spend its first product cycle competing against iPad 4 running iOS 6. And I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that Apple has an equivalent Keyboard Cover all ready to go if the winds start blowing that direction.
So, to recap, no price, no demo of what it can actually do or why I would want one, two models with different processor architectures and significantly varying weights (1.5 and 2 lbs), awkward portrait 16:9 aspect ratio, no mention of battery life or availability, vents and cooling fans, two keyboards that look miserable to type on, but I'll reserve judgement until I've used one myself, and an admittedly useful kickstand.
This strikes me as a reactionary announcement from Microsoft. The surface is trying to be all things to all people. An iPad killer it is not. Still, I can't fault them for trying; their future rests on sales of Office and Windows.
two models with different processor architectures and significantly varying weights
God forbid they release models for the two processors they support. You'd never see Apple making different models with different processor architectures and different weights.
awkward portrait 16:9 aspect ratio
Sort of like every laptop on the market right now. They're all really awkward.
no mention of... vents and cooling fans
Perimeter venting. See [1] and search for "venting". They did mention this.
This strikes me as a reactionary announcement
Reactionary announcements tend not to be well-planned or thought out months or years ahead of time. A product with this tight of tolerances can't be rushed in a defensive move. Is it a reaction to the changing world of computing? Yes. It is a reactionary move as in immediately defensive? No.
The surface is trying to be all things to all people.
That's been Microsoft's mantra since day one. A computer in every home, on every desk. Running Windows.
While it may look like a handy tablet that's able to convert into a thin and light laptop computer through the use of one of their keyboard covers, it's not by any means. A kickstand doesn't rest on someone's thighs with any acceptable measure of stability. So what does that make the Surface then if it's not a notebook computer, a desktop? Okay, let's run with that. Prop this thing on your desk with this case maneuver every time you'd want to use it as a desktop computer. Is a 10.7 inch display really acceptable when you're sitting at a desk and farther away from the display than you would be if it were on your lap? I don't know about you, but this seems like a nonstarter for anything but a Metro app. Would anyone want to use either one of those keyboards? Microsoft hasn't even made any mention of their size. Are they full-sized keyboards like the one found on the 11.6" MacBook Air, or is it scaled down like those finger-hating netbook keyboards?
This is the crux of the problem with the Surface: it's a mediocre computer, and a mediocre tablet. Microsoft should have shot for making a great tablet, or a great notebook. I'm taking the liberty of calling it a mediocre tablet based on the heft and size of the thing. You mention 16:9 being on every laptop in the market, which is fine, since nobody turns their laptop on their side and views anything in portrait mode like they do on a tablet. 16:9 tablets in portrait look insanely tall.
Also, by having two different architectures, consumers will run into the problem of not being able to run apps that work on the Surface for Microsoft Windows 8 on Intel on their Surface for Microsoft Windows RT (these names roll off the tongue, for people who browse HN and Reddit I'm sure we can handle it, but someone like my sister, girlfriend, dad? Not a chance).
Why no pricing or availability? By announcing something 4-5 months in advance, Microsoft risks the public forgetting and/or not caring about Surface tablet when it's actually released. It has a vaporware vibe to it when there isn't a hard release date or window. Say what you will about Apple but when they announce a new product, they almost always give it price and release date so you can actually walk into a store and buy their product. Microsoft isn't showing a lot of confidence by saying it will be priced competitively with other tablets and having no availability.
I'm still not sure if it includes cooling fans, if it's just a vent then that's a non-issue.
You're right about Microsoft's mantra, but that was before they made their own hardware. When they just licensed software, they wanted Windows everywhere. On your desktop, notebook, smartphone, kiosk, etc. Now that they're in the computer hardware game, they need to sell these Surface tablets at a profit (obviously), and I don't see them doing that when the Surface doesn't excel at any one function as well as a full-blown desktop computer or an iPad.
One last thing, Microsoft making PC hardware puts their OEM partners in a really awkward position. Think of it, they have to pay Microsoft a license fee to run Windows on their hardware in order to compete with Microsoft? That blows my mind, I can only guess some of these partners will move to Android which is (kind of) free.
I think the case is what is most interesting. Keyboard + trackpad.
Good bet by Microsoft. They are trying to shift the tablet market away from "a bigger smartphone" and back into their bread & butter desktop environment. They hope to leverage their ecosystem of apps on Windows and couldn't really do that with just a touch interface.
I'm excited to see what it feels like when it is released. I'll be honest, I'm not convinced that I'll be able to deal with the context switching between traditional and metro UI's (+ touch and trackpad input methods), but I'll certainly give it shot. Best of both worlds if Microsoft pulls it off.
If this lives up to the promise, it will definitely replace my netbook. This looks like something that will perform well as a tablet for apps and light internet usage, and is an easy form-factor to take to a coffeeshop for some hacking or writing as a netbook replacement.
EDIT: Why downvote ?? I don't care about the points, just curious if you are MS haters or something.
I'm very excited by the i5 packing version with DisplayPort out; being able to take the same device from your bedside table to reading on the train to cranking out code at work is the Star Trek-esque vision of computing I've had in my head since I was a toddler, and it's nice to see it finally starting to come to fruition.
I agree with you. This is the device I want. I want a device that I can take with me, plug into a proper monitor, keyboard and mouse when I need to work, but use as a tablet when on the move or when lazing around.
A lot of people praise VS - I just don't see it. It's so bloated, so slow, and so ugly. It takes 60 seconds to open on my high quality workstation and it crashes if you click the mouse when you're not supposed to.
See, I always get this response, but no one has yet to prove to me that VS can open and be ready to use in less than a minute. I'd like to see video, until then I'll keep believing VS users are incapable of keeping time.
Actually, I was responding to the bit about it crashing when you move the mouse wrong.
Complaining about how long VS takes to start up is about as useful as complaining about how long it takes the computer to boot. Neither are part of my daily work flow. I don't shutdown the computer, and I don't generally close VS 2010.
Anyway, I was curious and I timed it. I clocked about 12 seconds to completely start VS2010 on a computer with a spinning disk. And just for you, I made a video.
Do you use resharper? I had a nasty issue with something involving resharper and/or mercurial and/or my SSD where it would take 10 seconds to change documents and literally 10 minutes to close after a day's work. I re-cloned my project, started working out of the new repo and it was snappy again. Went from 10 minutes to close VS to about 5 seconds.
Mine opens in exactly 1 second. But of course, it all depends on the machine specs. I have an i7 2600k, with a vertex 3 ssd. That makes it super quick.
Is it a high quality PC or some overrated super hyped Apple workstation ? Cause on my 3 years old PC with a new SSD I just blink and I can start typing code. If it has no SSD .. it's not high enough :D.
Ugly, bloated ??? Omg, youtube.com/watch?v=G1iaVD-B2IA
I just clicked again on a small project just to see the load time. I'm not bullsh*ting but it was up and ready in ~3 seconds.Quadcore 2.5Ghz on some 3 years old Asus MB with 4Gb RAM and a brand new SSD (Crucial m4 i can recommend).
Alright fine I believe you. I can't pinpoint why I have such an issue with VS. I mean, I don't have much use for it since I'm a(n) RoR developer, but I don't really know why I hate it so much. Freshman year of high school I took my first CS class in Visual Basic and I really liked it.
The Xbox 360 was one of the worst user interfaces I've used in a long time.
They forced me to register an account and enter information in about 20 text fields using my xbox controller before I could do anything with the device. After being pissed at that, it started spinning up its fans and sounded like a small airport.
That was the point when I first thought about returning it to the store (which I later did).
I know that it has been a while since they released it, but the missing attention to detail was always one of Microsofts biggest Problems. They usually seemed to strive for "good enough" rather then perfection. I really hope they are able to change that with their new line of products.
In which the return was handled pretty well. It was a fairly painless procedure when I turned mine in, call them up, spend 5 minutes on the phone, they send you a box with free shipping and another one is dispatched to you as soon as they receive the one you sent. They then redesigned it to prevent the issue happening again.
As someone who considers the current MacBook Air to be "the computer", enough to have made it my primary and only machine, the MacBook Air from four years ago was horrible: I laughed at my friends that got it, and I laughed all the harder when they didn't use it for months and then got a usable laptop. The 2010 Air is honestly barely the same device as the one from 2008.
My point: pulling statements from four years ago and attempting to claim that they were wrong because the same words said today are silly or hypocritical is a little dishonest. (The classic example of this: the original iPhone running the original iPhone OS was actually not very good. Yet, people now make fun of people who claimed that, as some newer iPhone running the latest iOS is finally amazing.)
The same was true of the original iPhone. No 3g. $600 with a contract. No third party apps. Yet people routinely quote everyone (me included) who said it sucked and wouldn't sell well, even though it did miss its sales targets even after price drops.
That's just the way pontificating works in the internet age.
To start with, the 13" model (the only one available in 2008) isn't even that (ultra)portable; it is sure thin, but in comparison to that FSC Q2010 it is a monster: it is 50% heavier with an additional inch of width and half an inch of depth.
In exchange for being more consistent in its thickness (despite having almost identical thickest points), the FSC Q2010 ends up with a plethora of ports: in addition to an ethernet port (although one that requires an adapter), you had ExpressCard, an SD card slot, an external microphone jack, and two USB ports.
Now, looking back to the Air, one of the interesting design choices they went with in 2008 was to get rid of the ethernet port entirely. This is not as much of a problem with the later Airs, and not for the reason you might think... (it isn't just that WiFi became more plentiful).
Instead, the MacBook Air 2010/2011 came with two USB ports, and the 2012 model adds a thunderbolt port: it is totally fine to use an adapter on a random extra port. Instead, the 2008 MacBook Air had a single USB port; this, combined with the mini display port, was the only extensibility on the device.
In essence, everything you could possibly attach to this device but the monitor had to go in to the one port, so if you wanted 1) cellular or wired internet and 2) an iPod/iPhone, you couldn't do it. I had a friend that was travelling and ended up sitting outside of a hotel in his car trying to steal enough WiFi just to upgrade his phone to the latest firmware.
However, it isn't just these external inconveniences that defined this device; to get an idea of just how spartan the 2008 MacBook Air was, you have to realize that they didn't even manage to get stereo speakers into it: yes, the thing had only one mono speaker. This was fixed in the 2010 versions. ;P
While the RAM configuration on the 2008 MacBook Air trounces your FSC Q2010 (a device that, despite its name, seems to have been sold in 2006?), it still couldn't go past 2GB, which even at the time (the contemporary MacBook Pro took 4GB) limited your options as a developer, or even a browser of many websites. In 2010 they upped it to 4GB maximum.
Looking at the 2006 specifications for this FSC Q2010, it is ludicrous just how much stuff they stuck in it.... I mean, you had a 2G cellular radio... the people I know who travelled with the Air had to carry around a massive USB dongle to accomplish that (as in 2008, phone tethering wasn't yet that common or convenient).
In essence, no: I'd argue that the MacBook Air, in 2008, was a horrible device that was mostly based on some kind of weird design fetish of "how thin can I make a computer housed in a metal case". It was not really attempting to be a usable system: it was at best a proof-of-concept for what, after two years of re-engineering effort, they might be able to make into an awesome machine.
The result at the time was then large (width/depth), underpowered (RAM/CPU), under-featured (mono speakers), and unextensible (a single port); this is even in comparison to computers that had come out years earlier (the 2006 FSC Q2010) that were significantly lighter (2.2lbs vs. 3.0lbs).
So, let me see if I got this right. From the live blog:
Surface for Windows RT coming in 32GB and 64GB models. Priced "like comparable tablets based on ARM."
This is the one that won't run Windows programs. Right now, there are little to no apps that are made for it. It's also the one without full HD screen. And they'll still try to sell them for $400-$600.
Pro coming in 64GB and 128GB models, will be priced on par with Ultrabook-class PCs.
That's the Intel Core tablet, which needs vents. Priced at $900-1100. More expensive than any other tablet on the market. Needs the thicker keyboard cover, but will run Windows programs.
If the enterprise market is happy with the functionality, they won't care about the price differential since it's not too far off a decent notebook. But the consumer market will not buy this if it's priced the same as an iPad. Look at the dismal sales of the Lumia phones.
I think it's pretty safe to say that this is Microsoft going all in on the consumer market.
1. Video doesn't really show anything but it is admittedly well made.
2. You have to actually download the tech specs.
3. The tech specs have little meaning. (At first glance what is ClearType HD Display, some sort of Retina?)
It's like they took the apple philosophy even further.
Not sure how I feel about this but I guess now finally all the windows people have what the metro really is made for.
Oh and a little detail.
2100 Likes so far and not a single tweet (which obviously can't be true for reasons I am not yet aware of.)
And apple of course had it right. If you want to bring something new to the table, call it something new. Don't mix unrelated terms in a monster called ClearType HD Display.
Something new, and meaningful too. Retina is a specific reference to the limits of the human eye, it tells you pretty directly what DPI a display should have at a given viewing distance.
I think the best part about all the people making the comment about "Microsoft trying to copy Apple's Retina" is that Microsoft's "ClearType" has been around for so, so many years longer (I remember seeing it in Windows XP, but it may have even come in before that).
Microsoft has been using the name ClearType for years, but for something completely different: subpixel hinted font rendering. This "ClearType display" has nothing to do with that, besides the name.
From what I've read, this is just their continual expansion of ClearType (which was not intended to be synonymous with subpixel font rendering, but rather a larger framework for which the subpixel font rendering was merely a component).
I believe the 2100 likes is due to the fact that they basically took over the URL (http://www.microsoft.com/surface) from the Surface computing platform that they had been working on with Samsung, and the likes are probably residual (Facebook likes are linked to a URL)
> At first glance what is ClearType HD Display, some sort of Retina?
They say "ClearType HD display" and "ClearType Full HD display". I'd take this to mean 720p and 1080p respectively, so a bit of a way off "retina" in the iPad context.
You see someone using an iPad, how big it is, how simple it is to use, what it's capable of doing, and you can immediately think the possibilities.
Microsoft's video shows some dark crumbling rocks and dust, and this strange tablet device with different colored keyboards. There is some shaking and wind blowing and hammering. It barely scratches the surface (ha ha) of what the device can do.
I can't impute any desirable value here except from what I can derive from other Windows devices, which is that the thing will probably require Norton AntiVirus and will blue screen on occasion.
Microsoft on Monday unveiled one of the most imaginative and intelligently designed PCs the world has ever seen. Or: Microsoft unveiled yet another iPad copycat, only with fewer apps and a lower screen resolution.
Which one is it? It's impossible to know. That's because it's not clear yet what Surface, Microsoft's self-designed tablet PC, truly wants to be.
This is problematic from a marketing and a product perspective. If you can't project the value of the device even when someone's using it, then it's hard to generate desire for it, and that spells trouble.
I don't see a sticker telling me what kind of processor is in inside, nor do I see a sticker telling me which version of Windows this is. I'm a bit confused.
Microsoft is trying to straddle two models and risks failing at both. The Surface will apparently be both a touch based device but also a more traditional desktop. The problem will be when buyers expect desktop performance out of a lower power device. For applications that are designed for a touch interface from the start, it's comparatively easy to optimize for performance, or at least the appearance of performance and responsiveness. But load up something huge with a heavy footprint (Office/Outlook etc) and it's a different kettle of fish.
If MS can pull this off, while still hitting battery life and price points, hats off to them.
Without having seen the product, I'd say that its fortunes will be based largely on its price point. They need to have a compelling offering in the $499 range, or this is going to be a blip on the iPad/Kindle Fire market.
That's what RIM thought. It's not clear that there's a "business tablet" market separate from the "consumer tablet" market.
Similarly, there was at one point a vibrant "business mobile phone" market as distinct from the "consumer mobile phone" market. That distinction has been erased, killing RIM in the process. The jury is out as to whether there will be a viable business tablet market. My money says no, that at a significantly higher price point than the iPad, business users will continue to buy laptops.
The distinction still exists in theory it's just that "business mobile phone" started to seriously lag behind "consumer mobile phone". But Apple is not setup for (nor do they seem to care about) the business market.
The business market seems like it would be a huge opportunity for Microsoft to bring Apple-like technology to the business side. However, they seem far more interested in chasing Apple and Google in the consumer market.
While a horrible launch approach (no price, no availability, no info on cpu or ram) I will be keeping my eye on this, and looking for a chance to test drive in a brick/mortar.
This could become an amazing travel device, but not holding my breath.
Waving shiny gadgets in the air without announcing price and (imminent) availabiilty is also not the way things are done anymore. And we do have Apple to thank for that.
Exactly - I'm trying to think of a recent Apple product launch where they didn't give the price up-front. Both the iPad and the iPhone, which were announced several months before they were launched, were given prices at the keynotes.
Assuming that Apple and the iPad is "the way things are done these days", then there's plenty of in depth specs available: http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/
Exact pixel resolution and ppi of the screen.
Number of CPU cores and the precise CPU model.
Exact listing of wireless protocols and bands supported.
Megapixel counts of the cameras and video recording format limits.
It would be nice to have even this data for the Surface.
If I am going to replace my on the go coding environment (which a Win 8 Intel tablet could be) I care about ram/cpu. Especially in a multi-tasking environment.
It may not matter for applications designed for a constrained environment (Apple/Android), but if I'm going to load up a big honking IDE on a Windows/Intel box, it starts mattering.
There's a good reason for that. These are going to run Windows 8, they have to, but Windows 8 isn't coming out for months yet. If they announced these the day of Windows 8's release they'd lose out on a lot of business because people would have already made other purchasing decisions in the interim. Windows 8 ready ultrabooks, ipads, etc. Now they're giving people enough time to change their minds before they've pulled the trigger and spent their money.
If they don't ship before the holiday season, they'll be setting themselves up for failure. Apple will be releasing a new iPad in February, so the consumer market will be toast for them. Tablet growth continues to explode, and by the end of 2013, it's conceivable that tablet sales will outpace traditional PCs:
I'm not sure they can. They don't have the supply chain advantages that Apple has developed over the last five years, they won't have the volume to drive component prices down, and unless this is really a reference design that OEMs will be producing and distributing, they'll irritate the beejeezus out of their partners.
I don't blame them for trying to vertically integrate, especially after seeing what it has done for Apple. But I think they're too late to the party.
I came to the same thought about the supply chain at first, but Microsoft does sell hardware, the XBox (and I guess the Zune.) Certainly not the same as Apple, but they do have handle on it.
Given how a lot of OEMs are pumping Androids, Microsoft may just have to start hedging its bets.
(On a lighter note maybe we can start a red-ring of death meme).
Microsoft does ship a huge number of XBox, I think around 60+ million last year, but it's not really a cutting edge device since the console market is relatively sluggish when it comes to change. The Kinect is much more interesting from a technical standpoint.
I think based on the dreck that the OEMs have been delivering for the last 8-10 years, it's not surprising that Microsoft felt it had to jump into the hardware business directly.
Ah thanks, I misread the CES announcement as 2011 sales, not cumulative sales. 9 million a year isn't much compared to Apple selling 315 million iOS devices since it all started. Not to mention all the notebooks, iPods and desktops shipped.
Plus, they don't even have a "retina" display for that RT tablet. And yes, best case scenario it will be $500, if they remove some other hardware features as well (cameras, etc). It will most likely be at least $600 for the entry model, again without retina display, or anything close to that.
I'd be very surprised if Microsoft sold these under their own brand. Perhaps they're more like the Intel proof of concepts and "the real thing" will be announced by Nokia?
From what I can recall, that's how many tech product launches go. Sometimes you get "3rd quarter" estimates, but I don't recall too many vendors outside of Apple giving exact shipping dates.
And this is why people will forget about this unless MS spends a bushel trying to keep it in view. This announcement just seems so clumsy. Microsoft just finished with TechEd last week, and could have announced it then. But they want to vaporware for a bit longer.
Seriously, no release date, no pricing, no real demo (rendered images instead), no software announcements other than Netflix and Office. This type of product announcement might have worked pre-Internet, but nowadays people expect to be able to find out concrete details and pricing once a product is announced.
No demo units shipped to Walt Mossberg or David Pogue, or even a John Dvorak...
This isn't like the Zune however. The Zune was peripheral to Microsoft's core business. This is central to where a large portion of the computing market is headed. If this takes two or three revisions to gain traction, then Microsoft might be too late.
I understand that. All the cool tech/UI aside, most of the people want to know price and availability. When iPhone was first released, it launched with $299. Price alone created so much buzz like "all this awesome things at just $299, I'm getting one". Now I'm definitely interested in this product but if they price it $1000 I may or may not buy. Why not declare price right away? I'm sure they have nailed down the price. So whats the point in holding onto that.
That's factually untrue. The iPhone launched at $499/$599 for 4gb/8gb models, and then a few months later had the 4gb discontinued and the 8gb dropped to $399, arguably due in no small part to people complaining how expensive it was.
People will bitch and whine, but you've got to hand it to Microsoft the Surface tablet is pretty appealing and I say that without any bias or affiliation with Microsoft. The video was a bit cheesy and very motion graphics oriented which is completely different to their regular style of low-budget looking ameteur product videos.
I won't contribute to the Microsoft is trying to compete with the Apple iPad debate but I will say you'd have to be an idiot to not at least try and challenge Apple's dominance in the tablet market which Microsoft is doing and is probably one of the only company that has the potential to succeed in doing so.
If the price is right, I'll definitely buy one of these. Using my heavy laptop on the train just isn't viable any more and I can't code on an iPad because it doesn't have a keyboard.
- Is the keyboard any good?
- Is the stylus any good?
- Is the integration any good?
- Is the experience any good?
If Microsoft can get to yes for all 4 of those in a timely fashion, then they will at least have a business niche machine. Price will be less of a factor for machines that come out of the company budget.
Even if the app ecosystem doesn't take off immediately, Microsoft could strategically pick the right dozen apps to hold things down until then.
The technology discussion on reddit is almost always anti-Apple to the point where I would consider them obsessed. Coupled with the memes and jokes, there's just no comparison to HN discussion when new tech is announced.
This is seriously one of the most heavy handed, almost laughable attempts at being hip and cool I've ever seen. I thought it was a parody for a second.
Honestly could they scream any louder 'We are absolutely terrified of Apple. Please love us again.'
I hope the tablet is more usable than the image gallery (http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en/us/gallery.aspx). Maybe I'm just used to slide shows, but I cannot see a case where navigating to the jpg file and then back to the page creates a better user experience.
Apple was smart to release the iPad 2 with a design that practically "had to have" a special cover. This allowed them to legally advertise the iPad's price at one amount even though the majority of their customers would really be paying more (i.e. $549 after shelling out for a $50 cover, instead of only the base $499 amount).
Microsoft probably has the same plan here. A cover that contains a keyboard can be even more expensive (say, $100 each instead of $50) and they can use profits from covers to mask the true cost of tablets.
Then again, they've said nothing about the price...
This is from the about page (http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en/us/about.aspx): "Surface comes with an integrated kickstand and a revolutionary, 3mm thin, pressure sensitive cover that doubles as a fully functioning keyboard and trackpad". If I had to guess they will probably charge somewhere around the $50-$100 amount for the "Type cover" which will probably be more preferable to use over the "Touch cover".
My client has started outfitting their sales reps with ipads complete with covers that double as a stand. After a few weeks, they wanted keyboards, after keyboards they wanted a stylus.
Personally, I think MS nailed it. This could be just a tablet to some people, but it can be a whole lot more to the enterprise.
Sounds like it. Which is exactly what microsoft is going to salve here: users demand iPads, no matter what it is they actually need. I'm sure IT didn't just decide that the sales reps all should have iPads, the reps got iPads because that's what they asked for. Microsoft has a product here that does what people need, while actually possibly being what people want as well.
No, they had laptops. The problem that Microsoft will solve is that people want to have a low powered device that can be a laptop sometimes and a tablet other times.
The place where this could do well is people who want tablet computers but also need something that integrates nicely with active directory and the rest of the corporate Windows infrastructure.
The problem I have with all in one type devices is that they are competing with just buying one of each, at a time when hardware prices seem to be tumbling.
If your top sales guys ask for a tablet and a laptop maybe you just give them one of each, rather than worrying about whether you can save a couple of hundred $ with some all in one device that does neither especially well.
Also a lot of corporate workers do their work primarily using one or two bespoke corporate apps which may be either web apps or some .Net (or even VB6) app. In this case they want to roll out a lot of cheap devices but they may not really care about portability because they don't want the devices taken out of the building.
The other thing I wonder about is how good the paradigm of a keyboard plus a touchscreen really is without a mouse, especially considering how cheap a basic mouse is. One of the companies I do a lot of work for uses PCs that have touch screens in addition to mice, but in reality the touch screen is almost never used. I imagine this is mainly because the amount of arm movement required to move your right hand over to the mouse is significantly less than it is to raise it to a screen.
So these people want to have a low powered laptop? A Netbook? With a confusing split-brain interface?
It's not about how powerful the hardware is, but how powerful and responsive the applications are. If they try to emulate a full blown Windows desktop on a low powered device, then the buyer has the worst of both worlds.
The Win8Pro version has about the same 42 W-h battery size as in the new iPad. I doubt it can manage the same battery life, especially if it has to have vents.
On the flip side, as it runs full Windows, it's also your laptop.
For reference, I can get ~6hrs out of my 13" MBA, which packs a 50Wh battery. Going to guess the Surface Pro is running a lower-clocked part (as the 11" does, presumably for heat reasons), so with good power-management software at least 6-7hrs doing tablet-y things is definitely plausible. Obviously, opening Visual Studio or Photoshop will constrain that a bit, but these are things one can't do on an iPad.
Most consumers don't use Photoshop or Visual Studio.
What do MOST consumers need full Windows for these days?
Office? Most consumers could get by on iWork.
I guess if they want to use their favorite virus scanner or anti-malware program they would now be able to do that.
Windows dominates the market for consumer PCs because it's cheap and because of games. These same games will not work well on tablets. iOS already has enough games, Windows is at a severe disadvantage in terms of touch friendly games.
Good to see MS trying to compete with the iPad. Not sure that they'll have any more success than the Android based systems, but at least they're not ceding the market to Apple.
I'll be very interested to see how the OEM partners view this.
The key will be in pricing. If it's $499 for the base version, it might have a chance. Pricing it "on par with Ultrabook-class PCs" will leave it Zuned.
I'm also surprised that Microsoft was able to keep this under wraps for this long.
As a loyal Microsoft user/apologist for decades now, I have to say that i'm cringing pretty hard after watching the coverage of this. This falls into pretty much the same form factor as the failed netbook, with no discernible distinction. Watching Microsoft throw itself off a cliff with everything from Win 8 to this tablet is very difficult to watch.
They have gotten better at presentation, but they missed one key point of Apple presentations.
Apple has learned that "Ships Today" is as important as the technology being sold.
So who cares what it CAN do, its not available now. Its not even available tomorrow, its available soon. All they did was give Apple a bigger opportunity to undercut their buzz.
If you're marketing only to consumers. Corporations who tend to purchase this sort of thing typically plan their purchasing months in advance. I can almost guarantee many companies who might have been thinking about laptop purchases are going to wait a few months.
Also the release date for the device is tied to Windows 8, which is looking like October, and then the pro version will follow 3 months after.
Since product lifecycles are somewhat lengthy, this doesn't really give any competitor an advantage aside from using the products they already had in their pipeline.
Firstly most corporations are just finishing up their multi-year Windows 7 rollouts so will probably be sitting out Windows 8. Given that corporate IT likes to do evaluations, certifications and such you are probably looking at least 12-18 months from now before any of these tablets are deployed on a large scale.
Secondly a lot of corporations are scaling back from providing anything more than the basic desktop or laptop and embracing BYOD for everything else. Even if its a knock out product its going to be difficult to justify spending money to roll it out especially given the other potential upgrades required (new monitors etc).
If they had announced and launched this 2 years ago I think a lot of corporations would have sat up and taken note. Announcing it now and with it not shipping for up to six months it's too little too late.
I've noticed the same with many recent Apple releases. They have gone almost completely away from "Ships in x" and instead it's now almost always "Ships today".
I'd like to see some data to confirm this however.
Just noticed from the Win8Pro version, "Pen with Palm Block" a nice innovation Apple hasn't bothered with yet. Question I want to know is, "can you develop" applications for the tablet, on the tablet?
The answer has to be yes, at least for the intel version. It runs full Windows 8 Pro on an x64 cpu. There's no reason you won't be able to fire up Visual Studio on that sucker (other than perhaps performance considerations).
So they're releasing two versions that look much the same, but one of them can run all of your existing (x86) applications, and one of them can't? That sounds like confusion waiting to happen.
The keynote talk (http://cdn-smooth.ms-studiosmedia.com/news/mp4_mq/06182012_S...) is informative. At about minute 14, the demonstrator tries to show how IExplorer works on the tablet. It fails. He keeps clicking here and there to try to restart it, then he clues in that folks can see him doing this and he points it to his chest, card-player style. Then he sprints to the podium to get another machine. I felt for the poor guy.
I was pretty excited about this device as well. Until I downloaded and played with Windows 8. Windows 8's inconsistent and confusing UI blows. The Metro integration into Windows 8 looked like a last minute decision because most apps still have the Aero interface.
Microsoft has realized that the hardware to software integration is crucial to a great user experience. However, they spent so much time on the hardware of this tablet that I'm wondering if the Windows 8 software can match.
That said if this tablet is under $600, it will sell like hotcakes.
Microsoft couldn't choose between ARM and x86 and this will be a huge problem for them. It's emblematic of the terrible position that they're in, trying not to be left behind while trying to refresh and extend their aging desktop OS monopoly. These products do nothing well. A stylus? That's a bullet on a PowerPoint, not a compelling feature. I felt sad watching them retell their passionless internal talking points while giving a more pathetic version of an Apple launch.
Why choose? Apple doesn't choose, they use both. The two architectures are used for completely different purposes; they both have significant advantages and significant disadvantages. The consumer can choose which one has the better featureset for their use case.
An active digitizer stylus which allows graphic designers and note takers to write on the screen while rejecting finger input is a compelling feature.
Yuck, it looks like you can't use it w/o a table top so it's useless on a plane, or train , or couch. It's like a half ass competitor to both iPad and MacBook Air.
I don't think it was meant to be a competitor to the Air, although we'll have to wait on the pricing to see what Microsoft is actually trying to do here. But in all probability this is an iPad competitor, and iPads fall short in the exact same way in all those situations as well.
Also, planes generally have trays, and reclining in a couch puts your waist at about hands level, so both of those aren't really that gimped by this setup. Living in America I can't speak much for train travel but I would think they'd have some kind of tray, but I could be wrong.
The good:
1. the magnesium body is tough and very weather resistant. Similar to Nikons current camera line.
2. stand and keyboard built in make this a machine you can do very serious work on
3. 600 dpi sample rate for drawing means serious design work can be done as well.
4. Like the Xbox, Zune HD, natural keyboard, arc mouse, and their live cams: When Microsoft decides to design it usually is awesome.
the bad:
1. They said how much they believe in their partners yet only one application was shown off (lightroom). No special hardware or software partnerships.
2. No discussion on ports, actual cpu speed, ram, bus speed, or video capability.
3. no discussion of pricing.
4. The names are confusing for consumers: windows rt, surface, etc. they should have just said its all windows 8.
Windows 8 for arm and windows 8 for intel. easy.
5. It was not available the day of the anouncement.
The BIGGEST problem:
They did not show how this device is worth buying as part of your Micosoft ecosystem of experience and devices. How does it work with windows phone? they did not show it doing tricks with xbox and smartglass. They did not show how this device should be important to you.
Ignoring all the judgement we're passing on this product, a good engineering effort deserves praise. Looking at this segment of the presentation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jozTK-MqEXQ#t=41m32s), with my extremely limited understanding of manufacturing and physics, I am truly surprised how they managed to fit so much functionality into 3mm.
> Decide how to lay out your app in each view. Windows 8 supports landscape, portrait, snapped, and fill views. Users can put your app in any of these views at any time, and you want your app to look and work great in each one.
Yeah, I thought I read that it works both ways. This device is clearly meant to be used in a horizontal orientation though based on the ports, the cameras and the Windows button. I guess it's positioned as more of a laptop replacement than a tablet, so it kinda makes sense. It's an interesting choice though. I don't own any tablets, but I was under the impression that most people use them in a vertical orientation.
I think this is a step forward for Microsoft, and besides, end-users will benefit form the Microsoft-Apple competition.
They innovate and we get better devices :)
Im an Apple user, but earn my living as a system admin for windows and linux servers.
I get all my work done from my hackintosh , and if nothing changes probably will not go back on using windows anytime soon.
I truly hate windows, especially Vista which made me turn to Mac OS and never look back.
Despite all this I will never become so narrow minded as most apple fanboys and dismiss everything new.
I'm tired of reading/hearing:
"Apple has already done this, Microsoft stoled their ideea", "Apple knows the right way to make a product", "This will never work for Microsoft", "Microsoft failed again", "OMG look at the product page, Its crap so the product must be a pile of dong too!"
Common people, what is wrong with you?
I say good job Microsoft, finaly something promising. How well it would do in the real world remains to be seen, but I think there is a huge market for this device.
Have seen a pre-production device in Bangalore manufactured by Samsung.
I expect Pricing and distribution would be announced by Samsung in a seperate event .
The tablet app I saw looked good but it had touch responsiveness issue, and internet access was slow, saw the app crash and restart , but not sure if that was hardware related as it was a beta app.
Are you sure you're not thinking of the BUILD tablet, running the Developer Preview (roughly akin to an alpha)? Unless I'm mistaken, the Surface is a Microsoft Hardware product, distributed by Microsoft under the Microsoft brand.
This device doesn't look like it will work well in my lap. I use a 5 year old laptop that I'm pretty happy with. I have a tablet that I never use but that's mostly because I don't like touchscreen interfaces, except on phones where they are lesser of 2 evils (the other evil being super-tiny keyboards).
It's astonishing to me how little discussion there has been of this. One of the primary places people use a laptop is, well, in their lap, and this doesn't look to be usable for that. I can't imagine that not being hugely frustrating.
It is a bird's eye view of a human holding a laptop in an armchair, said laptop composed of a touchscreen docked into a keyboard/case apparatus thusly.
My wife has a bad back, and even carrying a 13" laptop around for and extended time causes her a lot of pain. She would kill for a tablet with a keyboard that she could use for work while traveling (mostly, power point, word and a bit of Excel).
Now, if only her company (60k+ employees) would upgrade from XP...
The problem is that you never know how long Microsoft will stand behind any of their hardware products.
They held firm with Xbox, they surrendered with everything else.
Last year, they canned their tablet plans. This year, they come back with a new tablet plan.
Etc.
The only reason to announce hardware more than 6 months prior to availability is to deter people from buying iPads and Macbook Airs in the meanwhile.
I've played with Win8 running on an Atom tablet and while the hardware sucked, the idea of being able to do real work on legacy apps (Photoshop, 3DS Max, video editing etc) on it is nice. The x86 Surface is definitely a laptop replacement.
Not convinced about Metro yet though - depends on the apps we'll see on it I guess.
I also have an iPad with the Logitech Ultra Thin BT keyboard cover and I really like it. If only iOS had CMD/TAB keyboard shortcut for swapping between apps and more open file system I could do a fair bit of web dev work on it. My 13" Macbook Pro feels like a brick compared to the iPad+keyboard cover.
Still can't do Photoshop/3D/etc work on the iPad though.
I used to have a rollable keyboard - it was impossible to use, despite it's novelty factor.
I hope this works well - lots of design/manufacturing issues here - How durable is it? Is it at least as good as an onscreen keyboard? How much does it cost to replace when it does wear out or take a coffee spill?
Looks interesting - I'll be excited when I try it out.
I feel like it would leave very odd patterns from the oil on the screen, and it honestly looks like something I'd find in the clearance bin at staples.
That's what I thought at first and then thought 'I bet that feels like typing on a microfiber cloth, and the keys can't have much travel, if any at all.
Can't imagine it being worse than typing on a glass plate where the virtual keyboard takes up screen real estate. However the real question is how well using the touchscreen works while in upright mode, perhaps it's not that stable and touching it will wobble/move it.
It looks cool but what is with Microsoft's naming conventions. Apparently the official name for this product is "Surface for Windows RT," as it is referenced here:
i just don't understand why they named the OS after the API it's restricted to, something consumers will never encounter. the end result of WinRT is just Metro, something marketable and relatable. why the hell don't you just call it Windows Metro, Microsoft?
I'm wondering this as well. The only thing I can come up with is Google IO is next week. Maybe Microsoft got wind of something and wanted to get this out ahead as a spoiler.
All well and good. But the UI divide between Metro and Win 7 is just there.. I see no attempt to change any aspects of the traditional windows UI. Metro still seems to be a shell unable to hide the real UI underneath.
Does anyone know if Windows 8 (or whatever is powering the Pro version) is resolution independent? Or will developers have to compile a version for the Surface Pro, and a different version for the x86 desktop market?
Microsoft Surface == enterprise manageable tablets. IT organizations familiar with managing fleets of ubiquitous Windows workstations (desktop or notebook) will be able to now manage cheaper Windows convertibles.
Similar to how Apple (and Microsoft, and Google) would drop machines in schools to indoctrinate the next generation, Microsoft is going after users where they use computers the most: in the office.
Those that do not get "Surface" per se, will at least be familiar with it in a few years, after they have been exposed to other Windows 8 profiles at work (or on new home computers).
i can't believe they've got the windows logo on the front bezel. super ugly and distracting. even apple, who loves its logo as much as any corporation, kept the front of the ipad logo-free.
I think what is great about the Surface line is that now other OEMs will have to design and produce even better hardware to compete. This is very good news for the consumer.
I'm really hopeful for a tablet (read: something light with a decent interface) where I can do general-purpose computing (read: install my own stuff and have reasonable processing power) so I really hope this succeeds on these levels. Some of the ideas at least are very worthy.
Having said that, there is nowhere near enough detail to make an informed judgement on anything yet (except the PR strategy - which is [pretty laughably] a poor imitation of what Apple does).
Using the Surface name is a total sleazy Microsoft move. The table has nothing whatsoever to do with the "Surface" technology they developed unless the screen can magically detect the specially coded or shaped components that a Surface table can detect.
And if Apple released a new product with the joke of a website and spec sheet that MS just did they'd be scorn of anyone that knows how to type.
The web-site is bad; but you have to give Microsoft credit where it is due: the new device is something new and does push what it means to be a tablet.
Oh come on. That is possibly the most absurd criticism I've ever heard. They "don't get it" because their marketing team used a design rendering instead of a photograph? Clearly, a product shouldn't be judged on features, user experience, price, reliability, performance, or potential for changing the market. It should be judged on whether the little glossy pictures on the website were photos that were 'shopped until they might as well be faked or CGI renderings that are pretty much good enough to be real.
It's not absurd. It's premature on their behalf. What was preventing them from waiting until they had a physical prototype to show off? Nothing. In this light, it looks like an idea that may exist, not something consumers can actually get their hands on. Further, no, it should be judged on more than just the pictures. I fully agree with all of the others comments that elicit disappointment for a lack of feature/spec lists and pricing. The whole thing is botched.
Keep in mind they've sold a lot of Xbox 360s and Kinects. Not sure how much profit they've made, but it shows MS can make commercially successful, desirable hardware.
Anyone happen to know if it uses their new ultra-responsive (1ms) touchscreen technology? I remember being pretty excited about that when they demoed it, but it seemed like it wouldn't be rolled out for a while.
I didn't see anywhere a way to adjust the angle of the stand. I constantly change the angle of my laptop monitor, and sometimes even the one at work.
Now this device would want me to adjust myself to stand at the right angle looking it. Hopefully it would be still readable from other angles, but then how would you touch it?
The UEFI spec calls for allowing user enrollment of keys, or at the very least disabling the checks. It can be done, this has been discussed to death here already.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. The certification process for Windows 8 sticker needs that. But.. that certification is done by.....guess who? Microsoft. So they could easily lock down their own hardware.
Doh! This completely slipped my mind. I guess I would hope and assume they wouldn't do something like that, but you're right, it's certainly a possibility. Thanks for pointing it out.
I was pretty impressed. It's a huge indication that MS is taking the evolution of the computer very seriously and are making a very strong response.
For myself, I'm interested in the device and I may end up buying one, it looks like it could suit my needs very well. However, what's good for me may not be good for MS. I fear that Windows 8 may not be enough of a seamless, hassle-free experience for the average user as the iPad seems to be. If MS only gets the high-end power users in the tablet and PC market I think they have a very real risk of get squeezed out of the market between android, apple, and linux. This is a strong move, and they're still at the top of the market, but the market has been disrupted and they need several strong moves to keep on the top of the game.
Anyone knows how the cover keyboard is built ? is this a 'fake' dumb plastic molded keyboard using a capacitive layer underneath ? I wish it is, so that the whole keyboard could be an analog sensing surface if needed.
The tablet looks nice, but the keyboard looks as if it will be one of the worst keyboards in the history of the universe. As someone who loves the idea of a convertible tablet, I really do hope that I'm wrong.
Did they run out of money to design the back or something? They can't have Jony Ive but was there no one else they could hire to approximate 60s era Braun? Like a 4th year design student?
I know - I opened the site and my first thought was, oh it looks quite nice. Then went to gallery and my heart sank that no-one had bothered to look at the thing side-on.
Some future popularity could come down to how flexible they are with that USB port. Can you plug in a thumbdrive and watch videos or play music? Extract or back-up photos?
After reading several reviews, and looking at MS Surface website, I am still not clear what this is. Is it going to run full featured Windows OS? Whats the price point going to be? Is 10.2 inch keyboard really going to make it possible for me to type things fast? (Remember those notebook keyboards? I could not really type on it). Is Microsoft going to build hardware for this? If no, who is building it? When is it going to be available on the market? Oh common give me something. All I get it, is Microsoft now has a tablet, which has a keyboard. thats it... cmon. I need bit more details than that.
Can't wait to see how well the Pro version runs with Norton or McAfee burning up cpu cycles. Hope that's not the "desktop" experience they're aiming for.
Win8 comes with built-in antivirus. But of course you can buy Norton or McAfee if you like. In which case you have bigger problems than your CPU cycles.
And if the corporate world is a large target for the Surface, then it'll be expected to run with A/V software from the big vendors, regardless of what MS bundles with it. I have to run McAfee on each and everyone of my RHEL servers, despite the majority of them not having unfettered access to the Internet nor an email client.
Microsoft had the touch-surface interface back like a year before the iphone came out. But they rolled it out as a $10000 restuarant/menu interface instead of a computing/consumer device one. Classic good tech/bad customer targeting failure. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2007/may07/05-29ms...
I believe the current round of e-readers actually use IR-based touch sensors. Still wouldn't compete on a phone for marketing reasons (thanks to the need for a sunken-in screen), but definitely shrinkable.
They do! But those IR touch screens are actually different technology again from the quite literally cameras that the Surface used.
IR touch screens like the ones the Sony reader and Kindle use have been around for ages in POS machines and the like.
On the other hand the Surface (table) was using computer vision algorithms on realtime near-IR images of the table surface to recognize multiple touches and gestures.
I got to play with a Surface some time in 2008 and, surprisingly, found myself a little more enchanted than I was upon using the iPhone, which had come out the year before. At the same time I remember doing the weighing of utility: "Well, they've got some really nifty tech underneath and cool demo apps to show it off, but what would I truly use it for?" Cue thoughts about doing anything productive without a keyboard, etc.
Then again, I'm one of those no-nonsense people whose smartphone is just used 90% for Email & Web Browser.
I wouldn't be surprised to see them directly replace the old surface with the guts of the new one integrated into a 60" multitouch TV (for both table and on the wall use) and scrap the IR object detection for a kinect based solution. Of course this would leave them with the cost of a huge multitouch panel.
thinking as an average consumer I can only look at this as a marginally uglier (looks like it's lower quality) and thicker tablet. if isn't significantly cheaper than the ipad why should i buy it?
It is easier to carry two flat objects around when they have the same dimensions and can be "stacked up" against each other, but this cover cannot have anything close to the same dimensions as an iPad because they have drastically different aspect ratios (what looks like 16:9 versus the 4:3 of the iPad).
I generally hate Microsoft stuff (including Windows 8), but this is a refreshingly original and good design (personal opinion, of course.) Since Zune and XBox, Microsoft seem to have sharpened their game to the point where they are capable of delivering small, compact, and useful hardware which functions well. Some people mocked the Microsoft Mouse in the initial stages of the presentation, but come to think of it, most people I know prefer Microsoft's ergonomic laptop mice to Apple's Mighty Mouse, which, quite frankly, is rubbish.
Priced at the right point, this could take aim at a number of different devices, which it seems to fit at the smooth spot between:
- Stylus-capable tablets you can actually write on (IBM x series)
- Small media-capable tablets like the iPad/Kindle Fire (for consuming eBooks, media and the Web).
- eBook readers like the standard Kindle. I don't know what digital Ink capable means, but if it goes any way towards making eBooks more readable than they are on the Fire/iPad, consumers will buy this device just so they don't have to buy different things for watching videos and reading books with lesser eyestrain.
I bet that both this and the Lumia and other Windows phones are going to be massive in markets like India, which know Microsoft and Nokia well, and have never seen much of Apple tech.
The dual CPU thing still worries me. I think it's going to cause a ton confusion for consumers when Windows 8 comes out. These two tablets look the same, they're named the same, they use the same accessories. One will cost more than the other. They look like a 13" MacBook Air vs 13" MacBook Pro.
But it won't be, because they run completely different OSes. The ARM one won't run your old software. It won't run the windows desktop you're used to. Some big game comes out? I wonder if it will run on WinRT. Since all the devices will have lower specs, will AAA titles be available?
You could buy the more expensive one. I bet it has lower battery life. It won't come with Office, so not only do you have to pay $200 more for the device (random guess), but you also have to pay $100-$500 for a copy of Office on top just to match what's on the ARM tablet.
The tablets are clearly quite different. They should be positioned differently, they should look physically different.
I really want to see how consumers take to Intel vs. ARM. I can't help but think it's going to be a disaster.
As for these tablets? The cover looks great, and MS does know how to make hardware (I've loved my Natural keyboards since '95 or '96). It's great to know there will be one device on the market that (should be) well made and not crazily under-specced for cost reasons.
But does all this make third parties very nervous. Are these "demo" units to start the market, or the first wave of MS competing directly?
Microsoft said on their technet blog that their ARM devices will be clearly labeled and marketed as not being able to run traditional Windows software.
The company behind the most used OS by the mass market on the planet is announcing their own hardware for the next version of their OS. Their own hardware for their own OS is something they haven't done in their ~30 year history. How is this not major news?
Because "Their own hardware" is still just the same crap that all the other manufacturers would have come up with, (and did come up with) for Microsoft to put their badge on. It's not a technological leap forward nor does it drastically alter the user interface paradigm.
Worth seeing, Yes, but definitely not a top of the list worthy post.
I disagree with you, it is their customized hardware, I cant see them fitting standard computer components into a enclosure that thin. Almost everything is custom an for Microsoft it's a big technolohical leap because they've never done this before.
Before I read this I thought it was just some design and people going "WHOA" or "wtf" about it. But your comment made me understand. Sad that it's bottom of the list. There should have been something about the thickness consideration in the link description.
Yes, it's very similar to the iPad in many ways. But other than some of the marketing, it doesn't seem to fall any closer to Apple than any of the Android tablets we've been seeing for the last year. In fact, the metro UI (extreme minimalism) is pretty drastically different from Apple's style (extreme detail). Apple phased out the bold color designs years ago. (And don't feed me the "Microsoft is just really slow at copying" nonsense - it's clearly as much an original design as any.)
A lot of the arguments against it are the sort of arguments Samsung fought against in its lawsuit with Apple. The result of that was a totally unique product, and an awful one. (http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/05/04/the-samsung-galaxy-s...)