
An iPad Lover’s Take On The Surface With Windows RT - jkaljundi
http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/19/i-got-one-but-i-dont-get-it/
======
kenjackson
The weird thing with most of these reviews is that they're so predictable.
Those who you'd expect to hate the Surface have, and those you'd expect to
like it -- have (probably the biggest exception being Paul Thurrot).

I know several people will Surface's and I haven't heard of the app store
crashing from any of them. And I use the app store on a standard Win8 w/o a
crash in the months I've used it.

And of the couple of people I've read who have had app store crashes, they
have been people who typically don't like MS products.

The Surface is becoming more of a Rorschach test than anything else. Did
anyone seriously think that MG would like the Surface? Does anyone seriously
think that MG won't like WHATEVER Apple ships next?

~~~
webwielder
>Did anyone seriously think that MG would like the Surface?

No, but you might expect Paul Thurrott and Peter Bright to, if you were
judging it on the basis of their general opinion of Microsoft.

The problem with ascribing opinions of the Surface/Windows 8/RT to one's
general opinion of Microsoft and/or Windows is that so much of it is
incongruous with what we think of as "Microsoft". People who like one Apple
product tend to like most Apple products because there is a clear thread of
simplicity and elegance that runs through them.

I'm not sure what thread has traditionally run through Microsoft products
(lots of buttons, lots of choices, lots of legacy?), but the Surface, with its
vertical integration model, and Metro, with its "non-power user" interface,
breaks that thread. But then at the same time you have the desktop mode, which
tries to maintain a connection to the Microsoft of old. So in conclusion it's
a big mess and old biases don't necessarily apply.

~~~
kenjackson
_No, but you might expect Paul Thurrott and Peter Bright to, if you were
judging it on the basis of their general opinion of Microsoft._

I mention Thurrott as an exception. Peter Bright covers Microsoft, but
certainly not someone who typically likes MS products. He tends to strongly
dislike as often as he likes MS products (if not moreso).

 _People who like one Apple product tend to like most Apple products because
there is a clear thread of simplicity and elegance that runs through them._

Really? Like the simplicity that is iTunes? The elegance that is AppleTV? The
simplicity/elegance of OSX? Apple has been consistently elegant in hardware,
but their software has been as jumbled a mess as anything from Microsoft or
Google. It's just been coupled with much superior hardware -- and maybe that's
enough, but it certainly not a thread that runs through all their products.

 _So in conclusion it's a big mess and old biases don't necessarily apply._

Yet old biases still seem to apply. Odd isn't it. And IMO the biases come out
so clearly when you read what they write -- whether about the Surface or not,
but especially about the Surface.

How is it possible that so many find it a joy to use, and so many can find no
use for it at all. And it seems to fall completely along party lines?

~~~
webwielder
Apple's software has plenty of problems, but it's successes are numerous and
outshine the competition from other heavyweights. Safari, Preview, iMovie, the
panorama feature in iOS 6, Mail on iPad, the App Store model (though not all
of its UI), Pages, and Keynote, are just a few random examples of simplicity
and elegance in their software, and there's plenty more examples.

Even its power user apps, like Aperture and Final Cut Pro X (controversies
notwithstanding) show a thoughtfulness and polish that I just don't see in the
products of other large software companies, let alone a company that is also a
first-class hardware manufacturer.

~~~
kenjackson
I think it would be fair to end this by just saying that we hold the list of
Apple software you gave at very different levels of esteem. :-)

------
boyter
The problem with this is that the surface isn't aimed at consumers. I think
(despite the ad's etc...) it's aimed at large business.

I can already hear the IT department drooling over the prospect of a locked
down machine that's cheap but still has the Office Suite and IE (the browser
or large business) which frankly covers what 95% of office workers actually
need.

It's a response to BYOD iPad's in the Office, not iPad's at home. Its also why
I think Steven Sinofsky had to go. He wanted Microsoft divisions to fight each
other, not work together.

Think of it this way, assuming Microsoft works on close integration between
its products (without Sinofsky this might fly) it is in a unique position.
They can offer the most complete end to end business solution for large
companies. Hardware (Surface RT and x86), Phones (Windows Phone), Desktop OS,
Server OS, Programming Languages, BI suites, Email (exchange), Database
etc.....

I can't think of any other company that comes close to offering this except
possibly Oracle and they are still missing a few things (Maybe they should
offer to buy RIM?).

~~~
pinaceae
no. Surface/Windows RT _is_ aimed at consumers. SurfacePro is aimed at
businesses.

Source: Micrsoft, who has approached our company to build a Surface Pro app to
compete in the enterprise space.

~~~
boyter
Interesting. That's certainly not the case in my world. Very few run
applications beyond Excel, Word, Outlook and IE. Most things are web
applications hence the Surface RT is a brilliant proposition.

~~~
pinaceae
we are focused on mobility, field force solutions. for this you need offline
capable apps. always online is still a pipe dream and will be for quite some
time.

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srpablo
Ugh, can we please mention this was authored by MG Siegler in the title so I
know not to click it? I find his work awful and do my part by not visiting his
site or reading his published articles, but it's hard to do when you don't
know it's his work being linked.

~~~
supercoder
It was prefixed with 'An iPad Lover's take' and linked to techcrunch. I'm not
sure what you were expecting.

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nollidge
> In hindsight, I now see why Microsoft did not want me to review the Surface.

What a ridiculous amount of self-importance. Microsoft probably stopped
sending out review units because reviews have been bad.

~~~
mistercow
That's all I interpreted that as meaning anyway. I don't think the author
thought he was being blacklisted individually.

------
Cbasedlifeform
Can anyone confirm this part?

 _With all that up-and-running, I immediately headed to the Windows Store (the
virtual one with apps, not the physical one with Surfaces) to get some apps.
Total nightmare. In the ten days I’ve been using the Surface, that Store has
either been down or completely unresponsive a large percentage of the time. It
just hangs and hangs and hangs, seemingly forever. I restart, re-open and some
things work, then it hangs again. I’ve been trying to download one app for
days — still no luck. I’m sick of restarting. And the back-button just isn’t
working. Joy._

I expect a dirth of apps at the start but this sounds like a PR disaster if
true.

~~~
marshray
On my Surface, I have seen lag in the Store app occasionally, but nothing like
this author described.

I suspect one factor that may be affecting a lot of first impressions is that
the Windows and Office will be downloading and applying a few hundred MB of
updates sometime in the first day or two after unboxing. This is perhaps
worthy of some criticism, too, but it's not the normal state of operation.

Disclosure: I recently accepted a position at Microsoft, but in an unrelated
part of the company. My Surface was purchased at full retail.

------
bitwize
I'm reminded of Andy Rooney's segment about purchasing a small, gasoline-
powered scooter for himself so he could travel New York in ease and comfort.
The problem was he ran a real risk of hitting pedestrians if he tried to use
it on the sidewalk, but felt vulnerable using it on the street. The final
sentence of his segment was: "So I packed it back in its box and put it in a
closet -- never to be used again."

Windows RT tablets have a lot of the same neither-fish-nor-fowl nature. They
are clunky and inefficient compared to an iPad or good Android tablet, but
weak and underpowered compared to a Windows PC.

~~~
webwielder
I am eternally indebted to you for filling my brain with the image of Andy
Rooney (wearing a scarf and goggles) on a scooter, barreling down a New York
sidewalk, pedestrians leaping out of the way in terror.

------
enraged_camel
I don't know where to put this observation, but here it goes.

I got a chance to play with a Surface last weekend. The very first thing I
noticed was the placement of the "home" button. I guess it might be called the
Start button? No matter. It was located along the long edge of the device, as
opposed to the short edge, which was really odd.

At first, I thought this was because the device is meant to be used
horizontally with a keyboard attached to it, so having the button closer to
the keyboard makes it more accessible. But then I realized this is unlikely to
be the case, because the keyboard already has a (much more) accessible Start
button! Which leaves the button on the device useless, because even when
you're holding it in your hands, your thumbs are too short to reach it.

It's little details like this that killed the experience for me. It confirmed
my suspicion that Microsoft does not understand user experience.

~~~
Encosia
If you're holding it horizontally in your hands (that case where you can't
easily reach the hardware button), you can swipe in from the left and the
Windows button/tile/whatever-it-is appears in the bottom-left. I'm sure it
depends on your hands and how you hold it, but I'm able to swipe it in and go
back to the start page with barely any effort and no hand movement that way.

You can also swipe in from the right and get the "charms bar" which has a
start button on it too, positioned midway up, which might be easier to reach
for some people/grips.

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untog
Seigler's articles usually enrage me, but this one isn't _so_ bad. He makes a
mix of valid points and (IMO) less valid ones. If the Store crashes as much as
he says it does, that's a huge failure. On the other hand, complaining about
the alert box the Flash Player popped up struck me as particularly funny- of
course that wouldn't have appeared on an iPad. It doesn't have Flash.

I think the MS tablets (and they are tablets, despite Seigler saying they
aren't because they're the "wrong shape") are between a rock and a hard place.
On one side, the locked-down, user-friendly world of Apple. On the other, the
free, tweaking, custom ROMing world of Android. It's trying to sit somewhere
between the two and I'm not entirely convinced that it can.

~~~
webwielder
>On the other hand, complaining about the alert box the Flash Player popped up
struck me as particularly funny- of course that wouldn't have appeared on an
iPad. It doesn't have Flash.

I think that's kind of the point. Using the iPad is just a cleaner, nicer
experience because it's not bogged down with a lot of the desktop cruft.

~~~
untog
Right- and that's sort of the point I was trying to make in the second
paragraph- not everyone is willing to pay the price for a cleaner, nicer
experience. There _is_ a market for a less locked down but more feature-
capable device. I just think that Android may already be there.

There is a trade-off between features and complexity, but Siegler doesn't try
to evaluate that once in the article.

------
kineticflow
\- Written by MG Siegler.

Spoilers: he tosses his Surface into a trash can at the end. Now that's what I
call quality journalism.

~~~
allsystemsgo
I don't know anything about this writer but, it is his take on the Surface.
I'm not really expecting journalism. It's not consumer reports. It's
TechCrunch.

~~~
corin_
I can't stand Seigler, but completely agree with you, this is a piece for
people who want his opinion, I see nothing wrong with how he wrote it.

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habosa
The thing that annoyed me most in this article was the author's insistence
that the aspect ratio of the Surface was in some way weird or unusable. The
iPad is 4:3 but almost every other tablet is 16:9 (or close to it). I have an
Asus Transformer and I prefer the aspect ratio, it allows me to use landscape
when browsing the web or watching to get a full view and then portrait when I
am reading long-form text to avoid excessive scrolling. This is a case of "I'm
not used to it and therefore I hate it"

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erickhill
I'm not an MG hater. In fact I often agree with his general assessments. But
good lord his writing style is horrid. I lost count of how many times he
(overused) the parenthesis.

But, it's a blog post. If I want solid content I must force myself to expect a
lower bar, particularly on TC.

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uvTwitch
Read the headline, skip the article and look at the last picture, then scroll
back up and read the headline again, particularly the first three words.
You're done.

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IanDrake
Short version:

iPad lover insists everything should function like an iPad, then gets upset
when it doesn't.

~~~
VMG
Like a working app store?

~~~
IanDrake
The app store works. Never seen it not work. Have you?

~~~
VMG
That's beside the point.

He claims the app store doesn't work at all, not that it doesn't look like the
apple app store.

He may be a liar, but that is a different offense than what you accuse him of.

