Lots of Surface looks very interesting. The keyboard on the cover is very clever, I hope it feels good to type on it. I'm also curious about the stylus. Separate digitizers sounds great so that stray swipes from your hand don't cause unwanted input (iPad note taking apps often have a hand rest feature which is a clunky solution). Also, I like that it attaches to the device. I've never used it but I've only heard good things about Microsoft's OneNote application which supports hand written notes on tablets.
It was very un-Apple-like that they said "Now let me talk about availability and pricing" and didn't mention when it would be available or how much it would cost, other than to say competitive. They also didn't mention battery life at all which I think is a huge feature of the iPad. The iPad's battery easily lasts all day, if Surface requires recharging in the middle of the day that will be a big disadvantage.
It's a little odd that they talked about the advantage of doing both the hardware and the software together, "We control it all, we design it all, we manufacture it all ourselves" and "We believe that any intersection between human and machine can be made better when hardware and software are considered together." That's of course an advantage that Apple mentions all the time and I think it's real. It's also exactly not what happens with Windows PC since Microsoft hasn't and doesn't make them. Microsoft does have this experience with Xbox and I bet they've been disappointed with the previous Windows tablet attempts. So I get that they would want to make this tablet themselves, though I find it odd that Intel is making a sister device. It's a little odder that Microsoft uses an ARM chip and Intel's is (obviously) an Intel chip and that means different versions of the Windows running on it.
They also stressed how it's a full PC. It will be interesting to see how that works. Apple rethought the computer for the iPad and made it not a traditional computer but something else. The software is simpler and simpler to use and things do feel different between the iPad the Mac. I want to use the devices differently. But there are also compromises and it would be nicer if things worked a little smother between the devices. I don't use them yet but the most obvious place would be in transferring documents between table and computer and keeping the formatting the same. People complain that doesn't work as well as it should with iWork and I wonder how it will work with Office. Can every Office feature fit on a tablet? Would you want it to?
Now that I think of it, they didn't mention syncing at all. I wonder how that works?
It looks like Surface could be very serious competition for the iPad. I'm skeptical of well it would actually work, but competition is a good thing. Interesting times.
No comments:
Post a Comment