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The software to run big corporations don't exist for Macs period. SAP, great plains, MAS 90, Aura... I have yet to meet a client /3rd party (includes investment bankers, actuaries, lawyers, accounting /finance professionals) using Macs to do their work. Do you think HQ of Exxon Mobile, GM, JP Morgan Chase, Ford.. Etc.. runs Macs for day to day operation? lol How about their backbones?? Servers running osx?? Get real.
I worked at JP Morgan / Chase Mac hardware is pefered and used running windows. 270 park is like a apple commercial
 
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Well good on you. Since you've made up your mind on what YOU want/need, please allow others to make their own minds up

And exactly at what point have I somehow implied that someone would not be allowed to do so? I think that you will find that it is quite the other way around. There are a few guys (me included) who are saying that we like the product, and then there's a bunch of rabid fools yelling that for some reason we should not like it
 
The software to run big corporations don't exist for Macs period. SAP, great plains, MAS 90, Aura... I have yet to meet a client /3rd party (includes investment bankers, actuaries, lawyers, accounting /finance professionals) using Macs to do their work. Do you think HQ of Exxon Mobile, GM, JP Morgan Chase, Ford.. Etc.. runs Macs for day to day operation? lol How about their backbones?? Servers running osx?? Get real.

What about Apple itself? Don't they use all Macs? Don't they use all OSX for that matter (because that is really what you are talking about. Macs run Windows as well...for now)? I'd have to say that, Apple, being the most valuable company in the world and one of the biggest overall, is a great example to use.

I know I don't count because my company would only qualify as mom and pop to you, but I am a finance executive and have not used Windows in my finance department for over a year.
 
Why is Microsoft leading the way?

I've been waiting for years for Apple to merge the iPad and the macbook air.

What's taking them so long? They'll do such a better job than Microsoft products (which look great in ads, but suck in person)

I know Apple will do a great job. I just don't know why they're waiting until 2016 or 2017. Bring it.

I'm well into adulthood now, but if I was a teenager not already immersed in the Apple ecosystem, I'd be buying these microsoft products.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alXghxo3TqA
 
What about Apple itself? Don't they use all Macs? Don't they use all OSX for that matter (because that is really what you are talking about. Macs run Windows as well...for now)?

They might (and quite likely do) use all Mac desktops/laptops, but they certainly do not use all OS X. On the server side, there are no OS X versions of anything, basically. On the desktop side you'll have the Windows developers using Windows, the financial analysts most likely run Excel under Windows since it is much more capable and performs a lot better with heavy calculations.
 
Those things, sure. But in general, the issues of size and whether it's really just a laptop by another name. Anything larger than the current full-sized iPad is going to raise these issues, just as surely as the Surface has.

I'm no kind of Microsoft apologist (far from it) but I think many of the criticisms I am hearing about the Surface are nitpicks at best. It seems to me that Microsoft is really upping their game, and I would not try to prejudge whether this product will click or not.

That said, the problem for Microsoft is that success for the Surface could mean they get up the noses of their OEMs. This could be a longterm issue.

Well said. The Surface (finally) looks interesting. Even though I'm not in a market for a tablet or a tablet/laptop as my 15" MBP paired with TBD and iPhone are absolutely sufficient for me, nevertheless I can appreciate a job well done. Obviously it's not without some criticism - the price is absolutely absurd for me. I understand that spec wise it's a real desk class computer, but with its thin keyboard, small trackpad and a kickstand it looks like an iPad with an attached keyboard cover. And as life teaches us such parts as the kickstand, rotary speakers, displays etc tend to fail quickly. So as much as I appreciate Microsoft's effort, I feel that Surface is simply not very practical - if you travel a lot and need real computing power, then a simple notebook/ultrabook will suit you better, since you can safely and comfortably put it on your lap. If you're working by the desk, either on a laptop itself or you hook it up to an external display, then Surface (especially with its price tag) makes little sense. If you prefer a tablet, then you're probably better off using... a tablet and attaching an external keyboard in those few instances that its needed. I mean, if you're a photographer or a layout artist you usually don't do your work on a plane, train or automobile [:)]. In those few moments that you absolutely have to, you can just pull out your laptop and do it more comfortably and then get back to Facebook on your phone :)
Surface's (1 & 2) market failures seem to prove that it basically caters to no one's needs and it's hard for people to justify throwing +$1000 for this kind of equipment.
 
I've been waiting for years for Apple to merge the iPad and the macbook air.

This would be nice. If for nothing else than to get all the iPad apps available for it. I would like for iOS to be an emulation layer, though, and not have it gimped so that the tablet part could only run iOS and OSX would be available only when "docked" to the keyboard.
 
What SKU Of the Haswell line-up is the SP3 running? Is it the regular laptop processor or the fan-less version??

If I were to guess, it'd likely be the same SKU that the MBA and Surface Pro 2 are running. We know that they said it was "more powerful than the Surface Pro 2", so we know at least that it isn't any worse.
 
3:2 aspect ratio...

WHY?!

I was big on the 16:9 and think it's better overall for W8 Snap, but the 3:2 makes a bunch of use cases better.

OneNote in Portrait would feel more like a sheet of paper as opposed to right now, where it kinda feels like you're jotting down notes on a strip. And the 3:2 mode should make W7 desktop stuff like Office feel better. When I'm using Excel on my SP2, I end up having to hide the ribbon and hide the taskbar to maximize screen real estate and it still doesn't feel like I have enough height. The 3:2 should fix this for me.
 
I don't see Apple looking to compete in this market, at least until major problems are solved. Its too niche, its too expensive for the average consumer. Too many trade offs in battery life, clunky interface for a desktop operating system.

Don't see how it is too expensive. It is making a play at being your only device. From Microsoft themselves:
The tablet that can replace your laptop
So instead of buying an MBA and an iPad, one could just get the Surface, and save money. That's the play.

Battery Life. It is advertised as getting 9 hours, on par with the iPad, and on par with the 11" MBA, although both do have a small edge there.

Niche. I agree that the OS isn't quite there yet. I would want the OS to be as easy and natural to use as my iPad but also as precise as my MBA on OSX, to be able to switch modes seamlessly, and without having to have double versions of apps. That is the difficulty, and that is the reason it is niche. Once this fundamental design issue is cracked...well I would love to have just a phone and my computer in a small compact package. Would love to be able to lose the laptop, but even the SP3 isn't quite there yet due to Windows 8.1, but I think the form factor itself is very close.

Be very interesting to see what Apple has planned for the next gen retina MBA and/or iPad XL :)

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If I were to guess, it'd likely be the same SKU that the MBA and Surface Pro 2 are running. We know that they said it was "more powerful than the Surface Pro 2", so we know at least that it isn't any worse.

Yes, that is what I thought, but I was too lazy to look it up.
 
Why hackintosh (which is not supported and is not a simple install) when you can use a Macbook Air that is fully supported for OS X and Windows installs?

Because the MBA is really ****** as a tablet, which is sort of the whole point with the Surface Pro 3, it being a tablet and all...
 
Why do you people think Apple wants to or should "merge the iPad and MacBook Air"? It's not happening.
 
They might (and quite likely do) use all Mac desktops/laptops, but they certainly do not use all OS X. On the server side, there are no OS X versions of anything, basically. On the desktop side you'll have the Windows developers using Windows, the financial analysts most likely run Excel under Windows since it is much more capable and performs a lot better with heavy calculations.

Ha ha, of course Windows developers are using Windows and I imagine 99.9% of the servers are running some kind of Unix/Linux variant. I would be very interested to know if your blind assumption about the financial software is correct. I haven't found a use case yet where either Excel for Mac or Numbers were not equally capable (using different implementations and solutions to the same problem). Excel and Office in general for Mac were horribly unstable up to a couple of months ago with the latest updated, I will definitely grant you that!
 
I don't see Apple looking to compete in this market, at least until major problems are solved. Its too niche, its too expensive for the average consumer. Too many trade offs in battery life, clunky interface for a desktop operating system.
When has this been considered is own market??? You actually have to sell some product, make a profit and have some competition!
 
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I'll say it (i'm only up to page 15 in the comments), Microsoft is on the right track.

The iPad upped the anty for mobile computing, and MS took that, reworked the tablet side of their game - and evolved it. Sure tablets/slates have been around - but it took the iPad to show the masses they "needed" such things.

I'm a Mac, but Windows 8.1 appeals to me and is the first version of Windows I have bought in 10 years. As of today we have:

1 32gb iPad Air on t-mo (mine, love it - it replaced my iPad 1 a couple of months ago)
1 32gb iPad Mini - the kids gaming/edu app/video/facetime machine
1 iPhone 4
1 iPhone 4s
4 iPod touches (2 4th gen, 2 3rd gen)
2 Mac Minis - one mine, one the kids share
2 Dell Venue 8 Pro tablets - kids 1 & 2 use for school daily
1 Dell 11" touchscreen laptop - new in the last week

Would I have loved to have bought an 11" MBA? Sure... could I have? No, not for at least another year. Do I actually use the touchscreen part? Yes, because it is easier to reach up and swipe over trying to remember how to do it on the blasted trackpad.

But the blending of the tablet form, with the full computer AND A PEN, well, it is a hit here. I hope that Apple puts their touch on such a product - but I know that my budget will NOT be its target market.

Which is sad, because I really prefer OSX.

iWatches and such are not going to be enough for Apple in the coming year, they need to do more in the computer area... but i'm not sure they will. I'm curious to see what WDCC brings to the table.

I feel like if the majority of Apple customers want touch, Apple would've done it. As such, I think until MSFT can prove the surface customers is more than a niche product, Apple will probably not do anything.

There's also no way someone can convince me that a surface will be just as easy to use as a macbook air. keyboard and touchpad looks awkward, moving the hinge looks awkward albeit a lot better. there's a reason why i smile at people who use keyboard covers with iPads, it's just not that efficient. the cramped keyboard. taking your hand off to use the touch screen is also awkward, that extra millisecond, to me, doesn't make sense.
 
It's not having actually gotten a virus that concerns me when I run Windows, but the fact that they're out there. How safe do you feel shopping, banking, etc. with a Windows machine? They get new keyloggers, etc. all the time. If your virus checker hasn't added it, you could be the one that gets screwed. Compare that to OSX that has never had more than trojans and worms and very few of those. You can talk about risky online behavior, etc., but I'm talking about feeling secure. That's harder to put a price on.



My old gaming computer is still running XP so I'm talking about updating its virus checker yesterday. Is that recent enough? Yes, Windows7/8 is nicer in terms of an operating system. That doesn't automatically mean it's more secure than the final Windows security update. They've been updating them all along side each other. I'm not talking about how well Windows8 runs (I don't like Metro).

I'm not saying I haven't used Windows7 or 8. I have at work, etc. I simply don't feel any need to get it at home since most new games STILL work in XP and that machine is getting out of date anyway. I don't game as much as I used to and have dozens to play in OSX now first anyway. Family members have Windows7 on their machines (I updated my mother's computer for her all the time running Windows7 before I finally bought her a Macbook that she uses 50x more often now). They STILL require virus checkers. That has not changed.



What does that have to do with the current state of malware? Are you claiming Windows7 and 8 are more secure than the final security patches for XP? In what way? Maybe you mean that they ask you if you are sure you want to run something (Vista was REALLY good at doing that over and over until you were sick of it)? :rolleyes: It's STILL Windows, not UNIX and has 10,000x the Malware out there of OSX and that's being conservative. Ever look at a Virus checker database? There are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of viruses for Windows. There are ZERO for OSX (and I mean a virus, not trojans/worms).

There is so much FUD and wrong in this post I don't even know where to begin.

Please. Stop posting.
 
If I were to guess, it'd likely be the same SKU that the MBA and Surface Pro 2 are running. We know that they said it was "more powerful than the Surface Pro 2", so we know at least that it isn't any worse.

Anandtech just ran CPU comparisons using the i5 SP3. i5-4300U vs the i5-4200U on the SP2

They report a performance bump that ranges between 3% and 20% and some benchmarks beat the MBA
 
Don't see how it is too expensive. It is making a play at being your only device. From Microsoft themselves:

The tablet that can replace your laptop

Currently the tablet already replaces the Laptop/desktop. We see this with the already declining sales of desktops and laptops with OEM's scrambling with alternatives. ( Well, in some instances, smartphones )

Does the average consumer really want to go back to a desktop on a tablet when they already left it behind? Most just need the basics email, social networking, internet and so on. They don't really need anything outside what current apps can already provide them vice conventional desktop software except perhaps power users or for work and there are alternatives to that.

When has this been considered is own market??? You actually have to sell some product, make a profit and have some competition!

Its really more of a construct into what I believe puts it into its own category. Its not quite a tablet and not quite a desktop. Right now people are trying to compare the Surface Pro to either the MacBook Air or the iPad. Simply because no category exists for an Apple tablet that has a desktop class CPU and conventional desktop operating system.
 
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Because the MBA is really ****** as a tablet, which is sort of the whole point with the Surface Pro 3, it being a tablet and all...

And who here even suggested that the Macbook Air is a tablet? Not a single person. And as far as the Surface Pro 3 being a "Tablet"...yeah well, that's why I put Tablet in quotes. It's not really as such. In essence it's tablet-like but it's really a laptop. While you're shaking the pom poms for the Surface Pro 3 you should think about why Microsoft heavily targeted the Macbook Air yesterday. I mean, the whole keynote was totally laughable. They certainly didn't hide the fact that they were P.O'd that most of the room was filled with bloggers and the media using MacBooks.

If the Macbook Air wasn't a strong competitor Microsoft wouldn't have even bothered to mention it, but much of the keynote was targeting the MBA. So while you're saying the MBA is ***** as a Tablet (exactly because no one said it was a tablet) the Surface Pro 3 is pretty close to being ***** as an everyday tablet itself. Some people already feel the iPad at 9.7" is too big. I'd like to see an abundance of people using a 12.1" Surface as a "Tablet" for daily use. ;)
 
Ha ha, of course Windows developers are using Windows and I imagine 99.9% of the servers are running some kind of Unix/Linux variant. I would be very interested to know if your blind assumption about the financial software is correct. I haven't found a use case yet where either Excel for Mac or Numbers were not equally capable (using different implementations and solutions to the same problem). Excel and Office in general for Mac were horribly unstable up to a couple of months ago with the latest updated, I will definitely grant you that!

he's not incorrect. I can't speak for ALL the platforms in the world, but, I work for a software dev house that makes enterprise grade financial software for banks (and have our software installed at several of the largest).

We do not. Will not. cannot nor ever will support OSx in any way. Windows front end only (or web) with Unix or Windows for the back end.

heck, our run time vendor does not even have an OSx runtime or products at all, so any and all Enterprise software that uses our runtime (and it's quite a popular enterprise level one) will never support OSx.

the market isn't there. it's too small and it's too much of a pain in the ass. Most corporate world is windows desktops.
 
I feel like if the majority of Apple customers want touch, Apple would've done it. As such, I think until MSFT can prove the surface customers is more than a niche product, Apple will probably not do anything.

Oh, it is definitely a niche product. I don't know what sales targets MSFT has set for it, but I think they should be really happy with 5 million units sold, and anything over a million would probably be at least OK, if nothing groundbreaking.
 
The guy on stage showed it being used on a lap. A lap isn't a perfectly flat surface nor is it a "hard surface" by any stretch.

Of course it can be used, but it isn't ideal for working. The point is that Laptops have a heavier base with a light screen; thus they are actually much better suited for typing on a lap. Of course the surface can be used that way, but everyone I know who has one agree that it's much easier on a hard surface.

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Oh, it is definitely a niche product. I don't know what sales targets MSFT has set for it, but I think they should be really happy with 5 million units sold, and anything over a million would probably be at least OK, if nothing groundbreaking.

Personally I HATE people (myself included) touching my screen. I'm always cleaning my iPad screen.
 
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