Microsoft Introduces Thinner Surface Pro 3 with 12" Display Starting at $799

[spinedoc77]

"The day a human being is truly stupid enough to not be able to program a VCR clock.."



The point is since we are discussing user interfaces, given the choice, would you prefer a VCR clock that is easy to program, or one that you have to learn how to program. Technology should be an amplifier to our human abilities, interfaces should be as transparent as possible, allowing you to focus fully on what you are actually attempting to do with the technology.

I still didn't say stupid, I said the day we are stupid enough to not be able to do these simple things. My entire point was that we are NOT stupid.

As for a VCR clock, I never said I would prefer one that was difficult to program, I just don't think I've ever seen one that was beyond my intelligence or what I would consider an average human beings intelligence. I agree about technology being transparent, but how much more transparent can you get with a VCR clock?

I know it's an extreme example and kind of a waste of time to even talk about. Getting back to something relevant I don't see windows on a tablet as being that much more complicated than something like iOS if you just use it in Metro mode, but if you dig deeper you get so much more.

I'll give you an example, I've always thought taking notes was MUCH easier using a pen and paper. I could never get the hang of using a laptop to take notes in a lecture or seminar. I'm not saying using a laptop isn't valid, it is, but for me personally I got a lot more quality notes using a pen and paper and being able to quickly make notes that were compartmentalized and organized on the fly. Additionally I liked to annotate the textbook we were working out of. By eschewing pen input the ipad made technology that was harder for me to use, to have to sit and hunt and peck on that tiny inaccurate on screen keyboard would be torture for me, and don't get me started on the lack of a mouse. Once again that's me, I know others get by just fine.

Making things too simple has a consequence as well.

 

[Tinmania]

It is FAR harder to make the complex simple and accessible than it is to keep the complex confusing. This is why most technology has historically had laughably bad UI's. Remember the days when everyone's VCR clock flashed 12:00 because setting it was too much of a pain.

Actually I don't remember that. Maybe I hung around with people that could figure out such a trivial procedure that was needed to, you know, actually use a VCR to record television. If you weren't going to schedule a recording, what point would there be in setting a meaningless clock?

Sorry, I guess I'm tired of the flashing VCR clock analogy...



Michael

 

[spinedoc77]

In order to recreate something, it is often necessary to discard the old way entirely and build it entirely anew. Apple was willing to do this, Microsoft was not. If not for Apple, we would have gone down the road of Windows Mobile which was again, great for tech geeks and awful for everyone else.

I understand that different people want different things, but it has become quite clear over the years here that what you want from a tablet is way outside the norms of what most people want. Microsoft had tablets that did effectively what you wanted for years, and they sold effectively none of them. I don't want my tablet to be a laptop replacement, it's an appliance that does things differently and yes, often better, than a regular computer does. Windows 8 is in no way ready to replace the iPad for any volume of users. Of perhaps the top 25-30 most used iPad apps of mine, perhaps 5 of them are available on Windows. Of the half-dozen or so magazines I subscribe to, one is available in the Windows store. I'm sure you'll say I have access to everything in desktop which is a) not always true as in the case of magazines, and b) fundamentally changes the use of the device as I go from a dead simple (read appliance-like) experience to struggling with Touch on the desktop or having to get out the keyboard which completely defeats the point of a tablet.



Why should people need to read manuals for things that with a bit more care on the development and design side could be done completely without one? Because it's cheaper to make whatever interface you come up with and offload the work of designing a great interface from your company (which costs you money) to your customers who then must each spend a small amount of time figuring out your convoluted interface. Make no mistake. Simple interfaces aren't common because they cost more money than complex ones.

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Exactly. Tech geeks tend to forget this as for them, the tech is the end itself. Yet the vast majority of users just need a tool to let them do the work for which the tech is the means.

We also tend to forget that the logical thinking that goes into the creation of much software and technology applies best to the people who think like those who create it, yet in reality, that mode of thinking only applies to a small portion of the population. Yes, once I read the manual, 'I get it,' yet I can step outside of myself enough to see that just as I will never be capable of composing a great musical work or painting a masterpiece, other people of value have great difficulty understanding the logical method that comes so naturally to me and most of us who choose to spend time in places like this.

I completely agree that Apple pushed Microsoft to rethink and create metro/modern, absolutely. But IMO Apple regressed too far. Now we are here today, and MS is offering an OS just as simple and easy as Apple, but where you can dig deeper and regain ALL of that functionality that was lost with iOS. Apple definitely gets major credit here, but you know the world moves on, hardware gets smaller and cheaper and things that were not possible 5 years ago now are possible. Why would I stick with a Model T when I can have an Audi just because one is easier to use?

As for what I want being outside the norm, that's not a proven commodity yet. As I've mentioned before Apple came out with some truly revolutionary hardware, thin, all day battery life, beautiful screen, etc. I'd say these were just as important as the software, if not MORE so, but that's just my opinion. They transformed the world of heavy, 2 hour battery, desktop OS tablets into the ipad and every penny of their success is well deserved. I won't deny that the number of apps may be an issue, but that is a logistics problem not a hardware/OS problem.

Why would you touch anything on the desktop or have to pull out a keyboard in tablet mode on windows? This is exactly what I mean when I say that people dumb themselves down without even realizing it. I don't mean that in a bad way, but there is no real way to sugar coat it. Apple was genius for convincing consumers they were not intelligent enough to use a full OS on a tablet and consumers bought it hook line and sinker, but hey don't forget to buy a Macbook laptop on your way out.

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Actually I don't remember that. Maybe I hung around with people that could figure out such a trivial procedure that was needed to, you know, actually use a VCR to record television. If you weren't going to schedule a recording, what point would there be in setting a meaningless clock?

Sorry, I guess I'm tired of the flashing VCR clock analogy...



Michael

I don't think I hung around those people either, lol.

 

[subsonix]

I still didn't say stupid, I said the day we are stupid enough to not be able to do these simple things. My entire point was that we are NOT stupid.

As for a VCR clock, I never said I would prefer one that was difficult to program, I just don't think I've ever seen one that was beyond my intelligence or what I would consider an average human beings intelligence. I agree about technology being transparent, but how much more transparent can you get with a VCR clock?

It's not about being able to figure it out or not, it's grading an interface from bad to excellent.

I'll give you an example, I've always thought taking notes was MUCH easier using a pen and paper. I could never get the hang of using a laptop to take notes in a lecture or seminar. I'm not saying using a laptop isn't valid, it is, but for me personally I got a lot more quality notes using a pen and paper and being able to quickly make notes that were compartmentalized and organized on the fly. Additionally I liked to annotate the textbook we were working out of. By eschewing pen input the ipad made technology that was harder for me to use, to have to sit and hunt and peck on that tiny inaccurate on screen keyboard would be torture for me, and don't get me started on the lack of a mouse. Once again that's me, I know others get by just fine.

Making things too simple has a consequence as well.

I agree about the pen and paper, and I think beyond the organizational benefits of digitizing documents the reason it's superior it exactly because it does one thing. There is no interface at all. Making things too simple has consequences, but even things that are more complex can have good or bad interfaces.

 

[sracer]

Although a valid point, I think this is overstated a lot these days. Windows 8 is quite a transparent OS. Malware/anti virus is automated, updated etc all invisibly without any user input required. In the years since microsoft introduced it's own malware/AV software I think I've had to interact with it maybe a couple of times, and that was primarily because I set it to manual updates.
Updating the OS is quite invisible as well, and I'd say quite equal to iOS. If you want to update in iOS you hit settings then update your software. Metro/modern has the same thing, you can right swipe, hit settings, get a nice large scaled settings page and you can go to updates and update manually, or just set it to automatic and never worry about it again.

Out of half a dozen PCs I run at home, work, and multiple laptops and tablets I rarely if ever have any issues where I have to dig into the OS, and virtually all of those are due to my own tinkering which messed something up.

I hear some saying "simplicity" equates to things like users not wanting to set their clocks on their VCR, programming a thermostat or adjusting their car stereo. I would beg to differ and not say this is complexity but pure and utter laziness. The day a human being is truly stupid enough to not be able to program a VCR clock is the day that the human race has lost and might as well all give up and die. I understand that consumers are lazy and if Apple caters to that and it makes them money then more power to them, I just get annoyed at the "simplicity" mantra that everyone chants. Yeah my 90 year old grandmother or my 2 year old can use an ipad, that doesn't make it a positive for the vast majority of consumers IMO.

As an owner of a Surface 2, Asus X200 netbook, and Lenovo S400 notebook, I can speak from first hand experience that systems maintenance on the Surface is GREATER than on the other 2 devices. Partially due to the lower quality of Windows RT and partially due to the far lower storage capacity. It uses the same device driver model as x86 Windows... and whenever there's a hiccup, the same type of troubleshooting that one would do on the desktop is necessary.

The netbook and notebook have 500GB harddrives. I'm not going to spend time trying to reclaim 3 GB of space taken up by upgrade backups. When freespace on the Surface drops from 11 to 8GB, it becomes important.

With iOS, I spend no time performing systems maintenance.

Granted, iOS is not the same as Windows RT, but Microsoft has failed to increase the functionality of the tablet space without the respective increase in systems maintenance required for a notebook / desktop. It's not a great feat to put a full OS on a tablet... but doing so that keeps it in line with the appliance-like nature of tablets is the challenge.

Historically, systems running Windows slow down over time... for a variety of reasons. Whenever an acquaintance is looking to buy a new machine and the reason is because "the system is slow", I perform a few maintenance tasks, clean things up, and the system returns to almost the same level of performance when the system was new.

Windows 8 is still too young to know whether or not this type of maintenance will be required.

 

[spinedoc77]

It's not about being able to figure it out or not, it's grading an interface from bad to excellent.



I agree about the pen and paper, and I think beyond the organizational benefits of digitizing documents the reason it's superior it exactly because it does one thing. There is no interface at all. Making things too simple has consequences, but even things that are more complex can have good or bad interfaces.

I definitely agree, but I think our individual expectations of what is simple may be different. I don't find programming a VCR clock as anything but dead simple, it was just as simple when I first programmed one at 10 years old as today, not that I own a VCR anymore though lol.

Look, I've said this before but we all just commerce in the business of opinion on this site. The reality will be what consumers buy. Will Microsoft be able to turn the tide of the ipad? Will consumers truly want a full OS, or are they happier to own an ipad AND a laptop? The other issue here is that Microsofts strategy has been less than stellar, if anything it's been piss poor at times. Windows 8 had issues out of the gate and still does, Windows RT was a complete failure and confused the market, and they are only embracing the high end with the surface pro and leaving the "ipad territory" to the OEMs with the atom processor, who are doing a relatively poor job. All of these things work against them and may spell failure for a product which might have otherwise succeeded.

 

[spinedoc77]

As an owner of a Surface 2, Asus X200 netbook, and Lenovo S400 notebook, I can speak from first hand experience that systems maintenance on the Surface is GREATER than on the other 2 devices. Partially due to the lower quality of Windows RT and partially due to the far lower storage capacity. It uses the same device driver model as x86 Windows... and whenever there's a hiccup, the same type of troubleshooting that one would do on the desktop is necessary.

The netbook and notebook have 500GB harddrives. I'm not going to spend time trying to reclaim 3 GB of space taken up by upgrade backups. When freespace on the Surface drops from 11 to 8GB, it becomes important.

With iOS, I spend no time performing systems maintenance.

Granted, iOS is not the same as Windows RT, but Microsoft has failed to increase the functionality of the tablet space without the respective increase in systems maintenance required for a notebook / desktop. It's not a great feat to put a full OS on a tablet... but doing so that keeps it in line with the appliance-like nature of tablets is the challenge.

Historically, systems running Windows slow down over time... for a variety of reasons. Whenever an acquaintance is looking to buy a new machine and the reason is because "the system is slow", I perform a few maintenance tasks, clean things up, and the system returns to almost the same level of performance when the system was new.

Windows 8 is still too young to know whether or not this type of maintenance will be required.

What complexity does a smaller hard drive bring? I have an Atom tablet and I use it with 1-2gb free all the time, it hasn't impacted me and I haven't had to tweak it anymore than deleting space, which obviously I would have to do with an ipad as well. I also don't see any slowing down, I think since Win7 it's been optimized to be quite efficient. I have a PC that I have the same OS on for almost 8 years, Windows 7 and I just upgraded to win8 right over that, still runs like new.

 

[LordVic]

Historically, systems running Windows slow down over time... for a variety of reasons. Whenever an acquaintance is looking to buy a new machine and the reason is because "the system is slow", I perform a few maintenance tasks, clean things up, and the system returns to almost the same level of performance when the system was new.

Windows 8 is still too young to know whether or not this type of maintenance will be required.

From my experience:

All operating systems. Windows, OSx, iOS, linux. All will encounter the same "bogging down". This isn't generally a byproduct of the OS, but the user and how they behave.

Windows 7 was much better at this than Windows XP and Vista. But still encountered it. I could go 2-3 years without needing a "cleanup". But my fathers PC? someone who double clicks everything and installs all the softwares without reading the installation options? every 6 months it needs a cleanup.

This occurs as well on a few OSx machines i've helped friends with. iOS tablets, Android, you name it. Any Operating system that allows you to install software, and leave files behind will eventually need cleanup.

Windows 8 has been pretty good for me. But then again, I also am anal retentive with what I install, how I Install it, and making sure that my OS's (i use multiple different ones) remain clean and unencumbered by programs. My current Windows 8(.1) installation has been going on Since Win8 launch, and the computer still runs extremely fast with no slowdowns. I would say that in my experience, Win8 is even better than any windows that came before it in this matter

 

[coolspot18]

Compromised OS that makes no sense most people don't need that much computing power. You're talking about an extremely small segment of users that thinks mobile operating systems are compromised.

It's only compromised for desktop usage - all rectifiable by Apple if they don't cram a Metro type interface on the user.

However, metro is pretty nice to use for touch.