Each one of your replies are circular logic answers to fulfill your own opinion with no bases for factual information.
Nothing wrong with individiual biased opinions but they usually do not reflect the common intellect of a sensible nonpartisan consumer.
Some of my responses are opinion and others are fact. This is stated in each of my replies. Please elaborate. I mean, is it not a fact that Microsoft wrote off $900 million because the device isn't really catching on with sensible nonpartisan consumers?
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I still don't see what that proves, you still need a keyboard to word process on an ipad JUST as much as on a surface tablet. FYI Office 2013 is pretty nice in a touch tablet environment, it's been tweaked to be touch friendly. But MS is working on a Metro Office application. If you want to see how nice Office in Metro will look try out the OneNote app, I use it a lot and find it is pretty incredible.
Still, I fail to see what in particular ipad word processing apps have that makes them that much more mobile. I think we have gone too far down this "I want to write my masters thesis on the subway with one hand on the pole" path, it's getting kind of stupid. If you want to word process you are going to need a keyboard, until someone invents an input paradigm to replace typing.
PS One exception might be using the stylus, which I do use frequently for note taking. It's not useful for very long documents, although I regularly write 2-3 page assessments using just the stylus and handwriting recognition on my windows tablet. These things are useful to me, stylus support (real stylus support, not like the ipad), apps which take advantage of this like OneNote, pressure sensitive screen, palm rejection, a robust and pretty incredible handwriting recognition system baked into the OS, etc etc. Once again I'm NOT throwing the stylus out there as a typing replacement, merely as an option and IMO a better option for casual input.
My point is that one of the Surface RT selling points is Office, no? The link I provided shows that Office is not touch friendly which means you pretty much need the keyboard. Office productivity is not a selling point for the iPad. You following me?
Now having said that, I agree with you and we discussed this before briefly. Serious work probably requires a keyboard and mouse.
Here is a quote from the article I don't think you read:
The need for simplicity
As a set of reader applications, the suite works tolerably well. Opening and scrolling through documents works, and because these are the full Office programs, files are displayed with full fidelity and functionality. However, in this context, I find it hard to understand why Microsoft made the effort it has; Even Office 2010 works adequately well for just reading documents on a touch PC.
Unfortunately, as soon as one ventures beyond mere reading, the experience becomes unsatisfactory. Finger users attempting to make edits will find themselves regularly dumped into interfaces simply not designed for imprecise input, and even if they stick to the "main" user interface (the ribbon and pop-up toolbars), that interface works poorly. The interactions with the on-screen keyboard are frustrating and the interface is cluttered, leaving too little of the working area actually visible.
Having the real Office applications and their perfect support for Office documents is valuable—but this needs to be married to simpler interfaces that are engineered around reading and light editing, and that remove entire features and user interfaces that are too complex for finger usage.
As things stand, far from being a valuable feature of Windows RT, the Office 2013 applications threaten to make it worse.
