I agree, BUT I think you underestimate the importance of a keyboard on a tablet. Having used the surface Pro I thought the keyboard was pure genius and it was incredibly useful. But I agree, it should not have been the main point of MS marketing.
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Microsoft Surface Estimated to Have Sold Only 1.7 Million Units Since Launch
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I agree, BUT I think you underestimate the importance of a keyboard on a tablet. Having used the surface Pro I thought the keyboard was pure genius and it was incredibly useful. But I agree, it should not have been the main point of MS marketing.
For you, yes. You type 70 pages a day. My previous examples of the estate broker, the DJ etc. keyboards are.... so, like, totally, 1970's, right now.
It's a very interesting observation. Pack in SD cards slots, USB ports, keyboards and the buying public says a big NO! Give them a device with no external input and a single button on the unit and next thing you know BOOM! 300 million orders.
The problem with too much choice. Is too much choice.
For you, yes. You type 70 pages a day. My previous examples of the estate broker, the DJ etc. keyboards are.... so, like, totally, 1970's, right now.
It's a very interesting observation. Pack in SD cards slots, USB ports, keyboards and the buying public says a big NO! Give them a device with no external input and a single button on the unit and next thing you know BOOM! 300 million orders.
The problem with too much choice. Is too much choice.
I think it's the "choice" of having a keyboard. The surface keyboard is about as thin as other devices covers without keyboards, it just snaps on and off, and it gets powered by the device. So really there is virtually no trade off to having the keyboard with the device.
I know you are harping on "too much choice", but as long as there is no trade off I highly disagree that there is such a thing as "too much choice". It's the same for a stylus for example, if it doesn't add bulk or weight then why not? This seems like a way to rationalize the lack of choices on the ipad to yourself. I guess call me weird, but I like choices.
As for why the surface was a flop, I highly disagree that it's because it has so many choices. I've already said IMO it's because of MS horrible strategy in terms of software, but I think their hardware is very solid and in many ways amazing.
Same reason that I think legacy Windows app support is a bad idea for a tablet. Most developers are lazy or don't want to make hard decisions. If they can assume that most people have the keyboard or the stylus or they can fallback to desktop mode, then the touch UI will suffer.
I think for us guys who hang out on this forum is that we are not a good indication of broad mass market appeal. We can split the tech down into wants and needs.
The real estate broker example I gave in previous; she only had to choose on device storage size and price. No brainer. How much money for how much storage. Simple.
iPad is also now a stand alone device. Doesn't even need to be sync'd to start it. They'll do it right in the store for you in under 10 minutes. That's where the 250m sales went. The other 47 million on education and about 3 million on tech heads like you and I.
Tech people are not a target market. Far from it. Less of us than there is of everyone else.
With the Surface RT, that's pretty much what I said. The first Android tablets stuck themselves in the same price range as the iPad and failed. They eventually succeeded by dropping the price to $200, created a budget space, and then building their way back up to the premium $500.
With the Pro, it's not the same thing as the iPad. It's a converged tablet Ultrabook and what MS marketing should've done is come up with a new word to designate a new product space - like people use the word phablet to describe the Note. Instead they called it a tablet and let people argue about whether or not it was a tablet or an Ultrabook for the next 4 months. Marketing failure
Here's a link to the whole touchscreen thing
Yeah the fans are not going away anytime soon. I think you need to hit something like a 4W TDP to get rid of active cooling. Haswell is at 11.
But the main benefits of Haswell for the Pro are the battery increase via dropped TDP and sleep states and the integrated graphics improvement. 30% makes a big difference for casual tablet use. For ultrabook use with fans going 100%, that's basically another hour.
I disagree. I think legacy support should be highlighted. I prefer to have the option to use my programs even if I have the use the press and hold or other methods to get around the lack of a mouse and keyboard.
Support for older Windows Apps is a big plus for a Windows tablet.
Cheers,
I'm sure there are people that legacy support is important and beneficial to. I'm not questioning your personal preference.
But, again, we've had over a dozen years of failed Windows tablets that show that it's a negative to the larger market.
I agree, tech people are not a good target market, at least for tablets like the ipad which have a broad consumer appeal in their simplicity, a blessing for the unwashed masses but at times a curse for the technologically educated user. But the unwashed masses win as in bulk they have more money simply by numbers.
I still think consumers find value in choices though. I don't have to be technologically oriented to know that typing on the onscreen keyboard of the ipad sucks and sucks badly compared to a physical keyboard. I don't think a keyboard is much of a technological hurdle for even the simplest person to understand.
Just the other day my wife was amazed at my windows tablet when she needed to receive a fax, sign some documents and fax and also email them back. I was able to do just that with my windows tablet and we got onto a conversation on how she would love to have a tablet with that kind of capability. I know the ipad can do this, but it was just very seamless in windows to do this, additionally for certain documents her signature is scrutinized so she can't get away with a finger signature. She uses my old ipad 3, but it collects dust most days as she is in banking and most of the software is windows only for her bank so she carriers around her 11" macbook air.
I still believe if a "choice" doesn't have a large tradeoff then it does MUCH more good than harm.
Microsoft spent more money marketing the Surface than they took in revenue from selling the Surface. Total revenue, not even profits. That is astounding. And the gluttons for punishment that they are, Microsoft is readying generation two of the Surface. What's another billion to lose?
That's mainly due to hardware and the lack of software/OS touch optimization. The former isn't true anymore, the latter is true to a certain degree but we are in a transition phase. It took Apple to show the world how a tablet should be made, but now that it has that technological limitation is behind us.
It's too bad that Microsoft chose to ignore this with the surface Pro which had many of the same problems tablets from 10 years ago had.
Of course, "choice" in your anecdote led to you having to use outdated technologies and your wife being inconvenienced by incompatibility.
Seriously though, that's why creating successful devices is hard. You have to find a balance between choosing and providing choices.
Of course, "choice" in your anecdote led to you using outdated technologies and your wife being inconvenienced by incompatibility.
Which outdated technologies and incompatability?
Yeah, I got the Logitech bluetooth keyboard to go with my LTE iPad4, but although it is a great product, I find myself not using it since I got the smart cover. I find the extra protection and non-slip material of greater convenience than the keyboard, especially when I'm moving around.
I'll give the keyboard to my wife when she gets her new company iPad.
I'm sure there are people that legacy support is important and beneficial to. I'm not questioning your personal preference.
I think prior tablets failed not so much because of legacy apps but because they were thick, heavy and had clunky interfaces. Additionally no one really understood why they might want/need one. Now that Apple has shown people what a light stylish device can do people understand the use case.
All I'm saying is Microsoft can't say, "look we can do iPad stuff too, we have apps too...". Of course this great new Windows device can do much of what an iPad can do but it's so much more functional, costs less (Atom versions) and supports greater connectivity, expansion and ... all the Windows apps you already know.
Cheers,
Another thing Microsoft messed up with on the Surface products was the form factor. Using that device in portrait mode is a non-starter.
Apple and everyone else are now moving on to the 7 inch tablet arena and their OS is designed to accommodate this with no compromise. MS can't really get into that space yet because of the design flaws of the OS. Desktop mode on a 7 inch Surface would be a nightmare. Portrait mode on it would be an issue again.
Microsoft really has it's work cut out for it.
Apple and everyone else are now moving on to the 7 inch tablet arena and their OS is designed to accommodate this with no compromise. MS can't really get into that space yet because of the design flaws of the OS. Desktop mode on a 7 inch Surface would be a nightmare. Portrait mode on it would be an issue again.
Microsoft really has it's work cut out for it.
Fax is outdated? You would be surprised how often fax is still used in the business world. I have an online fax account which doesn't work on my ipad, so I can receive digital faxes, manipulate them, annotate them, and sign them and send them back to someones outdated fax machine.
Bank software is on Windows, so you say it's incompatible with..what?
Anyhoo my point was that I was able to overcome these obstacles quite handily, whether they be outdated technologies or incompatible software obstacles.
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And I'd argue that they were thick, heavy and had clunky interfaces because Microsoft was trying to maintain legacy support.
It's a result of what hardware was available at the time. Do you think the ipad could have been built in 2002? I won't argue the interface though, MS had no clue and it was pretty terrible.
I'm waiting for somebody to say yes.
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Yes.
No, incompatible. You said it was Windows only.
Fax is not outdated... how is it outdated?
Yes.
No, incompatible. You said it was Windows only.
It's a good thing you never have to receive faxes in your line of work, I'm jealous. Have you ever tried to exchange documents with an international client? Fax may be outdated for you, but for some of my wifes international clients it's their only means of document exchange, heck even some clients here in the US rely on fax.
As for incompatible, with what? Incompatible with an ipad? That's about the norm for windows only programs.
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Not really. Microsoft could have built a tablet OS around lightweight mobile software that could have shrunk the size of their tablets considerably. But they chose to use Windows.
No. But I do think a lightweight tablet based on a mobile OS could have been built in 2002. Along the lines of a 7" Palm device. The Newton was released in the early 90s.
And yet one of the biggest complaints about Windows RT is that it doesn't have x86 support. Do you really think it would have sold well without old Windows apps support in 2002 when Windows had an even higher market share than it does now?