It's alright people sitting around and laughing down the Surface and being a typical fanboy,
Except that that's not what's happening here. Up until this post, a lively, balanced discussion was happening.
however Microsoft have now raised their game and have released a product that has serious potential.
How? What exactly do you mean by "raised their game?" "Serious potential" in what ways?
These two catchphrases always come from people who lack actual facts to back up their statements. This isn't the playoffs, it's technology and how people use it. And the reviews are in: three iterations and Microsoft still lacks a real hit. It might get respectable sales from people who will go out of their way to inconvenience themselves because they don't want to use an Apple product for philosophical reasons... cutting off their noses to spite their faces, basically. But when the vast majority of people care about making sure the technology they use works well, The Surface 3 remains an also-ran.
It's basically the Zune, all over again.
When the iPad was released it was designed for browsing and social media, that is it.
Actually no. It was designed as a rich device for eBooks and electronic documents, including magazines, digital newspapers, and textbooks. It was designed as an immersive media player, including video on a screen way larger than a smartphone but still of a comfortable size to fit in your hands. It was designed as an on-the-spot photo viewer and editor. And it was designed to allow people to do core work communication functions without having to carry a laptop.
Not long after, the productivity software showed up, and it continues to do that well. Enough that most people
still aren't buying a whole lot of windows tablets.
And oh yeah... it does web browsing and social media, too.
And it was designed to do all of this SIMPLY. Out of the box, it's a one-piece, light and slim device with a long battery life. No flaps or stands to figure out and maybe break later, no annoyingly bad integrated flat, unresponsive keyboard to get used to. Though an iPad user can still add on these things, if they really wanted to.
Users are the most important thing in consumer electronics, yo can add new things that people don't yet know they want but you must give them what they do want as well.
Exactly right. Unfortunately, there are a small but very vocal group of geeks who THINK they know what the majority of users want, but they really don't. The same people who are content with buying a device because it has impressive specs on a sheet of paper, even if the actual user experience is clunky, unrefined, and problematic... and expect all other users to be just fine with spending more time tinkering with their device than doing actual work with it.
And when the sales figures and market share numbers prove these geeks wrong, they simply ignore it and pat each other on the back, repeating empty and meaningless platitudes like "stepped up their game" and "has potential."
Even Steve Jobs lacked vision for the iPad of what it could really be dismissing file systems and the use of a stylus.
You couldn't be more wrong if you said the sky was red. If anything, every Apple product has had a specific vision in mind. Stylii wasn't in the vision because - rightly so - they were viewed as hindrances. They get lost, they limit interaction. They get in the way.
Art is one of the biggest things on a tablet
And there are far more ways to do art than shoving a pointy stick at a screen. iPad users have been demonstrating this for years now.
Tim likes using the slogan "Post-PC Era" a lot
He actually doesn't push it that much... at least not in the way most pundits try to push it. The "Post PC era" Apple promotes, and the "Post PC era" the talking heads and geeks like to think about are two very different things.
In fact, Microsoft has been more pushy of the extremist "Post-PC era" than Apple has. Microsoft has been assuming - wrongly, that people don't want PCs anymore, but would rather have these lousy converged laptop/tablet hybrids. Meanwhile, Apple has been making it clear that they're keeping OS X computers and iOS mobile devices as very separate things that do different jobs better.
A lot of pundits and "industry analysts" use the "Post-PC era" catchphrase, usually in the same breath as "stepping up their game." And they do it to incorrectly suggest that more traditional computers are dead. But that's not the case. The real "Post-PC Era" is actually a time where people aren't forced to use a stationary desktop, or awkwardly balance a laptop on their laps to do simple tasks, as their only means of getting the job done. They remain
options, and have their use-cases where they outshine tablets. But tablets have their use cases as well. Users will have their freedom to choose the tool for the task, assuming of course that the geeks and pundits don't muck it up and companies like Microsoft stop believing their hype.
however how can I replace a laptop when I have no accessible file system instead having to rely on half a dozen apps to do the simplest thing.
Again, a tablet does not and should not replace a PC for all things. Tablets have their uses, and laptops/PCs have their uses.
Apple needs to step up their game,
There's that phrase again, "step up their game." With no meaningful explanation what that even means.
I don't think a shed load of Ram is needed or a full OSX system though that would be a massive advantage, however proper stylus support and a file system is as well as a USB port.
Yeah,
Apple sells something like this already. Though that stylus thing is still omitted, thankfully.
This really plays in to what Microsoft said at their keynote and which is very true..
It's just really ironic to me that the same people who will make fun of Apple users for blindly agreeing to what Apple execs say in keynotes are turning right around and parroting what Microsoft execs are saying in a keynote, as if it were gospel. And yet, Apple users are the fanboys. :roll eyes:
we all have loads of devices but none of these phones or tablets really do everything we need so we have to have multiple devices and multiple solutions to problems that shouldnt exist. feels stupid really.
The funny thing about the "multiple devices and multiple solutions to problem that shouldn't exist" statement is that the problems
don't exist. Microsoft is making up a problem, and then trying to sell people a solution to that made-up problem.
There seems to be this idea that the same device that fits in my pocket should be able to solve all the problems that my desktop computer with dual 27 inch LCD displays solves. That's just not possible. Those two devices exist in the ways they do for different reasons. They solve different problems, and solve them very well. And they would each be really bad at solving the problems the other device was designed to handle.
And so, well made devices may solve several problems, they don't solve
everything, because if they tried to, they would do everything
badly. While multipurpose devices are nice, there is a limit to how many things a device can do before it stops doing them all well. The Surface line of products is a
perfect example. Microsoft has been "stepping up their game" for a few years now with this beast, and people still don't want to buy it, at least not nearly enough to put any dent in iPad sales.