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Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet

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Re: Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet

#511

Post by InclinedPlane »

tylermenezes wrote: post #485

I don't understand the "OMG MICROSOFT MADE A TABLET IT IS CLEARLY COPYING THE IPAD" reaction Microsoft's getting here. They're absolutely ahead of the curve with the blending of mobile and desktop operating systems, something which I am extremely happy they are doing, and this is absolutely the logical design choices someone in that position would make. Yes, it's very similar to the iPad in many ways. But other than…

I'm not sure I'd call it "ahead of the curve". They are on the right track for the most part, but there are key aspects here that are not obvious that I think MS is a little blind to (which is too complex a topic to go into here). Overall though I'd say they are at least partially clueful, which is enormously helpful.

I don't think people realize how big this announcement was.

Yes, MS is still a multi-billion dollar company and a good portion of their revenue is likely secure for years if not decades. But we are at a key juncture in computing here, as important as the mainframe/mini-computer to PC transition if not even more so. And if MS had just blundered on and made half-assed token efforts they would have forever set themselves into the wrong gear and they would have relegated their company to a different market and marketshare than dominating the mainstream PC market as they've done.

MS has made a big play, and it may be enough to keep them in the game and revitalize their brand image. Time will tell.

Re: Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet

#512

Post by mtgx »

tylermenezes wrote: post #485

I don't understand the "OMG MICROSOFT MADE A TABLET IT IS CLEARLY COPYING THE IPAD" reaction Microsoft's getting here. They're absolutely ahead of the curve with the blending of mobile and desktop operating systems, something which I am extremely happy they are doing, and this is absolutely the logical design choices someone in that position would make. Yes, it's very similar to the iPad in many ways. But other than…

Before the iPad, Microsoft was using the "PC interface", to the disadvantage of the tablets they were putting it on.

Now they are doing the reverse: making a tablet interface to the disadvantage of the PC. The "all-in-one" interface for all types of devices and form factors will never work, because at best it's optimized only for one of them, and mediocre or poor for most of the others.

Re: Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet

#513

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

itsboring wrote: post #422
Turing_Machine wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or as I call it "BlurryType". The color fringing drives me nuts.

Whenever I do a fresh windows install, it's a race to turn off cleartype before I get a headache.

Don't turn it off. Go into Color settings (or whatever they call it) and use the ClearType tuning wizard to sharpen it.

Re: Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet

#514

Post by mrich »

tylermenezes wrote: post #485

I don't understand the "OMG MICROSOFT MADE A TABLET IT IS CLEARLY COPYING THE IPAD" reaction Microsoft's getting here. They're absolutely ahead of the curve with the blending of mobile and desktop operating systems, something which I am extremely happy they are doing, and this is absolutely the logical design choices someone in that position would make. Yes, it's very similar to the iPad in many ways. But other than…

I would not call the Galaxy SIII an awful product. According to many reviews it is the best smartphone available on the market.

Re: Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet

#516

Post by lloeki »

geon wrote: post #497
sjwright wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I certainly don't think we're close yet Perhaps not for the Hacker News audience. I'd assert that an iPad -- perhaps with a bluetooth keyboard -- is already enough computer for 70% of western world.

> Perhaps not for the Hacker News audience. I'd say especially for the HN audience. A lot of people around here live most of their lives in the terminal, using Vi and Git. They have no reason to work on a beefy machine, as long as they can access more hardware somewhere else. It could be a server in the closet, or "the cloud". When I bought my first laptop and started doing webdev in 2001, I noticed that all I needed…

In fact the only total, absolute, complete deal breaker is Cmd+Tab instead of reaching for the home button+screen.

Re: Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet

#518

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

photon137 wrote: post #193
DeepDuh wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DOES it perform well though? And by that I mean things like native hardware video decompression without having too much impact on the battery, real-timeyness of the touch UI and overall low power consumption. These are IMO the underlying technologies where Apple innovated the most with their iOS platform and these metrics are yet to beat by others. Do we already have hands on tests with windows 8 on ARM? I at least h…

"native hardware video decompression without having too much impact on the battery" - that's actually where ARM and Intel innovated, not Apple - MS is probably mature enough to deal with processors at least as well as, if not better than, Apple. As regarding tests, I haven't had access to devices running Windows on ARM - WOA is something of a mystery - they haven't released a full WOA SDK as far as I'm aware - althou…

IIRC, they aren't letting devs use Win32 on WOA, only WinRT and .NET.

Re: Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet

#519

Post by stusmith1977 »

shashashasha wrote: post #99
MrFoof wrote: post #7

They have a video on the main page. The video is a minute long. They have asked for my attention for a minute. In that minute, they have not told me anything about what the Surface can do for me, and why I should care about it. I'm absolutely baffled by that. Yes, I might know what it is, and have some idea about what it can do, but if this was a television commercial, I'd bet money that such a campaign would be a qu…

Really surprised by the really clashing tones of their website (Apple, consumer, colors): http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en/us/default.aspx And that minute long video, which screams Dudes, Droids, and ferrofluids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpzu3HM2CIo&feature=playe...

It's a shame the website had a white background, and the video had a black background. The borderless, chromeless video could have looked awesome if it had the same background color as the webpage itself - it would have merged in nicely.

Instead the video stood out as a black box - it looked a little incongrous just 'stuck there' in the middle of the page.

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