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Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

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Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#151
post #149
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are you paid to question why people like ms products by their competitors? Accusing people like this is rather childish.. unless your 'proof' takes the form "someone likes a product which nobody is supposed to like.."

[deleted]

>It's a reasonable suspicion,

Let me get this straight. You believe that a multi-billion dollar company hires people to post multiple comments on a forum (which less than 1% of their total customers read) under the same username, and only 10% of those are positive (assuming its true, i have zero interest in digging through anyones comment history) - per year - just so a small percentage of people reading those comments might go out and buy a product without doing further research?

>Surely you know how common it is for people to be hired to pose as bloggers who are in fact paid representatives of specific companies or political causes?

No, actually, I don't know how common it is.

>As to the OP being paid to doubt your sincerity, just ask yourself what his motive might be -- who might pay for that to happen. In other words, exercise common sense.

Um.. I am not the person who posted the original comment (or the article).

>Yes, unless it's justified by evidence. It's justified by evidence.

You have a bizarre definition of evidence. The "evidence" in this case is the subjective opinion of one person who is interpreting the subjective opinion of another. There is no actual evidence that anyone was actually paid for anything. People using the "I can't think of anything else" argument don't convince me.

Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#152
post #149
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are you paid to question why people like ms products by their competitors? Accusing people like this is rather childish.. unless your 'proof' takes the form "someone likes a product which nobody is supposed to like.."

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#154
post #21

I bought a Surface for three reasons mainly. First, it supports Flash, and when I tested tablets out in the showroom, I was able to watch online lectures on the Surface and not on the iPad. Second, it gives access to the file system, so I can organize my large collection of scientific pdfs on disk the way I want to. Third, it has a USB port. I was rather astounded that the iPad did not, and perhaps Apple has changed…

I have a Surface and an iPad, so I completely understand what you mean about file management.

But if you do find yourself in an iOS world - the killer app for file management on iOS is actually Dropbox. Organise your dropbox account on another computer -filing everything as it should be, then it will sync up to your iOS device, and you can access everything as required, including pdfs, images, word docs, etc. It's not perfect but it does work well.

I also have another file management app which allows me to connect to my NAS via the iPad. This is also very useful.

Of course, neither are necessary for the Surface, but I prefer a lot of the consumption features of the iPad. Web browsing on the iPad is superior because of screen quality and the browser being much more adept at gestures.

Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#155
post #6

I think the Surface2 Pro is really great and shows the strenghts of Windows 8, except for its battery life maybe. But the idea to carry around one device that is a good tablet, laptop and can even be used as a full desktop computer with keyboard/mouse and 2 huge screens if you like is pretty fantastic and the OS scales well to all those different usage patterns. Now you might say, it does all that, but none of it rea…

> Sadly Apple seems to want to unify everything into iOS down the road

I'm not sure why people continue to believe this; they've shown no real signs of doing so in the past seven years.

Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#156

's funny; one of the screenshots is used to call out the Charms bar as an example of great UI. For me - as a user of Windows 8 on a desktop - it has become something of an icon of just how poor Windows 8's UI is. On a tablet, you swipe it out from the left edge of the screen. Makes sense - so much sense that Apple copied the idea in iOS 7. On a PC, you bring out the charms bar by frustratedly wiggling your mouse agai…

What does one use the charms bar for? I've been using win8 as my main OS for over a year and I literally don't think I've used it once. The only obvious things the charms bar does I find easier and quicker to do with keyboard shortcuts.

For the record, I despise all the Metro stuff and would cut it out if it were easy to do so.

Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#157
post #6

I think the Surface2 Pro is really great and shows the strenghts of Windows 8, except for its battery life maybe. But the idea to carry around one device that is a good tablet, laptop and can even be used as a full desktop computer with keyboard/mouse and 2 huge screens if you like is pretty fantastic and the OS scales well to all those different usage patterns. Now you might say, it does all that, but none of it rea…

> Sadly Apple seems to want to unify everything into iOS down the road I'm not sure why people continue to believe this; they've shown no real signs of doing so in the past seven years.

Well imo the latest OSX versions share some code between OSX and iOS, the App Store could be seen as another sign on the road to a more closed consumer system.

Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#158

I definitely concur about the handwriting recognition being terrific, but the interface being terrible. I wrote a little prototype of how I thought it should work a few months ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhn6EdN3Vvw

Making special ink only controls is actually pretty easy, I've seen AWESOME demos all the way back to the original Windows XP Tablet PC Edition days. The real problem is making inking work with any arbitrary control! That is what the current input panel is for. Remember it has to work anyplace anyone could ever enter text, wherever a cursor appears. So that includes Bob's Janky Control Factory DLL version 1.32a last…

Good to hear from another old school enthusiast!

Perhaps Metro apps were an opportunity to change the behavior and shed legacy compatibility requirements. Another possibility is to target just the web browser; the web has a defined set of controls which allowed Apple to define touch behavior for just those. I agree tackling compatibility for everything that has ever been created in Windows is not feasible, but I think there are alternatives.

Regarding size of input box, remember how small people write on typical ruled paper. It's much smaller than the handwriting recognition area! The reason I thought just letting people wander outside the box might work is that most of the time, it's for letters like 'g' or 'j' where part of the letter hangs 'below the line'. Characters don't typically start below the line.

In general, yes, there are many potential usability concerns. However, the bar is low, as most people don't consider the current system usable to start with.

Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sadly Apple seems to want to unify everything into iOS down the road I'm not sure why people continue to believe this; they've shown no real signs of doing so in the past seven years.

Well imo the latest OSX versions share some code between OSX and iOS, the App Store could be seen as another sign on the road to a more closed consumer system.

iOS has shared a lot of code with MacOS since its inception...

> the App Store could be seen as another sign on the road to a more closed consumer system.

Well, could be, perhaps, but highly speculatively. It's not like the app store on MacOS was an amazing world first, or anything; notably, Ubuntu had a paid app store before the MacOS one.

Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Surely the comment about hardware variability is moot on the Surface. It's designed by Microsoft.. The Surface has a USB port. And that makes it an uncontrolled environment. For example, the article complains that Windows is "technically terrible", because "I suddenly started getting an error message about some DLL every time I restarted the Surface (which you sometimes have to do when you get updates, which you ge…

I did at one point plug a Logitech keyboard into the Surface, but I definitely did not intentionally install any Logitech drivers. It's something Windows put there by itself, only for it to become a problem later.

> I did at one point plug a Logitech keyboard into the Surface, but I definitely did not intentionally install any Logitech drivers. It's something Windows put there by itself, only for it to become a problem later.

Windows automatically installs drivers supplied by the manufacturer.

If Windows didn't do that, then you'd get antitrust complaints from Logitech, because Microsoft sells keyboards that compete with Logitech's.

A lot of the problems with the Windows ecosystem are not technical problems at all, but legal or market problems.

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