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Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

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Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#91

Post by virtue3 »

chillingeffect wrote: post #67
TwistedWeasel wrote: post #17

It's admirable that MS is responding to criticism of their device and working for a solution. However, all the issues he experienced seem like they would be quite obvious to anyone testing the device usage for any kind of drawing application (which, for a device with a stylus seems like a common enough use case to be testing), perhaps Microsoft needs to spend more time and effort on their QA process for the next roun…

> It's admirable that MS is responding to criticism of their device and working for a solution. It is, but it isn't some trade secret, they could open source this and have 1,000s of people converging toward the solution. Why are they so hung up and being The Ones Who Deliver The Software And The Hardware?

money? "optimal experience"

I'm all for supporting open source. But seriously, it took me about 20-30 hours to get my FreeNAS setup working (the way I wanted) (getting the hardware together, configuring... lots and lots of configuring). And I'm definitely not going to say that that project is "end user friendly".

I really really love open source projects but I'm willing to put down that they don't always meet the end user in an appreciable way without a serious and committed company behind the product making it end user applicable (android, et all). Otherwise the open source project will fit the needs of the people that work on it (engineers) and that's about it.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#92

Post by virtue3 »

nether wrote: post #48
huhtenberg wrote: post #23

Gotta really give it to Microsoft. The transformation of the company under Nadella's leadership is really impressive. They really stepped up their game. They finally got someone on the PR team that actually knows what they are doing.

Gabe was raving about the Surface even with Ballmer at MS. I guess now it's time to credit anything good happening to Nadella's chairmanship.

I was about to chime in on this. Yes, the surface got thrown at Gabe since the getgo. He's been raving about it for a long time.

Which is surprising as he was using it as part of his major workflow for a while over his cintiq.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#93

Post by eric_cc »

ebbv wrote: post #76
steele wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is probably a stretch to call Mike Krahulik a famous millionaire. Microsoft used his art in their recent ad campaigns, which itself was a response to a prior unsolicited positive writeup on their product. So it is perfectly reasonable that they get his feedback (albeit far too late). Not all the problems were fixed, and I suspect some of the problems can't really be fixed given the hardware that is being shipped.…

How is it a stretch? He's a millionaire, there's no denying that. Sure mainstream people might not know who he is but in tech circles literally everyone does. So how is he not famous? I'd challenge you to find a more high profile person using Surface 3 and giving their public thoughts on it. So, my comment stands; if you are a famous millionaire then it's the product for you apparently, because Microsoft will actuall…

Your posts appear to be reverse snobbery.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#94

Post by virtue3 »

GodEater wrote: post #20

It's great to read that Gabe has had such a positive experience with a Microsoft product team - but it seems pretty obvious to me that it's because he's a somebody. His posts on penny-arcade reach an enormous audience, and so of course they're going to do their damn best to make sure he sings the product's praises. My experience is very different. I've been working for an enormous organisation for the last 4 years, a…

It really really depends on which product team you deal with at MS. I had experience with the silverlight/winphone teams and they were pretty on the ball. We had major carrier backing at my last job though... so they usually listened to us and we usually had early access hardware.

Sorry your experience with them wasn't as spot on. They've really been trying to be more responsive to feedback (at least with windows phone).

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#95

Post by Pxtl »

josefresco wrote: post #56

Seems like a small niche to be focusing on. I understand the PR angle (it's a home run for the PR team) but I don't think catering to artists who draw digitally is going to make or break the tablet. Where's the feel good story about the coder, the gamer, or the office junkie? Each of which makes up a considerably larger slice of the premium laptop/tablet marketplace.

Apple has had a stranglehold on the graphic design industry for years despite not actually making a good stylus-driven product for that market.

I don't know if there's a legitimate marketing reason for this, but it's a tremendously symbolic conflict. Microsoft attacking Apple in their stronghold.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#96

Post by TwistedWeasel »

lhc- wrote: post #89
TwistedWeasel wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, me too. However i'd hope that for a product as big and important to MS as this then there would be more checks and balances in place to make sure that such things don't get overlooked. It's understandable for one engineer to overlook it, maybe even a whole team but for an entire division of design, engineering, QA, marketing etc? Something is rotten in their process.

People make mistakes. Every piece of software ever written has bugs: I don't think that means everyone's process is rotten. It just means they are human.

Ok, but large corporations are supposed to be able to avoid human centric mistakes with good operations workflows that provide checks and balances in their pipeline.

I would assume MS is not shipping products directly from the engineering lab to the factory, so for something glaring to get all the way to the customer then there is something wrong in their process that failed to correct for human error.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#97

Post by virtue3 »

stcredzero wrote: post #32
neltnerb wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is not a gamer, I am curious -- why is it not the GPU that is the most critical when talking about the FPS and refresh rate for things like pen input? Is the issue that the CPU is "in the loop"? Is this a matter of the built in graphics on the Haswell chips not being quite good enough for this application, or is it actually the CPU? I mostly wonder because I've found the improvements to the GPU in the…

why is it not the GPU that is the most critical when talking about the FPS and refresh rate for things like pen input? GPUs are typically about reducing latency for a large amount of parallel processing. Things like stylus latency are more about reducing the latency for a very tiny amount of serially processed data, where the latency requirements are quite a bit more strenuous. (A kerjillion triangles, versus under 4…

The way game input works compared to OS input is very _very_ different.

Games go through a more direct mode of user input (directX) whereas the OS has to take into account that where your clicking can do a million different things (basically games take -almost- exclusive use of your mouse/keyboard). This becomes even more problematic when it's in a drawing application and they're now running math over your input to figure out exactly what you meant.

I'm with you though. They really shouldn't have come this far with screwing up the latency on the pen again (this fixed it on the surface 2 after talking to gabe last time as well...)

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#98

Post by pistle »

So when Apple lets people test out a new language, and the author notes important, but not universally demanded features, the tone is "It's amazing how awesome Apple is. Can't wait to see how it works out."

When MS does something not wholly different, there's a bunch of "HarrrrUMPH! They should have got this fixed already. It's such an obviously easy thing. If they were half the company or any open source community was, they would try to create something like a programming language!!"

Those contentious bones.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#99

Post by mpyne »

chillingeffect wrote: post #67
TwistedWeasel wrote: post #17

It's admirable that MS is responding to criticism of their device and working for a solution. However, all the issues he experienced seem like they would be quite obvious to anyone testing the device usage for any kind of drawing application (which, for a device with a stylus seems like a common enough use case to be testing), perhaps Microsoft needs to spend more time and effort on their QA process for the next roun…

> It's admirable that MS is responding to criticism of their device and working for a solution. It is, but it isn't some trade secret, they could open source this and have 1,000s of people converging toward the solution. Why are they so hung up and being The Ones Who Deliver The Software And The Hardware?

> Why are they so hung up and being The Ones Who Deliver The Software And The Hardware?

For the same reason that Ubuntu and Firefox are?

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#100

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

If memory serves, he was sent a Surface Pro 2 by Microsoft. And a Surface Pro 3. I don't recall if he was given the original Pro or if he bought that one himself.

Either way, I would view his endorsement and any other interaction with Microsoft with a shaker of salt; this is not at all dissimilar from the multitude of celebrities whom Samsung sends the latest Galaxy phone in a swag bag in order to get a "I wasn't paid off, I just really like it!" endorsement. His celebrity status commands him a certain amount of influence for whatever judgment he proclaims on the Surface (note, for instance, how every post he makes about it ends up on the front page of HN). I can guarantee if the same points were raised by a normal person who paid for the thing on their tumblr blog, there would not be a team of Microsoft engineers rushing to fix them.

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