Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update • Hacker News Board

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#121

Post by mark-r » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 10:47 PM UTC

TwistedWeasel wrote: post #69

krschultz wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seemingly pedantic point, but this is a UX design problem not a QA problem. QA is largely something that you want to automate, minimize, and reduce the cost of. QA is making sure things work as designed. UX design is something that you want to maximize. That's figuring out what you want to make. The tools of the UX design trade are very different. I think the best UX is done with mockups that go into customer feedbac…

I somewhat disagree, it depends on how QA fits into your organization and how you scope its role. UX needs Quality Assurance too, and sometimes things get past the UX team and into a product - at that point new issues come to light during testing and should be fed back up to the responsible teams. In general I view QA as the last line of defense before the customer, if your QA doesn't speak up about ANY issues with t…

The best QA people I've worked with have all had this view.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#122

Post by chris_mahan » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 10:48 PM UTC

adrianhoward wrote: post #75

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.

I dunno. Not make or break maybe. Be a potentially big market - hella yeah. The majority of design-ish people I know, including myself, would kill for a decent tablet drawing environment. Folk are already laying out for specialist devices like http://www.wacom.com/en/gb/creative/cintiq-24-hd-touch . My iPad is cute and useful for many things. I do very rough sketch stuff on it. For professional deign work it's pretty…

I've been looking a the cintiq too, and may still do that, because wacom caters to illustrators directly.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#123

Post by wlesieutre » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 10:48 PM UTC

cc_ wrote: post #61

phaus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's admirable that MS is responding to criticism of their device and working for a solution. It is admirable, but their work towards a solution will be fruitless. N-Trig's pressure sensitive stylus technology is vastly inferior to Wacom. Sure, most people can't tell the difference, but most artists can. Sure, artists can still produce professional quality work with an N-Trig stylus, but the experience of using an N…

The SP2 Wacom setup was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, in my experience -- accuracy was terrible in the corners / near the edges, and parallax was a serious issue, if you did not write/draw with the pen perpendicular to the surface of the screen, there was a significant offset from the tip of the pen to where the line was actually drawn. These were bad enough to turn me (and at least one professional…

Website is having some stylesheet trouble for me, but Surface Pro Artist says they have a decent handle on the driver compatibility. The update isn't generally released yet, but it's a significant fix.

http://surfaceproartist.com/blog/2014/6/9/n-trig-closing-win...

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#124

Post by seanewest » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 10:49 PM UTC

krschultz wrote: post #60

"You hear a lot about MS being this massive company that doesn’t listen but that’s really not fair in this case." Every large company is made up of thousands of individual people, many of which really care about making a good product and making customers happy. The whole question in managing a big company is how to get out of the way of that natural process, while still coordinating all the disparate groups so that t…

What natural process?

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#125

Post by hyp0 » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 10:49 PM UTC

Microsoft bringing protoypes to the PA offices seems about as expected as this Dave Barry line:

  giant talking broccoli stalks will come around and mow your lawn, for free

Touchscreen latency is difficult, especially with increasing resolution. But if they managed it acceptably for the SP 2, it must be possible, I guess.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#126

Post by ajessup » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 10:59 PM UTC

vacri wrote: post #110

ajessup wrote: post #18

OP, surprised that MS (as with any large company) didn't require you to sign an NDA to not discuss unannounced features during development. Bold (and encouraging) move on their part if they didn't.

In his case, he'd already generated bad press, so letting him comment to the positive on changes they're working on benefits them.

Gabe's posts have had strong impact on a relatively small audience. It's hard to realistically imagine it's had a significant impact on Surface sales one way or the other.

On the other hand when he blogs about the future direction that they are taking then this is all data that competitors will gobble up, and in many cases can bring to market ahead of MS.

Quite possibly the PR gain here is offset by the future opportunity cost by giving competitors a heads up on future strategy.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#127

Post by nacs » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 11:01 PM UTC

wfunction wrote: post #87

I hope he's getting paid for his time. MS should really be hiring him.

He probably gets paid in the form of free Surface tablets and accessories.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#128

Post by cosmie » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 11:03 PM UTC

sergiotapia wrote: post #2

>After I was done they told me they were going to take all the notes they had gathered and go to work on fixing the issues I had shown them. Later >To see them come back to me with fixes for my problems was really amazing. They are putting time and effort into making sure the Surface Pro 3 does what artists want it to do. Well played to the MS Surface team, I hope these fixes make it to production and stay there on t…

I bought my original Surface Pro from the Microsoft Store website[1], and have had fantastic service on the few occasions that I've taken advantage of it. No phone trees, no waiting times, and no bullshit (they took me at my word on what I had already troubleshooted and moved on from there).

At least from my single experience, I would say there is little incentive to buy from a retailer rather than direct.

[1] http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Surface-...

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#129

Post by Tloewald » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 11:04 PM UTC

krschultz wrote: post #60

"You hear a lot about MS being this massive company that doesn’t listen but that’s really not fair in this case." Every large company is made up of thousands of individual people, many of which really care about making a good product and making customers happy. The whole question in managing a big company is how to get out of the way of that natural process, while still coordinating all the disparate groups so that t…

Actually MS has always listened. The problem has been (a) whom they listened to (the user has usually not been their customer) and (b) lack of "taste".

MS Office is, for good and ill, exactly what you get when you give users what they ask for and have no taste.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#130

Post by rayiner » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 11:06 PM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #71

stcredzero wrote: post #21

It’s very hard to take something like how the device “feels” to draw on and convert that into something engineers can use. I ended up describing it in terms of speaking. I said drawing on the Pro 2 was like having a conversation with someone. With the Surface Pro 3 I feel like I need to either whisper or yell to have the same conversation. I had to press very lightly or very hard, and it changes the way I draw. I was…

(3) Our patent system grants Wacom monopoly rights measured in decades in return for, well, no societal benefits that are readily apparent.

The benefit to the consumer is that some other company didn't just copy their technology down to the silk screening on the PCB, eliminating their ability to get any return on their R&D. Wacom is a terrible example for an anti-patent rant. Digitizing pen input is really hard to get right. N-trig has been working to come up with their own independent technology for years now. This is exactly the sort of R&D-heavy product development that's most endangered by copying. Without patents we'd be stuck at Wacom 1.0, and N-trig wouldn't have any incentive to come up with independent technology with different characteristics.