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Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

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Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#141

Post by eropple »

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'm not even a serious artist--I'm a programmer who makes games--and the only reason I bought an SP2 was Photoshop.

I took it back because the SP3 news dropped that week.

Kind of regretting that now.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#142

Post by tanzam75 »

steele wrote: post #57
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…

In this context, who are the hackers? "asian knock-offs" seems odd in this context. Wacom is a Japanese company. Also, some inexpensive competitors like the monoprice-sold UC-Logic tablets are generally well-received despite having to shove a battery into the pen to avoid wacom's patented inductive coupling.

Wacom released the SD tablet in 1987. Their patent on inductively-powered styluses should have expired by now.

(Back then, US patents were valid for 17 years from issue date, but the backlog was also much shorter.)

I know that N-trig used to make an inductively-powered stylus about 5 years ago, but for whatever reason, they switched to batteries.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#144

Post by vacri »

ajessup wrote: post #126
vacri wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 opport…

"the device is done and shipping in like a week"

Those competitors are probably going to have to put in a bit of overtime then :)

The other stuff he talks about isn't new either - pressure curves have been around forever (I have a very old tablet thinkpad with a pressure curve) and the tablet photoshop he played with has already been displayed at a show.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#145

Post by dman »

phaus wrote: post #44
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 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 possibility also remains that Wacom did not want the kind of business that the Surface brings to them. The surface is the first product that does a reasonably good job of cannibalizing cintiq sales. I would expect their margins on Cintiq to be higher than selling a digitizer component to Microsoft. I think Wacom is in a really tough place here - they have to balance between limiting access to their crown jewels while also making sure that ntrig doesnt make too many inroads as a legitimate alternative.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#146

Post by vertex-four »

jmspring wrote: post #140
quink wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever are you complaining about? Little as I am a fan of the WYSIWYG philosophy, Office is a genuinely spectacular product.

Office, like Excel, was mostly complete years ago. The iterations on file format and ribbon bar? Not so useful for most users.

As a casual user of the various Office apps, the ribbon bar is what made it usable. Before that, I'd make every attempt to keep out of Office.

Those who use it with any regularity likely know the keyboard shortcuts for things they use regularly, and the ribbon should work for finding the less common things in the same way it helps me as a casual user find everything.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#147

Post by stcredzero »

steele wrote: post #88
stcredzero wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this context, who are the hackers? Programmers who tell themselves, "A stylus? Implementing that would be a piece of cake!" (I have to admit I'm guilty of this exact thing myself.) "asian knock-offs" seems odd in this context. Wacom is a Japanese company. And I'm of Korean extraction. From what I've seen, the majority of the knock-offs happen to be from asia. Those are the facts as I understand them. Your "oddness…

Which knock-off tablet and digitizers have you used? The oddness is that Wacom is itself a Japanese company so even the 'original' products are Asian from soup-to-nuts. I'm unclear on the relevancy of your Korean extraction or what you believe I am supposing.

The oddness is that Wacom is itself a Japanese company so even the 'original' products are Asian from soup-to-nuts.

So, why is that odd? Is this some kind of racist pseudo logic that claims asians can't knock off products of other asians?

I'm unclear on the relevancy of your Korean extraction or what you believe I am supposing.

I'm kind of unclear on the relevancy of this whole subthread. Currently, China and other asian countries are doing what the US did in the 19th century: engaging in rapidly expanding economic activity around manufacturing, much of which plays fast and loose with IP laws and also disregards or abandons certain aesthetic, design, and otherwise traditional concerns. "Asian knockoff" is shorthand for countries playing the above economic role in the early 21st century. As far as I can tell, you're sniffing around motivated by the possibility of some kind of racially-based knee-jerk reaction to the term, in a way that reminds me of certain people who are motivated by racially based knee-jerks.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#148

Post by drmarianus »

saidajigumi wrote: post #106
Aissen wrote: post #66

> I could see some of them shaking their heads and looking at each other. They were very obviously bothered that they had not seen this before. To me this looks like engineers that had foreseen the problem but were promptly ignored by UX people. Or maybe the other way around.

IMO, this is a great example of why show me don't tell me is vital in product creation. Here, the folks empowered to make the change saw the problem with their own eyes. They may indeed have heard or speculated about this issue previously. But there's a fundamental difference between someone saying something, filtered through language, organizational priorities, etc. and making that realization on your own . Related,…

While I completely agree with your point that there are things that are better shown then described, it doesn't seem that difficult to say, "The home button is positioned such that it is too easy to accidentally hit it."

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#149

Post by gcb0 »

if anything, this is a testament to why closed source software is dead.

Spend $1000+ on a device. it doesn't do what you want? get world famous and complain. have a team of engineers fix it for you. ...right.

Almost everything i hated on my first android phone i fixed it myself or lazily waited for someone else to fix it... yeah, it took a year or so to have it how i liked. My new phone, if i install any custom ROM i will lose some of the new hardware functionality, so i can't. i have to wait for the company to fix the annoyances i have, which i am pretty sure will be never. sadly i don't have the time to make the new hardware work because that is a retarded huge amount of time you need to waste.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#150

Post by Mister_Snuggles »

omaranto wrote: post #118
Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article, it sounds like the Microsoft folks were kicking themselves for that oversight. To their credit, I've made similar mistakes in my career.

> To their credit, I've made similar mistakes in my career. What did you mean? You don't mean that if X makes a mistake that you made first, that mistake is a credit to X, do you?

Not at all. Just that mistakes happen to everyone, even the biggest corporations.

I could have phrased that a little better. Perhaps "I've made similar types of mistakes that were obvious in retrospect, so I have a hard time faulting them" might be a better way to say it.

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