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Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

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Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#161

Post by shinratdr »

pistle wrote: post #98

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 w…

Those situations are so different from each other I'm honestly amazed you wrote it, looked at it, and still thought it was a smart move to play that card.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#162

Post by rtpg »

jzwinck wrote: post #157
balls187 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Office 2013, specifically Excel and Word are fantastic.

I like Excel as much as the next guy, but even in 2013 when you open a delimited text file it makes you manually tell it what the delimiters are. A computer should be able to guess whether a large text file is CSV, TSV, etc. This is an example of something Apple would get right, but Microsoft does not, even after more than a decade with this heavily-used feature. A tasteful implementer would make it do something reas…

You might be vastly overestimating the correctness of files being imported.

Some coworkers of mine have to deal with CSV/TSV imports from enterprise customers, and the amount of clearly broken scripts is pretty bad.

That excel import preview dialog helps non-programmers try to fix these issues beforehand. If that wasn't there, it'd likely be impossible for these people to know where to begin trying to fix the import.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#163

Post by biot »

rasz_pl wrote: post #58
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…

More like well player PR team, they failed to fix every single issue. They couldnt even let him have the home button fix, something that sounds like a simple script I could write in AutoHotkey in two minutes tops. Surface team looks like a committee full of control freaks. cant give users control over home button, cant give users control over pressure curves (they brought two HARDWIRED tablets instead of writing conf…

Does your two minutes of effort also include regression testing? Did you verify that all aspects of the OS and applications which depend on the home button having a specific behavior continue to function within OS-guaranteed response times? Have you done user testing to ensure that the delay after lifting the stylus meets with user expectations and doesn't seem like the OS is frozen? Have you met with the hardware team and verified that the lift stylus event is 100% reliable so that temporarily disabling the home button doesn't run the risk of permanently disabling the button? Are there potential race conditions such that the stylus up/down events are received out of order? If in-order reliable events can't be guaranteed 100% of the time, have you implemented a suitable watchdog-style timer to catch the cases where the event isn't properly received? Has that been fully tested?

Did you update the specification documentation with your modifications so that future developers can consult the updated specs in order to understand the impact your home button changes may have on their area of the OS?

Or I guess you can slap in some two minute script and call it done, but I'm glad you're not building my operating system.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#165

Post by prawn »

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…

Microsoft are fixing those complaints for everyone. There's nothing unique about those complaints that suggest they only impact millionaires. It's just a quicker shortcut to deal with one person than release and corral feedback from thousands who don't always make their complaints clear.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#166

Post by benihana »

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…

>It is admirable, but their work towards a solution will be fruitless.

Any Microsoft employees listening: Go ahead and pack it up. Someone on the internet has told you all you need to hear. It's fruitless. Literally nothing you do will work, as this post has clearly pointed out. Look to this non sequitor full of opinion presented as fact for all the info you need: Until you switch to the hardware that OP knows is superior, your work will be for naught. Sorry.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#167

Post by CamperBob2 »

rayiner wrote: post #130
CamperBob2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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 produ…

Fine, give them a limited monopoly.

But for 20 years?

Um, no.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#168

Post by jacobolus »

balls187 wrote: post #132
Tloewald wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Office 2013, specifically Excel and Word are fantastic.

Deleting my long rant here. It’s not really on topic for this thread. Suffice to say, I think MS Word is a pile of junk. For the curious: http://pastie.org/9297613

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#169

Post by CamperBob2 »

biot wrote: post #163
rasz_pl wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like well player PR team, they failed to fix every single issue. They couldnt even let him have the home button fix, something that sounds like a simple script I could write in AutoHotkey in two minutes tops. Surface team looks like a committee full of control freaks. cant give users control over home button, cant give users control over pressure curves (they brought two HARDWIRED tablets instead of writing conf…

Does your two minutes of effort also include regression testing? Did you verify that all aspects of the OS and applications which depend on the home button having a specific behavior continue to function within OS-guaranteed response times? Have you done user testing to ensure that the delay after lifting the stylus meets with user expectations and doesn't seem like the OS is frozen? Have you met with the hardware te…

Translation: Want to beat Microsoft? This is how.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#170

Post by balls187 »

jacobolus wrote: post #168
balls187 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Office 2013, specifically Excel and Word are fantastic.

Deleting my long rant here. It’s not really on topic for this thread. Suffice to say, I think MS Word is a pile of junk. For the curious: http://pastie.org/9297613

> I could go on and on. In about 2005, I decided I’d never again use Word unless I absolutely had to.

So you're saying you haven't really used Word 2013 then?

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