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Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

theverge.com

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Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#81

Post by jjawssd »

bangonkeyboard wrote: post #56
martijn_himself wrote: post #18

I can't believe anyone using macOS for their professional workflow would consider switching to Windows 10 despite all the criticism leveled at Apple's hardware (most of which I think is totally justified). I use Windows professionally (for .NET development) and I think Windows 10 is still light-years behind, with an unstable, jarring OS experience full of bugs and niggles and unloved and underdeveloped touch interfac…

Two days ago, immediately after several programs crashed and shortly before the entire OS locked up, I managed to capture this: http://i.imgur.com/ecCPlcs.png That is Crash Reporter crashing. The following is the last screenshot I was able to take before the system stopped being able to write files: http://i.imgur.com/IK7j98P.png Sierra has been an absolute nightmare in every respect that I have been forced to reboot…

Have you ever considered the possibility that your storage medium or random access memory is corrupt?

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#82

Post by cmdrfred »

astrodust wrote: post #64
erokar wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by "professional workflow" you mean programming, I agree. But I'd have no problem using Linux for that instead of MacOS. However, for many "professional workflow" means using the MS Office suite and a browser. For that use, Windows 10 is not only adequate but better than MacOS.

Visual Studio for Windows applications and XCode for iOS ones pin you to particular platforms. > For that use, Windows 10 is not only adequate but better than MacOS. "Denny's is as good as any Michelin Star restaurant."

Dollar for dollar Denny's is as good as any Michelin Star restaurant.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#83

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

daenney wrote: post #41

So according to Microsoft, based on their numbers, which they won't release, more people are trading in Macs for Surfaces than before. There's also no way of knowing if this claimed increase is in any way significant. I'm rather puzzled that even with this complete lack of data, which The Verge seems also skeptical about, they still decided to write an article about it.

Maybe the focus on fake news about politics in the popular press will get people to wake up and realize that the problem has been worse, for longer, in the tech press?

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#84

Post by lmm »

H4CK3RM4N wrote: post #63
lmm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

13.5" is great for portability - my surface book is small enough to slip into a satchel in a way that a larger laptop wouldn't, and light enough to do that with. Before I got it I used to have two laptops (an 11" ultrabook for travel and an 18" gaming laptop), but the surface book replaces both - powerful enough to game on but small enough to transport. I used to be a big fan of the big screens, but you adjust quickl…

But the equivalent MacBook is thinner than a lecture pad, and more powerful at most price points.

> But the equivalent MacBook is thinner than a lecture pad

Sure, but how much value do you get from that? Weight matters, diagonal matters, but thickness alone makes very little difference unless we're talking about something too thick to fit into a satchel.

> and more powerful at most price points.

I don't think that's true? The top and bottom end specs are pretty similar IIRC (same RAM, similar processor, similar resolution...), except for the Surface having a touchscreen, and the price points are mostly higher for the MacBook.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#85

Post by AlbertoGP »

nickbauman wrote: post #27

I would consider a Surface if I could install Linux on it and it worked as well as a my System76. In fact I'm asking: is anyone out there doing this?

I'm writing this on a Surface Pro 3, and I've commented on it before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9300927

I've been compiling the kernel since I got it, later figured out how to compile only the drivers I needed (specially the keyboard/touchpad) which was reduced over time as more and more drivers were built in.

There was finally a guy that set up an Ubuntu PPA [1] repository from where you can install the whole package, and it was fine until last October when I decided to upgrade to Ubuntu 16.10.

[1] https://launchpad.net/~tigerite/+archive/ubuntu/kernel

For that version there is no PPA, and the kernel patches I had been using for the type cover did not work any more (they compile, just do not work). Then I re-installed 16.04 from scratch, but now the tigerite kernel does not boot because of some BTRFS crash (divide by zero) and the standard one only supports the Type Cover 3 keyboard: I have both the v3 and v4, and the later is much better and was working with both my patches and the tigerite kernel.

There are ways to get the Type Cover v3 touchpad working by configuring xorg, but the patches are better because they work with the multitouch driver.

The result is that right now I'm typing on a Lenovo Thinkpad Compact USB keyboard. :-\

In general I like this computer a lot, and nowadays almost everything works out of the box (including volume keys and both cameras) except the most crucial part, the type cover. The stylus and touchscreen worked fine from the first day. Suspend never worked, although it kind of did for a few months and now it's broken again. Hybernate should work but I did not do it because I would need to work around the encrypted swap.

I had pledged for the Eve V tablet computer [2], a crowd-funded version which has a few interesting improvements, but I think I'll back down before the deadline because they said they can not support Linux, and I will not have time in the coming months to experiment with it.

[2] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/eve-v-the-first-ever-crow...

This is quite a disorganized answer but I hope it'll be of use to you. I like the Surface Pro, but I'm tired of this back-and-forth getting the basics to work with Linux. At this point the v3 is not a cutting-edge computer any more, and it should be effortless to use it with Linux.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#86

Post by slantyyz »

astrodust wrote: post #71
EugeneOZ wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On 4k hidpi monitor fonts and UI looks great. And you can run windows on Mac :)

"Great" on Windows is "typical" on macOS. The approach to rendering fonts is completely different, where Windows tends to nudge things towards pixel boundaries and in so doing ends up distorting the type considerably. Font rendering on Windows is barely better than Linux.

Right after I switched from Mac to PC, I used something called MacType [1] to ease my transition.

On HiDPI monitors, though, it turned out to be unnecessary.

[1] http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/make-windows-fonts-look-like-ma...

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#87

Post by Aldo_MX »

UK-AL wrote: post #77
EasyTiger_ wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just installed Windows 10. My start menu by default was full of stuff I will never ever use. After deleting/uninstalling apps (where it would allow me) the OS decides to install Candy Crush and other games I never asked for. Unacceptable.

"OS decides to install Candy Crush and other games I never asked for. Unacceptable. " - I would like more details on this. I don't think I've heard of that before?

It does happen after an upgrade (ex. the anniversary update).

Although it does not install Candy Crush, just a stub to install it, anyway, it is certainly unappealing.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#88

Post by santaclaus »

Aldo_MX wrote: post #53
martijn_himself wrote: post #18

I can't believe anyone using macOS for their professional workflow would consider switching to Windows 10 despite all the criticism leveled at Apple's hardware (most of which I think is totally justified). I use Windows professionally (for .NET development) and I think Windows 10 is still light-years behind, with an unstable, jarring OS experience full of bugs and niggles and unloved and underdeveloped touch interfac…

This is definitely an example of YMMV, if someone claims that macOS is better than Windows because of a prettier UI and smoother font rendering, I simply laugh. For me it is more important to have a file manager that doesn't lock itself creating .DS_Store files in the middle of an I/O operation (ex. copying a folder from an external drive). To be fair, Windows has the same issue with Thumbs.db files, but I can't reme…

If I'm staring at something for 10 hours a day smoother font rendering is a big benefit.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#89

Post by trome »

EugeneOZ wrote: post #80
astrodust wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Great" on Windows is "typical" on macOS. The approach to rendering fonts is completely different, where Windows tends to nudge things towards pixel boundaries and in so doing ends up distorting the type considerably. Font rendering on Windows is barely better than Linux.

It really depends on DPI of your monitor. I have both MBPr and Windows PC with 4k 24'' monitor. On FullHD I can't look at Windows, on 4k it looks great (UI looks more sharp than in macOS, fonts looks almost as good as in macOS). And Linux fonts rendering is not even near - last time I saw it, it was completely awful, although it was on FullHD monitor, not 4k.

Seems just fine on my 1080p 22" monitor, or on this 26" 2560x1600 monitor beside it. Then again I'm a dirty Gnome user on Debian, so perhaps my vanilaness is saving me. But even a few years ago on my last A8 & 1080P 15.6" laptop it was fine, definitely much better than 1366 by potato.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#90

Post by shimo5037 »

UK-AL wrote: post #77
EasyTiger_ wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just installed Windows 10. My start menu by default was full of stuff I will never ever use. After deleting/uninstalling apps (where it would allow me) the OS decides to install Candy Crush and other games I never asked for. Unacceptable.

"OS decides to install Candy Crush and other games I never asked for. Unacceptable. " - I would like more details on this. I don't think I've heard of that before?

Not sure if you're being sarcastic (there's the non-Nexus Android experience after all), but I did a fresh install of Windows 10 Pro on my gaming machine a while ago. Full retail license and an official .iso downloaded from Microsoft. There's barely anything installed on that machine, however I was also surprised to find Candy Crush in my start menu after a while. It's probably just a shortcut to the store, but it does look quite a bit like it's already installed.
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