Surface Book – It’s Easy to Switch from Mac to Surface | Hacker News Reader

Surface Book – It’s Easy to Switch from Mac to Surface

microsoft.com

67 pointsvsakos127 comments

I have become extremely weary of buying Microsoft hardware products. I was (and am) very happy with my Surface Pro 2. Recently, my power supply broke after two years of use, perfectly fine in my book, it happens. However, Microsoft has stopped selling replacement parts after less than three years. I did not find any vendor in Germany that could still deliver. I got lucky and found _one_ seller in the UK. There are some third party copies of the adapter, but due to the proprietary connector they are rare and reviews are abysmal.

For all the complaints about Apple dropping magsafe, I'm happy to finally have industry standard charging. Brick is easily replacable. Cable is easily replacable. Should work with any new computer, or even to cell phones and tablets (with a C to Lightning cable if you're an iPhone person).

Apple made a similar switch from one proprietary charging connector (magsafe 1) to another proprietary connector (magsafe 2) and it's a compatibility hassle between computers. For Surfaces it's an even bigger mess, because like you said, MS doesn't make them anymore. A coworker of mine had the same situation with a Surface Pro 1. Computer still works fine, but the power cord died, and good luck getting a replacement quickly. If you do find a 3rd party version, good luck with not burning your house down.

Unfortunately, form factor (USB-C) is standardizing but internal wire connections/characteristic aren't, so we are going to an irrecognizable mess of cables looking the same way but some working, some not working and some bonus ones frying our machines.

>> I'm happy to finally have industry standard charging.

Real question to people in the know - is this truly the case?

I get that the port is industry standard, but are there electrical protections put in place?

If I use a 100W non-Apple charger on a MacBook Pro that uses a 63W charger will it damage the battery? Will a USB-C phone charger (with presumably very low wattage) work as well (albeit slower)?

While I really like that TB/USB3 ports are standard, it is incredibly confusing to laypeople with respect to understanding all the nuances.

Apple's official note says "You should not connect any power supply that exceeds 100W, as it might damage your Mac." [1]

This is the maximum wattage allowed under the USB Power Delivery spec [2], so any USB-C power supply should work. Maximum voltage/current is negotiated between the supply, cable, and computer, which should select the highest amount supported by all parts of the system.

If you're using a cheap 3rd-party charger that doesn't follow the spec and decides it's going to tell the computer "I support 100W, let's do that!" and then jacks up the voltage beyond the USB power delivery limits, then yeah, expect to have problems.

The problem that I actually imagine happening is people getting a 20W rated cable with their cell phone, trying to power their computer through it, and wondering why the battery continues to drain.

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207256

[2] http://www.usb.org/developers/powerdelivery/

Magsafe is also easily replaced with a BreakSafe power cable from Griffin: https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-po...

Chargers on modern laptops don't seem to last as long. The cables are definitely "slimmer" and more prone to fraying/breaking.

My SP2 charger cable frayed near the power brick and I ended up just ripping the whole thing apart, cutting the cable & resoldering it. The enclosure was replaced with an off-the-shelf one. Looks ugly, but I didn't want to pay 100NZD for a third-party replacement.

I'm transitioning all of my hardware over to charging on USB-C and it's great. Both my laptop (HP Chromebook 13") and phone (Nexus 6p) charge via USB-C, and I just went on my first trip in which I only had to bring a single, small charger. It's super convenient, and because it's becoming the de facto standard, I never have to worry about replacement chargers.

It'd be hard for me to buy anything that uses a proprietary charger ever again. This includes iPhones and Surface Books. And I've already committed to not buying anything that uses older versions of USB either -- it's all C for me.

Unfortunately, Apple's done such a good job of keeping me locked to their software ecosystem I cannot consider this, though I vastly prefer the Surface hardware.

Even if I wasn't an iOS developer, my other two jobs are Audio Production/editing and Video Production/editing.

While I could almost happily toss Final Cut out the window (we all know what a disaster the FCP7 -> FCPX transition was, and my friends in the industry tell me Premiere is where it's at right now), I am highly, highly dependant on Logic.

I've been using Logic in some shape or form for more than a decade, I picked up my first Mac Mini G4 in 2004(5?) and proceeded to learn Garageband inside out and backwards, got all the Jam Packs (which are now included in Logic, they used to be $99/apiece and now all 6 are included in Logic for $199...go figure) and got completely used to making music this way. (I moved to actual Logic from GB in 2008-2009.)

I've tried Ableton, and can't get past it's convoluted UI and complete lack of bundled instruments (Logic comes with more than 50GB of included content, and recently added a phenomenal new synth called Alchemy), Pro Tools is expensive and almost requires better than top-of-the-line Mac hardware, etc, etc.

The amount of time it would take me to switch, and learn another DAW, after 10 years of experience, I'd never get back.

I can open Logic, pick up a MIDI instrument, select some of the phenomenal built-in sounds, get a USB mic and have a freakin' awesome track down in like a half-hour.

Possible with Ableton or Pro Tools? Of course. But I'm not about to throw 10 years of experience out the window.

Combine that with xCode and it's iOS-specific toolkit, Final Cut (which I'm finally used to) and I get this really shitty realization that I'm going to be stuck with this software for a long, long, time and am basically just at the mercy of Apple's business decisions.

You should probably start the transition off of Logic now, while it's still supported software.

I'm in the same boat as OP, as I absolutely love Logic's built-in software synths and composition-friendly UX.

Care to elaborate as why you think Logic is a long-term mistake? You think Apple is transitioning away from support?

I think locking yourself into any single proprietary format is a mistake. I realize my comment came off as implying Logic is doomed, but if you're really worried about vendor lockin, spending an afternoon on tutorials and a few side projects in the new environment can really help build your skills, not just in the new toolset but in the old one as well.

Apple released several updates for it in the past year containing a lot of changes, indicating that development is active. Do you have information suggesting otherwise?

I'm was a similar situation, I love Garageband and there's just nothing that comes close on Windows. When my 2013 Macbook Pro started experiencing horrible wifi & bluetooth connectivity issues I decided to get a Thinkpad Yoga 14 (wacom pen input!) and a refurbished Mac Mini as my dedicated Garageband unit. Total for the two was about $1500.

Have you looked at Bitwig Studio? I recently switched to it from years of Logic use and I actually like it more, even on Linux (it runs on Win/Mac/Linux).

Second for Bitwig - I came from using Cubase (since '91 on an Atari) - and while it was a bit of a change, my workflow is much improved.

I think, personally, having worked at various music software technology companies, I'd prefer to try an open-source DAW if I'm going to move away, so I can modify it myself and add/modify features/UI/UX as I see fit.

Reaper then, even if it's not open a source, you can truly customize it!

Ableton Live Suite comes with around 90GB of instruments bundled. You'd get used to UI. I oscillate between FL Studio and Live depending on genre I am working on and don't mind UI differences.

Yeah, because I feel like paying CAD $750 for that when Logic is $200 and comes with it's own library.

Oh I know :(

The page is kinda light on details.

From my experience doing web development, msys2 + PuTTY/Pagent give me pretty much everything I need. I don't even use bash; everything I need is available from cmd.exe, including tools like ls & grep.

Microsoft isn't going to say so, but you can get an Office365 gift card for like $20 on eBay. That gives you the Office apps plus a good chunk of storage on OneDrive and some Skype credit for a year.

It wasn't as painful of a transition as I expected. I guess it helps that so much of my life is in the cloud these days anyway.

>I guess it helps that so much of my life is in the cloud these days anyway

This seems like an excellent reason to not be using Windows as your underlying OS. The rampant privacy and security issues should be enough to keep any business from trusting it. The lack of a compelling reason to choose it should be the end of the story.

Microsoft's business versions of Windows have substantially different configuration settings and license agreements.

I find PuTTY so aggravating to use. I've only used Cygwin but I assume msys2 has an ssh client. Do you use PuTTY over that since it's the workflow you're used to or do you find it to be a better experience?

Pagent has become a sort of de-facto standard for ssh agents on Windows. Once I get my Yubikey set up, I can even substitute gpg for Pagent and have it speak the same protocol (it's a setting, off by default).

Git for Windows drops in a command line ssh client pre-configured for Pagent auth, and git itself can pull keys from Pagent as well. I just needed to tweak my path so that ssh client gets used instead of msys2's.

I'm with you. I can't stand the actual PuTTY app itself.

I'm a frontend dev who worked on Windows for 4 years, and switched to Mac in the last 2.

The biggest hurdle I had with switching was the muscle memory of cmd-[char] vs. ctrl-[char], and tangentially the Windows-specific productivity keyboard shortcuts (mainly win-[char]) and Mac-specific ones.

The second-biggest hurdle is the different mouse movement kinetics on each platform.

These are still "hurdles": I have a Macbook at work, and a Macbook Air and Windows desktop at home. I basically can't do external keyboard + mouse at work for fear of screwing up my muscle memory for when I use my Windows desktop.

All this to say, it's not the camera, graphics card, detachable screen, or whatever is highlighted on this page that makes the switch hard. It's the low level stuff.

As a dev that frequently works on different linux distros, mac, and Windows, I recommend just getting used to disabling mouse acceleration. That is, if you're using a mouse. On a touchpad, I'd never recommend that, but if you're mouse-only then it makes the transition between the three os's fairly seamless.

If you want to do that you need to get a very sensitive mouse with the sensitivity cranked up (so that you can move the mouse across a large screen, something especially important on a Mac where menus are pegged to the top of the screen), and train yourself to make very careful tiny movements when you need precision. For a Mac user used to making relatively large but slow mouse movements for precision, this is definitely doable, but takes some significant retraining effort.

Personally what I’d love to do is disable acceleration on the computer side, and have my own hardware intermediary between the mouse and the computer, on which I can implement whatever sensor input -> pixel movement logic I want. For example, having a button to hold down for more precise movement, and another button to hold down to convert movement to scrolling.

External mouse movement curve differences are distracting on a desktop, but the difference 100% breaks trying to use windows laptops, for me. Doesn’t help that the PC laptop touchpads also tend to have worse hardware response and worse texture feel. It’s a similar UI gap for me as trying to type an essay on a 4 inch phone screen.

Surface Book has a pretty good trackpad... but the Macbook Pro is still best in class.

At this point though, I don't think it's hardware - it's the ui that keeps me from really loving Windows 10 on the Surface Book. Windows 10 doesn't allow me to natively enable three-finger window drag. It's also cumbersome to full screen my apps (e.g. my editor, terminal, etc) on Windows 10 in order to swipe back and forth through them.

I think it's interesting they don't mention Linux subsystem for Windows 10.

As a developer, MacOS CLI was the biggest advantage over Windows. Now, you have the full Ubuntu CLI at your fingertip including apt-get install. No VM. It's a big selling point.

Even before the Linux subsystem, there were other alternatives.

I switched a year or so ago, and I use Cmder (conemu) as a substitute for Terminal (and it's great, btw). Didn't have to change my habits at all. On the other hand, I'm far from being a "hard core" terminal user.

Is there a good terminal application with TABS for Win 10?

I don't think so. Your best bet may well be to set up an X server and run a Linux terminal program.

I'm using consoleZ, its.. ok. Console 2 seemed a little more robust, may give that a shot again. Getting things like right click context menu "console here" involves fun registry editing..

https://github.com/cbucher/console

This "switch from mac" furor is hilarious to me. In 3 years people will be saying "Remember how upset people were getting about losing the escape key?". This feels the same as Apple not supporting flash or microsd cards on iPhones. Everyone made a big stink about it at the time, and a few years down the road flash is dead and no one cares about microsd cards. It will be the same with USB C and dongles; in a few years everything will be on USB C anyway.

Can't wait to try debugging on a touch bar and needing to look at the bar if I am indeed touching the right operation. I don't want to end up with a remapping where I need to press Fn + number to get Fxy function key. Better IMO would have been if every Fxy key had its own customizable OLED/e-ink display; then I would be "awesomed" by this innovation. Even with a separate touch bar on top of it. All real DJs use proper external controllers anyway and the bigger the better, nobody is going to DJ like that poor guy during Apple demo...

I would like both the touch bar AND the function keys, but the touch bar will be more versatile than just OLED/e-ink displays on top of keys. You can actually use it as a slider. You get more surface area to display controls. You can offer something more than just a symbol for the controls. I don't know how well it'll work (none of us do, it's not shipped and reviewed yet, not fully at least). But the potential for many applications is there.

As an addition to Fxy keys I am fine with it. Replacing Fxy keys like what Lenovo did to their X1 Carbons with their "Adaptive keyboard" ended up angering too many developers (though to be honest it was also Windows/Lenovo SW issue as you had to do some registry hacks to add apps that were supposed to use active keyboard and this ended up super inconsistent). Also, some people say touch bar is a poor man's touchscreen as by adding touchscreen you won't need a touch bar and it would be more flexible (though I prefer my screen without fingerprints everywhere).

Well, even adding a touch screen still requires a redesign of applications. Buttons need to be larger, interfaces need to be designed for touch screen. macOS isn't targeted towards that (yet, I feel Apple's anti-PC touchscreen statements are too strong as it's an inevitable development). Consequently, the interface would be, alien. I've used Windows tablets (Windows 7), with a pen input device. It works, but it's awkward. Even if they'd had an iPad-quality capacitive input for fingers, with non-touch screen apps it would still be awkward. That's the same experience I'd anticipate using a touch screen with today's macOS and apps.

They need to layout a roadmap for this development, rather than dropping the hardware in without the software to support it. Chicken and egg problem.

One reason this feels different is the pricing bump, which I didn't think would be a big deal until I read theverge's review earlier today [0]. They spent the entire time talking about the low-end model, and entirely dismiss everything with the touch bar as "the price for those models is really quite silly right now." Given that low end model is intentionally crippled with only 2 USB-C ports it's not great that the reaction is to dismiss the rest.

[0] http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/2/13490774/apple-macbook-pro...

For that price I expected more than 16GB of RAM or at least the option to increase it. I've heard that it may be Intel's fault but it's frustrating to be limited to the same amount of memory I have on this Mac purchased 3 years ago.

"Hello I'm a Mac. And I'm a PC!"

We've come full circle!

wow.

It would be interesting if MS hired John Hodgman and Justin Long for ads in the same way that Sprint hired Verizon's "can you hear me now" guy.

Unless you are a mobile developer and your clients always want iOS apps.

this was the opposite of 20 years ago - sure, you can do loads on macs, except build visual basic apps for the windows ecosystem.

shoe's on the other foot now.

if MS had done a better job in mobile, there'd be more reason to target windows for regular joe consumers, but they lost that market (for now anyway?). :(

> except build visual basic apps for the windows ecosystem

Parallels/BootCamp?

asp.net core 1 is cross platform, using visual studio code you can now build lots without visual studio... but not older enterprise projects of course and or visual projects.

> this was the opposite of 20 years ago

perhaps I should have put that other part in quotes. that was the refrain from mac-bashers at the time (well, one of them). Everything revolved around windows ecosystem, it had the developer mindshare and market strength, etc.

It's not the same story today.

Well, you kinda pegged your fate and future to Apple by choosing to worked into their locked ecosystem right?

It's not like it was an accidental choice, you knew that you'll have to buy whatever Apple serves you in whatever form they want as long as you want to service that platform.

Sounds like he chose to work as a mobile developer, not an iOS developer.

A Mac let's you write for iOS and Android. Windows doesn't.

To be fair, it's Apple that doesn't let you develop for iOS on Windows, not Microsoft.

Yes but Microsoft doesn't let you build on macOS either. With mac, you still have an option of installing windows. I am not saying one is better than the other, but as a developer, I feel macOS gives me best bang for the buck.

It's Apple that doesn't let you install macOS on a VM or other hardware. Microsoft has no control over that.

Microsoft does have control over building a version of Visual Studio that runs on macOS if they really don't discriminate based on the platform. They want their phone apps built on windows and I think it is fair, but they aren't that much different from Apple.

Last I build a windows phone app, which was ~3 years ago, I needed windows running on my Mac. With a mac I can build for iOS, Android and WinPhone. With a Windows box, I cannot build iOS apps. I don't know what is more locked.

That's an interesting way to look at it. Since Microsoft let's you install Windows on whatever hardware you want clearly macos is more locked down but due to Apple's lock down you get more flexibility by using a Mac.

4-5 years ago when I was building AIR mobile apps; you could build iOS apps on Windows.

You can do everything you could do on a Mac except upload the final build to the iOS app store.

To my knowledge there is no way to use native Apple tools to build iOS apps on Windows; but I haven't kept up with the tech.

Yeah, its alright though, its much more enjoyable to web development to me.

I was actually planning to switch to OSX last year, but when no new MBP came out, I opted for a Surface pro 4 instead. Sure am glad I did.

Why not a Surface Book. What is your use case?

Programming, design? Oh is the keyboard as a laptop replacement?

What's interesting for me is that nowhere on the site, even when you compare, configure, or try to buy the Surface Book, is mentioned what kind of "i5" or "i7" you get (also for GPU). All you can see when you "configure" is something like "6th Gen Intel Core i7, 1TB SSD, 16GB RAM / dGPU"

Totally agree. If Microsoft wants to made proper comparisons then they need to state what CPU it actually is.

The amount of times I have heard people say that a particular notebook is "Way" cheaper than a MacBook Pro only to point out to them they are comparing a dual core i7 to a quad core i7 is just ridiculous. When they then look at quad core i7 notebooks the prices become much closer if not end up being the same.

From what I could dig up online the CPU is a i7 Dual Core CPU, which makes this one VERY expensive dual core laptop at the i7 + 1TB SSD range (http://pureinfotech.com/surface-book-laptop-technical-specif...)

Granted there is not much information but if the above is correct then you are better off getting a Dell XPS, at least they run about £1800 for the i7 quad core with 512SSD.

Man, it seems everyone is chomping at the bit to take Apple's customers after that awful keynote.

Which is hilarious because they all miss the mark. Winning the Designer/developer crowd is about applications and software.

The Adobe Creative Suite is available on Windows. I don't see that being a major impediment.

And developers keep insisting that all we use is Vim and a terminal, which you can do just as well with Linux Services for Windows.

And if you've ever used CC on Windows the usability difference is night and day.

CC aside, the designer community is moving towards independent applications. All of which initially launch on macOS, and in the case of Sketch (a product I use all day every day) they stay on macOS.

Developing on windows is a nightmare too. I remember the days in college when I couldn't afford a mac and wanted to do some rails dev on my windows machine. That was motivation enough to use Ubuntu. That doesn't even cover the fact that XCode only works on macOS.

Did you hear the part about the Windows subsystem for Linux? Microsoft heard you. So now you get a really solid desktop experience plus your UNIX command line.

That last time I used Photoshop (a couple of versions ago perhaps) it was exactly the same on each platform and Adobe even used their own GUI widgets so the look and feel was consistent as well. Screenshots of CC 2016 that I can find lead me to believe that's still the case. What was the difference you found in terms of usability?

The image on the top of the page seems to feature a 2nd gen macbook pro (the one before retina display). Hmm, a bit shady...

You mean the non-retina Macbook Pro that was sold as the base model until last week?

Macbook pros were retina before last week.

The base model 13-inch Macbook Pro was not retina before last week. It was also significantly thicker than the other models, because it had a chassis that was released in 2012. See here: http://www.macrumors.com/2016/10/27/apple-discontinues-non-r...

No, he means a macbook from 7 years ago: http://www.laptopmag.com/uploadedimages/review/laptops/2009/...

Here's a retina one for comparison: http://core0.staticworld.net/images/article/2013/10/15in-rmb...

Macbook that Microsoft used in its ad has been discontinued for 3+ years.

No, a non-retina model was sold until last week. It was an older model originally released in 2012. It was different from the retina models it was sold alongside. See here: http://www.macrumors.com/2016/10/27/apple-discontinues-non-r...

I think that is intended to represent your "current" laptop that you need to replace. The premise being you have an older one and want to consider some options other than the 2016 MacBook Pro.

Lower down the page they show something newer.

That's what I think is shady. The image gives you a feeling the surface is way thinner than macbook pro. But down below they mentioned the new macbook pro (with touch bar) in the chart. If people are not paying attention they can get mislead to think surface is way thinner than the new macbook pro right?

I wonder with the sheer number of these kinds of posts, is anyone at Apple panicking at all?

Panicking all the way to the bank.

"Après nous le déluge"

Anyone who isn't a little worried should be fired.

i wonder how much MSFT is paying for this native advertising

Apple has, generally, been a more forward looking, long-term thinking company (outsider perspective) than many others. So I doubt it. They have a fair number of very profitable revenue streams. They have a large amount of money banked, they take out loans because it's cheaper to pay the interest than to lose out on the earnings of that money.

They have profits in the tens of billions of dollars for the past several years. Unless they suddenly see an actual mass exodus, rather than just poor sales of their current hardware, then there's no need for them to panic. Especially considering most (guess on my part, based on anecdata) of their users don't even buy new hardware that often. An Apple laptop easily lasts 4+ years, at least since I've been buying their hardware (circa 2006).

As an industrial designer, Ux designer, and a programer I have found anything "Microsoft" (hardware or software) offensive to my sight, taste, touch, ears, and soul. I'm a Mac user at home and in the office, mainly for application development. BSD Unix under the hood just makes my life as a programmer feel more integrated. I'll have to look at the Linux CLI on the Surface and see how I feel. Most importantly, I love how my Mac just stays out of my way.

I also use Windows at the office for AutoCAD because the Mac version is inferior to the Windows counterpart. Our machines and OS are modern, but I want to carve my eyes out with a spork on a daily basis using Windows 10.

THAT BEING SAID, we've got our eyes on the Surface Studio for the boss to use. We'll see how I feel then. I still have a copy of Adobe Master Collection cs6 that I paid good money for with, no Windows machine to use it on!

For what it's worth, as just a plain user of computers, I personally find Microsoft's industrial design way more appealing to my sensibility than Apple's industrial design.

I prefer:

* Smaller radius corners. The Mac and iPhone have always appeared too rounded.

* Less tapering. I like that the Surface Book's contact surface (no pun intended) is basically its entire area (notwithstanding the rubberized feet). I don't like that the Macs taper inward. I think Apple corrected this on the newest MacBook Pro, however.

* Less visual emphasis on the keyboard. I don't like the Mac's dark keys on a silver plane. I prefer that Surface Book's keyboard matches the metal color.

* Less obnoxious branding. I like that the Surface Book has just a reflective Windows logo on the back and no branding on the front. I have never liked the glowing Apple logo on Macs and I applaud Apple for ditching that. But for 2016, they added a big "MacBook Pro" on the bottom edge of the screen which is also tacky.

* This one is a particularly big pet peeve: a chamfered edge for the track-pad that matches the width of the trackpad. I've never understood why the chamfered edge on the MacBook is so narrow. I like not having a sharp edge digging into my wrist even when I am a bit sloppy with my arm positioning.

That's saying nothing of the software. But to be brief on software, I am so happy that Windows is (slowly) providing a dark look and feel. Applications that use the latest Microsoft design thinking look great to my eye. Admittedly they are very slow at bringing old apps up to snuff—there are a number of legacy apps that still look as they did on Windows 8 or earlier. MacOS has always looked too "bubbly" to my eye.

My personal laptop is a Surface Book, though I use a workstation for normal day-to-day work.

If the Surface Book had a 32gb ram option and 7th gen Intel chip it would be more interesting. As it is, it's pretty much the same specs as the Macs. If you're a gamer it does have a better GPU option for an extra $200, and if you're a photographer maybe the SD slot could convince you.

My biggest complaint about Windows, from a pure usability stand point, is the fact that I have yet to find anything close to a functional multi-desktop app. There used to be something as part of XP powertoys (it performed badly as I remember it) but I have yet too see anything since then. Ignoring most of the philosophical issues, that alone makes the platform a non-starter as my daily driver.

I tend to use desktops to organize tasks or task sets. (one for email, jira, time tracking. Another for the set the current ticket I'm working on: editor, browser, logs, query tool, and maybe others for incidentals that pop up: research, support questions etc...) Mutli-desktop has become my goto technique for off loading a large chunk of mental state.

Windows 10 has multi-desktop built right in.

Well now, I hadn't seen that mentioned anywhere! Interesting ... I'll have to take another look at win10 then ...

If by multi-desktop you means virtual desktops, then you are in luck. Virtual desktops are a built-in feature of windows 10 [1].

[1]: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2015/04/16/virtu...

Along with native multiple desktop support of Windows 10, there is a single portable exe by Sysintarnals called Desktops for multiple desktops feature.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-in/sysinternals/cc817881.as...

These types of ads or product pages will only appeal to individual users. Ineffective.

Try convincing the thousands of companies that have their engineers working on macbooks. It is way more efficient to have everyone on a team use the same OS and hardware (for obvious reasons) therefore I don't think Apple is even phased at all with these Microsoft comparison tactics.

Maybe the ecosystem will change in the next 10 yrs. After all, history does repeat itself. For now, I'm sticking with my macbook for home and my company issued macbook for work.

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre".

I just. I just really don't want to have to learn powershell =(

I could not agree more. I make my living using Microsoft tech in the analytics space and I absolutely HATE powershell.

Then you'll be very excited to hear that you can run bash now :)

I don't want to rehash it here since it's been done a few times on HN already but PowerShell is awesome. I encourage you to search HN for previous discussions and give PowerShell another shot. The old windows command prompt definitely took away some of its appeal when I first tried it so I can understand why some folks have a distaste for it. First impressions and all that. But it's extremely powerful compared to bash or other "string passing" shells.

Of course if you use it regularly and hate it you can safely ignore what I just said. I'd be curious as to what you hate about it though.

There's bash for Windows in Windows 10

if you do learn PS, you won't regret. Time well spent.

If I can't get 32GB of RAM on the Surface Book either, then I'll blame it on Intel for now and hope it's an option in the next MacBook Pro.

$1499 (minimum surface-book pricing) Surface - "6th generation core i5"(no mention of clock speed), 128GB SSD, 8GB ram(no mention of speed), Touch Screen, Whatever the fuck they call their shitty excuse to build a facial recognition database MacBook Pro - 2GHz i5, 256GB SSD, 8GB 1866MHz RAM, Intel Iris 540 graphics (at least twice as many GFLOPS as the HD graphics), trackpad w/force touch and good drivers, unlock w/ Apple Watch.

1999(highest price before MacBooks go 15 inch, for a bit less you can sacrifice 256GB storage and get a dGPU on the Surface)

Surface - "6th generation core i5"(no mention of clock speed), 256GB SSD, 8GB ram(no mention of speed), Touch Screen, Whatever the fuck they call their shitty excuse to build a facial recognition database Seriously, literally the only thing to change for this model appears to be the SSD.

MacBook Pro - 2.9GHz i5, 512GB SSD, 8GB 2133MHz RAM, Intel Iris 550 graphics (at least twice as many GFLOPS as the HD graphics), trackpad w/force touch and good drivers, unlock w/ Apple Watch, touch bar and Touch ID(w/their secure enclave so the NSA can't log your fingerprint)

After that it just becomes unfair because the MacBooks become 15 inch and their dGPU has 2GB memory instead of the Surface's 1GB(which is the only actual spec I can find on the surfaces graphics)

For me, the OS is a deal breaker. If I could run--legally--macOS on Surfaces, it would be an easier switch. The saying that you marry the bride's family applies: nice hardware, got to buy into Windows too. I don't want it.

I have been beyond satisfied with my new Surface Book... no issues whatsoever.

I've got a 2015 Macbook Pro and I'm sorely tempted to get a Surface when/if it breaks down. The detachable screen is a gamechanger, but it's still a bit small (12.3") for my taste.

It seems like the new ones have 13.5 inch screens.

https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msca/en_CA/pdp/Surface-...

But... I work on open source. Does Windows 10 have POSIX compatibility?

I love how they use an image of a 7 year old macbook in the ad to make surface thickness look good in comparison. Look at that bezel - it's a pre-retina, circa 2009 :)

I remember not long ago when it was Apple running Switch to Mac ads trying to get Windows users to buy Macs. Funny how things have changed.

Find it strange I can't locate the screen size of the Surface Book on this comparison page. Have to go to Tech Spec page.

Because they're both the same. Both are 13" machines.

If you hit "COMPARE SURFACE DEVICES" on that page you'll get detailed specs.

How would the pen and surface dial fit in software development workflow?

I have used the pen for drawing diagrams and stuff plenty of times. I can't think of anything to do with the dial though.

Simple. Dial your code up to 11.

How old is that MBP on the first picture ?

I like that Microsoft is making an effort to capture the audience that wasn't impressed by Apple's MBP launch, but I can't get over their comparison chart.

They compare the main screen of the Surface to the lower screen (touch bar) of the MBP. That's just a shady comparison. At least be honest.

I think they are just pointing out the MBP has a lower screen resolution...they aren't comparing it to the 'lower screen'/touchbar. See here: http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/

The main screen of the MBP does in fact have a resolution 227 pixels per inch

I think you misunderstood higher/lower.

I agree. They just compare the things that are different, for example detachable screen, touch screen etc. Unless it is something you're actively seeking, that won't be the reason people will move from mac to surface.

Are you sure about that? Just checked the tech specs on the MBP and it seemed correct (2560x1600 = ~4.1M / 227ppi)[1].

Edit: ie. main screen (3000x2000) / main screen (2560x1600)

[1] http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/

I don't believe that's the comparison they're making. It's trying (and failing) to say that the Surface has the higher screen resolution. It's not making a comparison to the touch bar at all.

To clarify, I meant they are comparing the resolution of the main screen to the touch bar.

But they are trying to make it look like they are comparing the two devices' screens. Definitely misleading.

I doubt that the touch bar has "4.1M pixels". That's "{lower|higher} (screen resolution)", not "({lower|higher} screen) resolution".

No, they're comparing main screens. You are wrong.

It's even a good comparison that they used the 13" model. At first I expected the 15" to have a better ppi, but the 13" has a 227 PPI and the 15" has a 220 ppi.

"Lower Screen" in "Lower screen resolution" refers to the main display's lower resolution vs the Surface's "Higher screen resolution" noted in the left column.

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