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Comment by tylermenezes | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand the "OMG MICROSOFT MADE A TABLET IT IS CLEARLY COPYING THE IPAD" reaction Microsoft's getting here. They're absolutely ahead of the curve with the blending of mobile and desktop operating systems, something which I am extremely happy they are doing, and this is absolutely the logical design choices someone in that position would make.

Yes, it's very similar to the iPad in many ways. But other than some of the marketing, it doesn't seem to fall any closer to Apple than any of the Android tablets we've been seeing for the last year. In fact, the metro UI (extreme minimalism) is pretty drastically different from Apple's style (extreme detail). Apple phased out the bold color designs years ago. (And don't feed me the "Microsoft is just really slow at copying" nonsense - it's clearly as much an original design as any.)

A lot of the arguments against it are the sort of arguments Samsung fought against in its lawsuit with Apple. The result of that was a totally unique product, and an awful one. (http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/05/04/the-samsung-galaxy-s...)

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It's pretty obvious where that reaction is coming from.

As recently as last year Microsoft was singing the praises of being able to kinda-sorta-use desktop software on a tablet and pushing the notion that things without desktop operating systems were 'consumption' devices, at best.

So, yes, their sudden reversal on what people want in a tablet is worth noting and easily justifies the same kind of quips and barbs that people lob at Apple over Jobs' similar reversals [1].

And it's pretty easy to be ahead of the curve on blending mobile and desktop operating systems when Microsoft is the only party who sees a problem to be solved in the first place. [2]

Because this entire concept -- that people want both -- comes apart at the seams about a month after you've owned an Apple or Android tablet. [3]

Simply: there's no user-facing problem being solved here.

People use tablets for what they're great at and desktop PCs for what they're great at. And no-one who's ever put their tablet down to use their laptop is looking at that Microsoft Surface tablet and saying "this will mean I don't have to put the tablet down for these tasks anymore". [4]

Microsoft is attempting to solve it's own problem with this blending concept and the degree to which this tablet succeeds, is going to strongly track the degree to which Windows stays out of the Metro experience [5].

[1] "No-one wants a widget." (Smash cut to 18 months later) "Introducing Apple's new iWidget!"

[2] That Windows is irrelevant in a growing computing market.

[3] And I say that as someone who has been pro-tablet for a decade and only grudgingly gave Apple's "big iPod" approach a chance.

[4] At best, the typing-heavy market is saying "I wonder how long it will take someone to make an iPad keyboard case that slick."

[5] Metro is a unique, interesting and a refreshing change from Apple's icon grid. And I've heard far more praise for it from the design folks that get written off as Apple fanboys, than I have from the Windows crowd who generally echoed Microsoft's 'consumption' FUD.

At home I use a macbook and an ipad. The ipad is a consumption device- it's great for playing a casual game, looking up a recipe, and better than kindle for reading pdf files. It isn't really usable for programming, writing documentation, or any real work (that I do). It doesn't replace my laptop, it just does some things in a more convenient way.

Microsoft's Surface looks like (for me) it could replace both the ipad and my macbook. It isn't a consumption device- it runs a full operating system. I could remote in to work from anywhere, attach it to a monitor if I wanted to work at home, and easily carry it around. It provides the convenience of a tablet, while allowing real work to be done. It even comes in pretty colors.

Apple wants me to own a phone, a music player, a tablet, and a laptop all to do separate things in separate places. This isn't necessary.

This is not a reversal of Microsoft's position- it's the logical next step.

> "Microsoft's Surface looks like (for me) it could replace both the ipad and my macbook."

Things always have a way of looking like what we want them to, before we get a chance to see them. I know how it works; I spent a lot of time waiting, hoping and grumbling about Windows tablets.

And what I see here, is an ARM tablet that has a real shot as a tablet - provided the Windows side stays out of the way.

And a hand-waved x86 tablet that may or may not be notably improved over last year's Windows tablets.

From that, you seem to be hoping the best of the ARM tablet (size/battery/usability) is implicit in the x86 tablet or vice-versa (does the ARM tablet even allow keyboard/mouse style apps from third parties?).

And that's precisely what remains to be seen.

If they pull this off, a Windows Phone and a Surface will replace a $3000 Apple set that someone like my mom would use and love.

As a deeply invested Apple user, it is nice to see Msft finally making something I might want to use.

For me this tablet/surface could see significant demand from students going back to school this fall. As you said, it's not loger Air + iPad when you can get one device that can do both.

I think it's a pretty good strategy from that standpoint. Additionally, with the Intel version being compatible with desktop apps, this should fit in with the business (corporate) environment.

Of course, this is speculation, but I think it has a pretty good chance at being successful.

> People use tablets for what they're great at and desktop PCs for what they're great at. And no-one who's ever put their tablet down to use their laptop is looking at that Microsoft Surface tablet and saying "this will mean I don't have to put the tablet down for these tasks anymore". [4]

I disagree. I see no reason why my mom wouldn't want a single computer to use on a couch for browsing, and on a desk with mouse/keyboard for chatting or photo editing. This seems like an obvious convergence of 2 specialized devices. There are trade offs of course, but if they can deliver a good experience, I think users would be willing to trade the computing power of a desktop for a single all-in-one device.

The next obviously step is to have a phone that can replace all 3, with different docks. And once phone CPU gets powerful enough we will definitely see that.

Why would your mom need a desktop-side to the OS to do chat or photo editing?

Firstly, for anyone not already using at least prosumer photo-editing software, the latest iPad apps are preferred to desktop apps by everyone I've seen use them. So lightroom or photoshop users may not be satisfied, but most people looking to make a few standard adjustments are going to get the job done faster and easier by not putting that tablet down.

And for substantial amounts of text entry, sure, the keyboard is great. But you don't need traditional OSX/Windows style keyboard-mouse interfaces to handle a keyboard.

I'm a gadget nerd and power user and having less devices that get the job done is always better. I own a Transformer Prime which comes pretty close to what the Windows Surface will over in terms of experience.

In terms of media consumption I do not miss anything with the tablet but I find myself so often getting up from the couch walking over to my desk to get some simple tasks done in software XY because traditional software still beats most apps.

Having all those software programs running on my tablet will be so amazing!

How can a product that hasn't shipped yet be 'ahead of the curve'? I have an iPad in my bag right now. Microsoft aren't even on the curve yet.

Apple also started blending elements of the iOS UI into OS X, such as multi-touch gestures over a year ago. Maybe MS will leapfrog them. Surface does look interesting, I'm not discounting it, but we'll have to see where Apple and Microsoft stand relative to each other when Surface actually ships.

I don't know why you'd think that Microsoft is not even on the curve here. Surface is just the hardware aspect of the complete solution. The Software has been out in beta for a few months now. It's the software that is more responsible for the blending of tablet and laptop than the hardware.

By that argument Microsoft were on the curve in 2010 with Courier, supposedly due for launch later that year but cancelled in April.

This is Microsoft's third or fourth attempt on a tablet PC, the earlier attempts all pre-date Apple's creation of the market.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_for_Pen_Computing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XP_Tablet_PC_Edition#Tablet_PC_...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_PC

Good point, but why label those as "attempts"? A decade ago PDAs were pretty good devices with decent amount of free apps and an interesting range of possibilities. (For one, they were extensible via cards. Something that's not available in today smartphones I know of.) You could read books, play games, use internet via WiFi, plus there was a lot of business applications for them. Heck, my old Asus MyPal has better book reader and calendar apps than I have on my current smartphone.

Sure, there wasn't a marketing hysteria around PDAs, but they were a viable market of their own.

Tablet laptops were used by many people as well.

I loved my Toshiba M200 (http://reviews.cnet.com/Toshiba_Portege_M200_tablet_PC/4505-...) way back in 2004! I used to use it during my graduate classes to take handwritten notes. It's a little sluggish by today's standards, but lighter weight distributions of Linux still run pretty well.

Pricing.

Windows tablets used to be more expensive than laptops, and Apple tablets are significantly less expensive than laptops.

Windows CE PDAs were also very expensive, about three or four times what a current smartphone costs.

So the tech was there, but their pricing made the market very small.

If anything, prices went up.

Asus MyPal (a relatively high-end PDA) was around $400 when I bought it. That is cheaper than modern high-end phones and roughly equal to the prices of mid-level phones.

The laptop I'm writing this from costs around $400 dollars as well. This is the price of the cheapest iPad.

If the Palm Computing IPO didn't reflect marketing hysteria around PDA's, I don't know what does. The spinoff gave Palm a market cap of over $20B, about six times the entire value of its parent company, 3Com.

I had an HTC Windows Mobile phone and a Gateway XP Tablet with a Wacom screen. Other than being bulky, they were great devices.

Before the iPad, Microsoft was using the "PC interface", to the disadvantage of the tablets they were putting it on.

Now they are doing the reverse: making a tablet interface to the disadvantage of the PC. The "all-in-one" interface for all types of devices and form factors will never work, because at best it's optimized only for one of them, and mediocre or poor for most of the others.

They could have so easily gotten around that by just calling it "Metro" and doing a clean break. Then just promise everyone that windows isn't going away and imply that there will/might still be a windows 8 which would be a continuation of windows as we all know it for PCs.

Then all the ARM devices (phones, tablets, etc) and also XBOX uses "Metro". Just Metro, no mentions of Windows. If people like it, THEN windows 8 could use parts of Metro or start to resemble it in a way. (In a manner similar to the "back to the mac" stuff in OSX Lion and Mountain Lion) If not, well they can still use windows for many years just like people stuck with XP and eventually there will be a windows 7+1 of some kind for them.

But by calling the phone OS windows phone 7 and by completely changing windows 8 people are in a panic. I can only imagine what their "enterprise" customers must be thinking.

Plus now the phone OS is "version 7" which coincides with the old pc-os style windows but it is the only thing actually using Metro and windows 8 has no mention of metro and is the only one that's new style.. so is 7 or 8 or 360 or 720 the number to associate with the new style? Should any number be associated with it? If not, then why _start_ the completely new phone OS at number 7? Why call the near complete break version 8? etc.

tl;dr: If they did a complete break and didn't call it Windows, then no one's first reaction would be "Jack of all trades, master of none."

A clean break would appeal to a lot of people who think that a lack of focus has been part of Microsoft's problems the last few years. But coming out with a tablet only OS was a non-starter for MS. If the Surface was Metro only, then it wouldn't differentiate itself from iOS and Android in any significant manner. This is why Windows Phone 7 isn't getting significant traction.

The key for Surface is the integration with AD, with providing a "desktop" of sorts, and all the other bells and whistles people associate with Windows. Whether the Windows DNA can be successfully combined with a touch based interface is a problem, but at least MS is trying. Muddling along with their old-style tablet software would cede the market to iOS and Android.

I think they should have copied Apple there too: Remember the OS9 emulation that OSX used to have? Just emulate Windows 7 so you can use apps like microsoft office.

Or make a proper Metro / tablet / touch oriented version of Office a priority. Yes it would be a lot of work, but they can throw nearly limitless resources at it.

If I read you correctly, you're basically saying that the desktop and slate/phone should have different user interfaces. Well, that's exactly what win8 delivers.

When you're building a piece of software you can choose to give it a metro-style UI, a classical desktop UI, or both. That way, your application works across desktops, slates, and WP8 phones. IE10 for example can be run as a full-screen metro app, or as a 'classic' desktop application.

The start menu has been replaced by a full-screen view with live tiles. And really, that's all there is to it; it's just a fancy full-screen start menu. You toggle it with the windows key, and you can quickly search for something just by typing. Live tiles are pretty handy to give you a quick overview of mail, world clocks, events, appointments, etc - much like OSX widgets.

These 'surface' slates, as well as desktops and laptops will run Windows 8 (both x86 and ARM varieties). Windows Phone 8 is just another flavor of that. I'm assuming in the near future, phones will even be able to run the desktop environment by docking to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

Hmmm. So is Windows 8 a horse? Or a duck?

I like Metro quite a bit.

Alas, I can't suspend disbelief and trust that this time Microsoft will remain committed to their latest greatest new thing, not lose interest and wander off in a few years, and not screw all the developers who bought into the latest pyramid scheme.

I think a lot of other people like Metro too.

I just attended an designer graduate student thesis project gallery exhibit whatever. 2/3rds of the UIs were strongly Metro-esque. Some very cool designs. I have no doubt Metro will spawn copycats.

This. To me, Windows 8 is the first OS that actually makes sense of how people use tablets (and computers in general). Sometimes, I want to use it casually laying on the couch and sometimes I want to use it to be productive.

But they are really forcing you into the Metro interface, and it's quite clear they would like to "phase out" the desktop part in a couple of generations.

Have you tried it? From my own personal experience, it works pretty well in the release preview.

I've been using my iPad with a BT keyboard, and one of the thing that excites me about the Surface is that the OS is actually optimised for both touch and keyboard use. With the iPad, you can type text and use a couple of system commands (homescreen, brightness, music controls). But you still have to reach up and swipe through apps and touch the app you want to load, swipe to shift between apps, etc etc.

But with Windows 8, every touch gesture or feature is baked in intelligently to keyboard/trackpad use. Swiping between apps, bringing up charms, splitting the screen, selecting tiles on the start screen, etc etc. I think this will make a huge difference. Microsoft has an advantage here because W8 has been built simultaneously for all of these usage models, whereas Apple started with touch and is still tethered to a fingers-only UI basis.

If MS pulls this off well (and that is a big "if"), it may convert me from the iPad. Right now, I have an iPad and a MB Air. I'm missing having a workhorse (MB Pro), but I don't want three devices and I really like the casual aspects of the iPad.

I'm not sure I'd call it "ahead of the curve". They are on the right track for the most part, but there are key aspects here that are not obvious that I think MS is a little blind to (which is too complex a topic to go into here). Overall though I'd say they are at least partially clueful, which is enormously helpful.

I don't think people realize how big this announcement was.

Yes, MS is still a multi-billion dollar company and a good portion of their revenue is likely secure for years if not decades. But we are at a key juncture in computing here, as important as the mainframe/mini-computer to PC transition if not even more so. And if MS had just blundered on and made half-assed token efforts they would have forever set themselves into the wrong gear and they would have relegated their company to a different market and marketshare than dominating the mainstream PC market as they've done.

MS has made a big play, and it may be enough to keep them in the game and revitalize their brand image. Time will tell.

I think you're spot on with the mini-computer to PC transition. This carries all the same echoes of the frontier-days of early PCs. Initially, people (myself included) wrote tablets off as being a toy for enthusiasts, and now they're reaching a level of adoption that's shifted the question from "Why would I buy one?" to "What's the best one on the market?" which can only be good for consumers and computing as a whole. Microsoft ended up winning PC's for a good twenty years, and have gotten destroyed by Apple in terms of branding and attention in the past twelve years or so. We'll see how they do in the teens.

Those early reports of the Galaxy S3 being lawyer-ugly were overhyped. I'm typing on one now and I find it quite sleek.

I would not call the Galaxy SIII an awful product. According to many reviews it is the best smartphone available on the market.

According to yet more reports the HTC One X actually holds this title. In part, due to a level in industrial design that samsung has yet to achieve.

Disclosure : I own a One X. I waited for the SIII announcement but the minute I saw the SIII i ordered my One X.

Are we talking about "best" or "biggest"?

how are the multitasking issues? I was thinking of getting a One X, but decided to get an HSPA Galaxy Nexus instead. This was for price reasons as well as hearing about strange behavior from One X when multitasking

Nope, the S3 is clearly the winner according to most reports.

"many reviews" "more reports" "most reports"

We are better than this, people.

Wow come on guys. Atrix wins. Geeks know atrix wins.

To say nothing of the fact that Microsoft have been doing tablet PCs since circa 2002.

I worked on a Fujitsu tablet running Microsoft Windows 3.1 in 1994

I'm using TabletPC as swiss knife for 3 years now and couldn't be happier with it.

Native unobfuscated desktop experience? Check. Pro drawing with stylus? Check. Multi-touch for slacking around? Check. Power for development? Check.

Personally, I'll just check the specs and price on this one and compare them to my needs, as I always do with any device I own.

Absolutely. Apple's vision for tablet-computer integration is to dumb down the computer. Microsoft can't afford to do that.

The main thing Apple did with the iPad was make it work without any major gotchas. Sure, you could have stuck a desktop CPU and desktop OS in a touchscreen device. Other people tried that. It wasn't appealing.

The iPad gave long battery life, a comfortable form-factor, solid usability and reliability, an impossibly low price point for such high-end hardware, and most importantly it was a tablet above all else. Every app becomes the machine. That's entirely different than carrying a desktop around in an iPad-sized box.

Be careful if you think this is simply dumbing down a desktop, because it shows you're missing the point.

What Apple did was remove all of the barriers that got in the way of a good tablet experience for individual consumers. In essence, they made the iPad an application platform instead of a general purpose computer.

They combined that with their amazing manufacturing and engineering prowess and created a real winner.

From my perspective, the iPad is a dumbed down device. I only have access to the underlying operating system via API, don't have an ability to directly access shared corporate resources that are interesting to me, and cannot run arbitrary software without alot of hassle.

Dumbed-down devices are fine -- i own and love my iPad. But they're fine until you need to do something that the vendor doesn't want you to do, and Apple is a vendor who likes to define a single "one true path" to do many things.

OMG: Microsoft preannounced two competing products, with no indication of price, ship date, market availability, processor specs, RAM, etc, etc.

And the Internet goes crazy about it. An iPad-killer at last, hooray!

EDIT: And of course the real question: will it ship with Office included? Or will Office for it cost more than the device itself? And how much cannibalization of their own software revenues will MS accept?

> They're absolutely ahead of the curve with the blending of mobile and desktop operating systems

They probably are, yes. It's still far from clear that that's something that anyone wants.

>I don't understand the "OMG MICROSOFT MADE A TABLET IT IS CLEARLY COPYING THE IPAD" reaction Microsoft's getting here.

No, it's merely another try to bite into its market. Microsoft had tablets before the iPad too, but not like that.

Yes, it's very similar to the iPad in many ways. But other than some of the marketing, it doesn't seem to fall any closer to Apple than any of the Android tablets we've been seeing for the last year.

That's because those are already too close.

They're absolutely ahead of the curve with the blending of mobile and desktop operating systems, something which I am extremely happy they are doing, and this is absolutely the logical design choices someone in that position would make.

Ahead of what curve?

They FINALLY have a me-too mobile phone platform, but with horrible market reach, and they are updating their OS into an old (Windows)/new(Metro) mixed UI monstrosity, generally met with "Metro is kinda nice, but what where they thinking?" reviews.

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