11 ms·

The Surface is a pretty damn nice device that will be really great in a year or two when it's finally ready for prime time, and Apple finally deigns to do what

The Surface is a pretty damn nice device that will be really great in a year or two when it's finally ready for prime time, and Apple finally deigns to do what a bunch of PC manufacturers are doing and clone it. It will be hailed as the Next Big Thing then. I say this as someone who's been a Mac user since 2000, and finds Windows really annoying. Being able to run Serious Desktop Apps in a tablet is really amazing, and I would be using a Surface to type this right now if I hadn't had to return my S4Pro because my favorite Serious Art App ignores the first half-second or so of every stylus stroke. Instead I'm sitting in a cafe with my Air and my Wacom tablet next to it. Which used to be a delightfully lightweight portable art studio, but now feels absurdly massive. (The Surface may not feel like a big deal to someone whose Serious App is an IDE and always needs a full keyboard anyway - but sitting on a bus, a plane, or a crowded lunch counter, with the Surface and a desktop-class art app is pretty delightful. Well, aside from the terrible battery life, made even worse by its tendency to wake up in your bag and burn through half its battery, occasional reboot-requiring Bluetooth disconnects, and unpadded stylus.)

Retric 10y ago
What separates the surface and iPad Pro? I get your saying desktop applications, but from a HW perspective that are basically the same device and the OS is equality capable. It seems more like the Surface just has better applications for artists, unless I am missing something.
- ewzimm 10y ago
  I don't think you're missing anything. Having the right apps matters a lot than the OS capabilities.
  - wlesieutre 10y ago
    Very much agreed. I had a Surface Pro 3 for two years and sold it to get an iPad Pro 9.7 a few months ago. Much happier with this. Yeah, you can run Photoshop on the Surface, but for just sketching and digital painting, Procreate costs $6 and is far more touchscreen friendly. Once in a while I miss a piece of desktop software, but I have an old MacBook Air that I can get out if I really need blender or something.
  - dzhiurgis 10y ago
    The way things are going, I see all parties approaching zero sum. Hardware is nearly identical and software stack is approaching too as everything is moving into web apps (see Progressive Web Applications (where Apple is in fact lagging)). Serious Desktop Apps is not such a big thing anymore. iOS has all the Serious Desktop Apps already. Android too. So does MS. Sure there will always be some legacy code done in MS which is probably easier to port from 7 to 10 (and onwards) than into the web stack. But legacy is not what accounts for growth as so much new software is done on web stack. Also, if you look this way, Chromebooks also compete in this space.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >The way things are going, I see all parties approaching zero sum. Hardware is nearly identical and software stack is approaching too as everything is moving into web apps For the staff I do (image, audio, video, programming), that couldn't be further for the truth. For the rest, that stuff is technologically trivial to begin with (email viewing, writing a document, creating invoices, etc).
- egypturnash 10y ago
  The Surface is a laptop crammed into a tablet shell. An iPad Pro is a tablet. So the Surface has more RAM to work on serious projects, more CPU to do them with, and... a far greater hunger for power because of that. Like, 3h of continual use is a pretty good day. It's also got an OS that is trying really hard to work as both a tablet OS and a desktop OS. Windows 10 is not quite there yet IMHO but it comes pretty close; another year or two of development and it'll be there. For artists, "runs the Adobe suite" is something of a killer app, and has been since version 1. For other people? Well, what's that one app you really need a desktop/laptop to run? Maybe one with a limited version for tablets, maybe not. You can kick back on the couch with it now. I see a lot of people on /r/surface talking about how they use it for all their note-taking; it's got surprisingly good handwriting recognition, and is, again, ultra-super-portable. (I hear it also does surprisingly well with games; plug it into your big screen's HDMI input with the casualness of bringing a tablet into the living room, instead of setting up a big noisy Gaming PC, and have fun. I never tried that during my time with it so I can't speak to how well it actually does. I literally did not install anything on mine besides Adobe Illustrator, Evernote, and a few programs for remapping keys/putting hotkeys on the screen.) It's a pretty serious step into the world where you have one device that works as both a tablet you can poke at with your fingers, and a Serious Productivity Device that runs whatever twenty-year-old monster app that you've been using so long you don't even have to think about half its keyboard shortcuts. It's not fully-baked yet, Win10 is a mess that still drops you into horrible little control panels from 1995 now and then, some crucial UI elements vanish if you use apps designed for tablet usage in "tablet mode", but it really felt like something magical in the same way my first iPad did.
  - flukus 10y ago
    The surface pro doesn't have a rigid hinge on the keyboard does it? I'd love to get one to replace my inspiron hybrid that doesn't really work as a tablet but this is a pretty big limitation for me.
    - wlesieutre 10y ago
      You might check out the Surface Book instead
NEDM64 10y ago
People have been saying that the Surface will be nice "in a year or two" for more than 2 years. Whatever Intel and Microsoft do, Apple will always have a cleaner OS, a more efficient CPU and it's a more approachable product.
- egypturnash 10y ago
  I sure ain't gonna argue with that. My time with a Surface mostly just made me wish Apple would deign to release something in that form factor so I could stick with a prettier OS.
- WayneBro 10y ago
  I've been using Windows tablets for 3 years and they've been extremely nice the entire time. Among my collection, I have the original Surface Pro and a Dell Venue 8 Pro which are pretty old. They're both easily more useful to me than any Apple product I've ever owned. But Apple products are nice if you like walled gardens and option-less, featureless software. I usually recommend Apple products to home users who have simple needs. That shit would never fly in a business though.
  - NEDM64 10y ago
    You must never used Apple products then. Have fun with your antivirus, and call me when Windows finally has DPI figured out, or when I can receive and make calls with my tablet or laptop, and send files via wifi even when there's no wifi network, or have PIP for videos or have 10 hours battery life, but in the real world.

Retric 10y ago

What separates the surface and iPad Pro? I get your saying desktop applications, but from a HW perspective that are basically the same device and the OS is equality capable. It seems more like the Surface just has better applications for artists, unless I am missing something.

ewzimm 10y ago
I don't think you're missing anything. Having the right apps matters a lot than the OS capabilities.
- wlesieutre 10y ago
  Very much agreed. I had a Surface Pro 3 for two years and sold it to get an iPad Pro 9.7 a few months ago. Much happier with this. Yeah, you can run Photoshop on the Surface, but for just sketching and digital painting, Procreate costs $6 and is far more touchscreen friendly. Once in a while I miss a piece of desktop software, but I have an old MacBook Air that I can get out if I really need blender or something.
- dzhiurgis 10y ago
  The way things are going, I see all parties approaching zero sum. Hardware is nearly identical and software stack is approaching too as everything is moving into web apps (see Progressive Web Applications (where Apple is in fact lagging)). Serious Desktop Apps is not such a big thing anymore. iOS has all the Serious Desktop Apps already. Android too. So does MS. Sure there will always be some legacy code done in MS which is probably easier to port from 7 to 10 (and onwards) than into the web stack. But legacy is not what accounts for growth as so much new software is done on web stack. Also, if you look this way, Chromebooks also compete in this space.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >The way things are going, I see all parties approaching zero sum. Hardware is nearly identical and software stack is approaching too as everything is moving into web apps For the staff I do (image, audio, video, programming), that couldn't be further for the truth. For the rest, that stuff is technologically trivial to begin with (email viewing, writing a document, creating invoices, etc).
egypturnash 10y ago
The Surface is a laptop crammed into a tablet shell. An iPad Pro is a tablet. So the Surface has more RAM to work on serious projects, more CPU to do them with, and... a far greater hunger for power because of that. Like, 3h of continual use is a pretty good day. It's also got an OS that is trying really hard to work as both a tablet OS and a desktop OS. Windows 10 is not quite there yet IMHO but it comes pretty close; another year or two of development and it'll be there. For artists, "runs the Adobe suite" is something of a killer app, and has been since version 1. For other people? Well, what's that one app you really need a desktop/laptop to run? Maybe one with a limited version for tablets, maybe not. You can kick back on the couch with it now. I see a lot of people on /r/surface talking about how they use it for all their note-taking; it's got surprisingly good handwriting recognition, and is, again, ultra-super-portable. (I hear it also does surprisingly well with games; plug it into your big screen's HDMI input with the casualness of bringing a tablet into the living room, instead of setting up a big noisy Gaming PC, and have fun. I never tried that during my time with it so I can't speak to how well it actually does. I literally did not install anything on mine besides Adobe Illustrator, Evernote, and a few programs for remapping keys/putting hotkeys on the screen.) It's a pretty serious step into the world where you have one device that works as both a tablet you can poke at with your fingers, and a Serious Productivity Device that runs whatever twenty-year-old monster app that you've been using so long you don't even have to think about half its keyboard shortcuts. It's not fully-baked yet, Win10 is a mess that still drops you into horrible little control panels from 1995 now and then, some crucial UI elements vanish if you use apps designed for tablet usage in "tablet mode", but it really felt like something magical in the same way my first iPad did.
- flukus 10y ago
  The surface pro doesn't have a rigid hinge on the keyboard does it? I'd love to get one to replace my inspiron hybrid that doesn't really work as a tablet but this is a pretty big limitation for me.
  - wlesieutre 10y ago
    You might check out the Surface Book instead

NEDM64 10y ago

People have been saying that the Surface will be nice "in a year or two" for more than 2 years. Whatever Intel and Microsoft do, Apple will always have a cleaner OS, a more efficient CPU and it's a more approachable product.

egypturnash 10y ago
I sure ain't gonna argue with that. My time with a Surface mostly just made me wish Apple would deign to release something in that form factor so I could stick with a prettier OS.
WayneBro 10y ago
I've been using Windows tablets for 3 years and they've been extremely nice the entire time. Among my collection, I have the original Surface Pro and a Dell Venue 8 Pro which are pretty old. They're both easily more useful to me than any Apple product I've ever owned. But Apple products are nice if you like walled gardens and option-less, featureless software. I usually recommend Apple products to home users who have simple needs. That shit would never fly in a business though.
- NEDM64 10y ago
  You must never used Apple products then. Have fun with your antivirus, and call me when Windows finally has DPI figured out, or when I can receive and make calls with my tablet or laptop, and send files via wifi even when there's no wifi network, or have PIP for videos or have 10 hours battery life, but in the real world.