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I think Surface is part of the future too. I think Surface and iPad will dominate traditional laptop sales in the next decade. They each represent 2 different

I think Surface is part of the future too. I think Surface and iPad will dominate traditional laptop sales in the next decade. They each represent 2 different opinionated views of productivity/creative-focused computing (just like the 2 different opinions of Android vs iOS in mobile computing). I think you're right that today the Surface does far better in the IO department and IO is a dealbreaker for a lot of people. But again, the world isn't standing still, and Apple just released an iPad Pro with USB-C....that's definitely signaling something. We don't have to make this a conversation about Apple. I think the whole industry is moving in that direction. Interestingly, I don't have the same belief in ChromeOS. I don't think it'll ever be truly competitive with the Surface or iPad lineup partly because Microsoft still has a stranglehold on the desktop/laptop market. It'll be easy and tempting to move to a Surface device that can do so much more than ChromeOS without changing your existing workflow from Windows. Android? Well, Android tablets have languished for a very long time - it's basically a dead market walking. The problem isn't so much the hardware languishing as much as it's the software ecosystem that languishes as a result. Even if the Android ecosystem catches up hardware-wise, it'll be a while before the app ecosystem gets kickstarted again.

2muchcoffeeman 8y ago
I think the Surface turned out to be a better product. I used to think phones and tablets would be defined by lower performance but extremely energy efficient. And any learning from these low power designs would leak to desktops and laptops, but with more power to play with, they would be faster. But now we’ve got these very powerful iPads and iPhones, but they exist in a limited ecosystem. The Surface may not have the fancy A12 SoC but the entire line up seems to have intel cpus and run Windows. And their product lineup seems to be a single platform with increasing capabilities. Tablet, better tablet, laptop, better laptop. But you can run all the same stuff. I’d love Mac OS in an iPad right now that can use the same binaries.

2muchcoffeeman 8y ago

I think the Surface turned out to be a better product. I used to think phones and tablets would be defined by lower performance but extremely energy efficient. And any learning from these low power designs would leak to desktops and laptops, but with more power to play with, they would be faster. But now we’ve got these very powerful iPads and iPhones, but they exist in a limited ecosystem. The Surface may not have the fancy A12 SoC but the entire line up seems to have intel cpus and run Windows. And their product lineup seems to be a single platform with increasing capabilities. Tablet, better tablet, laptop, better laptop. But you can run all the same stuff. I’d love Mac OS in an iPad right now that can use the same binaries.