14 ms·

Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

200 points by jfb 13y ago

bunderbunder 13y ago
's funny; one of the screenshots is used to call out the Charms bar as an example of great UI. For me - as a user of Windows 8 on a desktop - it has become something of an icon of just how poor Windows 8's UI is. On a tablet, you swipe it out from the left edge of the screen. Makes sense - so much sense that Apple copied the idea in iOS 7. On a PC, you bring out the charms bar by frustratedly wiggling your mouse against the right edge of the screen for a few seconds before remembering that to make UI widgets appear out of the middle of the screen's edge, you inexplicably need to move the cursor all the way up or down to one of the corners.
- TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
  I found the gesture really natural, myself. I quick flick and swipe up, and you don't really need to do it precisely.
- dangrossman 13y ago
  Shooting the mouse into a corner is actually one of those gestures that is hardest to get wrong, which is why we've placed the window's close button up there for decades. Your mistake is aiming for the side instead of the top right corner of the screen; you can't overshoot it, so it never takes more than one physical gesture. You can also swipe from the right edge of your touchpad as if it were the screen.
  - bunderbunder 13y ago
    What's the equivalent of the right edge of the touchpad if you're using a mouse? Do I need to stand up and walk over to the side of my room so I can start from the wall? On my monitor, the charms appear really far from the corner of the screen. It's true that it's an easy target to hit. That isn't the only way in which I find interacting with the charms bar to feel like throwing hatchets at the side of a barn. The arm motion's remarkably similar, too.
    - dangrossman 13y ago
      > What's the equivalent of the right edge of the touchpad if you're using a mouse? Moving it up and to the right. You may remain seated.
  - veeti 13y ago
    This doesn't work so well when you have two monitors.
    - dangrossman 13y ago
      It works as well as any other corner interaction on multiple monitors; closing a window on the rightmost screen isn't a novel movement. The charms bar can be on the right screen as well, so it's still a corner gesture you can't overshoot. Opening the charms bar on a desktop computer is a rare event anyway. The buttons it exposes are primarily touch interactions used when holding a tablet running a Metro app. In a classic application, you wouldn't be using its search/share/device buttons, and it's faster to just press the Windows key to do a system/web search.
    - LocalPCGuy 13y ago
      I have 2 monitors, but they aren't the same size. I aim for the bottom corner, since I have the tops of each monitor aligned. Works great.
    - Encosia 13y ago
      It works fine with two monitors. There's a "sticky" spot in shared corners that makes opening the sidebars easy: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/05/21/enhancing-windows-8-for-multiple-monitors.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/05/21/enhancing-wind...
  - sixothree 13y ago
    It's not hard to get wrong. It's almost impossible to do correctly. I have three monitors on my desk at work. At home I use Mouse Without Borders to connect to my laptop. It flat out stinks.
  - nacs 13y ago
    > Your mistake is aiming for the side instead of the top right corner of the screen His mistake or just UI design so bad even a techie can't figure it out? The amount of "you're doing it wrong" when it comes to addressing Windows 8/Surface UI issues is mind boggling.
    - kbaker 13y ago
      Yes, and inexplicable why they carried this behavior over to Windows Server 2012. It is not likely we will see touch interfaces in rackmount servers any time soon. It is nearly impossible to hit the charms hot corner inside a windowed RDP session when the window is not full screen.
      - jodrellblank 13y ago
        It's perfectly explicable. You will manage your servers using RDP from a surface. Gestures and multitouch carry over RDP in Windows 8.
  - joe_the_user 13y ago
    I've read the article talking endlessly about the corners as the easiest place for users to reach and I can accept that they are correct on their own terms. The problem is that on a laptop people are used to both visual and kinesthetic cues for their action. Just as much, any mouse "gesture" effect has to leverage our intuition about physical things... when a gesture in one place (a corner) causes something to happen elsewhere (a side), it feels unnatural and is going to keep feeling unnatural no matter how many fan boys wiggle noses and say "you're doing it wrong, this is really easy no matter hard you're claim to find it...". Edit: The point is the bar appearing on the side cues the user to go to the side, regardless of their great dexterity at going to the corner if they happened to remember to do that (as the gp actually implies).
  - papa_bear 13y ago
    The biggest issue for me is that there's no visual cue with the charms gesture, which is pretty necessary if there's going to be any kind of delay in my mouse being there and the charms appearing.
  - thaumasiotes 13y ago
    It's not exactly difficult to overshoot a window's close button. I don't run everything maximized; that would completely defeat the purpose of a large screen.
- LukasMathis 13y ago
  Dunno, it's never been an issue for me. I'm used to edge-activated features from OS X, and slamming the mouse into the corner to call up the menu always seemed like a simple, efficient user interface to me. It's a bit weird when you use a computer via VNC, though, because you have to move the mouse more precisely.
- leviathant 13y ago
  I've found the least annoying way to bring up charms on my desktop computer is Win+C.
  - stinos 13y ago
    this. Also Win+X is a nice one for the desktop.
  - dagw 13y ago
    Do you know if you can disable bringing it up with the mouse?
- gabemart 13y ago
  What does one use the charms bar for? I've been using win8 as my main OS for over a year and I literally don't think I've used it once. The only obvious things the charms bar does I find easier and quicker to do with keyboard shortcuts. For the record, I despise all the Metro stuff and would cut it out if it were easy to do so.
nextstep 13y ago
"There are artists who draw on iPads, and musicians who make music on iPads, and writers who write novels on iPads, and movie makers who cut their movies on iPads. But the fact that you have to point to these people, the fact that there are articles about these people, shows that they’re unusual." Unusual in a relative sense, the same way artists and musicians and movie makers are unusual in any segment of society. There are millions and millions of iPad users; of course most of them are going to use their iPads primarily for consumption. Using a Microsoft Surface is in itself unusual. I remember clearly the one time I saw someone using a Surface. It was an usual event. But on my way to work I see tens (hundreds?) of iPads and an assortment of android tablets and kindles. My point is, I don't believe there is a large difference between the use cases and potential offered from the many consumer tablets currently available (despite Microsoft's marketing that would lead one to believe that a Surface can truly replace both and iPad and a laptop). Maybe the Surface is better for productivity, but I suspect that for every tech blogger who tried the Surface and found it to be a better laptop replacement than their iPad, there are tons of Surface owners who's use case resembles the stereotypical iPad consumption use case.
- jmduke 13y ago
  Unusual in a relative sense, the same way artists and musicians and movie makers are unusual in any segment of society. There are millions and millions of iPad users; of course most of them are going to use their iPads primarily for consumption. What you are saying is correct, but does not address the author's point, which is that the subset of artists/musicians/etc. who mainly use iPads for their creative/productive output is still very small. Using a Microsoft Surface is in itself unusual. I remember clearly the one time I saw someone using a Surface. It was an usual event. But on my way to work I see tens (hundreds?) of iPads and an assortment of android tablets and kindles. Why was using the Surface unusual, beyond the fact that seeing one was unusual?
- fumar 13y ago
  Last summer I participated in a startup accelerator in Chicago. My Macbook died in the first week! At the time, I didn't have the funds to purchase another Apple machine. Luckily, my girlfriend had recently purchased a Surface RT with the keyboard cover. I did not think that the tablet would be able to replace a laptop for "serious" work, but it did. There are a couple of things that allowed me to do this. First, a USB port having the ability to hook it up to "stuff" comes in handy. Second, snapping apps side by side. And, the ability to use the desktop. I could have Excel and a browser window open at the same time. Third, I could access all of Google's apps through Internet Explorer. I was able to create great decks on Powerpoint, manage large Excel files, use the Google Suite, and multitask like on a laptop. The Surface RT was my main machine for the entire summer. And, at home my lady still used it to watch netflix and surf the web in bed. In August instead of replacing my Macbook with another Mabook, I purchased a Surface Pro. I run Adobe CC, Ableton Live, Microsoft Office on it everyday. It is my all one in solution. Windows 8 has a learning curve. It took me about two weeks to fully understand the OS, but I came from an Mac OS background. I recently started working in a digital agency, and we use Windows 7. I have to say Windows 8 makes my workflow easier than 7. Edit: I forgot to mention the pen! This is one piece of technology that makes me giddy. It works great with OneNote and Photoshop. I grew up with plenty of PDAs with stylus input. But, none of those lived up to the promise of an actual digital pen. Most filled the need to tap small boxes and areas on the screen. The stylus on the Surface Pro makes it feel like a different device when I am in a meeting taking notes. It stops feeling like a laptop or "tablet" and more like a digital notebook.
kayoone 13y ago
I think the Surface2 Pro is really great and shows the strenghts of Windows 8, except for its battery life maybe. But the idea to carry around one device that is a good tablet, laptop and can even be used as a full desktop computer with keyboard/mouse and 2 huge screens if you like is pretty fantastic and the OS scales well to all those different usage patterns. Now you might say, it does all that, but none of it really good and that might be true, but its already good enough for most people. Sadly Apple seems to want to unify everything into iOS down the road, which could go horribly wrong for professional users and Linux ? Well, the community was totally divided about where to go in desktop computing for the last decade and that will probably never change, so i don't except them to solve this as the current state of a dozen half-baked desktop environments is a disaster.
- rsynnott 13y ago
  > Sadly Apple seems to want to unify everything into iOS down the road I'm not sure why people continue to believe this; they've shown no real signs of doing so in the past seven years.
  - kayoone 13y ago
    Well imo the latest OSX versions share some code between OSX and iOS, the App Store could be seen as another sign on the road to a more closed consumer system.
    - rsynnott 13y ago
      iOS has shared a lot of code with MacOS since its inception... > the App Store could be seen as another sign on the road to a more closed consumer system. Well, could be, perhaps, but highly speculatively. It's not like the app store on MacOS was an amazing world first, or anything; notably, Ubuntu had a paid app store before the MacOS one.
bcjordan 13y ago
Great writeup, good points about the culture of those building on the platform, and lovely software gore[0] screenshot. In terms of productivity, what kills my efficacy on iOS versus OS X (and even locked Android versus desktop) is the inability for platform devs to build things that reach outside of the app sandbox. TextExpander and LastPass on iOS are near useless compared to their desktop counterparts, but are even more powerful for getting work done with a slower typing speed. [0]: http://reddit.com/r/softwaregore http://reddit.com/r/softwaregore
joliv 13y ago
Man, finally! I love this blog, but there hadn't been an update since December. Glad to see another post!
kzahel 13y ago
It is a very thorough exposition. However, I have to ask, what does this "burrying" mean?
- LukasMathis 13y ago
  Wow, probably the quickest I ever went from start of essay to first spelling mistake. Thanks for catching it!
  - 9876543210 13y ago
    I used the Newton was a productivity device. I used the P800 was a productivity device. I think the word "was" should be replaced with "as" in these sentences.
    - LukasMathis 13y ago
      The same mistake twice in a row. Another good one. Fixed, thank you!
- jmduke 13y ago
  I believe it was a typo for 'burying'.
Ologn 13y ago
> Preventing apps from interacting with each other cuts down on complexity, but it also means that it is difficult or sometimes even impossible to use multiple apps in conjunction on the same task. Which is why Android has a full-range systems of Intents, BroadcastReceivers etc. to deal with this. The blog post talks about how the iPad does not solve his problems, but Android is only mentioned once in a footnote.
- LukasMathis 13y ago
  I thought the article already covered a wide range of topics, so I wanted to focus on comparing the iPad and the Surface. You're right, though, Android solves many of these problems, too.
  - marcosdumay 13y ago
    It's a bit unusual to say "look, this niche system solves a problem that the one used by 1/3 of the people does not solve", while ignoring that the one used by the other 2/3 of the people solves it. It's a honest comparison, it's just completely useless.
    - LukasMathis 13y ago
      I'm sorry my article wasn't useful to you.
    - nirnira 13y ago
      Sorry, what? Android isn't a productivity solution yet. Not even close. No manufacturer is trying with Android to build what Microsoft is building with 8.1+ - a coherent, unified, cross-device productivity and computing ecosystem.
      - r00fus 13y ago
        Disagree. Samsung is trying very hard to win Enterprise customers (mostly failing so far, but they do have business users on their mind).
wmnwmn 13y ago
I bought a Surface for three reasons mainly. First, it supports Flash, and when I tested tablets out in the showroom, I was able to watch online lectures on the Surface and not on the iPad. Second, it gives access to the file system, so I can organize my large collection of scientific pdfs on disk the way I want to. Third, it has a USB port. I was rather astounded that the iPad did not, and perhaps Apple has changed this, but that alone was a showstopper for me. What it all adds up to is that Apple created their usual walled garden for the iPad, and in this instance the walls eliminated much of the value of the product, even for such elementary uses as reading scientific pdf's, and watching scientific lectures online. I will say that the Surface also had some restrictions on Flash originally, which I quickly discovered when I got it home, leading to a rather testy email from myself to Steve Ballmer. This was very quickly answered by the head of the appropriate department, and they have changed their Flash site approval model in IE to be much more open.
- brc 13y ago
  I have a Surface and an iPad, so I completely understand what you mean about file management. But if you do find yourself in an iOS world - the killer app for file management on iOS is actually Dropbox. Organise your dropbox account on another computer -filing everything as it should be, then it will sync up to your iOS device, and you can access everything as required, including pdfs, images, word docs, etc. It's not perfect but it does work well. I also have another file management app which allows me to connect to my NAS via the iPad. This is also very useful. Of course, neither are necessary for the Surface, but I prefer a lot of the consumption features of the iPad. Web browsing on the iPad is superior because of screen quality and the browser being much more adept at gestures.
tomphoolery 13y ago
An interesting take on the Surface...until you started talking about Spyware. That's when I stopped reading. Dealbreaker.
- LukasMathis 13y ago
  Why?
- dangrossman 13y ago
  The spyware tidbit was commentary on the PC software distribution ecosystem; it's not something from Microsoft or Surface -- that was his experience in going out to find a disc copying app on the web. You end up at sites that bundle installers for other apps into the one you want to make extra money. Why would reading this cause you to stop reading the article?
higherpurpose 13y ago
> It’s not an accident that the best selling, highest grossing iPad apps are almost exclusively games. Yes, it's not an accident, but not because of the reason you give. Gaming is one of the most popular, if not the most popular and highest grossing category on any popular consumer platform. That's just the way it works. Some of these platform vendors (like Apple), and unlike others (like Google) realized this is true from early days, and they have actively encouraged gaming on the platform, by promoting the use of high-performance GPUs, partnering with game companies, and so on. > As Joanna Stern puts it, «if I’m writing long emails or working on office documents, I want a larger screen, a roomy keyboard and the ability to easily juggle programs.» A larger screen, which the Surface doesn't really have either. That's why I can't seriously consider the Surface a "productivity" device. I've used 10" netbooks before, and I know just how cramped they feel. Metro is "so easy to use", that you used almost half of your article to describe how to use it. One OS to rule them all - I'm tired of this stupidity and brainless parroting of one line made popular years ago in comments. By definition, you can't "optimize" something for everything. Yes, it is an execution problem, because it will never work. It's like trying to build the perpetual motion machine. Sounds great in theory, "if you could do it". Will never work.
- LukasMathis 13y ago
  You're right, it only took me half a blog post to explain all of the new concepts Microsoft introduced in their completely novel approach to operating system user interfaces. I don't think that's evidence against its ease-of-use :-) As for games completely ruling the top 100 list of highest-grossing apps on any popular consumer platform: this is definitely not the case in the Mac App Store.
  - glasshead969 13y ago
    regarding games not being popular on Mac app store, i feel like Mac is not in any way close to the scale of windows,iOS and android in terms of main stream popularity, especially internationally.
    - LukasMathis 13y ago
satyrnein 13y ago
I definitely concur about the handwriting recognition being terrific, but the interface being terrible. I wrote a little prototype of how I thought it should work a few months ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhn6EdN3Vvw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhn6EdN3Vvw
- LukasMathis 13y ago
  This is pretty cool!
- manilafolder 13y ago
  Great demo. That's exactly how the handwriting UI should have been designed. I have one small suggestion, if you don't mind: How about making the input box increase in size (maybe double in size) so you don't have to write so small? The resizing wouldn't need to reflow the rest of the page; it could turn into a modal textbox in the same location as the original textbox. It would make it easier for children, the elderly and people who aren't native speakers of the language, etc.
  - LukasMathis 13y ago
    Another option would be to set the text caret inside the text box, but allow people to write anywhere, while the focus is on a text field. This is probably something where you'd have to do a ton of different prototypes, and see which one feels best.
    - satyrnein 13y ago
      Agreed that there are plenty of ideas that warrant prototyping, but I think there is special value in not having a text cursor to manage at all, similar to how touchscreens obviated mouse cursors for certain tasks.
      - LukasMathis 13y ago
        Yes, if you can pull that off, it's a huge win.
winfred 13y ago
Typing this from my T100, That incidentally quite meets my needs for around 1/4th of the cost of a Surface Pro 2. Some of the criticism is just plain wrong, like the "install software for USB booting install media." Yeah, I can write quite a bit too, about how hard it is to use the operating system, when I'm the one who randomly downloads crapware and tries to install it, instead of just doing a search and using the build in commands to make a bootable usb stick. Then the whole thing about how the disk manager looked? I mean really? I'm a sysadmin and I probably stare at that UI likely more than any of you here (even when I have 90% of repeating work scripted with diskpart - do you notice the difference in usage scenarios here?) and it never even occurred to me there was something wrong with it? What do you want, a couple of flowers along the edges or something?
- yulaow 13y ago
  I think he just wants a coherent ui. Like visualstudio13 "evolved" to be coherent with the metro-modernui style In short, he wants that any os program looks like something created expressly for that version of the os
- LukasMathis 13y ago
  I think it's fair to note that you might not be completely representative of the average Windows user. Glad to hear that you're happy with how the disk manager looks, though :-)
- stinos 13y ago
  What I found more striking about the Disk Manager paragraph is the "which, by the way, you’ll find under «System and Security», not under «Hardware and Sound», which is where I would expect it — but perhaps I’m just weird" comment. This seems to indicate the author actually actively goes searching for the entry. Which is nowadays not the 'correct way' of reaching it but instead by far the most ineffective way of navigating. I honestly have no idea where the Disk Managment thing resides (well, I do know) despite using it often. Just open the control panel and start typing 'disk' and click the item.
RexRollman 13y ago
I have been wanting to give another tablet a try after getting rid of my iPad. I liked the iPad hardware but the device was too hobbled in regards to file management (IMO). A couple of days ago, I played with a Surface 2 at my local Staples and was pretty impressed by it and its type cover. The touch interface, which isn't particularly nice on a desktop computer, was pretty cool on a tablet. I also liked that is has a micro-SD slot for storage expansion. Perhaps the only thing I don't care for it that Microsoft is only allowing Metro apps for ARM into their app store. That seems a bit one-sided considering that they are bundling non-Metro Office apps with the device.
- slantyyz 13y ago
  I would suggest you look at a Bay Trail (Atom) based W8 tablet instead of an ARM unit. The battery life is fantastic (and comparable to ARM), and you'll be able to run traditional desktop apps in a pinch.
  - RexRollman 13y ago
    I prefer the Surface to the Bay Trails I've seen so far and it has to be a least ten inches for my old eyes.
    - slantyyz 13y ago
      IIRC, there are 11" Dell Venues that start with the Bay Trail and move up into the i# processors.
      - shitlord 13y ago
        I have an 8" Dell Venue Pro, and it's pretty nice. It was cheap as hell, and the only issue I have with it is that the screen is too small for the resolution. Anyway, it's great for consuming media but not so great for creating anything. I have a feeling the 11" Venue Pro would be the same way. The Windows touch keyboard is really awkward, it's hard to select small things like browser buttons, and there aren't a lot of apps. But hey, it's pretty cheap, and it's great for watching Netflix or preparing a simple document.
GSimon 13y ago
I think this year and the next few years should be promising for Windows in the Tablet/Phone market. They were behind in specs for a while but their products are improving and are getting harder to ignore. I recently ordered Lenovo's ThinkPad 8 and can't wait for it to arrive. I think this is the first good alternative to the Windows Surface (it's lighter, higher res, better battery, smaller bezel, usb 3.0, sd card slot + hdmi out). There should be more to come after this as well. I really think the tides will start to turn in favor of Windows' mobile devices if they continue to improve they way they have recently.
- pedalpete 13y ago
  I'd love to see a ThinkPad 8 with a i5 or i7 processor. Small and powerful, would be my full time machine.
  - GSimon 13y ago
    Would be nice, however it's current processor is decent enough and including an i5/i7 would likely sacrifice battery life. Maybe when Windows 9 is released next year something like that would be available.
- nacs 13y ago
  > I really think the tides will start to turn in favor of Windows' mobile devices if they continue to improve they way they have recently. Well it's hard for them to get worse so I guess 'improve' is the only option.
  - GSimon 13y ago
    Obviously. What I'm saying is if they continue to improve their tablets at their current rate it will be to their benefit because other manufactures (i.e Apple) have been slacking in the specs department as of late. If this keeps up Microsoft will be able to close that gap.
- wluu 13y ago
  The ThinkPad 8 looks great (great screen res, micro usb 3.0), just wish it had the Wacom style digitiser of the Surface Pro. I know that the Asus Vivo Tab Note 8 has the Wacom digitiser though but has a much lower res. Also wish that these 8" devices had seperate ports for charging and USB.
AndrewGaspar 13y ago
"The way I want handwriting recognition to work is to take notes by jotting them down inside an app like OneNote, and have Windows recognize that automatically, behind the scenes, optionally without replacing my handwritten notes with printed text. Then, I want to be able to search my handwritten notes using full-text search." OneNote actually already does this! Try searching in OneNote for things you've written in pen and it will show those notes.
- LukasMathis 13y ago
  I just tried, but it didn't find anything. Not sure if my handwriting is so terrible, or if there's something else going wrong here. [Update: maybe the Metro version of OneNote doesn't support all of the features of the desktop version?]
  - nickbarnwell 13y ago
    I don't believe the OneNote Metro app supports indexing handwritten notes. If you open the same notebook in the Win32 client and allow it to index and sync back to Sky/One/WhateverIt'sCalledThisWeekDrive you should be able to search through previously handwritten and Win32-client-OCRd notes in the Metro app.
    - LukasMathis 13y ago
      Interesting. I'll try that.
  - slantyyz 13y ago
    You need the full version of OneNote for the recognition. It's vastly superior, but on the plus side, if you're using OneDrive or Office 365, you can edit existing notes either one depending on your needs for a given situation.
  - codeulike 13y ago
    There's a free version of OneNote and a paid version, presumably this feature is in the paid version
robomartin 13y ago
Some of the most significant issues with the iPad have to do with two areas: user management and the Apple "wall" The first cuts across a wide range of applications from consumer to business. The lack of multiuser capabilities (with permissions and all the things modern multiuser OS's can do) seriously limits usability. At home I would like to make a distinction between my usage of an iPad, that of my children and that of guests. No, i don't want to buy a separate device for each use case. Accounts for children could have limits set to restrict usage to a pre selected set of apps, time limits, app store settings, etc. Guest accounts would have the ability to setup similar restrictions. A house guest should not be able to open and browse your email, facebook, paypal or whatever. The same issue applies to business usage. An iPad is a security nightmare in lots of business scenarios. Adding a layer of user management would be a huge step towards fixing this problem. For example, if I use an iPad as a cash register I don't want the cash register user to be able to use any other app. Perhaps i also want them to be able to browse the company website in order to assist customers and that's it. The Apple "wall" is how I've been descriibing the Apple's control-freak hold on the device and the OS. This goes from the lack of USB and memory card connectivity to the lack of access to a file system, impossibly cumbersome file sharing between apps, totalitarian control of the one-and-only connector (leading to ridiculous hacks such as using the audio port for data communications, something that dates back to the early '80's!). It's intersting to walk into an Apple store and see the iPads they have locked down to a single app that tells you about the device next to it. Apple themselves understand there are business cases where you need a device that is very tightly controlled, even to the point of limiting it to a single app. They get it. They simply have no interest in letting us through the wall. Windows <n> and Surface are not and have never been perfect solutions. However, they benefit significantly from your ability to do just about anything you want with them, to connect to and talk to almost any external hardware device in the market and to easily design your own for special applications. You can setup users for your particular needs. You can even install other OS's --replacing Windows-- or simply run them in a virtual machine. I've come to view our iPads more as toys than as universal machines. They get used for web browsing, playing games and reading eBooks and that's just about it. I continue to be stunned by how bad Microsoft marketing is. Instead of driving home the point that the iPad is a severely restricted and crippled device they actually spent good money making commercials with people dancing around clicking keyboards on and off their devices. If that's what they trully think is the most significant distinguishing value of their devices they are truly clueless.
bad_user 13y ago
On using multiple apps for the same task, the author is completely right. However, it's also the reason for why I don't like Metro on the desktop, as I often need to look at more than 2 windows at the same time. For desktops, the split-screen concept in Metro is a huge step backwards, whereas for tablets it's a step forward. But here's why I hate the iPad and hope Windows RT never wins in the marketplace, as it shares the same problem with iOS - it's defective by design. Personally I can't use or recommend to other people platforms on top of which Firefox or other alternative browsers cannot run. And btw, both Surface and Surface 2 are Windows RT devices. Only Surface Pro isn't. And the reason for why Windows 8 for x86 was spared for the moment is because it replaces Windows 7, so because of market forces, but I hate the direction in which Microsoft is moving. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57432435-92/why-mozilla-believes-firefox-on-windows-rt-is-a-bust/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57432435-92/why-mozilla-bel... http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57431475-92/google-agrees-with-mozillas-windows-rt-browser-concerns/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57431475-92/google-agrees-w...
- LukasMathis 13y ago
  I'm thinking the natural progression of the split-screen mode would be a system-level tiling window manager. An advanced, easy-to-use version of what most IDEs implement to show their various panes.
  - bad_user 13y ago
    Ubuntu's Unity does an interesting thing - dragging a window to the top panel maximizes the window, dragging it to the left/right borders will auto-tile it to that side of the screen, taking up either the whole vertical space or half of it. It's very easy to arrange 2 windows side by side, or 4 windows in all 4 corners. And besides using mouse interactions that would work with screen touch gestures, it works with keyboard shortcuts too. I'm also not convinced that having windows that can overlap is not desirable. Personally I like having windows that I can move around. Works great with multi monitor setups too. Have a window opened on this screen and you need to move it to the other screen? You just drag it from here to there. The only problem with draggable windows on mobile devices is that you don't have enough screen real-estate, so having a top border for dragging is wasteful, or if that top border is too small it's painful to target it with your finger. But touch gestures can work - as in, a two or three finger swipe could mean a drag, or whatever. I'm all for wheel reinvention and new UI paradigms, but when introducing something new, it has to be better and not inferior to the old UI paradigm.
fisherprice 13y ago
I'm sold, I buy one.
stcredzero 13y ago
Another difference between the Surface and an iPad is the Surface’s split screen mode...people often need multiple apps to work on a single task. I can’t count the instances where I’ve used split screen mode just in the last few days Called it! In fact, I called it right here from before the Surface existed as a tablet when Microsoft put out the vaporware tablet commercial! Split screen is one of those things like cut and paste. It might seem inelegant to some, but it's powerful and widely understood and can be used to share information between tools in very useful ways. For a system to be powerful, it needs facilities like this.
radicalbyte 13y ago
I really wanted a Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga: it's the ideal combination of notebook and tablet. At 12.5 inches it's just that little bit more usable than a Surface Pro. In the end I bought a MBP13 because the TPY has a lead time of 6-12 weeks, and Lenovo are extremely bad at telling you this. So far I'm happy with the Apple, but I can see myself picking a TPY up at some point..
mnglkhn2 13y ago
Windows 8 is great once you learn two shortcuts: First, Win+Q for searching and starting any program you need. Second: Win+R to get to the Run window. With these two you just move very fluidly to where you need to be on a Win 8 machine.
- dade_ 13y ago
  And Win+L to lock. Locking the device from the GUI is a ridiculous process.
  - tanzam75 13y ago
    > And Win+L to lock. Locking the device from the GUI is a ridiculous process. Start - username - Lock. But yes, Win+L is faster.
smegel 13y ago
Blah blah blah Surface is good for bland office related productivity tasks. Yeah we've heard it all before. Microsoft shills are truly the worst shills.
- mynameisvlad 13y ago
  Maybe you've heard it all before because it actually is good for productivity tasks. Did you ever think of that? Not everyone is a shill.
- LukasMathis 13y ago
  That's funny. Did you miss the part of the article where I write that Windows is "technically terrible" and that its "UX is erratic"? If Microsoft pays people to say things like these, they're doing something wrong. I have a thought, though: if your world view only works if everybody who says anything positive about Microsoft is a shill, then perhaps it's not the "Microsoft shills" who are the problem.
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  Microsoft haters gotta hate I guess. If you even just skimmed the article, you'd realize this was quite balanced and critical that pointed out the good, bad, and ugly. But let's just resort to name calling instead of actual facts.
bitwize 13y ago
> It’s not an accident that the best selling, highest grossing iPad apps are almost exclusively games. The story goes that Gabe Newell was doing market research for Microsoft, collecting data about which programs were installed on business users' PCs to get a feel for the installed base of programs like Windows (which, at the time, was not standalone and sat on top of DOS). Turns out Windows was pretty widely deployed -- the second most installed program on the DOS machines they surveyed. The first most installed program was Doom. That's what prompted old Gaben to reassess what business he should be in. :)
pnathan 13y ago
IMO: Neither iOS or Android really nail what a touchscreen could be. The Surface Pro seems to be the closest real step in this area. But I'll pass on buying it - it's spendy and I don't have any other Windows tech to interop with it.
dontmakemelaugh 13y ago
So yeah. Here's what me thinks... I use Linux for like 5 years exclusively now. But I don't go around trying to argue how great it is or something. It is great for me, so much is clear. I'm just very happy that I am rid of all this proprietary BS. Why do people write blog posts about such topics? I don't get it. It must be hugely boring to write them. And the shitstorm that ensues is probably even worse. Apple fanboys vs. MS fanboys vs. Google proponents vs. C64 veterans vs. Amiga shitheads vs. Atari nuts vs. Gravis Ultrasound! My car is better than yours! I've got only just a few years left (maybe) to dig around earth. I write quick stupid comments like this one to let you all know that you suck big time. You should really think about it. Do you want to waste your time reading this crap? Isn't life more than that? Ok, spock. Enough tricks played. Let them alone. Good night!
- LukasMathis 13y ago
  I've love to read your opinion on Linux.
joshvm 13y ago
Surely the comment about hardware variability is moot on the Surface. It's designed by Microsoft..
- tanzam75 13y ago
  > Surely the comment about hardware variability is moot on the Surface. It's designed by Microsoft.. The Surface has a USB port. And that makes it an uncontrolled environment. For example, the article complains that Windows is "technically terrible", because "I suddenly started getting an error message about some DLL every time I restarted the Surface (which you sometimes have to do when you get updates, which you get often). " If you look at the screenshot, the DLL is C:\Windows\System32\LogiLDA.dll. This DLL is written by Logitech. That means he must've plugged in a Logitech device at some point. If the Wacom driver fails, that can clearly be blamed on Microsoft. The Surface ships with a Wacom digitizer, so it's up to Microsoft to test the drivers thoroughly. But the Surface doesn't ship with a Logitech mouse. If a Logitech driver fails, then there's very little that Microsoft can do about it. Now, you could certainly argue that Microsoft should've caught this in exhaustive backcompat testing, and put a workaround into Windows. On the other hand, I also have a Logitech device plugged in. When I upgraded from Windows 8 to 8.1, it didn't throw up a LogiLDA error. (I don't even have a LogiLDA.dll file in my System32 directory.)
  - LukasMathis 13y ago
    I did at one point plug a Logitech keyboard into the Surface, but I definitely did not intentionally install any Logitech drivers. It's something Windows put there by itself, only for it to become a problem later.
    - tanzam75 13y ago
      > I did at one point plug a Logitech keyboard into the Surface, but I definitely did not intentionally install any Logitech drivers. It's something Windows put there by itself, only for it to become a problem later. Windows automatically installs drivers supplied by the manufacturer. If Windows didn't do that, then you'd get antitrust complaints from Logitech, because Microsoft sells keyboards that compete with Logitech's. A lot of the problems with the Windows ecosystem are not technical problems at all, but legal or market problems.
Terretta 13y ago
You might want to send your letter to a friend to read. Maybe that friend will send back some suggestions. On an iPad, you can’t see the email with the suggestions and your letter at the same time. Multitasking gestures on iPad and Macs let you slide back and forth between adjacent full screen apps. Your CV probably includes a picture. Maybe you went to a photographer who gave you a CD with copies of the pictures she took. You can’t easily copy them to your iPad. Can't easily copy CD to my current computer either. But I have both a USB adapter and card reader adapter for the iPad. Once there, you probably want to touch them up a bit, and crop them. It might be inconvenient to move the image file between all of the apps you’ll use to work on it. You're unlikely to need more than the pretty amazing version of iPhoto on an iPad. If you prefer, there are multiple alternatives from the free SnapSeed to relatively expensive pro options. Finally, you might want to export your letter and CV as PDFs, maybe combine them into a single PDF, or maybe ZIP them. You want to attach the resulting file to an email. It’s reasonably simple on a Mac or PC, but I’m not sure if some of these things are even possible on an iPad. Check out Documents 5 from Readdle, along with PDF Expert, and you don't have to leave the apps. I use iPad for contract work (round trip MS Word with track changes) all the time, and when not doing Word, PowerPoint, or Excel using iWork apps, I'm importing and editing and posting pro-size photos from a Nikon D3. From your article, I'm guessing you're missing the excellent Logitech ultraslim keyboard case, have multitasking gestures turned off, and aren't that familiar with the productivity applications available.
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  > From your article, I'm guessing you're missing the excellent Logitech ultraslim keyboard case, have multitasking gestures turned off, and aren't that familiar with the productivity applications available. I agree that productivity is possible with an iPad, but perhaps it requires "being familiar" with a lot of stuff before you can be very effective with it.
  - r00fus 13y ago
    How different is that from the PC world? Someone who isn't trained on the apps and options will fail to be effective on any platform doing "serious work". The only issue is that such training does exist in large parts in the PC world, and is less readily available in the iPad world.
rbanffy 13y ago
I don't see how it could be surprising that iOS devices are not used for the same purposes OSX devices are. Surface tablets are just Windows machines with a different keyboard. It's not surprising they can run all the software you are used to run on your Windows PC whereas it's expected software built for OSX does not run on iOS devices.
blueskin_ 13y ago
There will always be edge cases. Someone using an end user read-only device to create content and do real work is like a dancing animal - everyone is interested for the fact that it can do it at all, not for the quality of what it does compared to a human. Using Windows 8 or any tablet/phone for something serious is the same way.
zacinbusiness 13y ago
I wrote a 110 page field guide to qualitative research methods on an iPad in grad school. I also designed and coded a non-trivial website on an iPad. And it was glorious.
nikster 13y ago
Summary: iOS is missing a file system. Even just a simple shared folder where all apps can share whatever they're producing would be enough. Those who don't understand file systems are condemned to reinvent them...

200 points by jfb 13y ago

's funny; one of the screenshots is used to call out the Charms bar as an example of great UI. For me - as a user of Windows 8 on a desktop - it has become something of an icon of just how poor Windows 8's UI is. On a tablet, you swipe it out from the left edge of the screen. Makes sense - so much sense that Apple copied the idea in iOS 7. On a PC, you bring out the charms bar by frustratedly wiggling your mouse against the right edge of the screen for a few seconds before remembering that to make UI widgets appear out of the middle of the screen's edge, you inexplicably need to move the cursor all the way up or down to one of the corners.

TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
I found the gesture really natural, myself. I quick flick and swipe up, and you don't really need to do it precisely.
dangrossman 13y ago
Shooting the mouse into a corner is actually one of those gestures that is hardest to get wrong, which is why we've placed the window's close button up there for decades. Your mistake is aiming for the side instead of the top right corner of the screen; you can't overshoot it, so it never takes more than one physical gesture. You can also swipe from the right edge of your touchpad as if it were the screen.
- bunderbunder 13y ago
  What's the equivalent of the right edge of the touchpad if you're using a mouse? Do I need to stand up and walk over to the side of my room so I can start from the wall? On my monitor, the charms appear really far from the corner of the screen. It's true that it's an easy target to hit. That isn't the only way in which I find interacting with the charms bar to feel like throwing hatchets at the side of a barn. The arm motion's remarkably similar, too.
  - dangrossman 13y ago
    > What's the equivalent of the right edge of the touchpad if you're using a mouse? Moving it up and to the right. You may remain seated.
- veeti 13y ago
  This doesn't work so well when you have two monitors.
  - dangrossman 13y ago
    It works as well as any other corner interaction on multiple monitors; closing a window on the rightmost screen isn't a novel movement. The charms bar can be on the right screen as well, so it's still a corner gesture you can't overshoot. Opening the charms bar on a desktop computer is a rare event anyway. The buttons it exposes are primarily touch interactions used when holding a tablet running a Metro app. In a classic application, you wouldn't be using its search/share/device buttons, and it's faster to just press the Windows key to do a system/web search.
  - LocalPCGuy 13y ago
    I have 2 monitors, but they aren't the same size. I aim for the bottom corner, since I have the tops of each monitor aligned. Works great.
  - Encosia 13y ago
    It works fine with two monitors. There's a "sticky" spot in shared corners that makes opening the sidebars easy: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/05/21/enhancing-windows-8-for-multiple-monitors.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/05/21/enhancing-wind...
- sixothree 13y ago
  It's not hard to get wrong. It's almost impossible to do correctly. I have three monitors on my desk at work. At home I use Mouse Without Borders to connect to my laptop. It flat out stinks.
- nacs 13y ago
  > Your mistake is aiming for the side instead of the top right corner of the screen His mistake or just UI design so bad even a techie can't figure it out? The amount of "you're doing it wrong" when it comes to addressing Windows 8/Surface UI issues is mind boggling.
  - kbaker 13y ago
    Yes, and inexplicable why they carried this behavior over to Windows Server 2012. It is not likely we will see touch interfaces in rackmount servers any time soon. It is nearly impossible to hit the charms hot corner inside a windowed RDP session when the window is not full screen.
    - jodrellblank 13y ago
      It's perfectly explicable. You will manage your servers using RDP from a surface. Gestures and multitouch carry over RDP in Windows 8.
- joe_the_user 13y ago
  I've read the article talking endlessly about the corners as the easiest place for users to reach and I can accept that they are correct on their own terms. The problem is that on a laptop people are used to both visual and kinesthetic cues for their action. Just as much, any mouse "gesture" effect has to leverage our intuition about physical things... when a gesture in one place (a corner) causes something to happen elsewhere (a side), it feels unnatural and is going to keep feeling unnatural no matter how many fan boys wiggle noses and say "you're doing it wrong, this is really easy no matter hard you're claim to find it...". Edit: The point is the bar appearing on the side cues the user to go to the side, regardless of their great dexterity at going to the corner if they happened to remember to do that (as the gp actually implies).
- papa_bear 13y ago
  The biggest issue for me is that there's no visual cue with the charms gesture, which is pretty necessary if there's going to be any kind of delay in my mouse being there and the charms appearing.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  It's not exactly difficult to overshoot a window's close button. I don't run everything maximized; that would completely defeat the purpose of a large screen.
LukasMathis 13y ago
Dunno, it's never been an issue for me. I'm used to edge-activated features from OS X, and slamming the mouse into the corner to call up the menu always seemed like a simple, efficient user interface to me. It's a bit weird when you use a computer via VNC, though, because you have to move the mouse more precisely.
leviathant 13y ago
I've found the least annoying way to bring up charms on my desktop computer is Win+C.
- stinos 13y ago
  this. Also Win+X is a nice one for the desktop.
- dagw 13y ago
  Do you know if you can disable bringing it up with the mouse?
gabemart 13y ago
What does one use the charms bar for? I've been using win8 as my main OS for over a year and I literally don't think I've used it once. The only obvious things the charms bar does I find easier and quicker to do with keyboard shortcuts. For the record, I despise all the Metro stuff and would cut it out if it were easy to do so.

nextstep 13y ago

"There are artists who draw on iPads, and musicians who make music on iPads, and writers who write novels on iPads, and movie makers who cut their movies on iPads. But the fact that you have to point to these people, the fact that there are articles about these people, shows that they’re unusual." Unusual in a relative sense, the same way artists and musicians and movie makers are unusual in any segment of society. There are millions and millions of iPad users; of course most of them are going to use their iPads primarily for consumption. Using a Microsoft Surface is in itself unusual. I remember clearly the one time I saw someone using a Surface. It was an usual event. But on my way to work I see tens (hundreds?) of iPads and an assortment of android tablets and kindles. My point is, I don't believe there is a large difference between the use cases and potential offered from the many consumer tablets currently available (despite Microsoft's marketing that would lead one to believe that a Surface can truly replace both and iPad and a laptop). Maybe the Surface is better for productivity, but I suspect that for every tech blogger who tried the Surface and found it to be a better laptop replacement than their iPad, there are tons of Surface owners who's use case resembles the stereotypical iPad consumption use case.

jmduke 13y ago
Unusual in a relative sense, the same way artists and musicians and movie makers are unusual in any segment of society. There are millions and millions of iPad users; of course most of them are going to use their iPads primarily for consumption. What you are saying is correct, but does not address the author's point, which is that the subset of artists/musicians/etc. who mainly use iPads for their creative/productive output is still very small. Using a Microsoft Surface is in itself unusual. I remember clearly the one time I saw someone using a Surface. It was an usual event. But on my way to work I see tens (hundreds?) of iPads and an assortment of android tablets and kindles. Why was using the Surface unusual, beyond the fact that seeing one was unusual?
fumar 13y ago
Last summer I participated in a startup accelerator in Chicago. My Macbook died in the first week! At the time, I didn't have the funds to purchase another Apple machine. Luckily, my girlfriend had recently purchased a Surface RT with the keyboard cover. I did not think that the tablet would be able to replace a laptop for "serious" work, but it did. There are a couple of things that allowed me to do this. First, a USB port having the ability to hook it up to "stuff" comes in handy. Second, snapping apps side by side. And, the ability to use the desktop. I could have Excel and a browser window open at the same time. Third, I could access all of Google's apps through Internet Explorer. I was able to create great decks on Powerpoint, manage large Excel files, use the Google Suite, and multitask like on a laptop. The Surface RT was my main machine for the entire summer. And, at home my lady still used it to watch netflix and surf the web in bed. In August instead of replacing my Macbook with another Mabook, I purchased a Surface Pro. I run Adobe CC, Ableton Live, Microsoft Office on it everyday. It is my all one in solution. Windows 8 has a learning curve. It took me about two weeks to fully understand the OS, but I came from an Mac OS background. I recently started working in a digital agency, and we use Windows 7. I have to say Windows 8 makes my workflow easier than 7. Edit: I forgot to mention the pen! This is one piece of technology that makes me giddy. It works great with OneNote and Photoshop. I grew up with plenty of PDAs with stylus input. But, none of those lived up to the promise of an actual digital pen. Most filled the need to tap small boxes and areas on the screen. The stylus on the Surface Pro makes it feel like a different device when I am in a meeting taking notes. It stops feeling like a laptop or "tablet" and more like a digital notebook.

kayoone 13y ago

I think the Surface2 Pro is really great and shows the strenghts of Windows 8, except for its battery life maybe. But the idea to carry around one device that is a good tablet, laptop and can even be used as a full desktop computer with keyboard/mouse and 2 huge screens if you like is pretty fantastic and the OS scales well to all those different usage patterns. Now you might say, it does all that, but none of it really good and that might be true, but its already good enough for most people. Sadly Apple seems to want to unify everything into iOS down the road, which could go horribly wrong for professional users and Linux ? Well, the community was totally divided about where to go in desktop computing for the last decade and that will probably never change, so i don't except them to solve this as the current state of a dozen half-baked desktop environments is a disaster.

rsynnott 13y ago
> Sadly Apple seems to want to unify everything into iOS down the road I'm not sure why people continue to believe this; they've shown no real signs of doing so in the past seven years.
- kayoone 13y ago
  Well imo the latest OSX versions share some code between OSX and iOS, the App Store could be seen as another sign on the road to a more closed consumer system.
  - rsynnott 13y ago
    iOS has shared a lot of code with MacOS since its inception... > the App Store could be seen as another sign on the road to a more closed consumer system. Well, could be, perhaps, but highly speculatively. It's not like the app store on MacOS was an amazing world first, or anything; notably, Ubuntu had a paid app store before the MacOS one.

bcjordan 13y ago

Great writeup, good points about the culture of those building on the platform, and lovely software gore[0] screenshot. In terms of productivity, what kills my efficacy on iOS versus OS X (and even locked Android versus desktop) is the inability for platform devs to build things that reach outside of the app sandbox. TextExpander and LastPass on iOS are near useless compared to their desktop counterparts, but are even more powerful for getting work done with a slower typing speed. [0]: http://reddit.com/r/softwaregore http://reddit.com/r/softwaregore

joliv 13y ago

Man, finally! I love this blog, but there hadn't been an update since December. Glad to see another post!

kzahel 13y ago

It is a very thorough exposition. However, I have to ask, what does this "burrying" mean?

LukasMathis 13y ago
Wow, probably the quickest I ever went from start of essay to first spelling mistake. Thanks for catching it!
- 9876543210 13y ago
  I used the Newton was a productivity device. I used the P800 was a productivity device. I think the word "was" should be replaced with "as" in these sentences.
  - LukasMathis 13y ago
    The same mistake twice in a row. Another good one. Fixed, thank you!
jmduke 13y ago
I believe it was a typo for 'burying'.

Ologn 13y ago

> Preventing apps from interacting with each other cuts down on complexity, but it also means that it is difficult or sometimes even impossible to use multiple apps in conjunction on the same task. Which is why Android has a full-range systems of Intents, BroadcastReceivers etc. to deal with this. The blog post talks about how the iPad does not solve his problems, but Android is only mentioned once in a footnote.

LukasMathis 13y ago
I thought the article already covered a wide range of topics, so I wanted to focus on comparing the iPad and the Surface. You're right, though, Android solves many of these problems, too.
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  It's a bit unusual to say "look, this niche system solves a problem that the one used by 1/3 of the people does not solve", while ignoring that the one used by the other 2/3 of the people solves it. It's a honest comparison, it's just completely useless.
  - LukasMathis 13y ago
    I'm sorry my article wasn't useful to you.
  - nirnira 13y ago
    Sorry, what? Android isn't a productivity solution yet. Not even close. No manufacturer is trying with Android to build what Microsoft is building with 8.1+ - a coherent, unified, cross-device productivity and computing ecosystem.
    - r00fus 13y ago
      Disagree. Samsung is trying very hard to win Enterprise customers (mostly failing so far, but they do have business users on their mind).

wmnwmn 13y ago

I bought a Surface for three reasons mainly. First, it supports Flash, and when I tested tablets out in the showroom, I was able to watch online lectures on the Surface and not on the iPad. Second, it gives access to the file system, so I can organize my large collection of scientific pdfs on disk the way I want to. Third, it has a USB port. I was rather astounded that the iPad did not, and perhaps Apple has changed this, but that alone was a showstopper for me. What it all adds up to is that Apple created their usual walled garden for the iPad, and in this instance the walls eliminated much of the value of the product, even for such elementary uses as reading scientific pdf's, and watching scientific lectures online. I will say that the Surface also had some restrictions on Flash originally, which I quickly discovered when I got it home, leading to a rather testy email from myself to Steve Ballmer. This was very quickly answered by the head of the appropriate department, and they have changed their Flash site approval model in IE to be much more open.

brc 13y ago
I have a Surface and an iPad, so I completely understand what you mean about file management. But if you do find yourself in an iOS world - the killer app for file management on iOS is actually Dropbox. Organise your dropbox account on another computer -filing everything as it should be, then it will sync up to your iOS device, and you can access everything as required, including pdfs, images, word docs, etc. It's not perfect but it does work well. I also have another file management app which allows me to connect to my NAS via the iPad. This is also very useful. Of course, neither are necessary for the Surface, but I prefer a lot of the consumption features of the iPad. Web browsing on the iPad is superior because of screen quality and the browser being much more adept at gestures.

tomphoolery 13y ago

An interesting take on the Surface...until you started talking about Spyware. That's when I stopped reading. Dealbreaker.

LukasMathis 13y ago
Why?
dangrossman 13y ago
The spyware tidbit was commentary on the PC software distribution ecosystem; it's not something from Microsoft or Surface -- that was his experience in going out to find a disc copying app on the web. You end up at sites that bundle installers for other apps into the one you want to make extra money. Why would reading this cause you to stop reading the article?

higherpurpose 13y ago

> It’s not an accident that the best selling, highest grossing iPad apps are almost exclusively games. Yes, it's not an accident, but not because of the reason you give. Gaming is one of the most popular, if not the most popular and highest grossing category on any popular consumer platform. That's just the way it works. Some of these platform vendors (like Apple), and unlike others (like Google) realized this is true from early days, and they have actively encouraged gaming on the platform, by promoting the use of high-performance GPUs, partnering with game companies, and so on. > As Joanna Stern puts it, «if I’m writing long emails or working on office documents, I want a larger screen, a roomy keyboard and the ability to easily juggle programs.» A larger screen, which the Surface doesn't really have either. That's why I can't seriously consider the Surface a "productivity" device. I've used 10" netbooks before, and I know just how cramped they feel. Metro is "so easy to use", that you used almost half of your article to describe how to use it. One OS to rule them all - I'm tired of this stupidity and brainless parroting of one line made popular years ago in comments. By definition, you can't "optimize" something for everything. Yes, it is an execution problem, because it will never work. It's like trying to build the perpetual motion machine. Sounds great in theory, "if you could do it". Will never work.

LukasMathis 13y ago
You're right, it only took me half a blog post to explain all of the new concepts Microsoft introduced in their completely novel approach to operating system user interfaces. I don't think that's evidence against its ease-of-use :-) As for games completely ruling the top 100 list of highest-grossing apps on any popular consumer platform: this is definitely not the case in the Mac App Store.
- glasshead969 13y ago
  regarding games not being popular on Mac app store, i feel like Mac is not in any way close to the scale of windows,iOS and android in terms of main stream popularity, especially internationally.
  - LukasMathis 13y ago

satyrnein 13y ago

I definitely concur about the handwriting recognition being terrific, but the interface being terrible. I wrote a little prototype of how I thought it should work a few months ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhn6EdN3Vvw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhn6EdN3Vvw

LukasMathis 13y ago
This is pretty cool!
manilafolder 13y ago
Great demo. That's exactly how the handwriting UI should have been designed. I have one small suggestion, if you don't mind: How about making the input box increase in size (maybe double in size) so you don't have to write so small? The resizing wouldn't need to reflow the rest of the page; it could turn into a modal textbox in the same location as the original textbox. It would make it easier for children, the elderly and people who aren't native speakers of the language, etc.
- LukasMathis 13y ago
  Another option would be to set the text caret inside the text box, but allow people to write anywhere, while the focus is on a text field. This is probably something where you'd have to do a ton of different prototypes, and see which one feels best.
  - satyrnein 13y ago
    Agreed that there are plenty of ideas that warrant prototyping, but I think there is special value in not having a text cursor to manage at all, similar to how touchscreens obviated mouse cursors for certain tasks.
    - LukasMathis 13y ago
      Yes, if you can pull that off, it's a huge win.

winfred 13y ago

Typing this from my T100, That incidentally quite meets my needs for around 1/4th of the cost of a Surface Pro 2. Some of the criticism is just plain wrong, like the "install software for USB booting install media." Yeah, I can write quite a bit too, about how hard it is to use the operating system, when I'm the one who randomly downloads crapware and tries to install it, instead of just doing a search and using the build in commands to make a bootable usb stick. Then the whole thing about how the disk manager looked? I mean really? I'm a sysadmin and I probably stare at that UI likely more than any of you here (even when I have 90% of repeating work scripted with diskpart - do you notice the difference in usage scenarios here?) and it never even occurred to me there was something wrong with it? What do you want, a couple of flowers along the edges or something?

yulaow 13y ago
I think he just wants a coherent ui. Like visualstudio13 "evolved" to be coherent with the metro-modernui style In short, he wants that any os program looks like something created expressly for that version of the os
LukasMathis 13y ago
I think it's fair to note that you might not be completely representative of the average Windows user. Glad to hear that you're happy with how the disk manager looks, though :-)
stinos 13y ago
What I found more striking about the Disk Manager paragraph is the "which, by the way, you’ll find under «System and Security», not under «Hardware and Sound», which is where I would expect it — but perhaps I’m just weird" comment. This seems to indicate the author actually actively goes searching for the entry. Which is nowadays not the 'correct way' of reaching it but instead by far the most ineffective way of navigating. I honestly have no idea where the Disk Managment thing resides (well, I do know) despite using it often. Just open the control panel and start typing 'disk' and click the item.

RexRollman 13y ago

I have been wanting to give another tablet a try after getting rid of my iPad. I liked the iPad hardware but the device was too hobbled in regards to file management (IMO). A couple of days ago, I played with a Surface 2 at my local Staples and was pretty impressed by it and its type cover. The touch interface, which isn't particularly nice on a desktop computer, was pretty cool on a tablet. I also liked that is has a micro-SD slot for storage expansion. Perhaps the only thing I don't care for it that Microsoft is only allowing Metro apps for ARM into their app store. That seems a bit one-sided considering that they are bundling non-Metro Office apps with the device.

slantyyz 13y ago
I would suggest you look at a Bay Trail (Atom) based W8 tablet instead of an ARM unit. The battery life is fantastic (and comparable to ARM), and you'll be able to run traditional desktop apps in a pinch.
- RexRollman 13y ago
  I prefer the Surface to the Bay Trails I've seen so far and it has to be a least ten inches for my old eyes.
  - slantyyz 13y ago
    IIRC, there are 11" Dell Venues that start with the Bay Trail and move up into the i# processors.
    - shitlord 13y ago
      I have an 8" Dell Venue Pro, and it's pretty nice. It was cheap as hell, and the only issue I have with it is that the screen is too small for the resolution. Anyway, it's great for consuming media but not so great for creating anything. I have a feeling the 11" Venue Pro would be the same way. The Windows touch keyboard is really awkward, it's hard to select small things like browser buttons, and there aren't a lot of apps. But hey, it's pretty cheap, and it's great for watching Netflix or preparing a simple document.

GSimon 13y ago

I think this year and the next few years should be promising for Windows in the Tablet/Phone market. They were behind in specs for a while but their products are improving and are getting harder to ignore. I recently ordered Lenovo's ThinkPad 8 and can't wait for it to arrive. I think this is the first good alternative to the Windows Surface (it's lighter, higher res, better battery, smaller bezel, usb 3.0, sd card slot + hdmi out). There should be more to come after this as well. I really think the tides will start to turn in favor of Windows' mobile devices if they continue to improve they way they have recently.

pedalpete 13y ago
I'd love to see a ThinkPad 8 with a i5 or i7 processor. Small and powerful, would be my full time machine.
- GSimon 13y ago
  Would be nice, however it's current processor is decent enough and including an i5/i7 would likely sacrifice battery life. Maybe when Windows 9 is released next year something like that would be available.
nacs 13y ago
> I really think the tides will start to turn in favor of Windows' mobile devices if they continue to improve they way they have recently. Well it's hard for them to get worse so I guess 'improve' is the only option.
- GSimon 13y ago
  Obviously. What I'm saying is if they continue to improve their tablets at their current rate it will be to their benefit because other manufactures (i.e Apple) have been slacking in the specs department as of late. If this keeps up Microsoft will be able to close that gap.
wluu 13y ago
The ThinkPad 8 looks great (great screen res, micro usb 3.0), just wish it had the Wacom style digitiser of the Surface Pro. I know that the Asus Vivo Tab Note 8 has the Wacom digitiser though but has a much lower res. Also wish that these 8" devices had seperate ports for charging and USB.

AndrewGaspar 13y ago

"The way I want handwriting recognition to work is to take notes by jotting them down inside an app like OneNote, and have Windows recognize that automatically, behind the scenes, optionally without replacing my handwritten notes with printed text. Then, I want to be able to search my handwritten notes using full-text search." OneNote actually already does this! Try searching in OneNote for things you've written in pen and it will show those notes.

LukasMathis 13y ago
I just tried, but it didn't find anything. Not sure if my handwriting is so terrible, or if there's something else going wrong here. [Update: maybe the Metro version of OneNote doesn't support all of the features of the desktop version?]
- nickbarnwell 13y ago
  I don't believe the OneNote Metro app supports indexing handwritten notes. If you open the same notebook in the Win32 client and allow it to index and sync back to Sky/One/WhateverIt'sCalledThisWeekDrive you should be able to search through previously handwritten and Win32-client-OCRd notes in the Metro app.
  - LukasMathis 13y ago
    Interesting. I'll try that.
- slantyyz 13y ago
  You need the full version of OneNote for the recognition. It's vastly superior, but on the plus side, if you're using OneDrive or Office 365, you can edit existing notes either one depending on your needs for a given situation.
- codeulike 13y ago
  There's a free version of OneNote and a paid version, presumably this feature is in the paid version

robomartin 13y ago

Some of the most significant issues with the iPad have to do with two areas: user management and the Apple "wall" The first cuts across a wide range of applications from consumer to business. The lack of multiuser capabilities (with permissions and all the things modern multiuser OS's can do) seriously limits usability. At home I would like to make a distinction between my usage of an iPad, that of my children and that of guests. No, i don't want to buy a separate device for each use case. Accounts for children could have limits set to restrict usage to a pre selected set of apps, time limits, app store settings, etc. Guest accounts would have the ability to setup similar restrictions. A house guest should not be able to open and browse your email, facebook, paypal or whatever. The same issue applies to business usage. An iPad is a security nightmare in lots of business scenarios. Adding a layer of user management would be a huge step towards fixing this problem. For example, if I use an iPad as a cash register I don't want the cash register user to be able to use any other app. Perhaps i also want them to be able to browse the company website in order to assist customers and that's it. The Apple "wall" is how I've been descriibing the Apple's control-freak hold on the device and the OS. This goes from the lack of USB and memory card connectivity to the lack of access to a file system, impossibly cumbersome file sharing between apps, totalitarian control of the one-and-only connector (leading to ridiculous hacks such as using the audio port for data communications, something that dates back to the early '80's!). It's intersting to walk into an Apple store and see the iPads they have locked down to a single app that tells you about the device next to it. Apple themselves understand there are business cases where you need a device that is very tightly controlled, even to the point of limiting it to a single app. They get it. They simply have no interest in letting us through the wall. Windows <n> and Surface are not and have never been perfect solutions. However, they benefit significantly from your ability to do just about anything you want with them, to connect to and talk to almost any external hardware device in the market and to easily design your own for special applications. You can setup users for your particular needs. You can even install other OS's --replacing Windows-- or simply run them in a virtual machine. I've come to view our iPads more as toys than as universal machines. They get used for web browsing, playing games and reading eBooks and that's just about it. I continue to be stunned by how bad Microsoft marketing is. Instead of driving home the point that the iPad is a severely restricted and crippled device they actually spent good money making commercials with people dancing around clicking keyboards on and off their devices. If that's what they trully think is the most significant distinguishing value of their devices they are truly clueless.

bad_user 13y ago

On using multiple apps for the same task, the author is completely right. However, it's also the reason for why I don't like Metro on the desktop, as I often need to look at more than 2 windows at the same time. For desktops, the split-screen concept in Metro is a huge step backwards, whereas for tablets it's a step forward. But here's why I hate the iPad and hope Windows RT never wins in the marketplace, as it shares the same problem with iOS - it's defective by design. Personally I can't use or recommend to other people platforms on top of which Firefox or other alternative browsers cannot run. And btw, both Surface and Surface 2 are Windows RT devices. Only Surface Pro isn't. And the reason for why Windows 8 for x86 was spared for the moment is because it replaces Windows 7, so because of market forces, but I hate the direction in which Microsoft is moving. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57432435-92/why-mozilla-believes-firefox-on-windows-rt-is-a-bust/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57432435-92/why-mozilla-bel... http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57431475-92/google-agrees-with-mozillas-windows-rt-browser-concerns/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57431475-92/google-agrees-w...

LukasMathis 13y ago
I'm thinking the natural progression of the split-screen mode would be a system-level tiling window manager. An advanced, easy-to-use version of what most IDEs implement to show their various panes.
- bad_user 13y ago
  Ubuntu's Unity does an interesting thing - dragging a window to the top panel maximizes the window, dragging it to the left/right borders will auto-tile it to that side of the screen, taking up either the whole vertical space or half of it. It's very easy to arrange 2 windows side by side, or 4 windows in all 4 corners. And besides using mouse interactions that would work with screen touch gestures, it works with keyboard shortcuts too. I'm also not convinced that having windows that can overlap is not desirable. Personally I like having windows that I can move around. Works great with multi monitor setups too. Have a window opened on this screen and you need to move it to the other screen? You just drag it from here to there. The only problem with draggable windows on mobile devices is that you don't have enough screen real-estate, so having a top border for dragging is wasteful, or if that top border is too small it's painful to target it with your finger. But touch gestures can work - as in, a two or three finger swipe could mean a drag, or whatever. I'm all for wheel reinvention and new UI paradigms, but when introducing something new, it has to be better and not inferior to the old UI paradigm.

fisherprice 13y ago

I'm sold, I buy one.

stcredzero 13y ago

Another difference between the Surface and an iPad is the Surface’s split screen mode...people often need multiple apps to work on a single task. I can’t count the instances where I’ve used split screen mode just in the last few days Called it! In fact, I called it right here from before the Surface existed as a tablet when Microsoft put out the vaporware tablet commercial! Split screen is one of those things like cut and paste. It might seem inelegant to some, but it's powerful and widely understood and can be used to share information between tools in very useful ways. For a system to be powerful, it needs facilities like this.

radicalbyte 13y ago

I really wanted a Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga: it's the ideal combination of notebook and tablet. At 12.5 inches it's just that little bit more usable than a Surface Pro. In the end I bought a MBP13 because the TPY has a lead time of 6-12 weeks, and Lenovo are extremely bad at telling you this. So far I'm happy with the Apple, but I can see myself picking a TPY up at some point..

mnglkhn2 13y ago

Windows 8 is great once you learn two shortcuts: First, Win+Q for searching and starting any program you need. Second: Win+R to get to the Run window. With these two you just move very fluidly to where you need to be on a Win 8 machine.

dade_ 13y ago
And Win+L to lock. Locking the device from the GUI is a ridiculous process.
- tanzam75 13y ago
  > And Win+L to lock. Locking the device from the GUI is a ridiculous process. Start - username - Lock. But yes, Win+L is faster.

smegel 13y ago

Blah blah blah Surface is good for bland office related productivity tasks. Yeah we've heard it all before. Microsoft shills are truly the worst shills.

mynameisvlad 13y ago
Maybe you've heard it all before because it actually is good for productivity tasks. Did you ever think of that? Not everyone is a shill.
LukasMathis 13y ago
That's funny. Did you miss the part of the article where I write that Windows is "technically terrible" and that its "UX is erratic"? If Microsoft pays people to say things like these, they're doing something wrong. I have a thought, though: if your world view only works if everybody who says anything positive about Microsoft is a shill, then perhaps it's not the "Microsoft shills" who are the problem.
seanmcdirmid 13y ago
Microsoft haters gotta hate I guess. If you even just skimmed the article, you'd realize this was quite balanced and critical that pointed out the good, bad, and ugly. But let's just resort to name calling instead of actual facts.

bitwize 13y ago

> It’s not an accident that the best selling, highest grossing iPad apps are almost exclusively games. The story goes that Gabe Newell was doing market research for Microsoft, collecting data about which programs were installed on business users' PCs to get a feel for the installed base of programs like Windows (which, at the time, was not standalone and sat on top of DOS). Turns out Windows was pretty widely deployed -- the second most installed program on the DOS machines they surveyed. The first most installed program was Doom. That's what prompted old Gaben to reassess what business he should be in. :)

pnathan 13y ago

IMO: Neither iOS or Android really nail what a touchscreen could be. The Surface Pro seems to be the closest real step in this area. But I'll pass on buying it - it's spendy and I don't have any other Windows tech to interop with it.

dontmakemelaugh 13y ago

So yeah. Here's what me thinks... I use Linux for like 5 years exclusively now. But I don't go around trying to argue how great it is or something. It is great for me, so much is clear. I'm just very happy that I am rid of all this proprietary BS. Why do people write blog posts about such topics? I don't get it. It must be hugely boring to write them. And the shitstorm that ensues is probably even worse. Apple fanboys vs. MS fanboys vs. Google proponents vs. C64 veterans vs. Amiga shitheads vs. Atari nuts vs. Gravis Ultrasound! My car is better than yours! I've got only just a few years left (maybe) to dig around earth. I write quick stupid comments like this one to let you all know that you suck big time. You should really think about it. Do you want to waste your time reading this crap? Isn't life more than that? Ok, spock. Enough tricks played. Let them alone. Good night!

LukasMathis 13y ago
I've love to read your opinion on Linux.

joshvm 13y ago

Surely the comment about hardware variability is moot on the Surface. It's designed by Microsoft..

tanzam75 13y ago
> Surely the comment about hardware variability is moot on the Surface. It's designed by Microsoft.. The Surface has a USB port. And that makes it an uncontrolled environment. For example, the article complains that Windows is "technically terrible", because "I suddenly started getting an error message about some DLL every time I restarted the Surface (which you sometimes have to do when you get updates, which you get often). " If you look at the screenshot, the DLL is C:\Windows\System32\LogiLDA.dll. This DLL is written by Logitech. That means he must've plugged in a Logitech device at some point. If the Wacom driver fails, that can clearly be blamed on Microsoft. The Surface ships with a Wacom digitizer, so it's up to Microsoft to test the drivers thoroughly. But the Surface doesn't ship with a Logitech mouse. If a Logitech driver fails, then there's very little that Microsoft can do about it. Now, you could certainly argue that Microsoft should've caught this in exhaustive backcompat testing, and put a workaround into Windows. On the other hand, I also have a Logitech device plugged in. When I upgraded from Windows 8 to 8.1, it didn't throw up a LogiLDA error. (I don't even have a LogiLDA.dll file in my System32 directory.)
- LukasMathis 13y ago
  I did at one point plug a Logitech keyboard into the Surface, but I definitely did not intentionally install any Logitech drivers. It's something Windows put there by itself, only for it to become a problem later.
  - tanzam75 13y ago
    > I did at one point plug a Logitech keyboard into the Surface, but I definitely did not intentionally install any Logitech drivers. It's something Windows put there by itself, only for it to become a problem later. Windows automatically installs drivers supplied by the manufacturer. If Windows didn't do that, then you'd get antitrust complaints from Logitech, because Microsoft sells keyboards that compete with Logitech's. A lot of the problems with the Windows ecosystem are not technical problems at all, but legal or market problems.

Terretta 13y ago

You might want to send your letter to a friend to read. Maybe that friend will send back some suggestions. On an iPad, you can’t see the email with the suggestions and your letter at the same time. Multitasking gestures on iPad and Macs let you slide back and forth between adjacent full screen apps. Your CV probably includes a picture. Maybe you went to a photographer who gave you a CD with copies of the pictures she took. You can’t easily copy them to your iPad. Can't easily copy CD to my current computer either. But I have both a USB adapter and card reader adapter for the iPad. Once there, you probably want to touch them up a bit, and crop them. It might be inconvenient to move the image file between all of the apps you’ll use to work on it. You're unlikely to need more than the pretty amazing version of iPhoto on an iPad. If you prefer, there are multiple alternatives from the free SnapSeed to relatively expensive pro options. Finally, you might want to export your letter and CV as PDFs, maybe combine them into a single PDF, or maybe ZIP them. You want to attach the resulting file to an email. It’s reasonably simple on a Mac or PC, but I’m not sure if some of these things are even possible on an iPad. Check out Documents 5 from Readdle, along with PDF Expert, and you don't have to leave the apps. I use iPad for contract work (round trip MS Word with track changes) all the time, and when not doing Word, PowerPoint, or Excel using iWork apps, I'm importing and editing and posting pro-size photos from a Nikon D3. From your article, I'm guessing you're missing the excellent Logitech ultraslim keyboard case, have multitasking gestures turned off, and aren't that familiar with the productivity applications available.

seanmcdirmid 13y ago
> From your article, I'm guessing you're missing the excellent Logitech ultraslim keyboard case, have multitasking gestures turned off, and aren't that familiar with the productivity applications available. I agree that productivity is possible with an iPad, but perhaps it requires "being familiar" with a lot of stuff before you can be very effective with it.
- r00fus 13y ago
  How different is that from the PC world? Someone who isn't trained on the apps and options will fail to be effective on any platform doing "serious work". The only issue is that such training does exist in large parts in the PC world, and is less readily available in the iPad world.

rbanffy 13y ago

I don't see how it could be surprising that iOS devices are not used for the same purposes OSX devices are. Surface tablets are just Windows machines with a different keyboard. It's not surprising they can run all the software you are used to run on your Windows PC whereas it's expected software built for OSX does not run on iOS devices.

blueskin_ 13y ago

There will always be edge cases. Someone using an end user read-only device to create content and do real work is like a dancing animal - everyone is interested for the fact that it can do it at all, not for the quality of what it does compared to a human. Using Windows 8 or any tablet/phone for something serious is the same way.

zacinbusiness 13y ago

I wrote a 110 page field guide to qualitative research methods on an iPad in grad school. I also designed and coded a non-trivial website on an iPad. And it was glorious.

nikster 13y ago

Summary: iOS is missing a file system. Even just a simple shared folder where all apps can share whatever they're producing would be enough. Those who don't understand file systems are condemned to reinvent them...