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> 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

> 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
    Dunno, they're extremely popular in Switzerland, where I live. I think among consumers, Mac market share is quite high. It's different in businesses, but businesses don't buy that many games :-)
    - glasshead969 13y ago
      i agree among consumers its high, but its still 4mil per quarter compared to 100s millions windows, android and iOS move per quarter. Also developer support is pretty poor when it comes to games on Mac and usually are buggy ports which are released 6-12 months after windows release. Part of the problem is Apple being lazy with Open GL support on OS X platform which just recently hit 4.0 with Mavericks. The situation is completely opposite on iOS where they even feature games during keynotes and went as far as to make their own Framework called sprite Kit to write games on iOS platform.
      - LukasMathis 13y ago
        Yep, availability of current games probably plays a role. Though the Mac App Store does show a pretty good selection of games.
ZanyProgrammer 13y ago
I think your comparison to 10 inch netbooks is spot on-granted, the Surface is 10.6, but considering I always felt uber crampted on a 10.1 inch netbook, I don't see the utility in having a tablet version of one. As a tablet, I think Surface has a lot going for it (kickstand, snapping apps side by side, flash, file system access), but there's no way I'd use a device that small as a primary computing device for productivity (programming or Office type stuff). Otherwise, its just an expensive VPN client.
- LukasMathis 13y ago
  It's important to keep in mind that the Metro apps work better on smaller screens than normal desktop apps. They hide a lot of the UI when you don't need it, so there's much more room for actual content. I wouldn't want to run, say, IntelliJ Idea on a Surface, but for many other apps, the screen size is not much of an issue. Also, you can dock the Surface when you're on a desktop, and use a larger screen.

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
  Dunno, they're extremely popular in Switzerland, where I live. I think among consumers, Mac market share is quite high. It's different in businesses, but businesses don't buy that many games :-)
  - glasshead969 13y ago
    i agree among consumers its high, but its still 4mil per quarter compared to 100s millions windows, android and iOS move per quarter. Also developer support is pretty poor when it comes to games on Mac and usually are buggy ports which are released 6-12 months after windows release. Part of the problem is Apple being lazy with Open GL support on OS X platform which just recently hit 4.0 with Mavericks. The situation is completely opposite on iOS where they even feature games during keynotes and went as far as to make their own Framework called sprite Kit to write games on iOS platform.
    - LukasMathis 13y ago
      Yep, availability of current games probably plays a role. Though the Mac App Store does show a pretty good selection of games.

ZanyProgrammer 13y ago

I think your comparison to 10 inch netbooks is spot on-granted, the Surface is 10.6, but considering I always felt uber crampted on a 10.1 inch netbook, I don't see the utility in having a tablet version of one. As a tablet, I think Surface has a lot going for it (kickstand, snapping apps side by side, flash, file system access), but there's no way I'd use a device that small as a primary computing device for productivity (programming or Office type stuff). Otherwise, its just an expensive VPN client.

LukasMathis 13y ago
It's important to keep in mind that the Metro apps work better on smaller screens than normal desktop apps. They hide a lot of the UI when you don't need it, so there's much more room for actual content. I wouldn't want to run, say, IntelliJ Idea on a Surface, but for many other apps, the screen size is not much of an issue. Also, you can dock the Surface when you're on a desktop, and use a larger screen.