'Heavy-duty' (desktop) software + Intel x86 CPU + ultra-thin form = low battery life. Surely?

"You don't have to make a compromise," Gates said. "You can have everything you like about a tablet and everything you like about a PC all in one device..."

 

You know, I'm a motorcyclist and this reminds me of those dual-sport motorcycles: Not great for asphalt and not great for gravel. A matter of fact, trying to satisfy two crowds never work.

 

Bill...go save the world or something.

It just occurred to me...

 

How Do you Charge the battery in either Surface keyboard???

Wow, I can't believe how shortsighted some of you Apple fanboys are. Maybe post some reasonable critiques or responses instead of just calling Bill Gates a "moron." It makes you look stupid and childish.

Maybe you're right, Apple should keep the iPad exactly the same and never change anything. After all, it worked out great with the iPhone. The original iPhone, which had no third party apps and relied on "web apps" accessed through the browser to do anything that couldn't be done through the built-in apps... that was a great idea that completely took off, proving that Apple always knows best. Oh wait.

Apple is not perfect or infallible. Constantly innovating and improving their own products is what has made them popular and powerful. I am dumbfounded that their own fans think Apple should do a 180 and start doing the opposite of what they have been doing - just twiddle their thumbs and never change anything.

This is not to say that the Microsoft Surface is superior to the iPad, or even a good product in the first place. That remains to be seen. But the point is, the Surface is doing something no iPad-era tablet has done before - it's moving up market and attempting to serve as a replacement for a computer, rather than a companion to one. Again, we don't know how good it is, but it is trying things the iPad has not tried yet. Even if it's not a great product on its own (and I will emphasize we don't know if it'll be good or not since it hasn't been released yet), it could introduce some features that Apple may want to emulate in the next iPad.

 

It's not doing anything. Why can't we get that? You even state it hasn't been released and that we don't know how good it is...but before that you state that it is doing something no iPad-era tablet has done before...no it isn't. It's not doing anything meaningful yet. It can't attempt to do anything when the market hasn't seen one in a retail setting and people don't have them in their hands. Right now it's attempting to gain hype. That's it. It certainly has a lot of that, but until Microsoft releases this thing to the masses...it remains hype. Why anyone would want to hype a product that was basically DOA at its own demonstration and then only given to people to touch for a few second before being moved along is beyond me.

 

Also, maybe I didn't read the entire thread, but I don't recall anyone saying Apple shouldn't continue to improve. Apple improves their products all the time...maybe they like the form-factor enough that they leave that alone while incrementally improving the internals, but that's still improvement. Sure, Apple likes to dictate what it thinks is best for the consumer but there are certainly times when it will break down and listen to its customers. Consider the iPod shuffle. It used to be a flash stick IIRC that then morphed into a little rectangle with a tiny click-wheel type interface...that then morphed into a taller thinner version without any real buttons and relying on the headphones to change songs and volume. People didn't really go for that one from what I understand so the next one came out looking like the second gen model with the click-wheel...which people liked better I assume. Steve Jobs had said in the past that mistakes will be made...Apple has never been infallible...even he knew that. Usually they learn from their mistakes and move on. Microsoft on the other hand, never seems to learn from its failures. It just comes out with something else that has no thought put into it and then lobs millions of ad bucks into it...only to watch it fester away as a footnote in the history of that particular market.

 

Will the Surface be good? Will it flounder? Will it do ok? Who knows. Wait and see. Until then don't give this thing any credit as doing anything against any currently released product. It isn't doing anything against them yet. Wait and see. Please god, wait and see.  

 Perish the thought that anyone would would marry a media player and phone.

yes, really it is. (and the rest of that reply is a total non-sequitur.)

screwed up duplicate... removed

 

Spanky, here's some unsolicited advice:

Don't come into an Apple-oriented web site and start by calling people "shortsighted" "Apple fanboys"... most people will tune out after that opening.

You claim that the Surface when/if it arrives is "doing something no iPad-era tablet has done before - it's moving up market and attempting to serve as a replacement for a computer, rather than a companion to one."


You don't seem to understand what the iPad is -- it's a new category -- a post pc device.  It isn't a PC WannaBe, it is a new category servicing a different need (quite well, thank you).

What you are suggesting is, that after creating a new category and a new solution -- that the iPad should regress and merge with the categories it replaced.

That would be like putting a dimple QWERTY KB on an iPhone or hitching a horse to a Model A -- it makes no sense.   We already have better tablets and laptops than either Surface will ever be!


BTW, Apple has been at this a while, and I suspect they have tried and rejected all the things that the Surface is attempting to be/do.


The best Windows mobile computers are made by Apple!

 

BTW, 
I. Grew up in St. Louis Park!

Edited by Dick Applebaum - 7/5/12 at 8:48pm

One thing that no one has yet to mentioned is that no one talked about the performance of the OS on the hardware. As both a windows user and a mac user, and I want to point out that I'm not a specific fanboy of either... I know for a fact that after using windows over time, you notice a performance degradation. Whether the degradation is attributed to fragmentation, bloated registry, blah blah blah...but the performance does in fact degrade. On a apple device whether it's an iDevice or a apple computer, there is degradation as well, but significantly much less than windows. I know after several months of use, I always have to do a reinstall to get a  "clean" system again... I wonder if the surface will be in the same boat.

I didn't see that he is from Minnesota. I grew up in New Hope and Plymouth...my mother also grew up in St. Jewish park. I think thats like African-American people and the whole N word thing...since I'm Jewish I get to call it that. Anyway I'm in Rochester now...and there isn't much to do here. I deeply miss the West Metro. : (

 

Ok enough of that...back to tablets that don't exist but are spoken about as if they do.

I would ask which one you use more? All devices degrade and from my experiance I wouldnt say there was much difference between Apple and Microsoft. I also question how much is down to the hardware rather than the OS. For instance my iBook G4 and iMac G5 degraded much faster than my intel based macs. Particularly the iMac G5 degraded faster than any machine I've ever owned. My iPhone 3G also degraded a lot faster than my HTC HD7, could be the OS but could also be hardware improving over years.

 

End of the day the Surface is going to degrade. But it could be less as if you use Metro apps more than traditional Windows app there going to be a lot more restrictive in messing up your machine.

I get your point, but at the same time can't help but think of my opinion with Apple products between being announced and anyone actually being able to touch them. Between the original iPhone being demonstrated and anyone actually getting one to play with I had a good opinion of the device.

 

All we're really waiting on with this thing is how good the keyboard is to type on. But in my experiance with keyboards is you generally get used to them. There was a time when people may have questioned the iPad keyboard giving zero feedback, but I can type on it perfectly fine.

i can say i use them both fairly equally with the macs a bit more.

 

while i think both version of the surface has it's strengths...they both have equally high weakness which imho might not make it a success...

 

1. the ARM version: while the notion that it's going to run "Apps" only, the downside is that the "Apps" library is not going to be as extensive as the other platforms out there which means it's going to be tough to have developer's want to develop for it since the target audience is low.

 

2. the Pro version: while it's great that it can run full windows and windows applications to all it's glory... we might see performance issues and since most of these applications are not designed for multitouch, the form factor of the device will require the use of the keyboard, mouse, stylus, blah blah blah...which begs the question....why not just get an ultrabook?

I used them both fairly equally...with a tendency a bit more on the mac side.

I doubt the number of apps is going to be an issue. Wp7 has over 100,000 apps despite its low number of users. The apps will be available for anything running windows 8 so within a year or 2 it will have the biggest customer base for developers.

Pro version I agree is going to have battery issues running legacy apps. Apps running in full screen is what allows the os to do some tricks to save power and that's not going to be possible in desktop mode. Still there is the benefit over an ultra book that you can get rid of the keyboard when your on a train or the sofa and you just want to use it as a tablet.

It amazes me how shortsighted some of the criticism is.

 

"You don't have to make a compromise, you can have everything you like about a tablet and everything you like about a PC all in one device. And so that should change the way people look at things."

 

Surface is trying to marry the tablet experience with the PC experience.  It may be too soon and it might very well fail.  But I think one would have to be shortsighted not to believe that Apple will be going to that same place eventually.  If surface is successful it will just speed up the process.

 

At some point iOS and OSX are going to merge or one will replace the other (likely iOS getting further developed to the point where it's suitable for everyone's computing needs) and Apple will have a device that has no compromises in that there won't be anything you can't do on the tablet form factor that can do on the pc form factor. 

 

Competetion is good and I really hope Surface is successful because if it is, the speed of innovation on the Apple side will be forced to remain high unlike if none of the other tablets take off and Apple is able to coast.

I've been using Macs since they were called NeXT, and I exclusively use Macs because Windoze blows.

 

That said, despite of what all the fanboys say, technology trickles down. Your iPhone runs a former mainframe timesharing OS called UNIX, you just don't know it. Your MacBook Air runs a former workstation OS that used to be called NeXTSTEP. Convergence is the rule, not the exception in the tech world, and from that point of view, Gates as more than just a small point.

 

The reason why iOS is dumbed down, is because current CPUs/battery tech doesn't allow for the experience we want in a tablet, without sacrificing something. For a desktop-level OS to run properly, you need anywhere between 4-16GB of RAM, depending on what you do, which is a multiple of what any iOS device has right now. It also requires paging, which would be an issue for battery life and cheap affordable flash storage, so more expensive SSD-type flash memory would have to be used, which would push an iPad quickly into the MacBook Air price range.

 

That however doesn't mean, that we really need or want two different devices. What we need is a single OS that can switch UI personality. Imagine a case that looks like an MacBook Air: with the keyboard in use, you have a Mac OS X user interface, you fold the screen over, or detach it, and you have a touch tablet with an UI like on an iPad.

 

The underlying OS in iOS and OS X is essentially the same, just the GUI layer is different. Nothing prevents "universal apps" that not only adapt between iPhone and iPad form factors and UI layout, but can change their appearance and UI style based on what mode a device is in beyond that, and adapt to a desktop app.

 

Give it a few more years, your iPhone snaps in a docking station with a thunderbolt connector, and on your 27" CinemaDisplay, you'll be running OS X with universal apps. No need to buy an iOS version pf Pages and an OS X version of Pages, you'll have a copy of Pages that will adapt to your current working style: phone, tablet, desktop.

 

Similarly, pen computing isn't dead. While Jobs was right that a finger is one of the best pointing devices, a finger is a horrible drawing and writing device. Sooner or later we'll want to precisely draw things on a screen, and despite dictation, we'll want handwriting recognition. On screen touch-keyboard is better than lousy handwriting recognition, but I'd take good handwriting recognition over a screen keyboard any day, and certainly I wouldn't want to sit in an airplane or office, where everyone tries to dictate to their computer.

 

Video Telephony and Voice Recognition have one thing in common: they sound sexy, but have limited use. Who wants to pick up a Facetime call while in the bathroom, lounging around in bed half naked, etc.? A phone call, you can accept in just about any situation, because people don't see what state you're in or what you're doing. Voice recognition is useless as soon as you have multiple people in a room, because it's a nuisance to have to listen to everyone interact with their machines, and because sensitive data becomes very audible. So this stuff demos well, but is not very practical in most situations.

 

So the problem with Microsoft's complementary approach isn't that it's fundamentally wrong, but that it's premature, because battery life/form factor will disappoint (leaving the factor called "Windows" out of the picture for the moment, because any Apple device that would be "Surface" like wouldn't run Windows anyway...)

 

Sooner or later, if Apple isn't brain dead, iOS will add support for some sort of pen input for drawing and writing, while retaining a touch capable interface for most things.

Sooner or later, iOS and OS X will converge, unless Apple tries to milk the market for too long by making people buy two devices where one would suffice (but that would open a door for competitors who get it).

But the time isn't now. We need another leap in power efficiency, we'd need to have an iPad sized device with a multi-core 64-bit ARM chip with a MMU, and SSD-grade flash memory, a 10h battery life, and a form factor not significantly exceeding that of the current iPad.

 

About the keyboard cover: It's great, but Apple doesn't have to do it, because there are at least half a dozen companies offering such covers for the iPad right now.

Short sighted?  Did you read post 114?  The premise of my argument is that Microsoft doesn't have a suitable marketing strategy. MS sells its wares through Dell, HP, and Acer.  I assume none of them will sell the Surface.  So where is MS going to sell this thing?  If MS sells to retailers like Best Buy, it will be targeting a consumer market, yet the most attractive feature of the device is that it runs full versions of MS Office and has a powerful processor (i.e., features that enterprise users want).   What's your response?    

Also, there were many posts about how a soft keyboard doesn't work unless you have a hard surface like a table.  What's your response to that?

I fully agree, but it's worth pointing out that iOS and OS X are the same OS already. It's only the GUI layer that's different, some kernel tuning parameters are different, and the code is compiled for a different CPU type. But underneath, the same Mach-BSD-UNIX is there, CoreFoundation is there, etc. What's missing is the shell level, but if your iOS device is jailbroken, you can install that quickly.

 

Basically, iOS is OS X light, with the different GUI layer, and with all of the backwards compatibility crap thrown out. By the time iOS "grows up" it's going to be identical to OS X.

 

The idea that we're dealing with two separate operating systems is not right.

 

To make the point: this is what iOS 5.1.1 reports:

 

 

And this is what Mac OS X 10.7.4 reports:

 

 

Same code base, different version. Mac OS X 10.7.0 was Darwin 11.0.0, so iOS 5 uses the same base as Mac OS X 10.7.

OS X 10.8 will use Darwin 12.x.x and likely that's what iOS 6 will use, too.

 

The two systems progress in lock-step until the point where they are unified.

 

Enterprise market: M$ already sells directly and indirectly to large enterprises, the same channel can be used for enterprise deployment: order 3500 licenses of Win8 and throw in 736 units of Surface. You don't really think enterprise customers care where stuff comes from, otherwise a large number of mail order businesses targeting enterprise customers would be out of business a long time ago.

 

Keyboard: exactly where and how would you want to type other than on a table? The keyboard is a complementary, not an exclusive input device.

A keyboard cover like that works great in the library, a café, an air plane, at a bar, on the breakfast tray in bed, etc. If you're standing up holding the tablet in one hand, you're not going to use a keyboard like that anyway, hard or soft doesn't matter. A soft keyboard will at least somewhat conform to a non-even surface, and not wiggle around like a stiff keyboard will. And it will act as a shock absorber for the screen when used as a cover. Everything has pros and cons, there's no single one perfect solution.

I disagree. Combining a touch pad with a PC is fundamentally flawed.  A touch pad is optimized for consuming content, not creating it.  It needs to be as light a possible, have as much battery life as possible and provide as much screen area and resolution as possible.  Adding keyboards and CPU power for doing desktop work will force compromises.   The kickstand exemplifies the problem.  It detracts from the touch pad experience and doesn't come close to providing the stability and user experience of a clam shell design laptop, which doesn't require a surface to work and can angle the screen at any angle.  compromise, compromise, compromise.  It is a stupid idea and I predict this style of computing will never surpass single digit market share as compared to touch pads or laptops. 

 

Don't get me wrong, there is a market for computing devices with a vertically stable screen.  It's called a laptop.  That's why I own a MBA and an iPad.

I don't think you understand the concept. In a few years, an iPad will be just as powerful as a MacBook Air. As such, the iPad can still function in tablet mode. But nothing prevents such a hypothetical iPad from being inserted into a clamshell case that sports a keyboard (and maybe some extra battery and IO ports) and BECOME a laptop, while running the same OS with an UI that adapts to different device configurations.

The point here is NOT to integrate the keyboard into an iPad, but had the iPad or even iPhone (once they are powerful enough) become the CPU of a desktop/laptop system.

Think of it this way: who cares what a Mac Mini looks like? Right? You care about your big screen and your keyboard, that's "the computer" even if the computer is really that square little box stuck somewhere in a bookshelf with an Apple Logo on top.

So, why shouldn't it be possible and useful (once the devices are powerful enough) to replace that Mac Mini with an iPhone or iPad, and use it just like a desktop when you're at home, but when you unplug it, it just behaves like a tablet, by adapting it's GUI to the working style you currently have?

That's the point here: not to make a clumsy all in one device, but an OS that adapts based on what peripherals are or aren't in use. It's only a software question, once the devices have enough compute power. There's really nothing to it. There's no compromising the iPad, because the additions required are minimal.

So the tablet experience remains unaffected by the ability of the device to act as a desktop or laptop, once inserted into the proper case or docking station.

Some people who get it: http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android

Not that I think the devices are powerful enough to really do what we expect of a Mac desktop OS at this point, but that day will come.

Why are we stuck on the idea of an iPad as a consumption only device? Ok ok ok so you say optimized for consuming it...not creating it...but still. What is a Wacom tablet? A large surface for consuming content? Our abilities to create with tablets may not be at quite the level of a laptop/desktop with a full desktop OS but it is getting there and it won't be long before it is there. Its really only an issue of software and UI. 

That's all fine. I didn't say Surface is going to revolutionize mobile computing, kill iPad or anything like that. I didn't eves say it will be successful. I only sad I'm finding it an interesting idea. I also said I don't think iPad can replace laptop - for me. Surface might - if it turns out OK. Which still doesn't mean it will be successful on global scale.

Same as laptops, I'd guess. That is why they all come with chargers ;-)

I believe there is shallow, magnetic connector where keyboard sticks to tablet. But is there actual battery in any of covers/keyboards? Or is it just to power the keyboard from tablet's battery?

Oh, it follows just fine.

I've checked some reviews about iPad raw editing (was it PiRAWna app?) and workflows, but it seemed a bit too light for my wants. Though I will revisit available reviews when time to choose comes, both on I pads, Androids and Surface (if they really hit the market at all).

Re videos, storage is a bit of a problem. My tablet - especially when travelling - is well populated with movies and TV shows, and lesser files... so not much space to copy video footage. Thus I like the idea of being able to plug in USB hdd, at least when in room. But again, I only like the idea - only time will tell how well will it be realised.

 Surely the iPad is not  new category, it is a subcategory of computers.

 

Tablets may not be pitched as laptop replacements but it is undeniable that many tablets are being purchased by people that decided that they didn't need the full functionality of a laptop, so rather than pay a hefty premium for an ultra-portable pc they went for the cheaper option and gained the other advantages such as supeior battery life and "instant" boot.

 

For the above group of people the iPad is a replacement laptop by any other name. In an ideal world they would have had sufficient income to upgrade their laptop at the same time as purchasing a tablet but this is beyond the means of most people.

 

I carry my laptop everywhere, most of the time I am running basic programs that can be adequately handled by a tablet but there are times that I need to run fully fledged programs or need to transfer data to and from my USB flash drive. Carrying an iPad with me would suit my needs for 60% of the (computing) time but would still leave me needing to carry my laptop, it would increase my overall weight (mass) burden by 50% and total spend by 20%. If (and that's a big if) the Surface Pro (or other such devices) live up to the hype then I am possibly going to purchase one. I can leave my laptop at home and lug around a device that has a far lower replacement cost. In the event that I do buy one I am then going to more likely to purchase a WP8 as well, if i must be locked into a phone app ecosystem it will make sense to go the whole hog.

 

Of course none of the above might ever happen, the Surface might be a turkey. However if it is successfull then it will eat into the iPad market and force Apple to adapt to a shifting market. Granted Apple might or might not have already experimented in this area but just because they don't offer something today it does not mean that they will not offer it tomorrow.

 

Apple's genius of late has been in convincing people that they want things. They looked at the smart phone market and realised that it and the freedoms that it offered were considered geeky, they simplified it and sexed it up. For a significant period of time they enjoyed the lion's share of the rewards, app sales aside, that share has been eroded by the competion. Later they looked at the netbook market, released the iPad and pretty much killed the sales of netbooks., here they are still the undesputed kings but the public are fickle. Constant hardware upgrades alone will not be enough to maintain that position. Love or loathe Microsoft, they are being brave by taking such a big gamble with Windows 8 and forcing the tablet market to move in new directions. IMO the biggest risk they face is poaching members of the general public away from Apple whilst alienating their (lucrative) core business users.

 

I don't know what the future will hold but to malign a product ahead of it's release just becasue it says MicroSoft on it is puerile.  

 I would have thought that it would be passive, meaning that it will only work when connected. BTW there will be 2 versions, the second will be slightly thicker (6.8mm Vs 3mm) and will provide 1.5mm travel, much the same as a standard laptop keyboard.  

People here need to decide what they are discussing, because they are mixing things up.

 

The one question, if the Surface is going to suck or not, or if it's going to be successful or not, is a side issue, because it's an issue of execution, timing, current state of technlogy and the capability of the marketing and sales teams.

 

 

The other questions, and that's what the headline of the article suggests is the main issue, is this:

 

A Surface-like device is a device that converges two product categories. This has a tradition. e.g. smart-phones are convergent device of what once was called a PDA and a cell phone, and then modern smartphones are convergent devices of anything from FM radios, GPS navigation devices, point&shoot photo cameras, Fliq-like video cameras, PDAs, and mobile phones.

 

At every turn, any marketer worth his salt would try to keep product categories apart for as long as possible in order to be able to make two rather than one sale. One of the reasons Apple was so disruptive in the market, because they were the ones who agressively brought these categories together, crossing the strategy of the rest of the industry of selling many iterations and generations of evolutionary change to maximize profit, by being the new kid on the block who offered a short cut to the future.

 

The convergence of tablets and laptops is pretty much a given, because making computers faster and more power efficient means making them smaller, which means eventually they will all look like an iPad in the sense that the computer is a chewing gum sized stick somewhere in a case otherwise filled with batteries. The question is only when that stick will offer enough compute power to be the equivalent of a laptop.

 

Look at the development of the desktop computer: things got smaller and smaller, until eventually (witness the iMac) the screen became the computer. If you have a laptop in which the screen becomes the computer, you have in essence something like an iPad, plus a (detachable/optional) keyboard, and that in turn is a Surface-like device, in that it's both a tablet and a laptop, depending on how you're going to use it.

 

How usable such a device is, depends on how well the GUI adapts to the current mode of usage. The old WinCE showed how not to adapt a desktop OS for phone/tablet. iOS showed how to adapt what is in essence Mac OS X to a phone/tablet. Nothing in software forbids to have an OS to have multiple GUI personalities. Just as the iPhone/iPad can adjust to horizontal vs. vertical screen orientation, or iPhone vs. iPad screen size, it could adjust it's entire GUI depending on whether the device is in laptop or tablet/phone mode.

 

The whole post-PC device thing is a marketing slogan. It draws attention to a particular aspect of technology in such a way as to create in the mind of consumers two distinct product categories that makes them think they need to own two devices, and Apple would be stupid not to do this, for as long as they can, because it helps their bottom line.

 

Jobs was known to create market categories that made his products look like a winner, so much so, that back in the day when the excellent NeXT workstations had trouble getting adopted due to the chicken&egg problem with users&software, people were joking that NeXT was the world leader of black education workstations.

 

Personally I think that the Surface is not ready for prime time, because the ARM based one will lack compute power for real laptop/desktop apps, and the x86 based version is too thick and heavy and will likely still have too short of a battery life to be a decent tablet. But just because something is too early, doesn't mean it's the wrong concept; just technology isn't ready yet.

It's also clear why MS is gambling on doing this now: it's one way they can hope to take the lead again by creating a category in which Apple looks like they are playing catch-up, and that if successful may force Apple to end a product strategy that makes people buy both a laptop and an iPad, which would shrink their profitability quite a bit. They risk, however, that their product is so much premature, that it becomes a joke for its flaws, which would allow Apple to ride on its current strategy even longer, and raise their long term profitability, by delaying the point when they have to offer a convergent device to the point when Android/ChromeOS competition may force them to enter that market, at which point they'd have the chance to show once again "how it's really done".

 

So it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, and of who gets to claim to have the leadership role in the segment. Some may remember the reports from quite some time ago, that Apple supposedly internally tested MacBook Airs based on ARM chips, and Apple supposedly being surprised by how well OS X performed on an ARM CPU. You can bet, these experiments were made in view of the time when convergent devices were pushing onto the market, knowing that x86 CPU power consumption would be a big stumbling block. So for the very reasons MS does now an ARM based version of Win8, Apple must have an ARM based version of OS X in their labs. The whole one OS, multiple CPU types scenario NeXT/Apple has played out multiple times, because NeXTSTEP/Darwin/OS X/iOS and it's apps ran on a variation of m68k, m88k, RISC, MIPS, SPARC, x86, and ARM, and at almost any given point it had the ability to create universal binaries that ran on more than one CPU platform.

 

So don't be surprised when in the not too distant future MacBoook Airs have quad-core ARM chips instead of dual-core x86 chips, double their battery life and retain roughly the same performance, while coming down in price by a couple of hundred bucks to light the fire under the Surface. Might as well have a detachable/flippable touch screen that doubles as iPad at that point. But of course, Apple is in no hurry to compete with itself to lower its own profits. So as long as the Surface and its imitators don't become a major force in the market, Apple will do its best to convince people that tablets and laptops are two things that shall never meet...

...and by most of the comments here, the Apple marketing department is doing a good job; for now. (And they will do an equally good job at convincing everyone why when they introduce such a device, none of what is said now matters anymore...)

@rcfa 

 

Ok...woa there. I thought I was long-winded at times. 

 

I don't think there's any confusion about the topic. I think you are forcing some sort of implied confusion that doesn't exist. The topic is about Bill Gates stating that Apple may need a Surface like product in order to continue being successful in that market. The reality of it is that this is simply not true. Microsoft needs an iPad like product to even be remotely back on the map let alone be successful. Surface might prove to be that product, but Apple does not in any way shape or form need a tablet product with a full desktop OS. It may need to evolve iOS into something more full-featured that does more stuff that OS X does, but in no way does Apple need to shoehorn OS X in its current form onto a tablet. 

 

Gates talks about not needing to compromise with the Surface. It's the best of both worlds. The simple fact of the matter is...if you cannot type on an iPad, you probably won't be able to type too much better on a thin hardware keyboard that is only marginally wider (due to not having a bezel in the way). If he wants his customers to avoid compromise...might as well sell the thing with one of Microsoft's larger BT keyboards. It's got that sexy kickstand right? Prop it up on your desk and put the keyboard in front of it and voila! No compromise...oh except that now you are typing with a full keyboard and doing all your "heavy-duty" full-on Windows app work on a tiny screen. Ok so find some way to hook it up to a bigger screen and...ok so that's a Mac Mini at this point. Maybe Microsoft needs a Mac Mini like product. Who knows. To be honest, I think they need to focus on making Windows and Office must have software that people actually want to use (this means consumers...not the 99% of the 1% who think Windows will be around after the apocalypse) rather than trying to create some "paradigm-shifting super-deluxe" tablet that is neither paradigm-shifting or super-deluxe. This has all pretty much been done before...and it isn't really all that revolutionary. It may end up being a runaway product, but we don't know.

 

What I do know is that Gates and Ballmer were meant for each other. One is a genius with no taste and apparently no concept of reality and the latter is a big dumb lumbering oaf who has sucked the life out of the company the other founded. Keep drinking the Kool-Aid, Bill. The reality that provides is better the one where you watch the Microtanic sink with Captain Steven "Chairs-a-flyin" Ballmer at the helm.

Where did you hear this?  MS never mentioned a second keyboard at all during their Surface demo, and the specs page doesn't mention it.

 

Or are you just hoping they'll have a real keyboard?

Sure they did. They have Touch Cover and Type Cover. Simply put, Touch Cover is capacitive whilst Type Cover has keys that move.

• http://www.slashgear.com/microsoft-surface-touch-cover-vs-type-cover-hands-on-18234557/

I love that demo video. The moment the guy tries to do something outside the demo app the MS guy takes the tablet away. What are you hiding?! Oh well, it wasn't enough to prevent most Slashgear readers from salivating over it. Its things like that that make me immediately suspicious and proves that this thing is not done. Yes, Apple certainly needs a Surface-like device...and once they've made it, they can keep it in their super-secret "vault-o-prototypes" which is full of devices that never see the light of day.

While no-one should think Gates is stupid, the capital he accumulated in the '80s and '90s doesn't confer genius on every utterance. Of course he echoes the Ballmer line, which is, Windows on every desktop." Not "and iWindows on every mobile device." That's why every Windows tablet sold a few to a vertical market and like two to computer nerds. Now they partially get the idea, but the old unitary monopolism still has a pull. I think it will shatter the old Windows market. Doing Apple's job in that sense better than Apple could dream of

Captain "Squirter" Ballmer - tftfy

All you have to do is buy the "Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover" for your iPad, and you have the Microsoft Surface.

Would all the MS fanboys go back to their barracks and continue to take their pills - you can hullicinate about an iPad esque future on windows for another decade. I came out of MS hell three years ago, Bill Gates, Balmer & co can make all the noise they want about 'new'; productsd - fact is Apple got in FIRST, the wheel can not be reinvented guys :) lol

Except for the fact that you don't. I looked it up because if it were true id buy one. Rather than something thats colourfull, soft and similar to the apple smart cover. Its thick, solid, gray, there's nothing that says either way but I doubt i can flip it round the back, let alone flip it round the back and it deactivate and turn on the on screen keyboard. In fact there no real explanation on what affects which keyboad gets used. Do I have to manually go into the Bluetooth settings? And lastly to make it stand up the iPad you actually have to stand the iPad in it.

This is in no way similar to the surface keyboard.

Not to mention there is far more to the surface than the keyboard.