Heres what I would like to see. Do a survey of typical uses for a tablet. Break it down by say home adult users, home kids under 16 users, high school students, college students, teachers, medical workers, artists and business users. That would cover a nice spectrum of cases.
Then, assuming the new iPads have the same A7/M7 combo, and I hope all of them do, benchmark that processor against a Surface Pro and a RT. Internet performance, touch response, etc.
Then let's talk about whether MS has a hit or miss.
It has always intrigued me why "working" is praised so highly. Perhaps the people who own us want it that way? I prefer to play rather than working all day making money for the owners of production. At least I can choose whether to work or play with an iPad. On a surface I suppose the slaves can "work" or do break dancing on the corporate board room table!
I'm not bothered by the focus on working just at the narrow definition. Not everyone works by sitting at a desk crunching numbers
Speaking of floppy, here's an idea for the next Surface v. Siri commercial: show someone working with a USB 3.5" drive on their Surface. That could be a little jab by MS on Apple's disasterous decision to drop the internal floppy drive with the original iMac. The closing tag line could be "Microsoft: tethering the future to the past."
Is… is this going to be another Osborne? Oh, PLEASE let it be another Osborne.
Oct 22. Full month to build up the marketing team to recruit people to stand in line.
But that gives Apple a Month (I hope, I hope, I hope) to announce a new iPad prior to the Xmas season. And given Apple's lead time, likely shipping before the 24th. That sort of 'cross hype' would kill the Surface. All Apple has to do is release a 'rumor' that they are going to announce... and that would dampen any potential switchers (?????). An actual announcement of a A6X/A7X M7X sort of iPad Mini/Biggie Rd would just be icing.
Maybe not an Osborne, but close.
In reality, This is a '.1' sort of release... getting the system to where it should have been 3 years ago, to align with the market expectations. If there wasn't an iPad out there already, this would be roughly equiv to the iPhone 3G release (This is what we wanted to release, but we weren't ready at the time we needed to release)
Surface 2 => drop the ARM processor replace it with hasswell on the same price point, at least you can run the fullblown windows 8 on it.
Surface 2 Pro => kill the pro line -> too expensive too big for a tablet too small for a laptop, the Type cover isn't a replacement for a keyboard, for the same price you can get a 11 inch ultrabook (or macbook air) with half a decent keyboard that's at least giving a natural feedback.
I do hope they decimated the inventory this time and only ramp up production when they see somebody actually buys these things, but in their current form I still think it's a DOA.
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Then, assuming the new iPads have the same A7/M7 combo, and I hope all of them do, benchmark that processor against a Surface Pro and a RT. Internet performance, touch response, etc.
Then let's talk about whether MS has a hit or miss.
I'm not bothered by the focus on working just at the narrow definition. Not everyone works by sitting at a desk crunching numbers
Here's a preview of the packaging...
So riddle me this, Microsoft manages to get Haswell into this POS-2, yet the rMBP STILL doesn't have it yet.
Ahem... the POS-2 isn't available for another month.
You can also get Enterprise, Basic, and Home Premium.
It really takes a rocket scientist to figure out why S2 could be successful...
I think you're putting way too much pressure on rocket scientists.
October...
Point is you need to use the thing with a floppy little keyboard so if you've going to attach two monitors, you might as well get a Mac Mini.
The Helmsman...it's always the helmsman.
(I just couldn't resist not using this photo)
And Tim Cook's response to the new Surface Pro 2 products.
Speaking of floppy, here's an idea for the next Surface v. Siri commercial: show someone working with a USB 3.5" drive on their Surface. That could be a little jab by MS on Apple's disasterous decision to drop the internal floppy drive with the original iMac. The closing tag line could be "Microsoft: tethering the future to the past."
I don't think that this deserved an article space on AI. Surface what?!
Crap! Now we are going to get some more inane "click-a-ty" commercials! Ugh!
Yeah, instead of the keyboard cover going click, and the kickstand going click only once, now we are going to have click, click, click.
FINALLY!!!
- No One, Anywhere
So when are they released?
Is… is this going to be another Osborne? Oh, PLEASE let it be another Osborne.
Oct 22. Full month to build up the marketing team to recruit people to stand in line.
But that gives Apple a Month (I hope, I hope, I hope) to announce a new iPad prior to the Xmas season. And given Apple's lead time, likely shipping before the 24th. That sort of 'cross hype' would kill the Surface. All Apple has to do is release a 'rumor' that they are going to announce... and that would dampen any potential switchers (?????). An actual announcement of a A6X/A7X M7X sort of iPad Mini/Biggie Rd would just be icing.
Maybe not an Osborne, but close.
In reality, This is a '.1' sort of release... getting the system to where it should have been 3 years ago, to align with the market expectations. If there wasn't an iPad out there already, this would be roughly equiv to the iPhone 3G release (This is what we wanted to release, but we weren't ready at the time we needed to release)
Surface 2 => drop the ARM processor replace it with hasswell on the same price point, at least you can run the fullblown windows 8 on it.
Surface 2 Pro => kill the pro line -> too expensive too big for a tablet too small for a laptop, the Type cover isn't a replacement for a keyboard, for the same price you can get a 11 inch ultrabook (or macbook air) with half a decent keyboard that's at least giving a natural feedback.
I do hope they decimated the inventory this time and only ramp up production when they see somebody actually buys these things, but in their current form I still think it's a DOA.