Talk about drinking the cool aid. What new and innovative is coming out of Microsoft? They're trying to sell touch screen laptops, but not really designing their software, other than the start screen, to be touch usable. And why is
Maybe you can list what Apple have innovated lately. IMO, Apple Watch, Apple Music, Macbook and iPad Pro aren't doing to much regarding innovation.
BTW, do you know that MS Office was completely redesigned for touch?
Here is the main reason why, that is so over looked. The iPad Pro is now a device that has the OS, the CPU and the Device itself "pretty much" completely designed from scratch by Apple. The three main factors in creating a computer are unified. This is absolute control to "get things right".
Quote:
So Apple has "PCs" and Mobile devices that they design and create the OS, and for the phone and tablet they even design the chip. This is unbeatable. They have 10 years experience doing this, and on top that the OS crushes Windows and Android (Linux) which doesn't even need mentioning, but that again is another factor. But designing all three of these is something NO OTHER manufacturer does that I know of. It's important, it matters. And no one really thinks about this
Based in your post, Apple should not do wrong with their devices and OS, since they have full control. Then can you explain what's happening with latest releases of iOS and OS X, which have been downhill in quality? That wasn't suppose to happen, right? And at the same time, it's incredible how MS and Linux are more stable with each release, even though they have to run in so many hardware configurations.
Based in your post, Apple should not do wrong with their devices and OS, since they have full control. Then can you explain what's happening with latest releases of iOS and OS X, which have been downhill in quality? That wasn't suppose to happen, right? And at the same time, it's incredible how MS and Linux are more stable with each release, even though they have to run in so many hardware configurations.
That's not entirely true. I agree that OSX / iOS has had its series of bad releases but iOS 9 / OSX 10.11 are two of the best OS releases by Apple in the last couple of years. Not perfect, but very good. I'm too familiar with Linux so I can't comment on that but not all Windows releases have been more stable with each release. Windows 10, so far, has its fair share of bugs. You can go to Winsupersite or ZDNet or other forums that show people complaining about bugs / stability issues and reverting back to Windows 7 or even 8.1.
Definitely an enjoyable read. The two parts that stand out most, to me;
"Imagine a device that is like the Surface Pro in reverse: It’s mostly laptop, maybe exclusively so for some people, but there are tablet-like features when you want them. That was the that image formed in Panay’s head early on. It wouldn’t be a tablet, though—that part was important. Panay took to calling it a “clipboard” instead, something you grab when you need it for a specific purpose. Maybe you’re an architect, showing blueprints to a client. Maybe you’re a doctor carrying charts. Maybe you’re showing off new logo designs. Maybe you just want to read in bed. It would do those things, and well, but not at the expense of being a laptop."
"The Surface Book is on sale today. Pre-orders have been huge—Panay says they’re selling laptops faster than they can make them."
AI should bring more players into the Game and use less biased words. I know these words are a great marketing tool for Apple but unless I visit this website, it feels like world has so many good brands. But here they make it feel like Apple is the God and any other brands are their slave. Any competitors to Apple deserve hatred. Is that fair? I am more of a FC Barcelona Fan but I do respect other football club too. I love Apple products and I also love many other product that Microsoft, Samsung, Toyota, Yamaha (brands that I own) has to offer. But now the Apple fan thing is being immensely irrational that I want to stay away from being associated as Apple Fan and user. Even if I use to stop using their products.
After reading the article I get the sense that for everything said about the SB being such a major shift, I still see nothing to suggest use cases for the screen only tablet mode other than watching video or taking notes.
It's total gimmick much like the were trying to avoid in the clickety clack of the release mechanism. They so want it to be a big deal because what else do they have? Making a good laptop would have forced a comparison against Apple who go far beyond just designing the case and have the volume to keep prices low, so they made the screen detach as their only real differentiation point.
And people think only Apple gets puff pieces from the media. Pretty soon Microsoft will have some English chap with a sultry voice doing all of their narration.
" ........: basically every other convertible has tried too hard to be all things to all people, doing everything under the sun and none of it well. The Surface Book, on the other hand, is a laptop. A great one.
It’s not a great tablet, and it’s a bad convertible—it’s really, really hard to make a device that is equally adept as both desk-bound workhorse and bag-friendly touchscreen. Microsoft gets that, or seems to. It also seems to understand that those things don’t matter; the most important thing a $1,500 laptop needs to do is be a laptop. All the good things about the Surface Book are laptop things, and everything else is just there if you want it. "
" I don’t think Microsoft cares about things like tablet-only battery life, though. These modes are for showing someone a PowerPoint, or occasionally watching a movie in your hotel room. Microsoft doesn’t even call it “tablet mode,” it calls it “Clipboard mode.” If you want a tablet to use all day, every day, Microsoft has one of those. Buy a Surface Pro 4, they’ll tell you. That’s a tablet. This is a laptop. "
This part stood out for me;
" ........: basically every other convertible has tried too hard to be all things to all people, doing everything under the sun and none of it well. The Surface Book, on the other hand, is a laptop. A great one.
It’s not a great tablet, and it’s a bad convertible—it’s really, really hard to make a device that is equally adept as both desk-bound workhorse and bag-friendly touchscreen. Microsoft gets that, or seems to. It also seems to understand that those things don’t matter; the most important thing a $1,500 laptop needs to do is be a laptop. All the good things about the Surface Book are laptop things, and everything else is just there if you want it. "
That tout that as a positive but all I see is a waste of space, waste of engineering, added complexity, poorer performance, just to get a horrible tablet and convertible. How exactly does MS "get it" if they are building a worse laptop than they could have built just so they can create a shitty tablet option to go with it.
I still don't even know what the CPU performance is on the Surface Book and yet it's being compared to the MacBook Pro. My guess is the MBP has a much better CPU even without having been updated to Skylake at this point do the lack of available chips.
That tout that as a positive but all I see is a waste of space, waste of engineering, added complexity, poorer performance, just to get a horrible tablet and convertible. How exactly does MS "get it" if they are building a worse laptop than they could have built just so they can create a shitty tablet option to go with it.
I still don't even know what the CPU performance is on the Surface Book and yet it's being compared to the MacBook Pro. My guess is the MBP has a much better CPU even without having been updated to Skylake at this point do the lack of available chips.
Basically the article is admitting that the "clipboard" is a gimmick - just like the swiveling head ones, or the prior ones that could be folded back.... which eventually just disappeared from the market. Since they were bound and determined to write a positive article (for business reasons most likely), they spun it the only way they could.
That's not entirely true. I agree that OSX / iOS has had its series of bad releases but iOS 9 / OSX 10.11 are two of the best OS releases by Apple in the last couple of years. Not perfect, but very good. I'm too familiar with Linux so I can't comment on that but not all Windows releases have been more stable with each release. Windows 10, so far, has its fair share of bugs. You can go to Winsupersite or ZDNet or other forums that show people complaining about bugs / stability issues and reverting back to Windows 7 or even 8.1.
The latest releases of OS X and iOS aren't doing good neither. You can see it in the Apple forums and some web sites. Since you mentioned ZD Net, here are two articles.
The most recent one is the bug that affected Office 2016. Windows 10 has it's issues, same and Linux, but I don't see Apple being better, even though they have the benefit of controlling the whole device, from hardware to OS.
Basically the article is admitting that the "clipboard" is a gimmick - just like the swiveling head ones, or the prior ones that could be folded back.... which eventually just disappeared from the market. Since they were bound and determined to write a positive article (for business reasons most likely), they spun it the only way they could.
"Basically the article is admitting that the "clipboard" is a gimmick.."
your new use case is perfectly suitable for an ipad. so again -- what does a CB do that another device cannot? what is its reason for being? its a notebook that cant run most desktop software.
But affordable for almost anyone. For those just web-surfing, checking email, doing on-line research, reading news, doing a little writing, keeping track of finances and such a decent Chromebook serves the purpose just as well as a MacBook doesn't it, but costing hundreds of dollars/euros less?
EDIT: If we reverse your original question: What does the typical casual computer user need to do on a full-blown Mac or Windows machine that they couldn't do on a decent Chromebook? I'll grant you it's not meant for power-users, serious artists, or music professionals but that doesn't describe home users in general.
A chrome book cannot run:
A decent spreadsheet
A decent word processor
A decent presentation suite
A decent paint program
A decent stock trading
..
..
..
..
need I go on
All a Chrome book can do is run a browser, which basically means it can't do much of anything
One thing I find interesting that hasn't been talked about with regard to the SB, is that although they made the case with magnesium, which is generally 33% lighter than aluminum, it really isn't lighter than comparable laptops.
And given magnesium's greater transference of heat, it will be interesting to see how hot they run and what that will mean in real world use. It will also be cool to one go up in flames because magnesium burns wicked hot. I guess a great added use case would be you could shave off pieces of your SB and use them to start a fire...in case you find yourself in the jungle with nothing but your SB.
The most recent one is the bug that affected Office 2016. Windows 10 has it's issues, same and Linux, but I don't see Apple being better, even though they have the benefit of controlling the whole device, from hardware to OS.
Like I mentioned in my previous post, iOS 9 / OSX 10.11 are not perfect and I acknowledge that they have bugs. But compared to x.0 releases of their previous respective OS versions, these two are much better x.0 releases. That's what I was trying to get at.
That tout that as a positive but all I see is a waste of space, waste of engineering, added complexity, poorer performance, just to get a horrible tablet and convertible. How exactly does MS "get it" if they are building a worse laptop than they could have built just so they can create a shitty tablet option to go with it.
I still don't even know what the CPU performance is on the Surface Book and yet it's being compared to the MacBook Pro. My guess is the MBP has a much better CPU even without having been updated to Skylake at this point do the lack of available chips.
In my opinion the Surface Book is an over engineered device. I remember when the Chromebook Pixel came out I thought this was really designed for the tech press more than anything else. It was hey we can do premium, sleek hardware too. And sure enough sites like The Verge slobbered all over it. I feel the same way with the Surface Book. All the PR around it is Microsoft saying, we can be like Apple too! Look we have a design studio with big fancy CNC machines too. All they need is someone with an English accent explaining how they carved it out of a single block of magnesium.
Considering the tablet portion of the Surface Book only gets 2-4 hours battery life what's the point? I'll bet any money 99% of the people buying this device will never detach the screen. They'll use it as a laptop, which is always what they wanted anyway, which then begs the question what is the Surface Pro for?
Comments
Talk about drinking the cool aid. What new and innovative is coming out of Microsoft? They're trying to sell touch screen laptops, but not really designing their software, other than the start screen, to be touch usable. And why is
Maybe you can list what Apple have innovated lately. IMO, Apple Watch, Apple Music, Macbook and iPad Pro aren't doing to much regarding innovation.
BTW, do you know that MS Office was completely redesigned for touch?
Based in your post, Apple should not do wrong with their devices and OS, since they have full control. Then can you explain what's happening with latest releases of iOS and OS X, which have been downhill in quality? That wasn't suppose to happen, right? And at the same time, it's incredible how MS and Linux are more stable with each release, even though they have to run in so many hardware configurations.
Based in your post, Apple should not do wrong with their devices and OS, since they have full control. Then can you explain what's happening with latest releases of iOS and OS X, which have been downhill in quality? That wasn't suppose to happen, right? And at the same time, it's incredible how MS and Linux are more stable with each release, even though they have to run in so many hardware configurations.
That's not entirely true. I agree that OSX / iOS has had its series of bad releases but iOS 9 / OSX 10.11 are two of the best OS releases by Apple in the last couple of years. Not perfect, but very good. I'm too familiar with Linux so I can't comment on that but not all Windows releases have been more stable with each release. Windows 10, so far, has its fair share of bugs. You can go to Winsupersite or ZDNet or other forums that show people complaining about bugs / stability issues and reverting back to Windows 7 or even 8.1.
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/surface-book-behind-the-scenes/?mbid=nl_102615
http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-note-5/592657-aggravated-ios-android-back-forth.html
Wired has an article today with the "inside story" (!) of the Surface Book, Microsoft's answer to the MacBook. It has a few interesting tidbits.
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/surface-book-behind-the-scenes/?mbid=nl_102615
Definitely an enjoyable read. The two parts that stand out most, to me;
"Imagine a device that is like the Surface Pro in reverse: It’s mostly laptop, maybe exclusively so for some people, but there are tablet-like features when you want them. That was the that image formed in Panay’s head early on. It wouldn’t be a tablet, though—that part was important. Panay took to calling it a “clipboard” instead, something you grab when you need it for a specific purpose. Maybe you’re an architect, showing blueprints to a client. Maybe you’re a doctor carrying charts. Maybe you’re showing off new logo designs. Maybe you just want to read in bed. It would do those things, and well, but not at the expense of being a laptop."
"The Surface Book is on sale today. Pre-orders have been huge—Panay says they’re selling laptops faster than they can make them."
After reading the article I get the sense that for everything said about the SB being such a major shift, I still see nothing to suggest use cases for the screen only tablet mode other than watching video or taking notes.
It's total gimmick much like the were trying to avoid in the clickety clack of the release mechanism. They so want it to be a big deal because what else do they have? Making a good laptop would have forced a comparison against Apple who go far beyond just designing the case and have the volume to keep prices low, so they made the screen detach as their only real differentiation point.
And people think only Apple gets puff pieces from the media. Pretty soon Microsoft will have some English chap with a sultry voice doing all of their narration.
Wired has an article today with the "inside story" (!) of the Surface Book, Microsoft's answer to the MacBook. It has a few interesting tidbits.
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/surface-book-behind-the-scenes/?mbid=nl_102615
Equally interesting is WIRED's review of the Surface Book. They gave it 7 out of 10
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/review-microsoft-surface-book/
This part stood out for me;
" ........: basically every other convertible has tried too hard to be all things to all people, doing everything under the sun and none of it well. The Surface Book, on the other hand, is a laptop. A great one.
It’s not a great tablet, and it’s a bad convertible—it’s really, really hard to make a device that is equally adept as both desk-bound workhorse and bag-friendly touchscreen. Microsoft gets that, or seems to. It also seems to understand that those things don’t matter; the most important thing a $1,500 laptop needs to do is be a laptop. All the good things about the Surface Book are laptop things, and everything else is just there if you want it. "
" I don’t think Microsoft cares about things like tablet-only battery life, though. These modes are for showing someone a PowerPoint, or occasionally watching a movie in your hotel room. Microsoft doesn’t even call it “tablet mode,” it calls it “Clipboard mode.” If you want a tablet to use all day, every day, Microsoft has one of those. Buy a Surface Pro 4, they’ll tell you. That’s a tablet. This is a laptop. "
That tout that as a positive but all I see is a waste of space, waste of engineering, added complexity, poorer performance, just to get a horrible tablet and convertible. How exactly does MS "get it" if they are building a worse laptop than they could have built just so they can create a shitty tablet option to go with it.
I still don't even know what the CPU performance is on the Surface Book and yet it's being compared to the MacBook Pro. My guess is the MBP has a much better CPU even without having been updated to Skylake at this point do the lack of available chips.
That tout that as a positive but all I see is a waste of space, waste of engineering, added complexity, poorer performance, just to get a horrible tablet and convertible. How exactly does MS "get it" if they are building a worse laptop than they could have built just so they can create a shitty tablet option to go with it.
I still don't even know what the CPU performance is on the Surface Book and yet it's being compared to the MacBook Pro. My guess is the MBP has a much better CPU even without having been updated to Skylake at this point do the lack of available chips.
Basically the article is admitting that the "clipboard" is a gimmick - just like the swiveling head ones, or the prior ones that could be folded back.... which eventually just disappeared from the market. Since they were bound and determined to write a positive article (for business reasons most likely), they spun it the only way they could.
That's not entirely true. I agree that OSX / iOS has had its series of bad releases but iOS 9 / OSX 10.11 are two of the best OS releases by Apple in the last couple of years. Not perfect, but very good. I'm too familiar with Linux so I can't comment on that but not all Windows releases have been more stable with each release. Windows 10, so far, has its fair share of bugs. You can go to Winsupersite or ZDNet or other forums that show people complaining about bugs / stability issues and reverting back to Windows 7 or even 8.1.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/os-x-10-11-el-capitan-bugs-bugs-and-more-bugs/
http://www.zdnet.com/article/ios-9-bugs-are-making-me-eye-android/
In the iOS case, 9.1 fixed what 9.0 broke.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/ios-9-1-a-much-needed-performance-and-stability-update/
The most recent one is the bug that affected Office 2016. Windows 10 has it's issues, same and Linux, but I don't see Apple being better, even though they have the benefit of controlling the whole device, from hardware to OS.
Basically the article is admitting that the "clipboard" is a gimmick - just like the swiveling head ones, or the prior ones that could be folded back.... which eventually just disappeared from the market. Since they were bound and determined to write a positive article (for business reasons most likely), they spun it the only way they could.
"Basically the article is admitting that the "clipboard" is a gimmick.."
That's how I took it.
your new use case is perfectly suitable for an ipad. so again -- what does a CB do that another device cannot? what is its reason for being? its a notebook that cant run most desktop software.
But affordable for almost anyone. For those just web-surfing, checking email, doing on-line research, reading news, doing a little writing, keeping track of finances and such a decent Chromebook serves the purpose just as well as a MacBook doesn't it, but costing hundreds of dollars/euros less?
EDIT: If we reverse your original question: What does the typical casual computer user need to do on a full-blown Mac or Windows machine that they couldn't do on a decent Chromebook? I'll grant you it's not meant for power-users, serious artists, or music professionals but that doesn't describe home users in general.
A chrome book cannot run:
A decent spreadsheet
A decent word processor
A decent presentation suite
A decent paint program
A decent stock trading
..
..
..
..
need I go on
All a Chrome book can do is run a browser, which basically means it can't do much of anything
And given magnesium's greater transference of heat, it will be interesting to see how hot they run and what that will mean in real world use. It will also be cool to one go up in flames because magnesium burns wicked hot. I guess a great added use case would be you could shave off pieces of your SB and use them to start a fire...in case you find yourself in the jungle with nothing but your SB.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/os-x-10-11-el-capitan-bugs-bugs-and-more-bugs/
http://www.zdnet.com/article/ios-9-bugs-are-making-me-eye-android/
In the iOS case, 9.1 fixed what 9.0 broke.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/ios-9-1-a-much-needed-performance-and-stability-update/
The most recent one is the bug that affected Office 2016. Windows 10 has it's issues, same and Linux, but I don't see Apple being better, even though they have the benefit of controlling the whole device, from hardware to OS.
Like I mentioned in my previous post, iOS 9 / OSX 10.11 are not perfect and I acknowledge that they have bugs. But compared to x.0 releases of their previous respective OS versions, these two are much better x.0 releases. That's what I was trying to get at.
A chrome book cannot run:
A chromebook is a cloud "terminal" device..... for some people that is all they need. It just is not for me.
In my opinion the Surface Book is an over engineered device. I remember when the Chromebook Pixel came out I thought this was really designed for the tech press more than anything else. It was hey we can do premium, sleek hardware too. And sure enough sites like The Verge slobbered all over it. I feel the same way with the Surface Book. All the PR around it is Microsoft saying, we can be like Apple too! Look we have a design studio with big fancy CNC machines too. All they need is someone with an English accent explaining how they carved it out of a single block of magnesium.
Considering the tablet portion of the Surface Book only gets 2-4 hours battery life what's the point? I'll bet any money 99% of the people buying this device will never detach the screen. They'll use it as a laptop, which is always what they wanted anyway, which then begs the question what is the Surface Pro for?