Did I say I would? What I might be doing on a ladder is performing a building inspection, editing a form (maybe even a Word based form) with a stylus. Just you don't do this one example doesn't negate the fact that a laptop is not a suitable form factor for this particular example. Like I said, take any profession or activity that does not involve the formation of a lap, or any job that is dirty or cramped, and a laptop is a near useless form factor. For instance, doctors, coaches, contractors, teachers, engineers, musicians, writers, scientists, artists, mechanics, chefs... I can think of dozens of ways a tablet like the Surface is more useful than a laptop for these professions, especially with respect to integration of currently available software and infrastructure (Things like natively supporting USB drives and file operations for instance).
The double counting is fine as long as they're double counting consistently. What's important is that the metric by which Microsoft is counting licenses is increasing exponentially from version to version. This did not happen with Vista. But it did happen with Windows 7, and by my estimation it's happening with Windows 8 as well.
My Latitude XT circa 2008 was one of these. What I found in my usage is that I liked the tablet side of the spectrum more than the laptop side. That is, while the Lenovo X230 and Latitude XT are laptops that can double as a poor tablet, the surface is a tablet that doubles as a poor laptop, and I think the latter option better suits my needs.
I routinely press links the fraction of the size of my finger on my phone and iPad without zooming in. It's not as hard as you're making it out to be. Besides, the real time investment is moving the mouse to the target location especially if it's far away, not overshooting, etc. Targeting with a finger is just easier and more natural. By way of coincidence, this just popped up in my RSS feed:
We've been looking at this all wrong. A touchscreen isn't a replacement for a keyboard or mouse, it's a complement. If I want to type things on my laptop and have enough room to comfortably open that clamshell and stretch out my arms, the keyboard's still my best bet. I'm not going to touch-type 70 words per minute on a touchscreen keyboard. But when I'm in the cramped quarters of a train, plane, or standing in a line — say, when the only thing standing between a critical email and its recipient is a few dozen words and a tap of the button marked "Send" — I can grab that Windows 8 laptop by its hinged section, one hand on either side of the screen, and tap out that message with my thumbs.
This is exactly what I'm saying. Best tool for the job. Best example I've encountered actually is scale/translate/rotate in photoshop. Currently scaling, rotating, and translating a layer in photoshop are serial operations, you have to perform one after another. This makes the process of properly resizing and placing an layer iterative: move it, then rotate it, then scale it, repeat until perfect. With touch, all three operations can be performed at once, with pinch, pan, and rotate gestures. Touch on a laptop or desktop would be much more productive in this situation, and I can think of many others. To unilaterally call it unusable is nearsighted.
True, as you've taken my most ridiculous example, but for the general case of using a computer in places either than a lap or desk, the tablet form factor is much preferred. For the ladder example I had in mind my uncle, who is a contractor and now uses ruggedized tablets on the job for that very reason.
I firmly believe that the intersection of people who appreciate the tablet form factor but also would like to use legacy apps is large enough to sustain x86 Windows 8 tablets, especially in business and education.
Except this is not at all an accurate representation of how such a device is used. It's like saying a mouse is terrible because if you constantly click for an hour your finger will hurt, or a keyboard is a bad device because you can get carpel tunnel through extended use.
Seems like you failed to read the rest of the sentence, because I talk about exactly how my girlfriend uses the touchscreen on my laptop. To elaborate, if she is browsing the internet she might tap a link, which is faster than moving the mouse to the link on a trackpad and clicking. Or she might scroll the page, which isn't faster then pressing page down... but she doesn't seem to care even after I pointed this out to her. Either way, she's not holding her hands in front of her constantly like a zombie for hours, but using an alternative input device along with others (touchpad and keyboard) where it makes sense and is comfortable (at least to her).
Licenses Sold is the same statistic that Microsoft reported during the lifetime of Windows 7, thus it's directly comparable. There were people in 2009 saying the same thing as you, but it turns out that Licenses sold is highly correlated with devices sold by OEMs. Seems like there are some smart people working at Dell, HP, etc. who figure out how much demand there is and buy the appropriate number of components (including OS licenses) so they're not left over with useless inventory (basic supply and demand economics).
As for whether real users are using Windows 8, sales of upgrades are outpacing Windows 7 upgrades... there are no figures by how much, but it's an interesting point nonetheless.
Well there's nothing out there that's identical to the Surface.
Precisely, which is why this whole article and most comments are nonsense... one camp says iPad is better than Surface for X reasons, the other camp says laptops/ultrabooks are better than surface for Y reasons, but no hardly anyone is considering there are people out there who don't want an iPad because of what Surface can do that it can't, and who don't want an ultrabook because it can't do what surface can, and are perfectly in the Surface's niche.
I'm wondering if these are some of the same people who said netbooks are better when the iPad came out, because they have more apps, are cheaper, etc. and completely miss the point that the iPad can be used in a different way than netbooks, just like Surface can be used in a different way than iPad/ultrabooks.
Because its occupied volume while being used is much lower. To use the Air or any other notebook you have open it, at which point it takes up much more space than when it is closed. Ever been in a meeting, a presentation, or sales situation where you had something to show on a laptop, and tried to pass it around the room? Ever tried to use a laptop while walking, standing (not at a desk or table), or on a ladder... or pretty much anywhere when a lap isn't involved (they're called laptops for a reason)? I'd say laptops like the air are portable only insofar as they are able to be transported... but they are not usable while said transporting is taking place, whereas a table surely is.
It also has much lower PPI (135.09 for the air vs. 207.82 for the surface) and lower absolute resolution. Also weighs more and has larger dimensions, and no touch screen or digitizer.
The difference for people interested in the surface is that it can become laptop-like, while a laptop cannot become tablet-like. They have some that do: convertibles. But they never lose the bulk of their keyboards is tablet form. So there's a continuum here.... for people who want more tablet than laptop there's the surface. For people who want more laptop than tablet there's convertibles all the way to full laptops. No reason to knock the surface because it doesn't fit into the category you prefer; there are options for you and this is not one. Doesn't mean it won't sell to those who want this option.
Anyone else tired of the constant negative stream of non-sequitir flamebait summaries and articles on Windows 8 or even Microsoft/Apple on Slashdot and any and all positive or neutral news being totally ignored?
Let's see...
Monday - Windows 8 PCs Still Throttled By Crapware
Tuesday - Hello, I'm a Mac. And I'm a $248 Win8 PC.
Thursday - NPD Group Analysts Say Windows 8 Sales Sluggish
Friday - Why Microsoft's Surface Pro Could Fail
Also, note how news on Tuesday that Microsoft has sold 40M Windows 8 licenses so far completely missed Slashdot's front page... only to be briefly mentioned two days later in the NPD story summary. But when there was a rumor that Windows 8 sales were below expectations, there it was hanging on the front page.
I'm not talking about history notes, I'm talking about math and physics.... material where you need equations, charts, diagrams, and figures. How easily can you type me an equation or a chart? I've tried it, to be sure... and even with latex style markup it's just not fast enough. An active digitizer closely approximates the accuracy of pen and paper, something those fat capacitive styluses for the iPad cannot do.
Alas, the power/price ratio hasn't been the only selling point since the major manufacturers' race to the bottom in terms of build quality and profit margins. Now it seems people are actually willing to pay a little more for devices if they offer features they care about such as touch screen and digitizers. Problem is, for a couple years now computers have become powerful enough that even the least powerful systems on the market accommodate the average person's daily tasks (facebook, web browsing, youtube, etc.) easily. Now they're looking for features that are beyond specifications.
From yesterday's NPD NPD story, which focused on slowing desktop/laptop sales but failed to touch on the following:
Average selling prices of Windows computing devices have jumped significantly this year. Last year, overall ASP was $433 while this year’s ASP over the past four weeks has risen to $477. Windows 8 notebooks have seen a nearly $80 rise in selling prices versus the prior year, propelled by the aforementioned strong performance of touchscreen devices and a solid uptick in the pricing on mainstream notebooks. Windows 8 desktop ASPs were also strong with selling prices up nearly 10 percent, driven by the same factors as notebook sales.
Slashdotters say touch screens on laptops and desktops are insane, but it's clear to me the general population enjoys them - and are willing to pay for them. My girlfriend uses the touch screen on my old tablet PC to click on shortcuts and scroll pages when she has a keyboard and mouse right in front of her. My parents have an HP TouchSmart they enjoy. My old university had those TouchSmarts in libraries and public areas, students routinely used the touch screen instead of mice (but not keyboard). The surface and other x86 tablets like it offer a full blown touch interface unlike previous Windows generations, and the hardware to go along with it, and that's something those cheaper more powerful laptops don't offer that consumers might be willing to pay for.
Exactly. This is for people like me who bought an iPad hoping it would replace my old Dell Latitude XT tablet i used for note taking in class and as a research notebook. I am sorely disappointed with the iPad's note taking capabilities, but still carry it around with my laptop due to its convenience on planes and while traveling in general. A device like the surface pro is a perfect replacement for my iPad and laptop for the work I do. For $1000 I could buy it, or a tablet + laptop and end up paying more money and carrying two devices.
I didn't buy a surface rt because it doesn't solve my problem any better than the iPad, but the surface pro is actually offers many benefits over the iPad. Battery life is not one, but it's more powerful, has an active digitizer, and can run any windows x86 windows software, so i see it as a worth while tradeoff.
If you have UEFI you can just disable this, you know. Then you can install any OS you want. Or you can install Windows 8 on any BIOS equipped computer. UEFI secure boot is not a requirement.
Actually, all this report says is that US desktop and laptop sales are sluggish and that Windows 8 has done nothing to change that. In fact, the actual report, not linked to for some reason, states this: “After just four weeks on the market, it’s still early to place blame on Windows 8 for the ongoing weakness in the PC market.” It also states that slow back to school sales have increased inventory, which is hampering Windows 8 sales.
They also have a very strange definition of "four weeks on the market" as the period they're looking at is Oct 22, 2012 - Nov 14 2012... which includes 5 days prior to Windows 8 being released. With Microsoft selling about 1.5M licenses a day in these initial weeks, 5 days where sales are practically zero is a lot to include in the data.
Maybe Slashdot should stop accepting submission from anonymous readers, so at least if submitters troll in the summary we at least know who they are. Or perhaps, I don't know, the editors could actually edit the submissions so they're not blatantly trolling.
To be fair they expanded the game by adding daily challenges, an adventure mode, achievements, a leader board, and some other features. If you want basic run of the mill minesweeper it's also available ad free.
Slashdot Mirror
Did I say I would? What I might be doing on a ladder is performing a building inspection, editing a form (maybe even a Word based form) with a stylus. Just you don't do this one example doesn't negate the fact that a laptop is not a suitable form factor for this particular example. Like I said, take any profession or activity that does not involve the formation of a lap, or any job that is dirty or cramped, and a laptop is a near useless form factor. For instance, doctors, coaches, contractors, teachers, engineers, musicians, writers, scientists, artists, mechanics, chefs... I can think of dozens of ways a tablet like the Surface is more useful than a laptop for these professions, especially with respect to integration of currently available software and infrastructure (Things like natively supporting USB drives and file operations for instance).
The double counting is fine as long as they're double counting consistently. What's important is that the metric by which Microsoft is counting licenses is increasing exponentially from version to version. This did not happen with Vista. But it did happen with Windows 7, and by my estimation it's happening with Windows 8 as well.
My Latitude XT circa 2008 was one of these. What I found in my usage is that I liked the tablet side of the spectrum more than the laptop side. That is, while the Lenovo X230 and Latitude XT are laptops that can double as a poor tablet, the surface is a tablet that doubles as a poor laptop, and I think the latter option better suits my needs.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/30/3710900/gorilla-arm-touchscreen-laptop-windows-8-apple
We've been looking at this all wrong. A touchscreen isn't a replacement for a keyboard or mouse, it's a complement. If I want to type things on my laptop and have enough room to comfortably open that clamshell and stretch out my arms, the keyboard's still my best bet. I'm not going to touch-type 70 words per minute on a touchscreen keyboard. But when I'm in the cramped quarters of a train, plane, or standing in a line — say, when the only thing standing between a critical email and its recipient is a few dozen words and a tap of the button marked "Send" — I can grab that Windows 8 laptop by its hinged section, one hand on either side of the screen, and tap out that message with my thumbs.
This is exactly what I'm saying. Best tool for the job. Best example I've encountered actually is scale/translate/rotate in photoshop. Currently scaling, rotating, and translating a layer in photoshop are serial operations, you have to perform one after another. This makes the process of properly resizing and placing an layer iterative: move it, then rotate it, then scale it, repeat until perfect. With touch, all three operations can be performed at once, with pinch, pan, and rotate gestures. Touch on a laptop or desktop would be much more productive in this situation, and I can think of many others. To unilaterally call it unusable is nearsighted.
True, as you've taken my most ridiculous example, but for the general case of using a computer in places either than a lap or desk, the tablet form factor is much preferred. For the ladder example I had in mind my uncle, who is a contractor and now uses ruggedized tablets on the job for that very reason.
I firmly believe that the intersection of people who appreciate the tablet form factor but also would like to use legacy apps is large enough to sustain x86 Windows 8 tablets, especially in business and education.
Except this is not at all an accurate representation of how such a device is used. It's like saying a mouse is terrible because if you constantly click for an hour your finger will hurt, or a keyboard is a bad device because you can get carpel tunnel through extended use.
Seems like you failed to read the rest of the sentence, because I talk about exactly how my girlfriend uses the touchscreen on my laptop. To elaborate, if she is browsing the internet she might tap a link, which is faster than moving the mouse to the link on a trackpad and clicking. Or she might scroll the page, which isn't faster then pressing page down... but she doesn't seem to care even after I pointed this out to her. Either way, she's not holding her hands in front of her constantly like a zombie for hours, but using an alternative input device along with others (touchpad and keyboard) where it makes sense and is comfortable (at least to her).
Licenses Sold is the same statistic that Microsoft reported during the lifetime of Windows 7, thus it's directly comparable. There were people in 2009 saying the same thing as you, but it turns out that Licenses sold is highly correlated with devices sold by OEMs. Seems like there are some smart people working at Dell, HP, etc. who figure out how much demand there is and buy the appropriate number of components (including OS licenses) so they're not left over with useless inventory (basic supply and demand economics).
As for whether real users are using Windows 8, sales of upgrades are outpacing Windows 7 upgrades... there are no figures by how much, but it's an interesting point nonetheless.
Well there's nothing out there that's identical to the Surface.
Precisely, which is why this whole article and most comments are nonsense... one camp says iPad is better than Surface for X reasons, the other camp says laptops/ultrabooks are better than surface for Y reasons, but no hardly anyone is considering there are people out there who don't want an iPad because of what Surface can do that it can't, and who don't want an ultrabook because it can't do what surface can, and are perfectly in the Surface's niche.
I'm wondering if these are some of the same people who said netbooks are better when the iPad came out, because they have more apps, are cheaper, etc. and completely miss the point that the iPad can be used in a different way than netbooks, just like Surface can be used in a different way than iPad/ultrabooks.
Because its occupied volume while being used is much lower. To use the Air or any other notebook you have open it, at which point it takes up much more space than when it is closed. Ever been in a meeting, a presentation, or sales situation where you had something to show on a laptop, and tried to pass it around the room? Ever tried to use a laptop while walking, standing (not at a desk or table), or on a ladder... or pretty much anywhere when a lap isn't involved (they're called laptops for a reason)? I'd say laptops like the air are portable only insofar as they are able to be transported... but they are not usable while said transporting is taking place, whereas a table surely is.
It also has much lower PPI (135.09 for the air vs. 207.82 for the surface) and lower absolute resolution. Also weighs more and has larger dimensions, and no touch screen or digitizer.
The difference for people interested in the surface is that it can become laptop-like, while a laptop cannot become tablet-like. They have some that do: convertibles. But they never lose the bulk of their keyboards is tablet form. So there's a continuum here.... for people who want more tablet than laptop there's the surface. For people who want more laptop than tablet there's convertibles all the way to full laptops. No reason to knock the surface because it doesn't fit into the category you prefer; there are options for you and this is not one. Doesn't mean it won't sell to those who want this option.
Anyone else tired of the constant negative stream of non-sequitir flamebait summaries and articles on Windows 8 or even Microsoft/Apple on Slashdot and any and all positive or neutral news being totally ignored?
Let's see...
Monday - Windows 8 PCs Still Throttled By Crapware
Tuesday - Hello, I'm a Mac. And I'm a $248 Win8 PC.
Thursday - NPD Group Analysts Say Windows 8 Sales Sluggish
Friday - Why Microsoft's Surface Pro Could Fail
Also, note how news on Tuesday that Microsoft has sold 40M Windows 8 licenses so far completely missed Slashdot's front page... only to be briefly mentioned two days later in the NPD story summary. But when there was a rumor that Windows 8 sales were below expectations, there it was hanging on the front page.
I'm not talking about history notes, I'm talking about math and physics.... material where you need equations, charts, diagrams, and figures. How easily can you type me an equation or a chart? I've tried it, to be sure... and even with latex style markup it's just not fast enough. An active digitizer closely approximates the accuracy of pen and paper, something those fat capacitive styluses for the iPad cannot do.
From yesterday's NPD NPD story, which focused on slowing desktop/laptop sales but failed to touch on the following:
Average selling prices of Windows computing devices have jumped significantly this year. Last year, overall ASP was $433 while this year’s ASP over the past four weeks has risen to $477. Windows 8 notebooks have seen a nearly $80 rise in selling prices versus the prior year, propelled by the aforementioned strong performance of touchscreen devices and a solid uptick in the pricing on mainstream notebooks. Windows 8 desktop ASPs were also strong with selling prices up nearly 10 percent, driven by the same factors as notebook sales.
Slashdotters say touch screens on laptops and desktops are insane, but it's clear to me the general population enjoys them - and are willing to pay for them. My girlfriend uses the touch screen on my old tablet PC to click on shortcuts and scroll pages when she has a keyboard and mouse right in front of her. My parents have an HP TouchSmart they enjoy. My old university had those TouchSmarts in libraries and public areas, students routinely used the touch screen instead of mice (but not keyboard). The surface and other x86 tablets like it offer a full blown touch interface unlike previous Windows generations, and the hardware to go along with it, and that's something those cheaper more powerful laptops don't offer that consumers might be willing to pay for.
It has a micro SDXC, full size USB 3.0, headphone port, and Mini DisplayPort. The Surface RT also has micro SDXC port for storage expansion.
Exactly. This is for people like me who bought an iPad hoping it would replace my old Dell Latitude XT tablet i used for note taking in class and as a research notebook. I am sorely disappointed with the iPad's note taking capabilities, but still carry it around with my laptop due to its convenience on planes and while traveling in general. A device like the surface pro is a perfect replacement for my iPad and laptop for the work I do. For $1000 I could buy it, or a tablet + laptop and end up paying more money and carrying two devices.
I didn't buy a surface rt because it doesn't solve my problem any better than the iPad, but the surface pro is actually offers many benefits over the iPad. Battery life is not one, but it's more powerful, has an active digitizer, and can run any windows x86 windows software, so i see it as a worth while tradeoff.
True, but if you want Windows Hardware Certification, Microsoft requires that OEMs allow the user to disable secure boot.
Are these people not aware that you can downgrade to Windows 7 at any point?
If you have UEFI you can just disable this, you know. Then you can install any OS you want. Or you can install Windows 8 on any BIOS equipped computer. UEFI secure boot is not a requirement.
http://www.wpcentral.com/steve-ballmer-windows-phone-sales-300-percent
Actually, all this report says is that US desktop and laptop sales are sluggish and that Windows 8 has done nothing to change that. In fact, the actual report, not linked to for some reason, states this: “After just four weeks on the market, it’s still early to place blame on Windows 8 for the ongoing weakness in the PC market.” It also states that slow back to school sales have increased inventory, which is hampering Windows 8 sales.
They also have a very strange definition of "four weeks on the market" as the period they're looking at is Oct 22, 2012 - Nov 14 2012... which includes 5 days prior to Windows 8 being released. With Microsoft selling about 1.5M licenses a day in these initial weeks, 5 days where sales are practically zero is a lot to include in the data.
Except since then, proliferation of the Internet has made distribution of smaller, more frequent OS updates more economical.
Maybe Slashdot should stop accepting submission from anonymous readers, so at least if submitters troll in the summary we at least know who they are. Or perhaps, I don't know, the editors could actually edit the submissions so they're not blatantly trolling.
To be fair they expanded the game by adding daily challenges, an adventure mode, achievements, a leader board, and some other features. If you want basic run of the mill minesweeper it's also available ad free.
A demo video shows this the first time a new user logs on.