+1. It really annoyed me having to buy my daughters IPhones just because their social group all use iMessage. No IPhone, not connected. And the social group cannot be changed.
EMail is, of course, dying. The youngsters all use various types of vendor locked in technologies.
That's just ridiculous.
At the root of it, iMessage is basically just an SMS/MMS client. I use iMessage to communicate with several of my friends and coworkers. Some have iPhones. Some don't. The biggest difference is that the iMessage-to-iMessage conversations consist of Blue bubbles, and the regular SMS conversations have Green bubbles.
Well, you're talking to someone who has never really liked media keys on keyboards because if it's not standard I can't get used to it. I know F1 usually means help and F5 usually means refresh. I'm good with that, I don't actually need the key to say it. I'm smart, I can do those things.
I don't use media keys either; but it isn't a matter of IQ. Some people just Enjoy being able to pause their music, skip a song, change the volume, etc without having to mess with the GUI. And there are some times when even I can see the advantages, such as when using your laptop to do a Presentation.
The issue is the physical escape key. The key's form and feel are important for muscle memory. You shouldn't need to look down to press any key on the keyboard but this strip is going to encourage just that. System admins tend to stay on the keyboard more using shortcuts so things like a physical escape key are important.
Muscle memory is more about everything OTHER than feeling a physical key top. It's much more about arm reach, wrist rotation and finger-spread. Sure, a concave key top kind of helps your fingertip kind of " settle-into" the key-center; but as far as getting your hand and fingers OVER that key top has NOTHING to do with said key top (unless you look).
Think about another kind of "keyboarding" skill: Musical keyboards. I don't know if you know how to play any keyboarded instruments, but I do. And I can tell you that if what I am saying wasn't true, it would be significantly harder, if not impossible, to attain any reasonable proficiency at playing same, especially when having your vision otherwise occupied reading musical notation.
Does it help that the key depresses when you strike it? Undoubtedly; but if that was all there was to "muscle memory", how would that help your arms, hands, and fingers get to the right keys to strike them in the first place? This is especially true of something like an 88-key piano. The angles of your arms, rotation of your hands, and "presentation" of your fingers varies drastically from one end of the keyboard to the other, and yet a good pianist can strike any key blindfolded. And remember, when playing live music, ther ISN'T a handy Backspace key or Undo!!! But I submit that level if positional accuracy would likely still be true even if the keys were painted on a piece of glass; so long as the "key top" images were the standard size and shape, and the overall dimensions were also per AGO standards.
And so it will be with a touch-screen ESC key: So long as it stays in one place, your brain will soon map the "servo positions" necessary to hut the target, with or without a key. Otherwise, you wouldn't see legions of vaccuous teenagers being able to text on touchscreen keyboards at their typical 50 WPM.
I once had a laptop with a "touchscreen" for volumn, power, etc and within a year that shit the bed. Never went back to anything that remotely looked like a touchscreen keyboard.
That was because it was a POS membrane-switch thing. This will be a glass-front, capactive-touch (and likely multitouch) never-wears-out thing.
How am I going to press F5 while trying to buy Google IO tickets?
Simple. Just switch to the Magic Toolbar "set" that has the F-keys (and likely the ESC Key) and press away!
Sheesh! You people absolutely bend-over-backwards to concoct ridiculous scenarios. Of COURSE the Magic Toolbar (hey, I didn't name it!) will have ESC and F-Keys as one or more of the Default "Sets".
For the average PC user, opening vi is an introduction to Hell.
Nothing they have been trained to do works. At all.
Oh, you mean like the ridiculous, throwback commands for Cut/Copy/Paste in Windows Powershell?
Here you are, in a Windows environment, and need to do a little Powershell stuff. Ok, so I need to Paste this "Copy as Text" Path I just Ctrl-C'ed from Windows Explorer. Ok, switch to Powershell. Ctrl-V... WTF?!? OH, Right-Click-Paste. Ok... Alright, now I ran my Cmdlet, and want to Copy and Paste the Results back to a Windows document (already open). Yes, I'm sure I could "pipe" the output into some text file, but I just want to copy/paste. Drag-Select using the Mouse... Oh, Wait! Now I have to Right-Click-MARK, THEN I can Drag-Select ("Marquee" select) a block of text. Ctrl-C. Switch to Windows document. Ctrl-V. WTF!?!? OH, it's like we've been transported to FOURTY-YEAR-OLD DOS!!! "RETURN" (Enter) does the COPY!!! Yay!!!
Talk about fucking with your muscle-memory!!! It's one of the (many) things with Windows that makes me ask myself "Do Windows Developers even USE this stuff, or are they just SADISTIC and User-Surly on purpose?"
Hmm? I use a mac (Macbook pro at work, and an iMac at home) and I use escape all of the time! I really hope this isn't true; I actually like my Macbook Pro the way it is. Size is fine, and it works great. I seriously hate this keep removing things trend; of course Windows 10 isn't an option I want either, so...ugh:(
RELAX! The Esc Key isn't going ANYWHERE. It will OBVIOUSLY be included in the Default "F-Keys" Magic Toolbar set. In fact, I would imagine that the Keyboard Shortcuts Editor in macOS will simply be expanded to include definitions for the Magic Toolbar. You will probably be able to have the "Esc" key mapped onto EVERY Magic Toolbar set with a simple checkbox. In fact, one presentation seems to show a two-line layout, so that you can have, among other things, the F-Keys (and likely ESC) ALWAYS visible
And I am sure the Magic Toolbar will be a proper, glass-front, capacitive-touch (probably multitouch) control/display strip, so that "wearout" won't be a problem.
Apple wants to be minimalist so I have to make my life more complicated with peripherals and dongles? What kind of backward thinking is that?
No. You've got it all wrong.
Apple is trying to make what amounts to a whole keyboard row's worth of seldom-used F-keys (compared with most of the other keys), and turn that into a PROGRAMMABLE, CONTEXTUAL set of MULTI-VARIANT Controls, that, in the end, will be FAR more useful, in FAR more applications (small "a"), than fixed-function, fixed format, F-Keys.
Watch the Keynote on Thursday. Then maybe you'll get it.
The previous X1 Carbons had an LED changeable strip similar to what Apple is doing.
Oh, please! The Lenovo strip was NOTHING like what Apple is doing.
Lenovo's non-improvement was just a slight modification of those retarded "status" strips on POS plastic Windows laptops, that simply used a Lexan strip with a Deadfront Grey mask covering screened-on "annunciators" for WiFi, HD access, etc. lit-up by fixed LEDs that would shine through the Deadfront Grey, with some sort of membrane switch layer. There was absolutely NO "Programmability" to it, since IT WASN'T A "real" (graphical, bitmapped) DISPLAY. No WONDER they removed that embarassment pronto!
Here, we have that "piece of a good idea" Lenovo had, but fully-realized and actually made FUNCTIONAL by Apple.
Many people have wanted "programmable keytops" for quite some time now (there has even a product or two). Well, this is Apple's "toe in the water" for that concept.
Next go-around, if the rumors are true, Apple will have E-Ink "keytops" on ALL the keys. THEN what will you bitch about? I'm sure it will be SOMETHING...
Oh, and anyone who has ANY thought that Apple is Keyboard-Hostile, needs only to look at two things:
1. The Keyboard Shortcuts list for OS X/macOS. Oh, and don't forget the other two lists linked off of that list!
2. The fact that OS X/macOS has, since the beginning, had a Keyboard Shortcuts EDITOR, which allows you to trigger ANY Menu-Command with a User-Defined Keybinding. You can define both System-Wide and Application-Specific Keyboard Shortcuts. And in more recent versions of OS X/macOS, the functionality of that Editor has been DRAMATICALLY increased; such that there is fairly-well unprecedented ability to define/redefine keybindings/key layouts.
Actually pretty damned nice, and something I have heard was just now added to Windows (in one form or another) in the most-recent version or two.
Mac users probably don't use the Escape key too much, let alone the function keys.
THIS Mac user uses the Esc key all the time to dismiss OS X/macOS Dialogs.
Oh, and XCode uses F-Keys, and I believe Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro do as well, but I might be wrong about the latter two.
The thing is, Macs have the "Command" key; so a lot of things that would be bound to Function-Keys on other platforms are handled with the Command key, or with a Chord that includes the Command key in various combinations with Option (Alt), Shift, and Ctrl.
More than that. Anyone who uses their laptop to SSH to a *nix server will need ESC for vi. Yeah, it could be added to the ribbon, but muscle memory means many people will keep hitting `
Mac allows keep remapping, yeah?
OMFG! Are you REALLY that stupid?!?
Apple gets rid of the keyboard row that classically contains the F-keys AND the Esc Key, replaces it with a multifunction OLED touch strip, and you think they REALLY aren't going to be offering a Default "Magic Toolbar" set that INCLUDES AN ESC KEY?!?
Apple and Microsoft both have shown a pattern of removing more and more features with each release. Even features that are likely never to be used or seen by the casual or untrained users. For example, Windows 8 removed the option to change window border size although it's there in the registry, and the default was the ugliest looking border ever; why change it when so few users could even find the setting for this? The power user is treated as persona non grata these days.
No, in MS' eyes, the Power User is supposed to know how to edit the Registry Key. [ducks]
I'm imagining that the "make things better by simplifying" can only go so far. I'm not saying we've definitively reached such a point with Macs, but they keep learning that some of these "refinements" are mistakes, like not being able to right-click. Is trying to reduce vectors of interaction for their devices really their entire legacy?
Mac is definitely the "simpler" brand, and draws a lot of users from that brand. I just wonder if it's not a long-term shoot-yourself-in-the-foot to limit yourself so (both for their users and for the company itself).
1997 called and wants its Single Button Mouse meme back.
Because it was then (or possibly earlier) that Macs began supporting Right-Click. Yes, that's right: Nearly TWENTY YEARS AGO.
BTW, on a Trackpad Mac, it's two-finger click (early Mac models with trackpad had it at Right-Bottom-Corner Click, IIRC). But with a Mouse, any Mac has supported Right-Click directly since MacOS (Classic) 8 or 8.5, IIRC. OS X has ALWAYS supported Right-Click.
Oh, and you must not have looked very carefully. While I admit I didn't find any Job Postings in 30 seconds on ZipRecruiter.com for McCAD (as I said, their website (and marketing) sucks, but their software is quite nice), when I looked for "Eagle PCB", there were about two dozen jobs listed, and, BTW, the very first one was for Apple in Santa Clara, CA.
So - a couple of schematic capture programs where you can't even find a job or listing wanting the ability to use it (compared to tens of thousands for Altium, OrCAD and PADS). And for CAD/CAM - NX is not supported on the latest version of OSX. Sorry!
The fact is that Apple systems are designed on Windows - because the tools simply do not exist to do otherwise. And that's from working inside Apple...
Oh, knock it off!
I didn't say that it was easy doing embedded design work on Macs; just that it was "getting easier".
And Sierra just came out. Siemens is slow. They're still talking about El Capitan. But I am positive they will get there soon.
Apple systems are designed on a mix of several platforms, and likely always will be. FFS, they even have iPads running custom software sprinkled throughout their in-house testing labs as machine controllers and stuff.
The software should be smart enough to recover without rebooting.
And you have just hit on the difference that makes all the difference.
If Windows in a mobile application is finicky about re-establishing broken network connections, then that would be the kiss of death in a crowded WiFi environment.
Can anyone with Surface Pro 4 and W10 experience, who is not a shill, speak to how robust the WiFi/network hardware and software stack is under iffy WiFi conditions?
They run exactly one application. They are locked down to run nothing else. They boot into the application. What is it that this application does? It shows overhead pictures of plays so that players and coaches can review the on-field strategy.
Prior to the NFL's decision to use tablets, the pictures were printed in the team booth and delivered to the sidelines by runners. Why replace something that works with something new? Product placement $$.
In short it was a technical decision made by the marketing dept. ("Hey, Microsoft will pay us for product placement... Somebody crap out an app over the weekend!")
Ok, so that explains the first couple of games; but I do think that they have had enough time to figure this out and fix it; and it's far-past getting embarrassing enough that even Joe-Six-Pack understands there is something wrong.
So, perhaps there is a systemic problem afterall. And with the comments in this thread about the incredibly high failure rates for the Surfaces themselves, I'd bet that it isn't just something like crowded WiFi. If that were the case, the NFL would have LONG ago forced people to turn off their phones, or put them in Airplane Mode.
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+1. It really annoyed me having to buy my daughters IPhones just because their social group all use iMessage. No IPhone, not connected. And the social group cannot be changed.
EMail is, of course, dying. The youngsters all use various types of vendor locked in technologies.
That's just ridiculous.
At the root of it, iMessage is basically just an SMS/MMS client. I use iMessage to communicate with several of my friends and coworkers. Some have iPhones. Some don't. The biggest difference is that the iMessage-to-iMessage conversations consist of Blue bubbles, and the regular SMS conversations have Green bubbles.
Well, you're talking to someone who has never really liked media keys on keyboards because if it's not standard I can't get used to it. I know F1 usually means help and F5 usually means refresh. I'm good with that, I don't actually need the key to say it. I'm smart, I can do those things.
I don't use media keys either; but it isn't a matter of IQ. Some people just Enjoy being able to pause their music, skip a song, change the volume, etc without having to mess with the GUI. And there are some times when even I can see the advantages, such as when using your laptop to do a Presentation.
The issue is the physical escape key. The key's form and feel are important for muscle memory. You shouldn't need to look down to press any key on the keyboard but this strip is going to encourage just that. System admins tend to stay on the keyboard more using shortcuts so things like a physical escape key are important.
Muscle memory is more about everything OTHER than feeling a physical key top. It's much more about arm reach, wrist rotation and finger-spread. Sure, a concave key top kind of helps your fingertip kind of " settle-into" the key-center; but as far as getting your hand and fingers OVER that key top has NOTHING to do with said key top (unless you look).
Think about another kind of "keyboarding" skill: Musical keyboards. I don't know if you know how to play any keyboarded instruments, but I do. And I can tell you that if what I am saying wasn't true, it would be significantly harder, if not impossible, to attain any reasonable proficiency at playing same, especially when having your vision otherwise occupied reading musical notation.
Does it help that the key depresses when you strike it? Undoubtedly; but if that was all there was to "muscle memory", how would that help your arms, hands, and fingers get to the right keys to strike them in the first place? This is especially true of something like an 88-key piano. The angles of your arms, rotation of your hands, and "presentation" of your fingers varies drastically from one end of the keyboard to the other, and yet a good pianist can strike any key blindfolded. And remember, when playing live music, ther ISN'T a handy Backspace key or Undo!!! But I submit that level if positional accuracy would likely still be true even if the keys were painted on a piece of glass; so long as the "key top" images were the standard size and shape, and the overall dimensions were also per AGO standards.
And so it will be with a touch-screen ESC key: So long as it stays in one place, your brain will soon map the "servo positions" necessary to hut the target, with or without a key. Otherwise, you wouldn't see legions of vaccuous teenagers being able to text on touchscreen keyboards at their typical 50 WPM.
...And in our next exhibit, a headphone jack resting on the Esc key.
It took humanity great courage to make this evolutionary leap, but it was worth it!
Yes it did. And yes it is.
I once had a laptop with a "touchscreen" for volumn, power, etc and within a year that shit the bed. Never went back to anything that remotely looked like a touchscreen keyboard.
That was because it was a POS membrane-switch thing. This will be a glass-front, capactive-touch (and likely multitouch) never-wears-out thing.
BIG difference.
How am I going to press F5 while trying to buy Google IO tickets?
Simple. Just switch to the Magic Toolbar "set" that has the F-keys (and likely the ESC Key) and press away!
Sheesh! You people absolutely bend-over-backwards to concoct ridiculous scenarios. Of COURSE the Magic Toolbar (hey, I didn't name it!) will have ESC and F-Keys as one or more of the Default "Sets".
For the average PC user, opening vi is an introduction to Hell.
Nothing they have been trained to do works. At all.
Oh, you mean like the ridiculous, throwback commands for Cut/Copy/Paste in Windows Powershell?
Here you are, in a Windows environment, and need to do a little Powershell stuff. Ok, so I need to Paste this "Copy as Text" Path I just Ctrl-C'ed from Windows Explorer. Ok, switch to Powershell. Ctrl-V... WTF?!? OH, Right-Click-Paste. Ok... Alright, now I ran my Cmdlet, and want to Copy and Paste the Results back to a Windows document (already open). Yes, I'm sure I could "pipe" the output into some text file, but I just want to copy/paste. Drag-Select using the Mouse... Oh, Wait! Now I have to Right-Click-MARK, THEN I can Drag-Select ("Marquee" select) a block of text. Ctrl-C. Switch to Windows document. Ctrl-V. WTF!?!? OH, it's like we've been transported to FOURTY-YEAR-OLD DOS!!! "RETURN" (Enter) does the COPY!!! Yay!!!
Talk about fucking with your muscle-memory!!! It's one of the (many) things with Windows that makes me ask myself "Do Windows Developers even USE this stuff, or are they just SADISTIC and User-Surly on purpose?"
Please tell me they atleast still have the PrtScn/SysRq and Pause/Break buttons!
And don't forget the "Here Is" key.
WTF was THAT about? Was that a "teletype" thing?
Hmm? I use a mac (Macbook pro at work, and an iMac at home) and I use escape all of the time! I really hope this isn't true; I actually like my Macbook Pro the way it is. Size is fine, and it works great. I seriously hate this keep removing things trend; of course Windows 10 isn't an option I want either, so...ugh :(
RELAX! The Esc Key isn't going ANYWHERE. It will OBVIOUSLY be included in the Default "F-Keys" Magic Toolbar set. In fact, I would imagine that the Keyboard Shortcuts Editor in macOS will simply be expanded to include definitions for the Magic Toolbar. You will probably be able to have the "Esc" key mapped onto EVERY Magic Toolbar set with a simple checkbox. In fact, one presentation seems to show a two-line layout, so that you can have, among other things, the F-Keys (and likely ESC) ALWAYS visible
And I am sure the Magic Toolbar will be a proper, glass-front, capacitive-touch (probably multitouch) control/display strip, so that "wearout" won't be a problem.
Apple wants to be minimalist so I have to make my life more complicated with peripherals and dongles? What kind of backward thinking is that?
No. You've got it all wrong.
Apple is trying to make what amounts to a whole keyboard row's worth of seldom-used F-keys (compared with most of the other keys), and turn that into a PROGRAMMABLE, CONTEXTUAL set of MULTI-VARIANT Controls, that, in the end, will be FAR more useful, in FAR more applications (small "a"), than fixed-function, fixed format, F-Keys.
Watch the Keynote on Thursday. Then maybe you'll get it.
The previous X1 Carbons had an LED changeable strip similar to what Apple is doing.
Oh, please! The Lenovo strip was NOTHING like what Apple is doing.
Lenovo's non-improvement was just a slight modification of those retarded "status" strips on POS plastic Windows laptops, that simply used a Lexan strip with a Deadfront Grey mask covering screened-on "annunciators" for WiFi, HD access, etc. lit-up by fixed LEDs that would shine through the Deadfront Grey, with some sort of membrane switch layer. There was absolutely NO "Programmability" to it, since IT WASN'T A "real" (graphical, bitmapped) DISPLAY. No WONDER they removed that embarassment pronto!
Here, we have that "piece of a good idea" Lenovo had, but fully-realized and actually made FUNCTIONAL by Apple.
Many people have wanted "programmable keytops" for quite some time now (there has even a product or two). Well, this is Apple's "toe in the water" for that concept.
Next go-around, if the rumors are true, Apple will have E-Ink "keytops" on ALL the keys. THEN what will you bitch about? I'm sure it will be SOMETHING...
Oh, and anyone who has ANY thought that Apple is Keyboard-Hostile, needs only to look at two things:
1. The Keyboard Shortcuts list for OS X/macOS. Oh, and don't forget the other two lists linked off of that list!
2. The fact that OS X/macOS has, since the beginning, had a Keyboard Shortcuts EDITOR, which allows you to trigger ANY Menu-Command with a User-Defined Keybinding. You can define both System-Wide and Application-Specific Keyboard Shortcuts. And in more recent versions of OS X/macOS, the functionality of that Editor has been DRAMATICALLY increased; such that there is fairly-well unprecedented ability to define/redefine keybindings/key layouts.
Actually pretty damned nice, and something I have heard was just now added to Windows (in one form or another) in the most-recent version or two.
Mac users probably don't use the Escape key too much, let alone the function keys.
THIS Mac user uses the Esc key all the time to dismiss OS X/macOS Dialogs.
Oh, and XCode uses F-Keys, and I believe Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro do as well, but I might be wrong about the latter two.
The thing is, Macs have the "Command" key; so a lot of things that would be bound to Function-Keys on other platforms are handled with the Command key, or with a Chord that includes the Command key in various combinations with Option (Alt), Shift, and Ctrl.
More than that. Anyone who uses their laptop to SSH to a *nix server will need ESC for vi. Yeah, it could be added to the ribbon, but muscle memory means many people will keep hitting `
Mac allows keep remapping, yeah?
OMFG! Are you REALLY that stupid?!?
Apple gets rid of the keyboard row that classically contains the F-keys AND the Esc Key, replaces it with a multifunction OLED touch strip, and you think they REALLY aren't going to be offering a Default "Magic Toolbar" set that INCLUDES AN ESC KEY?!?
FFS.
Apple and Microsoft both have shown a pattern of removing more and more features with each release. Even features that are likely never to be used or seen by the casual or untrained users. For example, Windows 8 removed the option to change window border size although it's there in the registry, and the default was the ugliest looking border ever; why change it when so few users could even find the setting for this? The power user is treated as persona non grata these days.
No, in MS' eyes, the Power User is supposed to know how to edit the Registry Key. [ducks]
I suppose the Esc Key will be an option on the new OLED panel. Perhaps it's not lost, just moved.
Of COURSE that's what it is. Jeezus!
I would imagine that "Esc" comes up as an option on the same "strip" (or Magic Toolbar) as the F-Key set.
From what I understand, TouchID is also integrated into the Magic Toolbar, too.
I'm imagining that the "make things better by simplifying" can only go so far. I'm not saying we've definitively reached such a point with Macs, but they keep learning that some of these "refinements" are mistakes, like not being able to right-click. Is trying to reduce vectors of interaction for their devices really their entire legacy?
Mac is definitely the "simpler" brand, and draws a lot of users from that brand. I just wonder if it's not a long-term shoot-yourself-in-the-foot to limit yourself so (both for their users and for the company itself).
1997 called and wants its Single Button Mouse meme back.
Because it was then (or possibly earlier) that Macs began supporting Right-Click. Yes, that's right: Nearly TWENTY YEARS AGO.
BTW, on a Trackpad Mac, it's two-finger click (early Mac models with trackpad had it at Right-Bottom-Corner Click, IIRC). But with a Mouse, any Mac has supported Right-Click directly since MacOS (Classic) 8 or 8.5, IIRC. OS X has ALWAYS supported Right-Click.
Oh, and you must not have looked very carefully. While I admit I didn't find any Job Postings in 30 seconds on ZipRecruiter.com for McCAD (as I said, their website (and marketing) sucks, but their software is quite nice), when I looked for "Eagle PCB", there were about two dozen jobs listed, and, BTW, the very first one was for Apple in Santa Clara, CA.
Oh, and if you had looked at the comment-thread to that Article, you would have seen that there ARE plans to support NX on Sierra.
But you CONVENIENTLY left that out.
So - a couple of schematic capture programs where you can't even find a job or listing wanting the ability to use it (compared to tens of thousands for Altium, OrCAD and PADS). And for CAD/CAM - NX is not supported on the latest version of OSX. Sorry!
The fact is that Apple systems are designed on Windows - because the tools simply do not exist to do otherwise. And that's from working inside Apple...
Oh, knock it off!
I didn't say that it was easy doing embedded design work on Macs; just that it was "getting easier".
And Sierra just came out. Siemens is slow. They're still talking about El Capitan. But I am positive they will get there soon.
Apple systems are designed on a mix of several platforms, and likely always will be. FFS, they even have iPads running custom software sprinkled throughout their in-house testing labs as machine controllers and stuff.
But you just keep on movin' those goalposts...
Pretty sad, isn't it?
On the Surface Pro 3 it doesn't seem too bad. But there also have been a whole series of firmware patches specific to WiFi.
That's a very bad sign...
Yeah, they completely remove the USB ports so you don't have them.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/no-port-in-a-storm-apple-rumored-to-be-removing-usb-on-macbook-pro
Nice scare article. They are likely going to move to USB-C. Not even the same thing.
Trusting anything considered critical to a Microsoft platform is a joke.
That's why I shudder everytime I see a Windows screen on some Navy vessel's displays on TV. It's like "That's not FIRE CONTROL, is it???"
The software should be smart enough to recover without rebooting.
And you have just hit on the difference that makes all the difference.
If Windows in a mobile application is finicky about re-establishing broken network connections, then that would be the kiss of death in a crowded WiFi environment.
Can anyone with Surface Pro 4 and W10 experience, who is not a shill, speak to how robust the WiFi/network hardware and software stack is under iffy WiFi conditions?
They run exactly one application. They are locked down to run nothing else. They boot into the application. What is it that this application does? It shows overhead pictures of plays so that players and coaches can review the on-field strategy.
Prior to the NFL's decision to use tablets, the pictures were printed in the team booth and delivered to the sidelines by runners. Why replace something that works with something new? Product placement $$.
In short it was a technical decision made by the marketing dept. ("Hey, Microsoft will pay us for product placement... Somebody crap out an app over the weekend!")
Ok, so that explains the first couple of games; but I do think that they have had enough time to figure this out and fix it; and it's far-past getting embarrassing enough that even Joe-Six-Pack understands there is something wrong.
So, perhaps there is a systemic problem afterall. And with the comments in this thread about the incredibly high failure rates for the Surfaces themselves, I'd bet that it isn't just something like crowded WiFi. If that were the case, the NFL would have LONG ago forced people to turn off their phones, or put them in Airplane Mode.