I don't see the financial incentive to develop for Windows RT and the Surface. The iPad is too dominant. Android tablets are munching on the periphery. I just don't see the market acceptance of the Surface. It is not "better" than the iPad. It is a different vision and direction. But why would millions of users follow that vision when iOS and Android offer a compelling enough platform already?
I came here to write basically this. Additionally, I think that Microsoft is making a mistake with this Surface tablet. Consumers want a device that will be easy and fun to use, and that has good access to a lot of content. Maybe the iPad will eventually transition into more of a productivity device, but right now consumers (and Apple) don't view the iPad as a PC replacement.
Microsoft's approach (one OS for tablets and PCs) was a poor choice; the two devices have different needs, and require different UIs and feature sets. They have done so much work on Windows 8 in order to be a competitor in the "tablet market" but I fear that there is no such market. People don't want tablets as MS invisions them. People want iPads.
In my view, the Surface is a step between a laptop and an iPad. Does Microsoft intend for this to unify and replace these? They have produced a product inferior to both an iPad and a laptop, and thus I imagine the Surface will replace neither for most people.
I cannot conceive of any future where the eventual upshot of all of this isn't...a Surface Pro.
The thing is, there is nowhere left for Apple to go. What else can they do with iOS? They will be forced to make iOS more powerful and that MUST include things like proper file management, multiple windows, displays, mouse support etc...aka a Surface Pro. Perhaps a more pleasing-to-look-at iteration than Windows 10, and better quality native apps, but a Surface Pro nevertheless.
What people in this thread are missing is that Microsoft isn't trying to capture the entire WinRT market with this device, they're not trying to outsell their partners, they're trying to set a benchmark. Something for their partners to compete against, and for those partners to compete against it (and the iPad) successfully.
The point of Surface is to keep Asus, HP, Samsung, etc from making a not-quite-iPad for $700 and blogs mocking the demise of the platform. Basically, if WinRT partners cannot outsell the Surface, they don't deserve to be selling Windows tablets. That is what Microsoft is implying with this release. Making it impossible to compete against would actively destroy that effort.
What's so great about Surface besides its design and build material? I don't mean to knock on those. I think they are great, but that doesn't equal that the product overall is great. Windows RT is performing very poorly on an high-end ARM chip (don't want to imagine how it would perform on an older dual core ARM chip, or god forbid a single core one) compared to the true mobile operating systems like Android and iOS, and its app store is virtually non-existent. Office on it is also an exercise in frustration.
The price is also too high for what it offers. Even if the build of materials is exactly the same as the iPad 4 (I think it's lower), that doesn't mean it should cost exactly the same as an iPad 4. Because it offers lower value than an iPad (think ecosystem, brand, etc). I also don't think it's acceptable for a $500+ product to have such a low resolution anymore. And don't tell me it has an "extra 16 GB". It doesn't. It only has 17 free GB of storage.
Seriously, the Surface is a great move. Aside from the whole Pro / RT naming thing, of course (confusing customers is not good).
The Surface is, AFAIK, the only good tablet PC out there - it's a real flagship product for Wintel tablets. The OEMs will eventually beat MS on value, but I suspect Microsoft will be OK with that. Microsoft can afford to take a loss creating the market for Windows 8 tablets, and won't be upset if other OEMs start competing in the space - they'll then make money on software sales.
MS needs tablet PCs to be a thing. Tablets are a thing - people love tablets. People will either choose between a laptop and a tablet, or just a tablet that can also run Office. If there's good Windows tablets, people will tend to go with that. As Intel improves mobile x86 chips, the choice will be even easier.
Microsoft does not want everyone using Android / iOS tablet, because then the software ecosystem will move to iOS / Android apps (as it is already doing).
Whether Microsoft should have made the hardware itself, or let OEMs do it is a good question, but I think they were right to do it themselves. Just look at what the competition has been like - every other Windows tablet I've seen (not a huge sample) has been pitiful - ugly and either not portable enough, or grossly underpowered.
Also, making Surface probably gives them the institutional knowledge to make Windows better for tablets.
Android doesn't have nearly as many tablet apps for full-size tablets as iPad has, but it definitely has an app ecosystem. Windows RT is starting almost completely from scratch -- like previous marketplace failures like the Playbook and the TouchPad.
If Metro apps take off, then in 6 months to a year, Surface could be a completely viable iPad replacement. But right now, you would have to have a pretty limited set of needs to be satisfied with a Surface.
Worse, I've read more than one review claiming that the software is still glitchy. While understandable in a 1.0 product, that's a huge disadvantage when compared to the famous stability of an iPad.
So while I'm sure there will be some interest just because it's a cool-looking product, I don't think more than a small minority of users will find it a realistic substitute for an iPad.
I understand the point you are making, but the fact is without the app ecosystem a tablet like that is just going to be third place to the iPad and Android tablets. They need to offer a compelling reason to purchase a surface over those other brands of tablets. The windows desktop with a decent selection of apps (because of the removed signature lock) would offer that.
The thing is I don't actually specifically want a pro. All I want is a device that I can create content on. For me, creating content means I want it to run Visual Studio, Photoshop and Blender, along with some toolchain type apps like Git, Dropbox and Filezilla. These apps are just not ever going to appear as Metro apps. So currently, I choose to buy a laptop for half the price of a Surface pro.
The problem is the competition they have targeted. They've pitched the RT against the IPad and Androids and it loses on functionality, and they've pitched the pro against Laptops and it loses on price. An unrestricted RT would win against the IPad/Android on functionality and the win against the laptop on size and flexibility while matching it on price.
I think people are really missing the point of Surface if they think that the focus is on touch+classic. It's about supporting classic. And supporting touch. And it does, Metro-with-mouse takes getting used to, but it can be done.
The Surface RT can play the iPad role.
The Surface Pro can play the iPad role and the laptop role.
That's why what Microsoft is doing is risky but has the potential for user value: For some reason, people really want to use Android apps on their computer. Think about the number of apps and games that would be available? That's what Microsoft is getting out of this. Developers get to target both casual users and pro users. And pro users who are casual users after 5PM.
I don't plan to buy a Surface, but I see a lot more potential than I think others are really willing to see if they're honest with themselves.
This is better served by a laptop for the majority of people, though as someone that uses an unconventional keyboard anyway, a laptop is somewhat less compelling (since it occupies a lot of space with a keyboard that I actively avoid using), I can certainly see the appeal of a tablet for that purpose.
I personally don't think Microsoft quite got it right with using Windows on a tablet, though it was certainly a lot better with Windows 8, which is what the surface pro 2 (I think the first one as well?) shipped with. There's way too many compromises on usability because it's running Windows, and there's no meaningful impetus for developers to create their applications specifically with touch in mind.
Apple's been much more antagonistic to developers yet they still get people making apps specifically for iPadOS in a way that neither Google nor Microsoft have managed. I think this is the advantage to their totalitarian strategy; they get less applications built for iOS/iPadOS overall and their restrictions make it significantly harder or impossible to create some things you can find easily on Windows, Android, or even MacOS, but because they control the platform they can impose minimum requirements for applications on the platform and as a result you actually get programs that run with that device's UX paradigms in mind. It probably also helps that their platform makes more money and that the iPad is already in a position of dominance in this market, but I digress.
If Microsoft wants to fully realize their Surface tablet vision, they need to pump a ton of money into getting developers on board and building apps that fit the UX paradigms of Surface tablets.
They should have launched Surface as it sown OS instead of trying to be Windows. I actually want an Intel Windows tablet because there's a bunch of audio software I'd use that will never be available on the iPad and it would be great to have a touch interface for my-obscure-applications. but Windows RT was the worst of both worlds - since it doesn't do anything in particular, I might as well just buy an iPad (if I want groovy, albeit somewhat limited, apps) or a Kindle Fire (if I just want to surf the web and consume content).
It's very difficult to change fundamental things in your well-established, popular OS. See Windows x86/x64, see the difficulties of redesigning iOS in version 7, see the disappointed people who buy an Android hybrid and try to use it as a laptop replacement.
For some reason, I have all kinds of tablets at home -- iPad Air, Surface 2 (with RT), Sony Xperia Z, ... Currently I feel that it'd be a shame if the Surface didn't become more popular, even the RT version is so much more that the other two platforms. I am not speaking about Metro, you can love it or hate it -- but the fact that it has proper support for keyboards (with shortcuts and everything) and also it's much more gesture-driven than the other two platforms. Obviously it's severely lacking apps compared to the other platforms, but the fundamentals are simply great and I'd be sad to see this platform disappearing. As I said, it's features will not be easily and quickly integrated into Android or iOS, as 'responding effectively' is not as simple as it might seem.
Microsoft needs to explain WHY the Surface should exist. It's not immediately obvious to the market why yet another tablet with a different os should exist. Microsoft failed to answer that (and their so-so presentation skills only hurt their efforts).
The big thing here is developer mind-share. Microsoft is trying to leverage their large pc software library, but that seems like a mistake here. Tablet users want touch specific apps. A large library of nearly unusable programs isn't a winning move. They need to get developers engaged with the platform and give them a reason to support a third OS.
It's a chicken/egg problem. They need to convince both consumers as well as developers WHY they should care. That's a tough sell, made all the more difficult by poor presentation skills and no good answer for the question. If Microsoft wants to disrupt the tablet market (and they'll have to if they want to gain any significant market share), they have to do better than just living off their name. They need a game changer and I'm just not seeing it (and that might just come down to their poor ability to communicate).
So the target market is people who want a really slow more expensive tablet with a horrible interface for touch?
Microsoft’s own products run better on the low end iPad than the low end Surface. On top of that, the interface is better for touch.
And Microsoft sells less Surfaces than Apple sells Macs, let alone iPads. This isn’t really saying much about the Windows being backwards compatible for ever (what started this thread) was a great strategy.
Back when Windows 8 was announced I used to wonder why didn’t they choose the path of Apple, thus making one operating system for the desktop and a different one for mobile devices (smartphones and tablets). I think that they invested too much on the Surface tablet, hoping to produce a tablet that will have comparable capabilities with a desktop PC. In such a device the traditional Windows OS is not enough because we need gestures and a mobile OS is also not enough cause you need the file-system support and all of the facilities you’ve come to think as fundamental in a desktop OS. That’s where Win8 fits. If Surface had succeed I think Windows 8 would have justified its existence. But now it looks like a product without a context.
Why did they chose a path of an enhanced tablet? Probably because they didn’t want to compete with Apple in the $500 price tag. Or because they thought that there is market in the high end of tablets.
The thing is that their tablet strategy has failed and along goes a line of products designed for it, namely Metro, Win RT and Windows 8. Add their inability to penetrate the smartphone market and you begin to realize why Microsoft is considered irrelevant these days.
The only aspect where I read interesting news from MS is their development platform. Perhaps they should stop jerking around and return to their core, aka make software for the enterprise.
My take on this is that the Microsoft's strategy for the Surface wasn't necessarily to sell a ton of Surface tablets and take out the iPad. I think it was to illustrate what Windows 8 brings to the table in terms of a hybrid tablet experience. This is similar to how Google had lackluster sales of their Nexus phone but it was a reference model of what you could do with Android. The Surface opens up some eyes to the idea of the "convertible laptop", which I think ultimately is how Windows 8 starts to make more sense. On any other configuration it's a clunky experience. Windows 8 is a poor tablet experience and a lame desktop, but as a convertible laptop it's actually quite enjoyable (in my opinion).
Microsoft has serially dropped the ball on this. They could have done a good tablet virtually any time, but the internal politics always got in the way of the design and engineering. It would have needed to run Windows, for instance, which would have killed it.
One of the most successful consumer products, the Xbox 360, runs Windows, but it's got most of the bullshit stripped out (e.g., no registry, no WMI, no services to go sideways).
Putting full-blown Windows in everything is a huge mistake, and unless a project can get the political capital to overcome that, it will doom it.
Astonishingly successful? IPads out sell surface by 6 to 1 in revenue and 10 to 1 in units. And unlike surface, people actually use them primarily as tablets. Surface's success is almost entirely as a laptop with a secondary and relatively little used tablet mode. That's hardly been threatening to the iPad.
Microsofts vision of that convergence, of how to provide desktop class features in a tablet, is literally to put the WIMP desktop into a tablet. That's a completely different and fundamentally incompatible vision of how to make an advanced tablet UI to what we see in iOS 11, which is a complete and utter refutation of Microsoft's approach.
I actually agree with you and others pitching Microsoft products as a better replacement for this sort of thing, for sure. I use the iPad Pro because I already had it, having purchased it for a different reason entirely. My only gripe with a Surface product would be the Windows part of it, which isn't THAT bad and like you said, they have a pretty clear vision for the future of it.
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