With all that up-and-running, I immediately headed to the Windows Store (the virtual one with apps, not the physical one with Surfaces) to get some apps. Total nightmare. In the ten days I’ve been using the Surface, that Store has either been down or completely unresponsive a large percentage of the time. It just hangs and hangs and hangs, seemingly forever. I restart, re-open and some things work, then it hangs again. I’ve been trying to download one app for days — still no luck. I’m sick of restarting. And the back-button just isn’t working. Joy.
I expect a dirth of apps at the start but this sounds like a PR disaster if true.
I've had some issues with it being a little slow to display..but usually no more than a few seconds. My bigger gripe with the store is that it shows N updates on the live tile but N-M (with M<N) actual updates available.
Otherwise, I've had zero problems with finding apps in the store...on the desktop and the Surface
While it might be a little overstated for dramatic effect, his overall statement is true. Access to the store is not a given; apps might not download; and restarts are in your future.
I've run into availability issues with the Apple App Store, and they're much less severe. Then again, the Apple App Store is more mature; the Windows 8 app store is new.
I'd like to chalk all of this up to teething pains, but by gum Microsoft has run the Xbox thing fairly well overall, and the lessons should have transferred.
Yea its not true or its authors connection. I have been using Windows 8 for months all day with not one problem with app store. He also says other false statements in article the but its really not worth the effort posting them.
On my Surface, I have seen lag in the Store app occasionally, but nothing like this author described.
I suspect one factor that may be affecting a lot of first impressions is that the Windows and Office will be downloading and applying a few hundred MB of updates sometime in the first day or two after unboxing. This is perhaps worthy of some criticism, too, but it's not the normal state of operation.
Disclosure: I recently accepted a position at Microsoft, but in an unrelated part of the company. My Surface was purchased at full retail.
I've been using a Surface RT for about three weeks. I've never experienced anything like what he's describing.
Further, there are apps already in the store for some of the things he mentioned no official apps being available for. Dropbox access is available through a free app named "New File Manager v2", for example. I don't know if he just didn't put in the effort to look for them or purposely used the "official" wording to paint the picture he wanted to, but it's somewhat misleading.
I don't know anything about this writer but, it is his take on the Surface. I'm not really expecting journalism. It's not consumer reports. It's TechCrunch.
Seigler's articles usually enrage me, but this one isn't so bad. He makes a mix of valid points and (IMO) less valid ones. If the Store crashes as much as he says it does, that's a huge failure. On the other hand, complaining about the alert box the Flash Player popped up struck me as particularly funny- of course that wouldn't have appeared on an iPad. It doesn't have Flash.
I think the MS tablets (and they are tablets, despite Seigler saying they aren't because they're the "wrong shape") are between a rock and a hard place. On one side, the locked-down, user-friendly world of Apple. On the other, the free, tweaking, custom ROMing world of Android. It's trying to sit somewhere between the two and I'm not entirely convinced that it can.
>On the other hand, complaining about the alert box the Flash Player popped up struck me as particularly funny- of course that wouldn't have appeared on an iPad. It doesn't have Flash.
I think that's kind of the point. Using the iPad is just a cleaner, nicer experience because it's not bogged down with a lot of the desktop cruft.
Right- and that's sort of the point I was trying to make in the second paragraph- not everyone is willing to pay the price for a cleaner, nicer experience. There is a market for a less locked down but more feature-capable device. I just think that Android may already be there.
There is a trade-off between features and complexity, but Siegler doesn't try to evaluate that once in the article.
I honestly find that reading his articles (and Techcrunch in general) are like banging my head against the wall. Did he say anything good about it at all?
I've been using Windows 8 as my primary OS for nearly a year and a Surface RT (which has successfully replaced my iPad and MacBook Air, so far) for a little over three weeks now. I've only had trouble with the Store app once, and that wasn't even on the Surface. I also haven't had any trouble with apps downloading slowly or not at all, like he was talking about. I came away from his article really not understanding how he could have legitimately had some of the experiences he wrote about.
Ugh, can we please mention this was authored by MG Siegler in the title so I know not to click it? I find his work awful and do my part by not visiting his site or reading his published articles, but it's hard to do when you don't know it's his work being linked.
I'm reminded of Andy Rooney's segment about purchasing a small, gasoline-powered scooter for himself so he could travel New York in ease and comfort. The problem was he ran a real risk of hitting pedestrians if he tried to use it on the sidewalk, but felt vulnerable using it on the street. The final sentence of his segment was: "So I packed it back in its box and put it in a closet -- never to be used again."
Windows RT tablets have a lot of the same neither-fish-nor-fowl nature. They are clunky and inefficient compared to an iPad or good Android tablet, but weak and underpowered compared to a Windows PC.
I am eternally indebted to you for filling my brain with the image of Andy Rooney (wearing a scarf and goggles) on a scooter, barreling down a New York sidewalk, pedestrians leaping out of the way in terror.
The weird thing with most of these reviews is that they're so predictable. Those who you'd expect to hate the Surface have, and those you'd expect to like it -- have (probably the biggest exception being Paul Thurrot).
I know several people will Surface's and I haven't heard of the app store crashing from any of them. And I use the app store on a standard Win8 w/o a crash in the months I've used it.
And of the couple of people I've read who have had app store crashes, they have been people who typically don't like MS products.
The Surface is becoming more of a Rorschach test than anything else. Did anyone seriously think that MG would like the Surface? Does anyone seriously think that MG won't like WHATEVER Apple ships next?
>Did anyone seriously think that MG would like the Surface?
No, but you might expect Paul Thurrott and Peter Bright to, if you were judging it on the basis of their general opinion of Microsoft.
The problem with ascribing opinions of the Surface/Windows 8/RT to one's general opinion of Microsoft and/or Windows is that so much of it is incongruous with what we think of as "Microsoft". People who like one Apple product tend to like most Apple products because there is a clear thread of simplicity and elegance that runs through them.
I'm not sure what thread has traditionally run through Microsoft products (lots of buttons, lots of choices, lots of legacy?), but the Surface, with its vertical integration model, and Metro, with its "non-power user" interface, breaks that thread. But then at the same time you have the desktop mode, which tries to maintain a connection to the Microsoft of old. So in conclusion it's a big mess and old biases don't necessarily apply.
No, but you might expect Paul Thurrott and Peter Bright to, if you were judging it on the basis of their general opinion of Microsoft.
I mention Thurrott as an exception. Peter Bright covers Microsoft, but certainly not someone who typically likes MS products. He tends to strongly dislike as often as he likes MS products (if not moreso).
People who like one Apple product tend to like most Apple products because there is a clear thread of simplicity and elegance that runs through them.
Really? Like the simplicity that is iTunes? The elegance that is AppleTV? The simplicity/elegance of OSX? Apple has been consistently elegant in hardware, but their software has been as jumbled a mess as anything from Microsoft or Google. It's just been coupled with much superior hardware -- and maybe that's enough, but it certainly not a thread that runs through all their products.
So in conclusion it's a big mess and old biases don't necessarily apply.
Yet old biases still seem to apply. Odd isn't it. And IMO the biases come out so clearly when you read what they write -- whether about the Surface or not, but especially about the Surface.
How is it possible that so many find it a joy to use, and so many can find no use for it at all. And it seems to fall completely along party lines?
"How is it possible that so many find it a joy to use, and so many can find no use for it at all. And it seems to fall completely along party lines?"
I think it's just because not that many people actually have the Surface yet.
So as another commenter pointed out, it's probably either going to be early adopters who want it to be good anyway or the tech review sites which everyone seems to accuse both of having an Apple bias anyway.
Not saying either camp is correct, but it's not like we're talking about a big sample size here, in either case it's probably the vocal minority contributing to the initial impressions.
Apple's software has plenty of problems, but it's successes are numerous and outshine the competition from other heavyweights. Safari, Preview, iMovie, the panorama feature in iOS 6, Mail on iPad, the App Store model (though not all of its UI), Pages, and Keynote, are just a few random examples of simplicity and elegance in their software, and there's plenty more examples.
Even its power user apps, like Aperture and Final Cut Pro X (controversies notwithstanding) show a thoughtfulness and polish that I just don't see in the products of other large software companies, let alone a company that is also a first-class hardware manufacturer.
As far as bias goes the type of people who rushed out to buy a Surface early are probably the ones least likely to admit its buggy or slow. So there's that. I don't own one so I don't know. I have watched some YouTube videos though and was not impressed. In one the person doing the video actually says 'apps load quickly' while he's showing an app opening very slowly. So it depends a lot on your expectations. 5-10 seconds to open the mail client on the Surface may be fast compared to the 20-30 seconds Outlook on Windows can sometimes take to open but it's dirt slow compared to opening mail clients on iOS or Android. (instant or damn close to it)
This isn't a comment on the Surface since I don't have one and aren't likely to get one, but more on the Windows 8 store, which on my desktop has been TERRIBLE. since launch I've managed to get two apps and I've had 15 or so updating at a glacial pace. It's been slow, apps will partly download and then not install, others will just sit in the queue.
Three weeks later I still have four apps that haven't updated.
(Totally off topic but the wireless support for my desktop's card is bordering on unusable.)
That was a waste of time. Hacker news seems to be drawn to controversy. links like this are just feeding the least interesting aspect of our industry: controversy created by wanna-be journalists that have nothing substantial to say.
The problem with this is that the surface isn't aimed at consumers. I think (despite the ad's etc...) it's aimed at large business.
I can already hear the IT department drooling over the prospect of a locked down machine that's cheap but still has the Office Suite and IE (the browser or large business) which frankly covers what 95% of office workers actually need.
It's a response to BYOD iPad's in the Office, not iPad's at home. Its also why I think Steven Sinofsky had to go. He wanted Microsoft divisions to fight each other, not work together.
Think of it this way, assuming Microsoft works on close integration between its products (without Sinofsky this might fly) it is in a unique position. They can offer the most complete end to end business solution for large companies. Hardware (Surface RT and x86), Phones (Windows Phone), Desktop OS, Server OS, Programming Languages, BI suites, Email (exchange), Database etc.....
I can't think of any other company that comes close to offering this except possibly Oracle and they are still missing a few things (Maybe they should offer to buy RIM?).
Interesting. That's certainly not the case in my world. Very few run applications beyond Excel, Word, Outlook and IE. Most things are web applications hence the Surface RT is a brilliant proposition.
we are focused on mobility, field force solutions. for this you need offline capable apps. always online is still a pipe dream and will be for quite some time.
I have been using Surface RT at work for close to two weeks. It replaced my Macbook 2009. It really has proven to be quiet a little capable machine. We use Google Docs and Insightly everyday. So far its been fine. I have never taken an iPad to work so I can not compare. But, I do have some experience with Android tablets and Surface is better suited for my type of work, Business Development. You can view more of my thoughts of Surface here vpena.sqsp.com/blog
Read the headline, skip the article and look at the last picture, then scroll back up and read the headline again, particularly the first three words. You're done.
I don't know where to put this observation, but here it goes.
I got a chance to play with a Surface last weekend. The very first thing I noticed was the placement of the "home" button. I guess it might be called the Start button? No matter. It was located along the long edge of the device, as opposed to the short edge, which was really odd.
At first, I thought this was because the device is meant to be used horizontally with a keyboard attached to it, so having the button closer to the keyboard makes it more accessible. But then I realized this is unlikely to be the case, because the keyboard already has a (much more) accessible Start button! Which leaves the button on the device useless, because even when you're holding it in your hands, your thumbs are too short to reach it.
It's little details like this that killed the experience for me. It confirmed my suspicion that Microsoft does not understand user experience.
If you're holding it horizontally in your hands (that case where you can't easily reach the hardware button), you can swipe in from the left and the Windows button/tile/whatever-it-is appears in the bottom-left. I'm sure it depends on your hands and how you hold it, but I'm able to swipe it in and go back to the start page with barely any effort and no hand movement that way.
You can also swipe in from the right and get the "charms bar" which has a start button on it too, positioned midway up, which might be easier to reach for some people/grips.
The thing that annoyed me most in this article was the author's insistence that the aspect ratio of the Surface was in some way weird or unusable. The iPad is 4:3 but almost every other tablet is 16:9 (or close to it). I have an Asus Transformer and I prefer the aspect ratio, it allows me to use landscape when browsing the web or watching to get a full view and then portrait when I am reading long-form text to avoid excessive scrolling. This is a case of "I'm not used to it and therefore I hate it"
I'm not an MG hater. In fact I often agree with his general assessments. But good lord his writing style is horrid. I lost count of how many times he (overused) the parenthesis.
But, it's a blog post. If I want solid content I must force myself to expect a lower bar, particularly on TC.
49 comments
[ 7.2 ms ] story [ 129 ms ] threadWith all that up-and-running, I immediately headed to the Windows Store (the virtual one with apps, not the physical one with Surfaces) to get some apps. Total nightmare. In the ten days I’ve been using the Surface, that Store has either been down or completely unresponsive a large percentage of the time. It just hangs and hangs and hangs, seemingly forever. I restart, re-open and some things work, then it hangs again. I’ve been trying to download one app for days — still no luck. I’m sick of restarting. And the back-button just isn’t working. Joy.
I expect a dirth of apps at the start but this sounds like a PR disaster if true.
Otherwise, I've had zero problems with finding apps in the store...on the desktop and the Surface
I've run into availability issues with the Apple App Store, and they're much less severe. Then again, the Apple App Store is more mature; the Windows 8 app store is new.
I'd like to chalk all of this up to teething pains, but by gum Microsoft has run the Xbox thing fairly well overall, and the lessons should have transferred.
I suspect one factor that may be affecting a lot of first impressions is that the Windows and Office will be downloading and applying a few hundred MB of updates sometime in the first day or two after unboxing. This is perhaps worthy of some criticism, too, but it's not the normal state of operation.
Disclosure: I recently accepted a position at Microsoft, but in an unrelated part of the company. My Surface was purchased at full retail.
Further, there are apps already in the store for some of the things he mentioned no official apps being available for. Dropbox access is available through a free app named "New File Manager v2", for example. I don't know if he just didn't put in the effort to look for them or purposely used the "official" wording to paint the picture he wanted to, but it's somewhat misleading.
Spoilers: he tosses his Surface into a trash can at the end. Now that's what I call quality journalism.
I think the MS tablets (and they are tablets, despite Seigler saying they aren't because they're the "wrong shape") are between a rock and a hard place. On one side, the locked-down, user-friendly world of Apple. On the other, the free, tweaking, custom ROMing world of Android. It's trying to sit somewhere between the two and I'm not entirely convinced that it can.
I think that's kind of the point. Using the iPad is just a cleaner, nicer experience because it's not bogged down with a lot of the desktop cruft.
There is a trade-off between features and complexity, but Siegler doesn't try to evaluate that once in the article.
iPad lover insists everything should function like an iPad, then gets upset when it doesn't.
He claims the app store doesn't work at all, not that it doesn't look like the apple app store.
He may be a liar, but that is a different offense than what you accuse him of.
Windows RT tablets have a lot of the same neither-fish-nor-fowl nature. They are clunky and inefficient compared to an iPad or good Android tablet, but weak and underpowered compared to a Windows PC.
What a ridiculous amount of self-importance. Microsoft probably stopped sending out review units because reviews have been bad.
I know several people will Surface's and I haven't heard of the app store crashing from any of them. And I use the app store on a standard Win8 w/o a crash in the months I've used it.
And of the couple of people I've read who have had app store crashes, they have been people who typically don't like MS products.
The Surface is becoming more of a Rorschach test than anything else. Did anyone seriously think that MG would like the Surface? Does anyone seriously think that MG won't like WHATEVER Apple ships next?
No, but you might expect Paul Thurrott and Peter Bright to, if you were judging it on the basis of their general opinion of Microsoft.
The problem with ascribing opinions of the Surface/Windows 8/RT to one's general opinion of Microsoft and/or Windows is that so much of it is incongruous with what we think of as "Microsoft". People who like one Apple product tend to like most Apple products because there is a clear thread of simplicity and elegance that runs through them.
I'm not sure what thread has traditionally run through Microsoft products (lots of buttons, lots of choices, lots of legacy?), but the Surface, with its vertical integration model, and Metro, with its "non-power user" interface, breaks that thread. But then at the same time you have the desktop mode, which tries to maintain a connection to the Microsoft of old. So in conclusion it's a big mess and old biases don't necessarily apply.
I mention Thurrott as an exception. Peter Bright covers Microsoft, but certainly not someone who typically likes MS products. He tends to strongly dislike as often as he likes MS products (if not moreso).
People who like one Apple product tend to like most Apple products because there is a clear thread of simplicity and elegance that runs through them.
Really? Like the simplicity that is iTunes? The elegance that is AppleTV? The simplicity/elegance of OSX? Apple has been consistently elegant in hardware, but their software has been as jumbled a mess as anything from Microsoft or Google. It's just been coupled with much superior hardware -- and maybe that's enough, but it certainly not a thread that runs through all their products.
So in conclusion it's a big mess and old biases don't necessarily apply.
Yet old biases still seem to apply. Odd isn't it. And IMO the biases come out so clearly when you read what they write -- whether about the Surface or not, but especially about the Surface.
How is it possible that so many find it a joy to use, and so many can find no use for it at all. And it seems to fall completely along party lines?
I think it's just because not that many people actually have the Surface yet.
So as another commenter pointed out, it's probably either going to be early adopters who want it to be good anyway or the tech review sites which everyone seems to accuse both of having an Apple bias anyway.
Not saying either camp is correct, but it's not like we're talking about a big sample size here, in either case it's probably the vocal minority contributing to the initial impressions.
Even its power user apps, like Aperture and Final Cut Pro X (controversies notwithstanding) show a thoughtfulness and polish that I just don't see in the products of other large software companies, let alone a company that is also a first-class hardware manufacturer.
I feel like people tend to get enraged just because one person doesnt heap praise on the underdog and criticise the leader.
But the reality could just be he likes the products that work for him.
(Totally off topic but the wireless support for my desktop's card is bordering on unusable.)
I can already hear the IT department drooling over the prospect of a locked down machine that's cheap but still has the Office Suite and IE (the browser or large business) which frankly covers what 95% of office workers actually need.
It's a response to BYOD iPad's in the Office, not iPad's at home. Its also why I think Steven Sinofsky had to go. He wanted Microsoft divisions to fight each other, not work together.
Think of it this way, assuming Microsoft works on close integration between its products (without Sinofsky this might fly) it is in a unique position. They can offer the most complete end to end business solution for large companies. Hardware (Surface RT and x86), Phones (Windows Phone), Desktop OS, Server OS, Programming Languages, BI suites, Email (exchange), Database etc.....
I can't think of any other company that comes close to offering this except possibly Oracle and they are still missing a few things (Maybe they should offer to buy RIM?).
Source: Micrsoft, who has approached our company to build a Surface Pro app to compete in the enterprise space.
I got a chance to play with a Surface last weekend. The very first thing I noticed was the placement of the "home" button. I guess it might be called the Start button? No matter. It was located along the long edge of the device, as opposed to the short edge, which was really odd.
At first, I thought this was because the device is meant to be used horizontally with a keyboard attached to it, so having the button closer to the keyboard makes it more accessible. But then I realized this is unlikely to be the case, because the keyboard already has a (much more) accessible Start button! Which leaves the button on the device useless, because even when you're holding it in your hands, your thumbs are too short to reach it.
It's little details like this that killed the experience for me. It confirmed my suspicion that Microsoft does not understand user experience.
You can also swipe in from the right and get the "charms bar" which has a start button on it too, positioned midway up, which might be easier to reach for some people/grips.
But, it's a blog post. If I want solid content I must force myself to expect a lower bar, particularly on TC.