Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: Forget the iPad, Surface Is the Tablet People Want

zacharye writes "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer undoubtedly knows that Apple has sold more than 100 million iPad tablets at this point, but according to the outspoken executive, that's not the tablet people really want. While speaking with CNBC, Ballmer said no company has built a tablet he believes customers want. 'You can go through the products from all those guys and none of them has a product that you can really use. Not Apple. Not Google. Not Amazon. Nobody has a product that lets you work and play that can be your tablet and your PC. Not at any price point,' he says."

Re:First impressions on Surface

[Idimmu Xul]

You can't do extensive photo editing or programming on an iPad either.

I just spent 6 weeks travelling with an iPad and the only thing it was really useful for was uploading photos I'd taken to and using it as a nice display to present the images to people I met. I did manage to edit up a video in iMovie to a reasonable degree though.

What *killed* it for me was the crappy keyboard and the limitations of IOS. I had to download an app in order to download and play freely available, legal MP3s off Soundcloud.

For my next trip I'm going to get a Mac Air I think, hardware wise the Surface looks exactly like it's what I want to be honest, but I'd miss OS X.

Returning surface

[Anonymous Coward]

I was excited to get my surface on Friday. By Sunday I decided to return it. I found it to be a compromise both as a tablet and a laptop. Many ui items are too small and I did not like the transitions from tablet ui to laptop ui and back again. I love the custom tiles of the start screen, unfortunately I found it to be all downhill from there.

Re:There you go again Ballmer

[CastrTroy]

I would have to say that a MacBook Air (if you don't really care about touch, or a Dell XPS Touch Ultrabook with the flip around screen if you insist on a touch interface, would come pretty close to this. The MBA and ultrabooks are basically small enough that they take up about the same amount of space as a tablet, yet they contain a real OS and a real keyboard that let you get real work done. The problem is that for the price of them, you could pick up both a laptop and a tablet, and have the best of both worlds. For days when you need a laptop, bring the laptop (and tablet too if you want) for days when you know you probably won't need a laptop, just bring the tablet. Both the iPad and the Surface RT suffer from the problem of running different operating systems than your standard desktop or laptop which means there's a lot of business applications that just won't run.

Re:First impressions on Surface

[Literaphile]

Throwing in an incorrect fact or two adds to the authenticity!

Re:Does it have a pressure sensitive, 200+dpi styl

[mcelrath]

The Surface Pro [microsoft.com] does. Here is a longer list [live.com] of Windows 8 tablets with DPI > 150 and a stylus. I find 150 DPI to be the minimum if you want subscripts to be legible when placing a full page on screen (width maximized). Of course, the higher the better.

I've long been frustrate that Apple decided to forgo the stylus (and all others are playing copycat), and I'm really really frustrated that no one else sees the utility and use case in a computer that acts like paper (facepalm). I'll give Windows 8 a try for 5 or 10 minutes, but then Ubuntu and Xournal [sourceforge.net] are going on mine. I'm also really frustrated that all these morons decided a 16:9 TV screen is the only way to make a computer screen: they're substantially narrower and taller than a Letter or A4 piece of paper. But at least they've finally returned to the desired DPI and stylus feature-point. The last time that happened was 2007 with the Thinkpad x61 tablet (with the SXGA+ screen upgrade).

Re:Does it have a pressure sensitive, 200+dpi styl

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Galaxy Note 10.1 It has 1,024 degrees of pressure and palm/heel rejection.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/15/samsung-galaxy-note-10-1-review/ [engadget.com]

Re:Download an app???? NO!!!!

[SplashMyBandit]

Why the insult? Being able to remote in to more powerful resources was the essence of client-server, web, and now cloud computing (predated by things such as X11's network transparent model). Just because you don't mash the bits on the iPad's CPU doesn't mean it won't allow you to get your specific task done, whether that is compute PI, or start a thermonuclear war, or do image processing using a gang of remote servers.

Personally I don't like the default input modes of iPad and Android devices (and MS Surface is still vaporware in my part of the World). The simple addition of a Bluetooth keyboard and your productivity goes up. You need a Net connection to be useful but it is getting more and more rare to be out of range of a 3G network in my part of the World.

So, IMHO, your statements show a mindset stuck in somewhat dated concepts about what constitutes a useful device or not. The iPad/Android etc are no less powerful that a web browser with access to the Net (where the millions of Google's Linux boxen will crunch all sorts of stuff for you; search; map, translate etc).

Re:MS Surface problems

[Mike Buddha]

One of the features that I look forward to using in the Windows 8 world is the ability to automatically sync data between like programs on different devices. I'm already seeing that somewhat on my Windows 8 laptop (a Macbook Pro), and the Vivo Tab RT I picked up on Friday. Everything is tied in to my single account and everything syncs up nicely.

I've been waiting for someone to get this right. I thought Apple was going to be the one, hence the MacBook, iPad, and iPhone purchases, but syncing data between these devices is still fairly archaic. Google nearly had me when they allowed devices to link to my Google account. Microsoft is taking home the prize for the seamless integration between my two devices. When WIndows Phone 8 comes out for Verizon, I'm there with bells on.

And to pre-empt any accusations: I'm a total shill for Microsoft. That's why I have all my Apple stuff, and a Google Nexus 7. That's also why I bought an Asus RT tablet.

Re:First impressions on Surface

[narcc]

Could it be that he just likes the product?

Would you assume that he was a shill if he ejaculated a post about the iPad instead?

Re:First impressions on Surface

[blind biker]

I've seen how apps are sideloaded on a Windows RT tablet, and it's ugly - it's just one step removed from being rooting the device. It's such a hack that it looks like MS is going to plug it ASAP.

And, as you said yourself, even MS is saying that sideloading apps isn't possible, which signals their actual intentions on the issue.

Re:Download an app???? NO!!!!

[Kyusaku Natsume]

Actually the virtual keyboards are pretty useful, and specially in the case of the iOS versions of Pages, Keynote and Numbers,(mostly in Numbers) are a godsend, since the keyboards change according to context, and in case of multilingual imput, in my case, Spanish, English and Japanese I can use the proper spell checker even word by word if I liked just by changing the virtual keyboard. For all the non alphabetical writing systems the virtual keyboard is so superior to the usual imput methods that the use of a "real" keyboard is a hindrance.