It’s going to be my backpack/biking/mobile machine. It can’t do everything, but my Toshiba Ultrabook can do whatever I might need beyond the abilities of the Surface. I was comparing it last night to my iPad, which is still gathering dust, and I tried to sum up why I’ll no doubt be using the Surface every day, while the iPad was relegated to dusty forgetfulness: Apple’s core philosophy is to tell you what it wants you to do with its tablet, while Microsoft seems to have decided instead to give you as many options as they could cram into their machine, and let you figure out what the hell you can do with it.
via The Surface RT: Microsoft Has A Huge Winner Here, As Far As I’m Concerned | Daily Pundit.
I don’t need another computer – I have my heavy storage laptop that never moves and is hooked up to a 41-inch television; I have my Dell Ultrabook, which I love and primarily use now; and I have my iPad, which is basically a $500 Kindle.
What I find attractive in Mr. Quick’s review is the workaround he found for untethering from iTunes.
I. Hate. iTunes.
Beyond my writing, my music collection is the most personally valuable thing to me – I listen to a ton of music and have spent a great deal of money on said collection. I currently use iTunes, and several years ago burned my hundreds of CDs, which are now in iTunes.
I don’t like giving Apple money, but for what I use them for, their products work. But I don’t trust them and their continuing obsessive control of user content.
For example, I have an iPhone 4s, which I like … but the main thing I like about it is having my entire music library on it (yes, I have the big dog 4s and yes, I’m sure your music collection is much bigger than mine). If the Samsung Galaxy or similarly good device exists when my iPhone is obsolete next year, I will upgrade to that and whatever iteration of the Surface is available, thus getting me off Apple products for good.
I use the Kindle app on my iPad, and as I’ve said before, I read more than ever thanks to it (and I much prefer the reading experience of the iPad than the Kindle. If the reading experience is anywhere near as good on the Surface, then game-on, as I can now travel with one device instead of two. Admittedly, my Dell Ultrabook is my favorite computer since my – heh – Powerbook, so I don’t know if I’ll ever break from it.
Looking forward to test-driving a Surface after that review, though.
Just finished loading Windows 8 on my laptop today and so far it has me itching to buy one with a touchscreen even though we already own an iPad.
I think Microsoft is on to something with their new strategy, although part of said strategy is to be more like Apple (simplicity through limited options). After just a day of playing with Windows 8, I can see replacing my iPhone with a Windows phone in a year or two… something I would have said would never happen if you’d asked me last week.
I have my music cobbled together through an unholy mishmash of iTunes, Rhapsody, and (mostly) Windows. My setup works very well with Rhapsody and Windows, but iTunes is the perpetual bastard child in my music collection and would be the easiest for me to cut loose.
The only problem I can see for Microsoft is that Windows 8 is really designed for the student and home consumer. It is not a great business OS, or at least it is foreign enough that businesses are going to be reluctant to adopt it… and since the business world is Microsoft’s cash cow, that could spell trouble for them. I won’t be surprised if they roll out a business version soon that looks more like Windows 7 and skips the Metro start page.
Day 2 of Windows 8 and it gets even better once you scoop out all of Microsoft’s annoying MSN and Bing tie-ins. I’m not crazy about Google as a company, but nobody else has come up with a search engine that works as well as theirs. Bing is kind of a turd sandwich and I’m surprised it is still hanging around.