Microsoft and Surface Tension

Before I begin, I'll admit something that I consider a deep dark secret.

I LIKE the Surface. I don't love it. I LIKE IT! That alone is an unpopular opinion.

I think the Microsoft's homemade tablet has a lot of potential to smash in to the computing market like a wrecking ball (insert miley cyrus track here), but some bonehead moves are keeping it from realizing it's full potential.

I honestly think that the potential with the Surface tablets lies with the fact that they are effectively tablets for PEOPLE WHO WANT TO GET THINGS DONE. They are tablets for creators, not just consumers. As such, they are a major wrench in the tablet market engine.

Sure you have the potential to create on other tablets (iPad, GalaxyTab, Nexus, etc) but it's often limited by weak third party applications and complicated connectivity issues. They are marketed as tools to help consume content. Apps, Games, Music and Videos are the main purpose. This is no secret.

Microsoft came in with a different tune. They knew that content consumption was a cornered market and breaking in was going to be a challenge. Instead they went a different route. Yeah, you can consume on these surface devices too....but you can ALSO CREATE. Running a full desktop OS allows for a lot of flexibility with application and periphreal support. Photoshop, Pro-Tools, Vegas, etc. All of that would run on this small tablet with a keyboard you can throw in your bag. It was a thin and light laptop with a touch screen. The idea seems great.  I mean the main accessory for this thing is a keyboard. How much more work oriented could you get?

Microsoft then made the huge mistake of ignoring this fact almost immediately and targeting content consumers as their ideal audience. All of the advertising seemed centered around "COOL" dancing and interaction rather than the potential of the device. With the prices the way they sat, nobody was going to buy a surface OR a surface pro when they could get a cool iPad instead.

Another problem came with the RT version of the tablet. RT was an ARM based version of the Surface. It could only use apps from the windows store, and it had a Desktop mode which was effectively worthless because you couldn't run the same windows apps you could on your computer. This was their targeted consumption device. It ran awfully, lacked an ecosystem, and was no competition for iPads or Android equivalents.

Worse yet, Microsoft managed to cannibalize their own sales. Why would anybody buy a Surface RT when they could get a Pro for small premium. The Pro does EVERYTHING, and it does it well. The Surface RT is a monstrosity that should not have ever existed. It's only advantage over the more powerful brother was that it was a bit thinner and lacked a "noisy" fan. As expected, the tablet sold terribly and Microsoft lost millions on the launch. I thought they had learned their lesson then and there.

You can imagine my horror when I heard that the Surface 2 was coming in an RT flavor as well. Microsoft does not even come close to having the required ecosystem to make this work. Sure it's a low priced surface tablet, but it lacks the functionality that makes the surface great. For the same price, I can get a Nexus 10 and enjoy my content with a couple hundred bucks lining my pocket. I could also spend a bit more and get a larger library of content with an iPad.

The Surface Pro, on the other hand remains a great tablet PC for people who want to make things happen. The new ads focus on this, and it seems Microsoft is getting the message now. I have some ideas about their long term plans for the RT platform but regardless, the Surface RT is a mistake. It's their biggest mistake and it is tainting the amazing potential that lies in the Surface brand. I hope Microsoft knows what they're doing and bails out before it's too late. I would love to see the Surface succeed and I'm eagerly awaiting a Nokia made Microsoft branded Surface Phone. Yes Please.

Hardware Concept - One Stop Dock

Portable computing has come a long way in recent years. Where 6 years ago, our only option for portable computing was a heavy laptop computer, now we have devices that fit in our pockets that can do everything we need on the road.

However, this abundance of devices poses a possible problem. There's too many of them! I'll give an anecdote to explain further:

When I left for college, my family bought me a laptop computer, coincidentally the one I am still using today. Later during the HP fire sale, I bought a HP TouchPad tablet and flashed Android on it. I also have an Android smartphone.

Back home, I had a mid range desktop PC. While the specs are a bit dated, it still outperforms my laptop when it comes to things like 3D gaming or video editing. However, since my life at school needed portability, all of my programs, settings, and files were set up ideally on my laptop. When I came home, even in the presence of my more powerful gaming computer with the larger screen, I was still on my laptop most of the time. I only reluctantly turned my desktop on when I wanted to play a game. Talk about first world problems.

Now I propose a solution to this. One device with all settings, that can be "upgraded" at will. Basically you have your tablet or laptop computer with it's limited specs. However, since it's portable you have all of your settings on there. Sure, cloud helps to bridge this gap but it's still not really enough.

Now imagine you have the option to dock this in a setup with much higher specifications. When docked, the system would ignore the onboard specs (or combine them a la SLI or something) and gives you the full scale performance you expect from a larger more permanent computer. That would be amazing!

The dock could be configurable like a standard desktop. You would have all the ports and features you dont get from a smaller tablet or laptop. You could even do things like install stand alone drives in the computer that back up the entire OS using the built in hardware, while you use the dock's hardware to do your work / gaming.

Click to embiggen and read my musings.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine that dock now becomes a home mainframe device. You access content on your portable device from the living room TV via wifi or something. Suddenly you only need one device and some (hopefully standardized) accessories.

I know this gets kinda sketchy but, now lets go to the maximum of extravagance and wastefulness that makes America awesome. Imagine you take that main tablet with you and dock it when you get home. But WAIT! you want to watch movies on the couch and browse with it but you want to keep the tablet docked to charge / backup / someone else is using it/ etc.

There's a type of computer called a zero client device. Basically its a barebones computer that relies on a mainframe to run it's OS. Take that, apply it to a tablet (bare bones, low specs, basically running from the dock / main device combo). Now you can browse on the couch and not mess with anything else. The best part - these devices could come extremely cheap because they will be used for light activity and don't need onboard storage.

Anyways, this is what I see as the future of personal computing. It's not really Post-PC, but rather PC+. Because you know what? I LIKE a tactile keyboard and high power, and I won't be giving that up anytime soon.

Laptop Idea #1 - Touch ALL THE THINGS!

This idea has been kind of thrown around a bit lately but it is rapidly becoming necessary.

Put basically, the days of the mouse are rapidly coming to an end. Touchscreens offer so much more control over a UI than an abstract connection between a pointer and a mouse.

My "Idea" is not exactly a new proposal. I just want a re-imagining of the whole human input concept. The most obvious way to do this is with a touchscreen laptop / computer. This is most famously seen with the Asus EeePad Transformer. Android is a UI designed for finger interactions, but sometimes you need the quick tactile response of a keyboard for typing. This combines the best of both worlds and even gives you a trackpad if you are so inclined to use that. For the most part you will be using the Tablet portion of the setup, which is a 10 inch touchscreen, for all of your navigation purposes.

The cousin of the Transformer, the Asus EeePad Slider does away with the trackpad and leaves you with a spring loaded slide out keyboard and tilted touchscreen. Not the most practical thing to use in the everyday, but still a step in the right direction.

These computers are only that though, a step in the right direction. They are, for the most part, underpowered computer companions rather than replacements.

I hate to say it, but Android is NOT to be considered a FULL FEATURED desktop class operating system...YET. I feel like it will get there in a few more years but for now, people need WINDOWS.

Enter Windows 8. A new version designed with fingers in mind. All of your legacy applications work, as well as new finger based applications. It CAN work with a mouse, but it will be mainly for touch input.

Now that the operating system is there, back to the question of HARDWARE. The problem I have with tablets and smartphones is that my fingers get greasy and smudge the screen very easily. I heard that some company was designing a type of glass that was smudge proof, but until then the concept of a full sized 15+ inch laptop with a smudgey touchscreen just bothers me.

Then I saw the "BentoBox" computer concept and noticed it had a REALLY good idea. Touch screen for a mouse pad. The smudges on this would not interfere with screen visibility and it has far more uses than a multi-touch trackpad. It could be used to display information in a certain "non mouse mode" and while in "mouse mode" could display static information, such as a clock, weather, network connectivity, stocks, sports scores, etc. A secondary mode could use the track pad as a quicklaunch toolbox, small secondary screen for additional settings, etc. There could be many modes all toggled by a hardware key.

Once technology creates the finger-proof glass, why not have BOTH. Or you could save space and make just one touch screen. I admit traditional mice come in handy for small or detail-oriented work, so maybe some way to incorporate both would work. Maybe have a "pro" model with a touchscreen and a trackpad, and a "basic" model which is a smaller model with just a screen and keyboard. Either way works and makes use of the touchscreen technology available these days.

Again, this is not a NEW or NOVEL idea by any means. I was just using the dying trackpad on my Dell Inspiron 1525 and thought "this is bullcrap, it's 2012, why are we still using this"

So to recap
- I like hardware keyboards. Chiclet, mechanical or other, a hardware keyboard is the best way to go.
- Touch screens are very useful for broad navigation. They should be included as a tool for the majority of navigation
- for small or detail-oriented work, a traditional mouse would be good. maybe include a sort of touchscreen trackpad

Here's my VERY rough and untalented mock up in MS Paint. Enjoy