Right, so it’s a chunkier and louder tablet so it can be a laptop, and a wobblier laptop on your lap so it can be a tablet. Plus, the keyboard costs extra. What could possibly go wrong?
The iPad has magnets on the side, and their optional Smart Cover clicks onto it. You can keep the cover attached and fold it back when using the tablet, or you can just pull it off.
The Surface Type Cover works exactly the same way. Except it also happens to be a keyboard.
The Apple Smart Cover acts as a crude “kickstand.” The built-in kickstand on the SP3 serves the same purpose, except it is fully adjustable and very stable.
Yes, it has a vent, because it uses a full Core i series CPU. Just like the Macbook Air.
The Surafce Pro 3 is much more than an iPad + Macbook Air.
First, it’s a 12-inch tablet, with a 3:2 aspect ratio and high-resolution display (2160x1440). That’s comparable resolution to the Retina iPad, but almost 60% larger (by area). This makes a huge difference for reading textbooks and working with formatted documents.
Then there’s the digitizer (stylus), which is incredibly useful for making notes & highlighting while reading documents and textbooks, writing notes & sketches, etc. No Apple product has an active digitizer. The SP3 not only has one, but it’s probably the best one out there. I used to swear by Wacom digitizers, but the one on the SP3 is even better - comparable precision and feel, but much less parallax (offset between the stylus tip and cursor). Also it has a neat OneNote integration feature: even when the system is in sleep mode, one tap on the stylus wakes it up AND opens OneNote, ready for you to take notes.
It’s also a very nice laptop. The screen size is just big enough for real work. The ability to remove the keyboard is actually useful too - when I’m just using it to view video or play music, I remove the keyboard and put it away so it doesn’t take up space on the desk. Same for watching a movie on the plane.
It even makes a good desktop PC. The docking station is very well built. I use it as may main desktop PC at home, as well as my main PC during travel, and also at work (for personal use).
Overall I’ve been extremely happy with it. The only thing I could wish for is more & better Windows-8 apps.
I use mine all the time, especially in grad school. The stylus is perfect for note. I don’t like typing notes. So I just click the back of the pen, OneNote comes up, and I just start drawing my notes.
I used to feel the same way but got a Windows Phone in 2012 and have had a much better experience with that than with my iPhone.
What is so scary about a little competition? I’m pretty invested in the Apple ecosystem, but it seems pretty clear to me that we all benefit from a competitive market that rewards innovation.
I think the Surface has been more than adequately defended above, but let’s take a closer look at your “running the wrong way” assertion.
The trouble is that Apple thinks there is a “right way” but the market doesn’t agree. There are many right ways. So if Apple doesn’t do a case that doubles as a keyboard, someone else will, since some people want that. I didn’t like how iOS looked in 2012; to me, it’s visually complex and annoying. So that was a big reason I jumped to Windows Phone. (Apple has tended to have the cleaner, simpler look, but in this case it didn’t.) Now you can come back and tell me that Windows Phone’s market share sucks, but actually, it’s slowly been growing, and that’s my key point: not that any one thing is better than Apple, but Apple is being cut from all sides (and so is everyone else: hence the brutal marketplace).
Wrong. I already gave the example of Xiaomi, which has quickly eaten up a ton of Android market share in Asia with barely anyone in the US hearing about it. The phones look great, have great features, and are cheap as hell.
I am not a proponent of the Kindle. My reasoning here is the same as above: some people will want it for whatever makes it distinctive.
Apple is in a position similar to GM in cars in the US in the 1970s. It was on top, and yes there was major competition from Ford and Chrysler and there was this upstart called Volkswagen selling cheap bugs. But the future was bright. Then the Japanese entered the market. Dang, that stings a little. Then more European makers taking away share in the luxury market. Then the Japanese kick ass in the luxury market, creating whole new brands. Then the Koreans. Then Tesla and whoever, but by then GM has long been far from dominant; it is seen as a rather sad player in the field. But the fact is that no company could have maintained GM’s position over the long terms, since the market was getting divided a thousand ways.
This can’t be a story like the iPhone in that Apple won’t be first to market with a game-changer and in fact is way behind Samsung in this case. Plus, Samsung’s product is no big success, and no one sees this market as particularly exciting. People were going crazy about the iPhone in 2007 pre-launch.
The fact of the matter is that Apple doesn’t have an exciting product in the pipeline. Nor is their anything conceivable that they could do. We’ve hit a kind of personal tech plateau. PCs are dying, everyone has a smart phone, tablets are kinda meh, and wearables are DOA (at least for now). Technical advances will no doubt change that in the future (plug into the Matrix and have completely realistic sex with ultra-hot partners), but for now the excitement is muted.
For shits and giggles, since you’re worried about Apple and we’re almost on the cusp of Xmas morning, let’s revisit this incredibly useless and unscientific search of tweets from Xmas morning 2013 for the terms “got iPad,” “got Note,” “got Kindle” or “got Surface.”
120,608 got iPad vs. 4,177 got Surface.
No idea what it’ll be like in a few days. It’s a good bet that the numbers will be closer, but I’m guessing it will still be a merryer Xmas in Cupertino than in Redmond. I will eat my words if necessary.
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Apple knows there are many right ways. They focus on one particular way and market and design toward that (the people who are more into appearances than functionality). I wouldn’t worry about Apple–there will always be a market for that.
The Surface Pro 3 screen may be larger, but the iPad Air 2 screen is 22% sharper.
I can’t argue against the active digitizer. But that’s hardly “much” more than an iPad + Macbook Air, isn’t it?
And it also costs $90 more than an Apple cover. The fact that Microsoft doesn’t include the keyboard as standard tells me that even they aren’t sure what the Surface is. If you don’t buy one, is it still a laptop replacement? And if it’s not a laptop, it’s an expensive, chunky tablet.
The reviews I’ve read still lament that the kickstand (while better than earlier versions) is not great when using it on your lap like a laptop. I believe it works well for you, but apparently it doesn’t for others. And if you’re not using the keyboard, is there much reason to use the kickstand? Is the added cost/weight/thickness/breakability worth it for watching a movie on the occasional airplane flight?
Yes, I know why it has a vent. My exasperation (vent!) was to show that I think it’s a bug, not a feature. It’s like what Curly said in City Slickers- find your One Thing. Stick to it and everything else don’t mean shit. In other words, don’t try to be both a tablet and a laptop if you’re going to have to compromise on both.
Sorry about my editing on my last post. I tried to edit, then SDMB wasn’t available for a bit. How NAFF!!!
It all depends on the degree of compromise, doesn’t it?
“Stick with your one thing”–I agree, that’s good marketing thinking. But how that plays out depends on the direction from which you are coming, as dominant player or scrappy upstart. Let me explain.
Apple has done that, and it’s paid off. They had a better OS (IMHO), they made higher-quality computers, desktops and laptops. Their market share was about 5%, profit was good, and they liked it that way. So did Apple fans, “Macs.” We got to enjoy being part of a small but prestigious club, and we liked that we didn’t get viruses and malware. At this point, Apple was in essence a small luxury brand.
It’s pretty darn rare for such a company to go to dominant player, but Apple did it with the iPod and then the iPhone. They deserved it; those were great products. Apple did an incredible thing: it got to have it both ways: it got to be both luxury/prestigious and ubiquitous. And, amazingly, it has been able to hold that position for a long time.
But that is a really tough thing to maintain, and reversion to the mean is the rule. Desktops and laptops are no longer an attractive market, and in any case Apple’s products in that area are very minor compared to their others. I think that might be the origin of the feeling of alienation I feel from Apple now. In 2004, I was on board. I was a Mac. I was enjoying using the Mac OS for the first time with my new laptop. I would never go back to Windows, I felt (and still don’t want to). When the iPhone came out in 2007, I was more than enthusiastic. I got my Mac, I got my iPhone, and they play well together. Then, suddenly, the Mac, the thing that had originally sold me, just wasn’t that important to Apple any more. That’s what leaves me cold now. It’s not all Apple’s fault. That market is objectively not as important now.
So anyway, Apple is no longer the scrappy upstart/maverick/luxury brand with respect to compooters (because no one gives a shit about compooters any more, so the category has been voided), and it’s being sliced and diced in phones and tablets, as was inevitable. It does make me sad, as I used to identify with the brand. And I am typing this on my MacBook Pro right now, but the meaning that used to be there is gone.
I had an anal-retentitve point-by-point reply to your previous post, but I see now maybe that’s not appropriate because you feel much more personally involved in the subject than I do. (That’s not meant as a slight, fwiw, I respect that you seem genuinely concerned.) So I’ll just sum up by saying I disagree with almost everything you have said. 
Please, grant me your anus.
SP3 is 2160x1440, iPad Air 2 is 2048×1536. That’s a 1% difference in pixel count.
If you’re looking at pixel density, then yes, the iPad is sharper. Only because it’s the same number of pixels crammed into a smaller screen.
For me, it is. When used as a tablet, the digitizer is what makes it a productivity tool rather than just a media consumption device.
And why doesn’t Apple include a Smart Cover? Maybe because they wanted the customer to choose the color. Maybe they figured there will be third-party options that some customers would choose. Or they just wanted to lower the sticker price.
It works perfectly fine as a laptop, for me. And the kickstand is very useful for a tablet without the keyboard. Apple apparently agrees, because their iPad Smart Cover also acts as a stand. And like the Smart Cover, the SP3 kickstand can be used in almost-vertical and almost-flat positions. The almost-flat position works really well for typing, drawing or writing onscreen. The more vertical orientation works well for watching video, or just using it as a music player (which I do at work a lot), etc. Unlike the Apple cover, the SP3 kickstand is adjustable continuously between these two extremes.
I think this is now an outdated thinking - it’s like saying “don’t try to be a laptop and a desktop, you’re going to have to compromise on both.” At this point, the “compromises” are so trivial that they are dwarfed by the advantage of having everything on a single system.
That one I bolded? Yeah. I don’t think that’s it. 
Consumer: Will there be third party hardware support?
Apple exec: What?
Consumer: Third party hardware support.
Apple exec: Speak English, man
Consumer: Third party hardware.
Apple exec: Your lips are moving, but you’re not making any sense.
Apple Stores are full of third party accessories. Even their online store.
It’s obviously an exaggeration. I was jut riffing on the fact that Apple has traditionally employed such a vice like grip on the makers of third party hardware that you have to wonder if they’d rather the entire concept just go away entirely.
Because that store at Keystone is where dreams die, at least on first glance. It’s not the products or the salespeople, it’s the customers (or more accurately, “people in the way”). But I had to go in there a few days ago to get an iPod for my sister-in-law’s Christmas present. It honestly could not have gone any smoother. Friendly Apple Guy in a red shirt sees me looking around for a salesperson, asks if he can help, I tell him I need an iPod, he points me towards Friendly Apple Girl, and within 6 minutes, I’ve paid for and taken possession of a shiny new iPod. I was positive it was going to be vastly more painful than that.
I’ve never gone into the Microsoft store, but it looks awesome. I don’t think it’s hit a tipping point there yet - once there’s enough people, I won’t feel like I’m being swarmed by employees. But I have tooled around with a Surface Pro at a Best Buy. They’re pretty amazing pieces of tech. We don’t have much need for a laptop at my house - both my wife and I have laptops provided by work, and my desktop works perfectly fine for everything else. But I’d be really tempted.
I absolutely have no complaints about the store itself–or any Apple store. It’s well run, and I’ve used the tech support numerous times and received good service.
It’s not the retail locations per se. It’s that I was/am a heavy Mac user, but I don’t feel invited in by the spirit of Apple, the actual products they have, etc. There are so many people in there and I think, “What’s the party all about?” There’s nothing I need in there.
Surface Pro is more like a hard hit baseball than a bullet. It will get some market share for those people that want/need to run windows apps and that’s it.
Android won, there is just no competing with a tech that allows any company to get into the game with minimal (comparatively to revenues) or non-existent licensing.
Unix followed the same path in the server arena, anyone could get into the game and make money, it creates a pretty much unstoppable train. Linux did the same thing with an even lower bar to getting into the game.
Apple certainly has to innovate to keep the revenues rolling in long term, and that is very difficult to do. Android will continue to chip away at Apple’s profits by moving up the food chain.
MS is barely relevant. They will get their small piece of the pie, but it will be 3rd place or worse in phone/tablet. There is simply nothing compelling to get the masses to move away from Apple or Android to MS.
Well, it is literally a laptop that runs the OS that most people use, so its uses aren’t really all that obscure. I agree with everything else you said, however.