I Think I Figured Out Why the Surface Book is so Glitchy At Launch

[several potatos]

and it's actually really a clever, best of a tough situation move by MS.

OK, so, what do we know about the release of the Surface Book? First, it was a HUGE surprise. Nobody predicted anything like what was revealed. Except, everyone predicted it. What do I mean? The rumors of the second, bigger SP4. Everyone talked about that, and everyone said "oh, the book was the bigger surface 4 the whole time" after the reveal. But, then how could that size get leaked so quickly without any other feature? Because the Surface Book was tested primarily without the keyboard. It was presented to most testers and employees as a bigger Surface Pro 4, and no mention of the keyboard was made. This explains how no GPU rumors were floated around, too.

So, Microsoft had to have just the higher-level engineers test the keyboard part of the Surface Book. This meant that the keyboard got enough testing to launch, but not enough to be totally bug-free. Then, it launches, and what happens? Almost all the bugs are related to integration between the keyboard and the main device, because most testing was done without the device. Why? So they wouldn't show their hand.

The good part of this? Microsoft was probably planning to tell all the other testers "test this keyboard base!" the moment the reveal was done. Thus, we shall probably soon see a lot of true fixes for these launch bugs, because this wasn't actually a surprise to the executives at all. They had a plan to fix this as soon as the problems appeared. Now that it is in consumer hands, the more rapid bug reports will probably be an immense help to repair of the current issues as well.

 

[ttsoldier]

If that makes you sleep better at night....

 

[photobriangray]

...Because the Surface Book was tested primarily without the keyboard. It was presented to most testers and employees as a bigger Surface Pro 4, and no mention of the keyboard was made. This explains how no GPU rumors were floated around, too.

So, Microsoft had to have just the higher-level engineers test the keyboard part of the Surface Book. This meant that the keyboard got enough testing to launch, but not enough to be totally bug-free. Then, it launches, and what happens? Almost all the bugs are related to integration between the keyboard and the main device, because most testing was done without the device. Why? So they wouldn't show their hand.

...Microsoft was probably planning to tell all the other testers "test this keyboard base!" the moment the reveal was done.

Panos was interviewed at wired about how the exact opposite was how things went down. Higher ups saw the Surface Book ONLY with the keyboard. In fact, development versions did not have the undock button and only a handful of people outside the Surface dev team knew the screen could detach.

The issues are mostly, if not 100%, around the Intel integrated graphics drivers as issues are popping up on the Pro 4 and Book without the dGPU. ...and hardware development and product release don't go down that way. Ever.

That reveal became both a game and a test. Panay decided that they would only talk to people about it as a laptop. “And then when people look at it and say, it is worth every penny as a laptop…we give you so much more.” Even when Panay and his team began showing the Surface Book to partners and retailers, they never, ever detached it. “No matter what demo I do,” Panay told his team, “no matter what retail meeting I’m in, no one gets to see it with the top off.” They disabled the function, and even took the key off the keyboard. No one outside of Microsoft employees and the occasional privileged family member saw that the Book’s screen could detach until about a month before launch.

Source

 

[erzhik]

That would make sense if there were any hardware issues. But there are pretty much zero hardware problems, the hardware itself is top notch. It's the software that becomes problematic. Seems like the Surface team was more focused on the hardware to deliver the perfect tech. Software problems are always in the background for tech companies, because they are easily fixable.