Amazon Immediately Steals Surface 2 Thunder

[tgp]

I've heard that if we knew how disjointed Microsoft was we'd be surprised that they can produce anything at all! I suppose that that's true, to some extent, for any company that size.

 

[txkimmers]

Watch this video.

Why I love my Microsoft Surface RT, Part 2 - YouTube

This video totally sold me. Those options, plus Office 2013 with Outlook, plus expandable memory....I had zero interest in a tablet of any kind until now. Starting my Xmas Gift campaign today.

 

[DCProjMgr]

If it requires a stand alone app, Amazon has only done those for their store and Kindle. If it can be accessed through a web interface then it will work through IE 11 on a RT device.

But, not in HD!. Only the Fire and some TV's and DVR's can do that. So, Amazon's got you there if you are a Prime subscriber.

Also, if MS made a 7 or 8 inch tablet running Windows RT with a decent screen and as light as the Fire I would snap it up in a second, even if it cost more than the Kindle. In my opinion, that is the only form factor where RT makes sense.

 

[rea2013]

My standard response for all competing products now is "Can it play Halo?"

I do the exact same thing, in a joking way though . I have this friend who was going to get a Lumia 920 and got an GS3, I keep telling him stuff like "I'm just off to play Halo, on my phone of course." I also sometimes do the same thing with wireless charging, etc.

 

[a5cent]

My understanding is that the Xbox One is effectively already the same as Windows 8 save for a few things that make sense to be different

And that is exactly why we will never have complete API unification. There are always differences, and the closer people program to the hardware (as in games, which are in no way comparable to web applications) the less those differences are masked by API's. You can't make something identical that is fundamentally different, and the deeper you dig, the less identical you realize phones, tablets, desktops and servers are.

MS can obviously get closer than they are right now, and that is great, but at least the lower level APIs will never be identical.

 

[Christian Kallevig]

Of course it can never be truly identical, but if you're going through something like DirectX and other things that are already capable of working on different platforms with minimal effort then at least the amount of actual new code that needs to be written can be greatly reduced.

And for things that don't need low level access, which is probably most apps, then the 'write once, run anywhere' thing is not terribly impractical.

 

[a5cent]

Of course it can never be truly identical, but if you're going through something like DirectX and other things that are already capable of working on different platforms with minimal effort then at least the amount of actual new code that needs to be written can be greatly reduced.

And for things that don't need low level access, which is probably most apps, then the 'write once, run anywhere' thing is not terribly impractical.

I think we are pretty much in agreement. It's just that the expectations people have when they hear the term "API unification" usually go beyond what we just discussed. The expectation usually is that you would be able to deploy the exact same application to different devices, with a code base that is able to completely ignore differences in screen size, the set of sensors, CPU and GPU performance characteristics, etc. In reality, no matter how unified the APIs get, we will always hear of porting efforts between devices. Always. The goal of API unification is to reduce the amount of effort required to the lowest possible levels, which in some cases, may still be a lot of work.

 

[Christian Kallevig]

Anyone who thinks that is just plain ignorant. The hardware differences between, say, a desktop PC and a Windows Phone are far too enormous for something to work without some retooling, or at the very least being programmed to be adaptable to different scenarios.

I'm not a software developer myself, and the only programming language I've ever learned is Blitz Basic... But even I can appreciate that the more low-level access you require, the more work it's going to take to port something, no matter what APIs you use.

 

[Jas00555]

I don't know why we're freaking out about "unified API". No large company has that.

People keep talking about Apple, but hell, they have 3 different stores: The Mac app store, the IOS store (and there are a lot of iPhone apps that don't scale very well to iPad apps), and the Apple TV apps. Sure, they're similar, but definitely not unified.

 

[SwimSwim]

I so agree. Surface RT/2 is made for students. Free Office with laptop experience AND full tablet experience in a robust design.

I agree with you 100%, the problem is, again, getting the market to realize that.

I've said it a bazillion times already, but I'm in highschool. If you were to ask all the kids what kind of tablet they want, 87% of responses would be an iPad, 12% of responses would be some kind of Android tablet, and the other 2% would be me on probably a few others kids who would answer a Microsoft Surface.

The Surface definitely is much better for homework and such, but many kids aren't even aware it exists. Also, the small app market is a real pain. Sure, it's awesome when you're getting work done, but when it's time for play, the Windows Store leaves a lot to be desired. Yes, I'm aware it's up to use early adopters to grow and nurture the OS, but kids aren't going to care how much school work they can get done if they can't play afterwards.

Seriously, "Hey kids, would you rather have a tablet that lets you do your homework, or a tablet that lets you plays lots and lots of games?!" What do you think the response will be? So while I will personally enjoy how much easier school work will be since I won't have to use the laptops anymore (once I buy my Pro), most kids are just fine with using the crappy school laptops for their work, and then their iPhones and iPads for play.

So, for the schools example, two major obstacles:
1) Getting kids to acknowledge the thing even EXISTS.
2) Getting more apps, so they'll have enough games to make them feel it's worth buying.

 

[Christian Kallevig]

Well if we want to get people interested, I think it's important to stress that Surface can do a lot of cool things and the fact that it is great for being productive is just an awesome bonus. Really the form factor lends itself to more than just work, and people need to be made to understand that

 

[ohgood]

Well if we want to get people interested, I think it's important to stress that Surface can do a lot of cool things and the fact that it is great for being productive is just an awesome bonus. Really the form factor lends itself to more than just work, and people need to be made to understand that

please send microsoft an email, and ask them to SHOW IT WORKING just like the video above does.

dancing ads and trying to ***** apple in the ribs just isn't getting it out.

 

[Christian Kallevig]

The Surface Frames ad comes painfully close to actually advertising it well except for one huge, gaping, enormous flaw: It talks about Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 as if they are the same product.

 

[chezm]

The Surface Frames ad comes painfully close to actually advertising it well except for one huge, gaping, enormous flaw: It talks about Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 as if they are the same product.

very true...there should be a definitive Surface Pro 2 logo at the end...they should also mention the term 'Pro' more with the examples.

 

[SwimSwim]

The Surface Frames ad comes painfully close to actually advertising it well except for one huge, gaping, enormous flaw: It talks about Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 as if they are the same product.

I noticed the same. It was a great ad, aside from the fact it could potentially be very misleading.

 

[WillysJeepMan]

Never underestimate Microsoft's ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. :grin:

 

[Blacklac]

But, not in HD!. Only the Fire and some TV's and DVR's can do that. So, Amazon's got you there if you are a Prime subscriber.

Maybe I'm not understanding what you're saying, but any device with Flash can stream Amazon Prime in HD. The Blackberry Playbook I've had for a few years could do it out of the box and even mirror it to any HDMI TV. Granted, I cancelled my Prime membership. Being able to only watch certain season's of series was a deal breaker. Perhaps Amazon restricted Prime now on certain devices, I dont know...

 

[SwimSwim]

Maybe I'm not understanding what you're saying, but any device with Flash can stream Amazon Prime in HD. The Blackberry Playbook I've had for a few years could do it out of the box and even mirror it to any HDMI TV. Granted, I cancelled my Prime membership. Being able to only watch certain season's of series was a deal breaker. Perhaps Amazon restricted Prime now on certain devices, I dont know...

Not a restriction so much as Amazon is still working on building up their content library. What is a restriction is how Prime videos can only be downloaded offline to their Kindle Fire devices, and how the Prime ebook borrowing thing only works on Kindles.