With all these slow, heavy, pen&touch unfriendly web tech based first party apps and OS controls, Surface became useless... anyone feeling pumped or empowered?
I feel the same. I used to be so pumped for these Microsoft/Surface fall events (just like people are for the Super Bowl... I know nerd alert!). I thought when Panos took over both Surface and Windows, we'd get faster and consistent innovation hand-in-hand with software and hardware. But it's been nothing but iterative updates ever since. Even Apple's boring events with iterative updates and old hardware are somehow more exciting. MS made the event more corporate-facing, when it used to be EVERYONE-facing. They seem to not realize that enterprises are made up of consumers lol. That's why Google and Apple have better reputations because they know how to win over consumers who then pick those services/devices for their businesses as well.
On top of that, it feels like Surface isn't the same brand we loved. All of their devices used to be so unique and well supported, but now it's just very minor updates, and even not even supporting some of their devices at all (Duo for example), which is disgusting given how expensive the devices are and when the competitors are promising support for years. And as someone who's always defended MS and promoted their devices, Windows, and apps... it's increasingly becoming difficult for me to do so because even I'm losing interest and tempted to switch every year that passes by with nothing exciting. And when WC said Pro 10 and Go 4 ARM are no longer happening this fall... I wasn't even surprised in the slightest, disappointed, but not surprised. They've had so many years to get their stuff together, but for one of the most innovative tech companies, they've really fallen hard in terms of getting users to 'love' their brand (which ironically, is something that both Panos and Satya have touted many times before when talking about the future of Microsoft... but the opposite is happening).