Barely Scratching the (Microsoft) Surface

Microsoft announced its own brand of tablets on Monday in Los Angeles. Called the Microsoft Surface, it comes in two variants, one running Windows RT, powered by an ARM processor, another running the full Windows 8 Pro environment with an Intel processor on board. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because Microsoft Surface was a touchscreen table (yes, table) which was released in 2007. The current version of that table has been renamed PixelSense.

How is the Surface different from the iPad? To begin with, it has a built in kickstand, a 10.6 inch high definition screen with a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, and has a Windows logo on it (some people might miss this fact, really). It also has a USB and microSD ports as well as digital video connectors. Microsoft showed off the accompanying screen cover which doubles as an integrated keyboard and touchpad as well as a pen for the Pro version. Surface for RT will come in 32 and 64 GB versions while the Pro model gets a 64 and 128 GB options.

With Surface, Microsoft has decided to enter the hardware space for personal computers and compete with its own hardware partners in delivering devices running Windows 8. Previously it was more than happy to deliver just the software while letting partners figure out hardware manufacturing and assembly, but ever since the tablet market ran away without caring about Windows, Microsoft probably felt that it needed to rectify the situation.

Perhaps having seen its partners failing at seizing the tablet market with previous versions of Windows, Microsoft thought it had to show the way, despite Samsung, Lenovo, and Acer, having already shown their versions of the Windows 8 devices.

Nevermind that other competitors to the iPad have essentially failed so far, Microsoft had to give this a chance. In fact, it’s probably a good time for Steve Ballmer and co. to jump in because there hasn’t yet been a strong competitor to the iPad. 

Samsung can boast all it wants as a leading Android tablet brand but its sales figure over one year is easily dwarfed by Apple’s iPad sales in one quarter alone. The PlayBook is the laughing stock of the market, while Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook aren’t really available globally and they’re positioned more towards the electronic book reader category anyway.

Microsoft claimed that Surface for Windows 8 Pro, which happen to weigh nearly 1kg, will deliver the same performance that is expected out of ultrabooks as it runs off an Intel Core i5 processor. This puts the Pro version in a rather awkward situation. Is it an ultrabook competitor or is it a tablet contender? Will consumers go for the novelty of this new PC or will they go with the safer options? Until the pricing and battery life are revealed, answering these questions is impossible.

Surface for Windows RT on the other hand, is clearly a pure tablet place. Sure, it has the same ports and keyboard options as the Pro model but with the weight at 676 grams and its OS limited to Metro-only apps, this device is squarely positioned in the tablet category. Will it be able to grab market share away from the competitors? It certainly seems that way but as with the Pro version, Microsoft has yet to reveal the pricing nor the battery life.

In addition, tablets tend to come with options for cellular data but this is something that Microsoft did not mention as well. Reports from various market surveys say that an overwhelming majority of tablets are used at home and within range WiFi, at least in the United States, which means a cellular option may not necessarily be that attractive. Will Microsoft make such an option available regardless? We can only wait until it makes a more meaningful announcement.

Everything so far about the Surface seems pretty sweet but it’s difficult to deny the fact that this is all no more than posturing because Microsoft simply felt that it needed to announce products before it’s actually ready to make such an announcement. At the event, none of the invited attendees were given a fair chance to try out the devices. It’s like being shown a gallery of hot racing cars without being able to test drive, or standing in front of a candy shop and not allowed to taste any.

Surely Microsoft will announce the remaining details in the coming months but until then, we can only scratch the Surface (well, not really, the Surface is supposedly scratch proof) and any in depth analysis can only go so far without the full details being made available.

What’s clear from this announcement however, is that Microsoft will now be competing with its partners but whether it’s going to take the Google Nexus approach and make the Surface the flagship devices by which all other Windows 8 devices will be measured against, remains to be seen. 

PIN to shutdown your phone

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A novel idea which is completely implementable as an option for those who wish for more security. Lost two iPhones last year which could have been recovered had this been an option.

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To ask that every piece of modern electronics is designed to allow the tiny fraction of hackers to upgrade is the height of hubris, unreasonable, and a huge imposition on everyone else that has no desire to ever crack the case. All that ‘upgradability’ ends up making the product cost more and be more susceptible to failure. Catering to the fringe is not the way to make good products. Making the best product you can for a low price is the way to make good products, even if it means eliminating upgradability and home repair.

Michael Pusateri via David Chartier

MacBook Pro: The Next Generation

Apple SVP Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller took to the stage at Worldwide Developer Conference earlier today to introduce the new MacBooks with Intel’s latest processors. The MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro received the usual and expected regular internal upgrades, but Apple’s biggest notebook announcement was the next generation MacBook Pro.

The new MacBook Pro is a 15.4 inch notebook weighing only 4.5 pounds and only 0.71 inch thick. The screen is a retina display with 2880 * 1800 pixels for 220 ppi, roughly double the sharpness of the screens on the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. 

The next generation MacBook Pro is powered by a 2.3 GHz quad core i7 Intel processor, 8GB of RAM, GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of video RAM, 256 GB of flash storage, upgradable to 768GB. As far as ports are concerned, it has MagSafe 2, HDMI out, USB 2 and USB 3 ports, and two Thunderbolt ports. Firewire 800 and Ethernet ports have been relegated to dongle status. With this update it looks like Apple is quietly discontinuing the 17-inch MacBook Pro.

As expected, there is no longer an optical drive and since this is the next generation MacBook Pro, don’t expect optical drives in future MacBook Pro updates. Apple has been known to keep legacy models though, such as the white MacBook which Apple quietly discontinued earlier this year but it remains to be seen if Apple will keep selling MacBook Pros with optical drive once the next generation model become the standard, and if so, for how long.

To support the new MacBook Pro’s retina display, Apple has updated its built in Mac OS X Lion, the iWork and iLife suites as well as its professional apps. Adobe and AutoDesk are also updating their apps to support the retina display.

This introduction of the new MacBook Pro marks the end of the monstrous 17" model. The next generation MacBook Pro starts from $2199.

Indonesia to curb sales of personal vehicles

Car sales in Indonesia jumped by 17% from 2010 to 2011, to nearly 900,000 new vehicles, and by 11% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2012, despite global economic gloom.

Indonesia’s market is growing faster than China’s much bigger one: car sales rose by only 2.6% in China between 2010 and 2011. Indonesians now buy more cars than any other south-east Asian nation, having overtaken Thailand last year. They also bought 8m motorcycles in 2011, a number that could rise to 9m this year.

This worries the government. From June 15th Indonesia’s central bank says it will require those who borrow money from a bank to buy a car to make a minimum downpayment of 30%. For motorbikes, the figure will be 25%. Housebuyers will also have to make a minimum deposit of 30%. The new rules are intended to prevent a potential bubble in consumer credit.

Indonesia to curb sales of personal vehicles

May the 4th be with you

Rock Band for iOS’s cancelation canceled?

EA sent a notice to all owners of Rock Band for iOS that the company was going to shut down the game on May 31st and thanked them for having been part of it. This naturally drew the fury of hundreds, perhaps thousands of Rock Band players on Twitter even though many are less likely to be still playing the game after years after it was released. Rock Band has been a successful franchise for EA. The series featured additional songs that gamers can acquire through in-app purchases.

When an online game becomes too much of a burden to support or has too few players, it’s natural to expect the company behind it to discontinue the game. Unfortunately for EA, the game apparently still has its fans and they flooded EA’s Twitter accounts in protest.

These players have paid for both the game and the additional content and the decision to pull support for the game when it was still on sale on the App Store was certainly baffling. As it turned out, EA later turned the decision around in a statement released to the public. The company isn’t shutting down Rock Band for iOS after all.

Despite the reversal, this highlights the peril of online games. In the past, video games that have been purchased can still be played years, or even decades later provided that the console set and the game cartridge are still operational. With online games, players are at the mercy of the publishers or the operators of the games’ networks. When the network is retired, so is the game.

On the other hand, most online games have offline elements as well that should still be playable long after the online component had been turned off and Rock Band is one of them. Having yanked support for the entire game when the offline part should still be playable is an odd choice to make.

Touch Arcade pointed out that EA’s support page does list Rock Band to be among the discontinued games but only for the online features. Polygon, The Verge’s Gaming blog even went further to highlight a part of the licensing agreement for the game which states that those who purchase the game only licenses the game and all elements contained within and if EA terminates the game, all licensed elements would cease to function. In other words, if EA decides to shut down the game, it is within its rights to shut down the entire game, not just parts of it.

As pointed out by Guardian, another online game publisher, ngmoco, is shutting down its own online game, Eliminate, which was one of the company’s first online games with in-app purchase elements.

All these simply serve to point out that online games are different from video games of old, which are isolated in nature from the rest of the world, not just in game play and enjoyment but also in its operation. Players of online games no longer own copies of the games that they have spent money on, instead, they only own a license to play them.

Tweet of the day

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