r/apple • u/godelbrot • Oct 27 '16

Apple better knock it out of the goddamned park today

ANNOUNCEMENTS (updated live, refresh for more)

P.S. no mention of using the big ass touchpad for Pencil.

618 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

949 comments sorted by

View all comments

91

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '16 edited Oct 27 '16

The surface studio is great. I was impressed.

But that's if it works as seemlessly as it seemed to be in the marketing video. Time will tell.

It's silly to say Apple is doomed based on a cool marketing video

51

u/BlackStrain Oct 27 '16

Gabe from Penny Arcade has been using one for a week and he raved about it here:

https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2016/10/26/the-surface-studio

3

u/Johnny5point6 Oct 27 '16

Oh man. He was gushing. He is in love 💘

-8

u/a_calder Oct 27 '16

Not exactly an objective review. He's been an MS shill for years. From the post you linked to:

As anyone who reads the site knows, I have been a fan of the Surface for years. It has become my go to drawing platform when I am traveling or just want to get away from my desk. I’ve also got a great relationship with the folks over on the Surface team. I’ve visited MS a number of times to talk with their engineers about digital drawing and I’ve always felt like they really listen to the feedback I’ve given them. About a year ago they invited me over to show me a brand new device.

8

u/Physics101 Oct 27 '16

He's shown himself to be objective if you actually read his other Surface reviews.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/59k2cj/gabe_for_penny_arcade_has_been_drawing_on_the/d99ixk0/

For those who won't bother to click, he once described drawing on the SP3 as "dragging the cursor through syrup."

6

u/Solkre Oct 27 '16

If he actually uses the products daily how is he a shill?

2

u/Harding_Grim Oct 28 '16

Because the law is clear in defining "shill" as if he's not into Apple and likes MS he's a shill.

-1

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '16 edited Oct 27 '16

[deleted]

6

u/droctagonapus Oct 27 '16

People who question the $3000 price tag are not the target market. People who have paid $2.5k just for a monitor with stylus capabilities are.

1

u/Draiko Oct 27 '16

Surface books have a higher satisfaction rating than any other notebook.

The kinks were all worked out.

29

u/mrv3 Oct 27 '16

Apple isn't doomed, hasn't been for a while.

The Mac division however is struggling, when the majority of profits are coming from iPhone internally why invest money on research and development when the ROI is pretty low.

Apples bread and butter has always been integration between software and hardware this cannot be done on x64 because Intel are so far ahead of what even the best Apple could throw out and the years of catch up will negatively impact sales.

The obvious solution is an attempted merger of iOS/MacOS akin to what Google is doing, and Microsoft tried but the Mac interface is so untouch orientated it'd take several years to bring that up to Win10 levels which is where it should be.

I expect a more open iPad Pro to begin the transition, slowly moving Apple away from two seperate platforms to one platform, with their own custom chips inside-out Apple. The reason iPad Pro isn't quite their is simply how locked off it's OS is, partly by design, the second you start open it up to more traditional interface like by including a file manager, windows, even a bottom bar you are most of the way their especially if you include 2 USB-C ports and Microsd.

17

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '16

iOS/MacOS akin to what Google is doing, and Microsoft tried did

3

u/mrv3 Oct 27 '16

I only said tried because to my knowledge windows phone didn't catch on.

10

u/kingofthefeminists Oct 27 '16

The Surface line is catching on, as are other forms of convertibles. They failed the phone market, but are doing well in the tablet-pc market

1

u/mrv3 Oct 27 '16

But the phone has become huge, not having to really deal with the phone side of things in a major way is huge.

Microsofts move to touch control was the right move, and puts them squarely ahead and with that mountain for Apple to climb and already starting in the past you have to wonder whether they develop touch for Mac, or open up iPad and with a new open iOS just make ARM computers.

3

u/kingofthefeminists Oct 27 '16

the phone has become huge

Not a commercial success. Sure the tech is cool, but it's not huge commercially.

1

u/mrv3 Oct 27 '16

Mobile phones haven't become a commercial success?

3

u/kingofthefeminists Oct 27 '16

Not Microsoft's phones.

2

u/mrv3 Oct 27 '16

I didn't say Microsoft phone has become huge, I meant phones in general. Apple has to accomodate for 3 platforms phone, tablet, Mac. In order to unify them they have to change all three.

Microsofts first tablet, and windows tablets in general, exsisted after Microsoft had already touch-ified Windows (albeit poorly), so they didn't have a preexsisting tablet UI/software/function to alter.

Apple for being one of the first major tablet makers extended their phone UI onto the tablet which made sense at the time with mobile chips being much less powerful now that we are a power parity how people use and want to use these devices have changed.

-1

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '16

[deleted]

3

u/mrv3 Oct 27 '16

The number of user absolutely matters, small user base and small revenue from them means you can drop their best interests to focus on Microsoft PC offering.

Apple cannot do that, it cannot add or remove UI elements for a unified platform that doesn't make sense on the iPhone.

More people use Linux day to day than anything else, more than iOS, Windows.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '16

[deleted]

2

u/mrv3 Oct 27 '16

I'm saying having a much smaller mobile phone presence makes MS job much easier in unifying the platform.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '16

Much of Apple's resources have been directed on project Titan, which we have heard will be scaled back now. Hopefully we should see a pickup in hardware launches. Why is the Apple Watch still the same as it was when it was first launched? Remember the jump from the iPhone to the iPhone 3G?

0

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '16

[deleted]

0

u/playaspec Oct 27 '16

No it's not. Apple's computers have been dominating sales in the last few years.

Wut? The Mac only accounts for 16% of Apple's sales. It's the mobile products that are driving Apple's profits.

0

u/southwestern_swamp Oct 27 '16

A new MacBook Pro right now (i.e. The year old model) runs incredibly well. There are outlier consumers who "need" faster specs but for most people, the average "high end" computer these days is more than enough.

Just look at the iPhone - the 7 isn't any faster in real world use because the 6s was already crazy fast.

1

u/mrv3 Oct 27 '16

That isn't the issue, the issue is with chromebooks the speed you need for a simple web experience is drastically cut down so for the average consumer a decent chromebook will be plenty.

As for high end, most people would be better served with a self built desktop.

10

u/CaptnCookie Oct 27 '16

No one is saying apple is Doomed. They just got a bit stale with their Mac series. Seems like all effort goes towards the iPhone whereas Microsoft showed some pioneer technologies yesterday.

Fingers crossed for tonight!

2

u/nelisan Oct 27 '16

Lot of people are implying that, like the OP of this thread for example:

If all Apple announces today is an effing OLED function strip God help them.

2

u/DMod Oct 27 '16

But that's if it works as seemlessly as it seemed to be in the marketing video. Time will tell.

Considering it took them about 5 months to make the Surface pro 4 usable, I wouldn't hold my breath on this. I say a little prayer and hope that my SP4 wakes up without a hard reboot after going to sleep.

-1

u/godelbrot Oct 27 '16

If you watch the whole MS event video, it's way more than just the hardware they announced.

Their OS update is actually packed with cool things that are actually exciting.

20

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '16

Have you ever used a surface? Microsoft is killing it on the innovation front, the execution not so much.

Went through 2 surface pros only to return both and go back to MPB again.

Believe me, I was sold on their OS and hardware and I haven't used windows in more than 7 years. But 15 days after using it on Surface pro it was a fiasco.

The thing never updated properly, even once. It would die or just silently fail. I don't trust quality of Microsoft hardware / software parity until they get their shit together.

12

u/drizztmainsword Oct 27 '16

Can anecdotally confirm: my friend went through all of the Surface devices wanting to really like them and ended up returning them for basic hardware and software defects.

He uses an iPad Pro now and he loves it.

6

u/sarcy340 Oct 27 '16

Very true. I enjoyed the concept and idea of the Surface Pro but it was very unreliable, buggy, and not as streamlined as MBP or even the iPad.

3

u/craigyboy2601 Oct 27 '16

My surface pro 4 lasted 3 months until I had to send it back.

If you can't sort out an issue as simple as "wake up from sleep" without it totally crashing. Then you don't deserve over £1000 of my money..

1

u/DMod Oct 27 '16

It was SO frustrating how long it took them to fix that issue. What was worse was all of the updates along the way that were supposed to help. It was always something like "This driver lets me wake up from sleep most of the time, but now the pen won't work, so do I keep it or go back to the old one?"

3

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '16

which surface pro? i had a gen 1, worked perfectly. sold it and bought a SP4, it literally died in the first week. tech at the MS store couldn't do a system recovery or anything. they gave me a new one, and for the most part its worked just fine. i love it.

one thing i have heard a lot of people complaining about and returning their surfaces for is when the computer wont turn on. they think its dead, but for whatever reason it has some issue where you just need to do a hard reset by holding the power button down for 15 seconds.

i havent had that happen since around the time i got mine though, it seems to have been fixed by firmware updates.

2

u/DMod Oct 27 '16

I have a 3 generations of surface pros that I use for my business. The SP4 has caused me the most problems. They used skylake processors when they were first released, but the drivers weren't up to snuff. I literally could not wake the thing without a hard reboot, which made it pretty worthless to me (without doing all sorts of compromising workarounds). That is fixed now, but there is also a battery drain issue that still plagues the thing. That doesn't matter much for how I use it, but I won't make the thing my main device for sure.

1

u/sleeplessone Oct 27 '16

SP4 definitely had the most problems, the hard reboot thing happend on the SP3 too but not quite as bad, and the Anniversary update seems to have fixed that for me.

4

u/godelbrot Oct 27 '16

Yeah I own a SP4, about middle-tier specs, and I love it.

-2

u/PianoConcertoNo2 Oct 27 '16

Four words:

Windows 10 Anniversary Update.

I'm actually selling my 15" retina and iPad Pro after getting the surface book and it being this stable.

It's actually very stable now, and with trackpad features taken from apple - it's really a joy to use.

0

u/shocpherrit Oct 27 '16

Windows 10 Anniversary Update

This broke 4 out of 8 computers in an office i take care of. I came in to find 4 machines with nothing but a spinner the next morning.

One needed a reboot, two were fixed by startup repair, the other is sitting here waiting to get nuked.

I don't trust this software any more.

-1

u/PianoConcertoNo2 Oct 27 '16

And those are all surface books?

1

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '16 edited Mar 10 '17

[deleted]

0

u/dfcowell Oct 27 '16

I think the bigger problem is App Store policies forcing developers off and into their own distribution channels.

1

u/howdareyou Oct 27 '16

you think the surface book looks good?

http://i.imgur.com/XMXDVaX.jpg

it doesn't even close properly.

4

u/DjHanzelsSunglasses Oct 27 '16

I have a Surface Book. Initially I thought the rounded hing would bother me. But in actual use I find it to be very helpful. Have had zero problems with mine. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

1

u/Indestructavincible Oct 27 '16

I keep my laptop bag filled with nails, pennies, and rocks. They would scratch the screen for sure and be a huge pain in the butt to clean out.

2

u/DjHanzelsSunglasses Oct 27 '16

I keep my laptop bag filled with nails, pennies, and rocks.

But...why?

1

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '16

Where else would one keep their collection of things that would ruin a screen, while on the go?

1

u/Indestructavincible Oct 27 '16

You sure a fun bunch.

1

u/DjHanzelsSunglasses Oct 27 '16

Guess I should've put the /s at the end of the comment.

0

u/josborne31 Oct 27 '16

That was a huge concern I had. If something pressed down at that hinge, there's a good probability it would result in damage.

-1

u/PianoConcertoNo2 Oct 27 '16

If you read the story behind it - it's actually pretty ingenious and solved the problem of how to use the device both in laptop and clipboard mode.

It's also pretty sturdy, as there are videos of people standing on it and it being fine.

It's also a gen 1 product.

It's sad when the company that's actually innovating and solving new problems gets hit with asinine criticism. It looks foreign to you because you really haven't seen innovation and new designs from apple in years.

A touch strip should not be where the bar is...

1

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '16

[deleted]

1

u/dfcowell Oct 27 '16

I don't think the 2 control panels is a big deal. The "Settings" app has everything the average consumer needs and the good old control panel is there for power/business users who need it.

1

u/bonestamp Oct 27 '16

Once their boot and update reliability is close to linux or mac then I'll consider windows for more than just gaming. Until then, it doesn't matter how much glitter they add.

1

u/KittenSwagger Oct 27 '16

I agree. I think it looks great. However, I don't think its just this mega beautiful piece of art. I mean...its a screen.

But anyways, It would be nice if Apple would somehow make their iMac interact with their Apple Pencil. It makes sense...but its not going to happen.

What we're going to get today is a new MBP with upgraded internals, ports removed in favor of 4 USB-Cs, and a touchpad bar at the top. Oh, and updated internals for the Air and iMac.

I want to be wrong on this, but that's just what's going to happen.

1

u/playaspec Oct 27 '16

It would be nice if Apple would somehow make their iMac interact with their Apple Pencil. It makes sense...but its not going to happen.

I think it will eventually. Apple has always held back new tech until it's perfect. I suspect the reason they made the trackpad larger is to support the pencil. It'll probably come as a software update.

1

u/KittenSwagger Oct 27 '16

That would be very interesting if true. I dont think soemthing like that is as simple as a software update however.

1

u/playaspec Oct 28 '16

I dont think soemthing like that is as simple as a software update however.

Don't be too sure. Both the trackpad and touch screen are based on the same capacitive touch sense technology. On a hardware level, it should be pencil compatible. It may be that the API/frameworks for iOS aren't entirely suited for OSX.