The Verge’s Surface Studio review (there’s more reviews at Engadget and CNet):
It’s an engineering marvel of a monitor, but I really wish Microsoft sold it separately. I want to dock my Surface Book to it, or transform any laptop into a full Surface Studio. If I’m investing in a desktop PC at this kind of price then I also really want to be able to upgrade it and use it for gaming and more powerful work. I can’t do either of those things with the Surface Studio. If this was a monitor with a powerful GPU in it designed to complement Microsoft’s existing Surface devices and “upgrade” them, I’d probably be throwing my wallet at my screen right now. It’s hard to do so knowing that I’m not getting the latest and greatest specs for that $2,999, and that’s before you even consider the top model I’ve been testing is $4,199.
That doesn’t discount what Microsoft has attempted to do here. It’s truly something unique and a hint of real innovation we haven’t seen for some years with PCs. Others have tried to experiment, like HP’s Sprout, but it’s rare to see something more than just an all-in-one. Microsoft’s exciting Surface Studio unveil has been compared to Apple’s disappointing MacBook Pro launch, and with good reason. Many creatives I’ve spoken to about the Surface Studio have said the same thing: why isn’t Apple doing this? Apple seems to be forcing creatives to choose an iPad Pro for touch and pen, but the powerful and professional apps just aren’t there yet on iOS, and it’s not clear if companies like Adobe are willing to rewrite their software to be just as useful on an iPad Pro. Microsoft has realized the potential in the market to reach out to creatives who feel abandoned by Apple, and it’s an influential crowd that could be swayed over by devices like the Surface Studio.
As awesome as the Surface Studio looks, the specs of the PC part of the equation lag behind – most of the high price is defined by the display – but I guess the biggest problem with it is that it runs Windows. The creative community has been using macOS for so long, and it’s hard to leave a platform behind.
Article:
I’d tend to agree. Even so, I would think the switch from MacOS to Windows would be more strait forward than from MacOS to IOS given the programming & workflow restrictions apple imposes on IOS.
Note: It’s been a long while since I’ve touched IOS, so let me ask all of you: is IOS still dependent on 3rd party cloud services like dropbox to do file management?
Edited 2016-11-17 23:26 UTC
There are preudo-filesystems like Documents (https://readdle.com/products/documents) that store the data locally. Better than nothing.
Apple at least should make standard “filesystem” and force app devs to support it (if they would care about “Pro” label). Instead, they are busy inventing new ways to complicate people’s lives even more.
Edited 2016-11-18 04:54 UTC
The pen support in Windows 10 is a lot more solid. I have a Surface Pro 2 and the pen stuff in the latest release is pretty sweet.
The reports I’ve read about this new MS Flagship Surface is that the pen is pretty laggy when compared to Tablets and older surfaces.
IMHO, the new device will have a niche market but as any draughsperson will tell you, you need a proper mounting for everything and not just the screen in order to make it all work.
MS will certainly go to town with their ‘can’t do that on my Mac’ adverts but any pro will tell you that it is a lot more complicated than that.
I am sure that a lot of people would like to get just the screen.
At last a break from this 16:9 or 16:10 letterbox format.
I’m currently using 2 24in Dell screens rotated 90deg on my main dev workstation. It gives me 2400×1920. Now if I could get that in one display (sigh)
Microsoft has been working on the pen interface for 25 years.
It’s right on schedule for them to start not sucking any time now.
No idea. Simply reporting what I’m seeing from the Surface Pro 2 (WACOM based.)
Having said that, none of the reviews I’ve seen so far mention lag, so I’m assuming you can give some references? Genuinely interested.
No. If the app is written to take advantage of iOS’ file sharing abilities, you can easily get files from one app into another and back. It’s still somewhat limited in that it works only with one file at a time, and it always makes a copy of the file before sending it so it’s not as fast as it could be. However, cloud services are no longer required, though I suspect it’s going to take years for the impression that they are necessary on iOS to go away. I can’t count how many times I’ve easily sent files between apps in front of people and they ask something like “can my iPad do that?”
The creative community has been using OSX/Windows roughly 50/50 which is basically the same marketshare as high-end pc’s. Having Windows is not a problem unless you include old fashioned software licenses.
Can anyone explain why the Surface Studio has 4 * USB-C and the latest MacBooks have 4 * USB-A? Why not 2 of each?
No, because the latest MacBooks only have USB-C.
USB-C, well, footprint and multi-use. Because the connector can be used for more than just USB, it is a lot more useful to make all the ports USB-C. It’s a bit like when Apple removed all of the legacy ports on Macs and just put USB-A on the original iMac. No one up to that point really used or had USB devices, but the market for them exploded.
Exactly, those USB-C ports can be used to drive 4K and 5K screens as well as storage and everything else.
Yeah, OP made no sense as the basis of the question was wrong.
Sortof… remember in those days not a soul was making ADB nor GeoPort devices which were only used by Apple. SCSI was popular but expensive.
USB was a desperate attempt to port across peripherals. Dumping Apple controlled standards for an Intel one was a BIG deal (which apple tried to wrestle back with Firewire and then, later, Lightning).
firewire predates USB by a lot.
This statement surprised me, so I looked it up. Development of FireWire was started much earlier, but production was roughly the same time and widespread implementation was basically USB only.
FireWire vs USB is a great lesson about an “elitist product” vs a “product for the unwashed masses”. With FireWire being first and technologically more advanced, yet losing to cheaper, more flexible product.
FireWire:
Apple’s development began in the late 1980s, later presented to the IEEE,[4] and was completed in January 1995
USB:
A group of seven companies began the development of USB in 1994… the first integrated circuits supporting USB were produced by Intel in 1995.
Well yes but USB 1.0 didn’t compete with Firewire but was only useful for slow devices like printers and scanners and keyboards etc. USB 2.0 was only specified 5 years late (2000) and after Apple started using Firewire. So it’s not fair to blame Apple for using an elitist product instead of the cheaper competition which didn’t exist at that time.
I am not blaming Apple for using FireWire at all. It made perfect sense for what their users wanted to do at that moment. I suffered from using SCSI for my first CD-Writer and Scanners and used firewire for my first video-recorder. But I never knew anyone that used firewire for harddisks, just like E-Sata and Thunderbolt barely got used by the general public. I did eventually get an external disk with FireWire but it also had USB2 which was a writing on the wall. Firewire developped much too slowly while USB made major jumps and within a few generations USB overtook every single connector to finally become the one above all.
Now it is time to do a similar purge for all those incompatible wireless techniques and protocols: Zigbee/ZWave/NFC/BlueTooth/Wifi/Cellular-UMTS. My prediction is that 10 years from now everything will be wirelessly connected directly AND indirectly through LTE/6G
Sure. ADB was due to licensing (not an open standard) and GeoPort due to the fact it wasn’t RS232-C – it was, what, RS422 or something like that? It was similar, but different enough to make RS232 not directly compatible for all applications.
USB would not have got the traction it did without Apple kickstarting. Because I had a computer with a USB port for like, 2 or 3 years before the iMac and the USB uptake was so slow it might as well have not existed. After the iMac, it was suddenly everywhere.
….it’s running the worst operating system on the market.
I also need a better track record for expensive MS hardware reliability and resale value before considering leaving the MacBook pro.
Apple laptops are rock solid and if you really screw one up theres a free genius bar not too far away.
I think the new macbook’s touch bar could be a real interface improvement if done right. Having a context-sensitive slider and visual touch bar inside of Mac apps could really help the production types.
I started using a PowerMac in the early 90’s as a graphic designer. I have probably 20 different macs in my attic from powerbooks, to old towers, G3-G4-and a cheese grater g5.. I have at least 12 different laptops.. currently a 2012 and a 2013 15″ as primary laptops and a MacPro 5,1 with 36 GB ram as my primary home machines… I say all that to say this. Over the years of apple reality distortion (aka) steve jobs, I was always able to take even the crappiest G3 and put a better video card in it or upgrade it. Currently, my MacPro has an upgraded NVidia 750TI card in it because even though I’ve used the mac over the years to do graphics design, the business of graphics design “creative” is low paying and dying.. so many creatives have moved to web design or application design. and I’ve found that a text editor and a browser are all we need to work… not an OS (ie: macos).
Also, over the years gaming was always a PC thing so anyone with a mac was also sporting a PC if they wanted to game.. flash forward to 2010(ish). All of a sudden MANY MacBooks and MacPros were dual booted into bootcamp so you could design on the mac side and actually game on windows side at the same machine until recently. Suddenly the video cards in the macs are a joke and processing power to run AAA games doesn’t exists. (even on the current imac in Windows via bootcamp)
Also MANY of the creative I deal with on a daily basis (I work for a creative agency in the US) spend a lot of time in boot camp or a VM of some sort testing designs, apps, and builds of code. So Windows isn’t as scary or strange as it once was for mac zelots. Many new and long time mac users have intentionally or unintentionally learned windows thanks to bootcamp.
(a lot of designers or creatives are also web developers of some sort too.. bringing print and motion to the interactiveness of the web.. “there is NO ONE, and I MEAN NO ONE – gonna spend time coding in java, php or some framework on a iPadPro..”. I have NO CLUE who the iPad if for besides maybe young kids who’s parents are trying to keep them busy with games or folks who facebook and check email.. I’ve seen iPads at tradeshows collecting emails through an app.. but it just feels forced into a bunch of places no one would have cared about in the first place if it was never invented…)
I think there is a clear realization too that macs are becoming more underpowered, but are familiar. But also that Windows wouldn’t actually be that hard to switch to. Also, the most damming thing it, we also feel apple doesn’t care about the mac anymore either.
This a mac users conundrum right now.. you know that MacPro 5,1 I said I had.. I run Windows 10 on it primarily to game and run Skyrim, ESO and Steam games.
My 2012 MacBook is my Mac work machine and what I use Logic on to record with my band… My 2013 macbook stays booted into Windows 10 or KUbuntu like 99% of the time for development.
With the loss of the function keys and probably incompatibilities with booting into Windows and Linux now with 2016 MacBooks.. and a touch feature that I could care less about.. YES.. the surface studio looks amazing and YES I would switch. It seemed like a magical announcement and way cooler than any magic Apple has had for a long while. When they showed apple up a day before their mac press conference I was like “hell yeah.. that’s cool..” and I also felt absolutely disappointed seconds after the Apple mac announcements that everything they release was like “not as cool as the surface studio..”
I think for the first time I don’t feel tied to MacOS.. and I could game and code and be creative on one machine… verses switching between a mac and PC for two pleasures in my life.. (design and gaming..)
The biggest reason creatives aren’t switching in droves (IMHO).. the graphics card specs suck and the price is too high for an kind of outdated processor.
So.. they have my full attention.. so I’m hoping by revision 2 of studio it’s got more horse power.. or maybe a tweak before they launch in specs and price…
then… shut up and take my money!!!!