Microsoft lacked taste and the ability to execute. With the Surface Book, they absolutely nailed taste. But they still have no ability to execute (the SB suffered at launch from firmware glitches that took months to iron out: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/02/new-firmware-finally-...).

First, I want to state that I have a ton of respect for what Microsoft is doing. This is the Microsoft I've been waiting to see for over a decade.

That said, here's the truth. Just a week ago I tried out a Surface Book, and within the first few minutes I could immediately tell it was not as polished as a MacBook Pro.

The first thing that stood out is that the screen suffered from a considerable amount of ghosting. It looked great as long as I wasn't actually doing anything. Dragging a window around or even just moving the cursor though revealed clear visual defects.

I also immediately noticed that the trackpad, while high quality physically, struggled with gestures involving multiple fingers. Maybe this is configurable through software, but I just didn't find the trackpad's recognition of gestures to be nearly as good as that of a MacBook Pro.

On the same topic of gestures, doing a four-finger horizontal swipe in Windows 10 to switch between virtual desktops resulted in a very visually jarring animation. The experience just isn't polished like it is in macOS. This surprised me because I use Windows 10 extensively on my home desktop and generally find it very polished, but that's all using a normal mouse, not a trackpad with gestures.

Next I noticed that the laptop's screen was physically wobbling. I suspect this is because the screen is so much heavier than normal due to its unique detachable design. But I found this quite annoying. It was apparent that even just typing on the laptop with it on my actual lap would lead to screen wobble.

All this popped up within minutes before I even tried out any of the laptop's unique features. The version I was looking at had a price tag of $2800. At this price range, I think Microsoft still has work to do. None of this is to say it's a bad product. I was just expecting a bit more from something with such a premium price.

Ask them about their enterprise licensing and see if you still have the same opinion.

When Cortana was launched on Windows, I went to a Microsoft Store to try it out. I found a Surface and tapped the Cortana button, and it opened a "Microphone Calibration Setup Wizard" that looks like it was from Windows XP.

So yeah, taste is one thing, but execution is a different ball game.

Windows 10 still has two different control panels. Last year, a Microsoft PM tweeted he hadn't had to use the old control panel "in months": https://twitter.com/brandonleblanc/status/650519136196366338.... Microsoft had been shipping two control panels for three years at that point. People would be apoplectic if Apple did something like that.

This is kind of what I like about Windows 10; it can be a dumbed-down experience for people that don't care, but if you want, there are gradually escalating levels of configurability. Settings -> Control Panel -> fuck it, I'll edit the registry directly.

I would definitely not want to maintain this codebase, but as an end user, I'm happy.

macOS has something better: all the settings in one place.

Windows used to have something like that too, I think it was called the Control Panel.

> macOS has something better: all the settings in one place.

All twelve of them.

I know that's snark, but I just went and counted them anyway. There's at least 413 individual different settings in macOS Sierra's System Preferences, excluding Flash Player.

No, it doesn't. Preferences, but also 'defaults write ...', or just edit a plist...

Technically correct but very few people care about "defaults write". I can't remember the last time I used it, but I do use RegEdit often enough.

One place I've found it useful is for scripting the setup of a fresh machine, something like this:

https://blog.vandenbrand.org/2016/01/04/how-to-automate-your...

I agree it's likely very few people use it. It can be exactly the right tool for the job in some circumstances.

Yeah, that's a good reason to use it, and it makes sense that the tool is there. But there's a big difference between having a CLI tool for digging around when you need it, and having two separate GUI control panels with some settings in one, some in the other, and other settings in both.

Which is a thing of beauty compared to windows and linux. Fine grained control, yet all per-user file based and thus can easily be reset to factory.

And per user vs. system overrides.

Any thoughts about Cisco?

We're literally trying to be the taste and execution. I work for Cisco. Curious about candid thoughts.

Of routers?

I'm seriously asking. Cisco either lives on the top of rack that like 10 people in a datacenter see, much less only touch once; or it lives as a home router, that most people want to hide but still need good wifi signal.

IMO these are two different use cases. Cisco could execute almost a million times better in the datacenter by embracing better standards and making first boot and reconfiguration easier (I could write a book on this). Otherwise read as, stop pushing people to use your proprietary management systems for your gear, make those tools generally applicable then maybe people would use them.

On the consumer side, I have less experience with Cisco, but making it dead simple to deal with things like multiple wifi access points would be big, with as little setup involvement as necessary. Apple had a really simple to setup router, though it's generally been underpowered and didn't allow for more advanced configurations.

Cisco Anyconnect and the ASA web interface reeks of an outsourced enterprise developed massive legacy code base haunted by developers pissed all over by meddling middle managers. If you were going for the opposite of taste and execution you knocked it out of the park.

ISP Owner here. I wouldn't call their hardware visually appealing. In UI, we mostly use CLI - so not sure what more can be done in that regard. A visual way to looking at live traffic info similar to iftop/htop would be nice.

I want to add the cisco-IOS is an absolute clusterfuck. There is so much room for improvement I wouldn't know where to start. Please have a loot at Mikrotik, they are doing a pretty decent job for a small company. If their devices were powerful enough to handle our edge router traffic, I would drop cisco like a brick. I am not kidding.

Someone really needs to fund Mikrotik big time.

Personally, I say ditch IOS completely and give me a flat ecosystem of Linux or BSD well tuned to the hardware and completely open sourced. Allow interesting features like SNABB-switch type userspace packet management. Throw in some (k)ASLR and other such security mechanisms. Perhaps most important: make an ecosystem that can compete with Ubiquiti for both "average" consumers and developers in terms of hardware but especially software.

Ironically (because of the Macbook announcement) if Microsoft had chosen to go with previous generation Intel processors, they probably could have avoided those firmware issues. Those are mostly ironed out now, no thanks to Intel.

Do they still have tons of high-DPI bugs where some apps work with it and some get all garbled?

Well to be fair HiDPI issues are application issues as opposed to core Windows issues.

It's first and foremost a bad DPI independence API design, largely due to a terrible backwards compatibility of an even more terrible legacy stack. It is fixed somewhat in their modern stacks, such as WPF and UWP, but the vast majority of Windows software is not written with these frameworks.

While it is understandable why the legacy baggage is there and cannot be removed, the end result is a big mess, still to this day. Most (but still not all) first party software is OK to good. Third party software (not apps from the store) is a mess, usually either blurry, tiny or downright broken. Windows ecosystem being Windows ecosystem, there are many alternative to almost everything, and some software is improving. But it is still a big mess.

Apple's transition was a lot smoother due to vertical integration, a much smaller software library, more dedicated software developer base (or rather, much more willing to be early adopters of new APIs) and most importantly, a much better designed API without a 20-30 year old baggage.

It should be interesting to see people's reaction to the software, after jumping ship for macOS to Windows on these fantastic displays. I couldn't stand the mess after a week with Windows 10 on my MBP. (But I do use Windows 10 regularly on my desktop, on a "normal" display.)

> a much better designed API without a 20-30 year old baggage.

Apple's API dates back to the 1980s, just like Windows'. If you want to nitpick, Windows was developed in the early-mid 1980s while Next was developed in the mid-late 1980s.

I mostly meant the software support baggage, but yes, indeed, so many of the Next concepts are still true today in Cocoa API design.

I have a number of mac apps that don't scale. Biggest offender, although also on windows, is steam. I don't know what it is about game developers but they just can't seem to manage ui scaling.

As most new apps start to be built on UWP that issue will go away.

Also, I am not sure what DPI issues you're facing but I have run W10 on my rMBP for quite some time and it's been thoroughly pleasant. Perhaps your issues are fuzzy text due to mixed DPI, multi monitor setup?

UWP apps have a lot of limitations compared to WPF/Win32 apps. As I understand it, UWP apps can't record audio in the background or act as a Bluetooth accessory, to give two examples.

So, even if a developer is willing to invest the time to rewrite an app to use UWP, the app will lose a lot of functionality. Microsoft has again poorly architected their APIs.

Unlike macOS, where there's no penalty to adopting the latest APIs. It's not as if, to use the Touch Bar, you have to give up access to other capabilities, like recording audio in the background.

More information: https://kartick-log.blogspot.in/2016/08/how-powerful-is-uwp-...

I mean, you can just use WPF + the desktop bridge in these cases. There's still some work for the desktop bridge to catch up, but it's perfectly feasible (aside from, you know, feeling like a traditional Windows desktop app vs a "Modern" one without a lot of work styling WPF controls).

I am not using UWP apps. Most of the software I use on Windows are either MFC or Windows Forms. These can also be DPI aware and render correctly, but they require proactive developer support, which is not something that is happening in the Windows developer world right now. Either software is abandonware (but still works), or issues are open and remain open or are simply closed with "won't fix" status. Most developers see this as a non-issue or very low priority. I mean, even Chrome does not support high DPI from what I remember. It looked terrible.

Linux world is in the same boat. It's even worse there, because a lot of the toolkits don't support high DPI modes or are buggy, and developers there are even less interested or have the know-how to fix issues.

With the emergence of cheaper 4K monitors, perhaps we'll see a change to the better, who knows.

Multi-monitor support is another issue entirely.

What's funny is that supporting high DPI on a winforms app isn't even hard. Even if you size all your widgets in pixels, if you just do a little playing with the scaling options and just try out the ui on high DPI, it seems to work pretty well except for the old icons. I forgot what the setting is called, but theres a (non-defaukt) scaling option or two that seemed to "just work" as it were.

The harder part is to consistently fix everything that uses the old win2000 8pt default font instead of a modern one.

UWP is dead imo. Microsoft is ignoring the signs that can tell it to accept it gracefully. There is not one uwp app that I use. They are just not reliable. A splash screen will show up, and then disappear. The app won't launch. You open the fb messenger app and then switch desktops to work. 2 hours later the messenger is nowhere to be found. It just disappears. No error no notification. Nothing. First I thought it's fb incompetence. But this happens with the built in photos app. The built in mail app. Even shell elements (start menu, notification shade) are buggy. Windows 10 is a great os as long as you avoid any interaction with uwp stuff.

Also, it's not just scaling. Often even if an application scales somewhat correctly, often some elements don't, because it's using some open source that draws something in a terrible manner. Or, assets look blurry because of "16x16 is all you really need" mentality. This used to happen on OS X in the first months, but very quickly and uniformly, developers just fixed their custom code and assets. Not so with Windows developers, sadly.

Microsoft took ages to fix first-party applications that shipped with the OS: https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/83964/microsoft-....

Microsoft's inability to execute is mind-boggling.

It's not. Win10 doesn't even have a proper HiDPI installation dialog.

Why was the transition to HiDPI so much less painful on macOS, then?

Because Apple designed the core OS to handle it much better, and make it easier to support for developers. (which was years in the making, far before the launch of rMBP.)

While I agree that the OS X APIs were superior at the time, it is important to remember that Windows was and still is an enterprise OS, first and foremost, and this is a big mess. So this slowed progress a lot. Modern Windows UI frameworks are good too, but they are used very seldom, or if used, often used incorrectly. Since high DPI displays have been rare and expensive, I think also developers have very little awareness of the problems, and much less will to work on it. Linux is in the same boat.

How many apps from the 90s do you know that still work on macOS?

Sure, but their hi-DPI approach was much more backwards compatible capable than Microsoft's. Having apps still work, but be tiny and unreadable or haveing their UI exploded all over the place isn't a great exampe of backwards compatibility.

Yes, backwards compatibility is great. But it does not come without a cost.

Not it was easier because they also control the hardware and defined HiDPI to be always exactly 200%, compared to various scaling factors that windows needs to support.

I think people don't remember some of the first gen issues Apple products have gone through over the years.

I always found it offensive that they used long deceased, mostly anti materialist socialists to peddle consumer electronics (as if mother Teresa would be using an ipad with her name etched in the back). They should have tried using a living legend without permission like Ralph Nader or Noam Chomsky and see how that went...

You seem to be mis-remembering the facts a little. The Think Different campaign was nearly 20 years ago (1997). If you look at the list of celebrities[1], almost all are/were not "anti materialist socialists."

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_different

The socialist leanings of the people used is incidental to what I was saying. I may not have stated myself well. For a productive conversation here, are you unclear on the position or do you fundamentally dispute it?

I have never gotten the impression the "Think Different" campaign claimed the depicted people would use the laptop; rather, that Apple's innovation is analogously innovative to... whoever. These are cultural allusions, not spokespeople.

I'm not a fan, but you're interpreting the campaign differently than I.

A computer is just a tool. It's not as important as what it enables you to do.

Sure, but if you verbalized what they were saying "Here's our spokesperson, Mahatma Gandhi" and they say, brought out some actor dressed as the guy telling you how great the iPhone 7 is at the keynote, most people would probably find that in terrible taste.

The ones with civil rights leaders were particularly offensive. Yes, lining up for a new laptop is just like apartheid and the march on Selma. I mean honestly, how garish and impertinent can you get.

This is exactly right.

Apple's rising tide lifted all of us: it forced every other computer manufacturer take a look at the quality of what they were selling, not just feature lists and requirements.

We've all benefited from this tremendously: android was quite literally unusable crap until the last few years (queue rooters and apologizers), laptop pc's were similarly crap, and you just never got the feeling that someone who cared put these things together.

Now? Everyone is starting to put effort into the little things: the packaging, the presentation, quality of materials, usability, etc. It's a tremendous win. I'm almost tempted to say we owe Apple, but then I remember their coffers are already full.

I imagine there are other stones still left unturned, and the next Apple will be the ones to pay similar attention to detail and craftsmanship in an area where there previously wasn't any.

IBM did care about their ThinkPad laptops, they really built solid hardware and software addons, before the brand was sold to Lenovo. One example is the full size butterfly keyboard they built, and the general robust designs.

One thing you're missing is how the market came to them, partly through their own making. Laptops and PC's looked "corporate" Apple products (blue, pink, green computers anyone?) looked decidedly uncorporate. The iPhone looked so not like a Blackberry (with it's accompanying belt holster!) However, the "consumerization" of IT meant sleek personal design was preferred to corporate design. The iPhone helped breakdown that wall and now MSFT and others went out the side door and are reentering as consumer looking devices.

People have been selling brands for long before Apple has been around. And the "brand," isn't the logo. It is everything that a particular entity means to you, which includes all customer service, sales, advertising contacts. Which includes selling things as a lifestyle. This is marketing 101.

I'm not going to pretend that Apple did not significantly influence the direction of product design. It absolutely did.

However, you're making it sound like Apple invented product marketing. They didn't. Microsoft and Google are new to the marketing game because they're entering the consumer hardware business, which is a new venture. When you're the defacto software solution (Windows, Google Search), you don't need marketing. You don't need to build a brand. Your brand is so ingrained in culture that everyone, everywhere uses it.

It's a lot better of a spot to be than trying to reach that goal. Google and Microsoft are now going to try to leverage their software platforms to launch hardware in the same way, but it needs marketing.

Apple absolutely invented competent technology marketing.

If you look at the old issues of Byte, you can immediately see the difference. Most of the ads are generic spec/price lists with maybe some crappy hand-drawn graphics. A few are photos and professionally drawn images with some attempts at metaphor, but they invariably look crude, heavy-handed, jokey, or cartoony.

The primary focus in the early Apple ads is the Apple user at home, with his partner. It's the first thing you see before you get drawn into the copy. It's an attempt to sell soft values, not just hardware specs.

This ownership of soft values is a huge difference that most of the industry still fails to get, and which Apple itself seems to be forgetting.

Apple is the only company ever to create technology products that appeal equally to men and women without relying on any traditional gender branding. (At least that used to be true until "rose gold" appeared.)

MS is sort of catching up now, two decades later. But it's not a natural cultural fit for them, so I'm not expecting a stream of great things.

Google is - well, the brand mascot is an android. That's all anyone needs to know.

indeed, i believe Apple invented "competent technology marketing" as well. But to market to a cynical and highly skeptical group, they wisely chose the "inside-out" marketing route. So eg, when addressing a skeptical crowd (eg, developers) and you tell them how great you are, if they listen at all, they'll infer the opposite. On the other hand, if they over-hear one of their own talking about how great is the Mac, they are far more receptive.

Jean-Louis Gassée (head of Mac development and later global head of marketing, '85 - '90) seems to be have been the intellectual force behind this in Apple.

I thought rose gold was more about appealing to asian markets?

Yeah, Asian women. I know my ex rushed out and bought a pink iPhone as soon as they were released.

Well, Gold appeals to China, but is Rose Gold maybe its own thing?

They didn't invent product marketing, but they perfected the current, most popular industrial design aesthetic and marketing methodology.

I still find the Surface Studio is not exactly breathtaking. I dislike the chrome arms - they are part of the computer and shouldn't stand out like that. I like the computer being on the base, usually a piece of dead space, but that makes the design of the arms more complicated as they need to carry signals back and forth.

It's good, but nothing I would be surprised seeing coming out of HP or Sony.

The arms are probably chrome to invite attention and imply motion. "Hey, play with me, I move!" It's a signal to potential buyers that they're not looking at yet another all-in-one computer. I think it's a smart choice. If you're staring at the arms enough to be bothered, then you're probably not the target market for this device; the arms are completely hidden when used in drafting/drawing profile.

For what it's worth, Apple created a similarly attention-grabbing hinge on their G4 iMac back in the day.

> For what it's worth, Apple created a similarly attention-grabbing hinge on their G4 iMac back in the day.

Yes, but that was 14 years ago.

> "Need a new phone? ... Like new new?"

This line seems so superficial, so fluff. New new? No Google, I want them hot off the tables of production, not yesterday's cooled phones. Really, is new-newness the factor here?

Sounds more like a drug dealer:

"Hey bro... Need some shit? ... Like, new new shit?"

>they weren't just selling computers, they were selling a lifestyle, they were selling cool.

I work for a 100+ person company. Outside of the admin staff, everyone has souped-up PCs doing a huge load of 3D work. The only people with Apple devices (iMacs and MBPs)? The four 2D graphics designers and the executives. Why? The graphic designers would be in uproar and the execs believe clients expect them to present a certain 'aesthetic'. The MBPs are mainly used for email and powerpoint presentations.

> Apple doesn't have anything to stand out anymore

They have execution and commitment.

When I buy a MacBook Pro I can expect to get many years of use out of it. The hardware execution is almost always exemplary and they will continue to support it on the software side during that tenure. Buying a Windows or Android product feels like you're only going to be supported for a year or two and that's it.

I'm typing this on a 2013 macbook. I use it everyday/allday. I also have a fully functioning Asus laptop from 2009. I'm reasonably confident my 2005 inspiron is still kicking. Those two laptops are still running on their original charger. I'm on my third macbook charger in 3 years. I have a box full of broken apple chargers from merely glancing at the cord. I think you're drastically overestimating the macbook's ability to stand out of the crowd in hardware.

In regards to software, Windows XP support lasted 13 years. OSX comes out with a new version every year. Over the last few years, each is buggier than the last. Ever since Mavericks, I wait 6 months into each release for them to fix the load of bugs before I actually do the upgrade. El Capitan, especially, was just an all-around mess.

I love this computer, but I can still effortlessly criticize it in both hardware and software. They are simply not what's made the macbook stand out against a sea of black laptops.

> They are simply not what's made the macbook stand out against a sea of black laptops

The major change in there is that the laptop and desktop market has matured enough that, indeed, this year MBP needs to compete with 2012 MBP and every other laptop.

Before those time, just re-releasing the same box with improved internals was enough to sell, hence an ocean of generic laptop where a brand like Apple could rise to the top with a level above polish and attention to details.

The market changed, not because Apple lost its mojo, but because you can't sell a laptop on its spec alone meaning only the Apple way is really profitable now. Apple/Jobs genius was doing it before, allowing them to reap enormous benefits for years.

This year I'm looking at the new MBP to replace my old 2007 MBP. I happen to be happy with the update (unlike many here on HN), but I would have had no problem buying last year model in case of disappointment. Even a refurb 2012 model like my main machine would have been perfectly fine.

> I have a box full of broken apple chargers from merely glancing at the cord. I think you're drastically overestimating the macbook's ability to stand out of the crowd in hardware.

having to buy a 70 dollar charger every year vs having to buy a new laptop every 18 months.

I'll stock up on chargers.

> having to buy a new laptop every 18 months.

What on Earth kind of violence are you putting your poor laptop through? I haven't had a desktop in about 10 years, and I just bought my third one in that time about a year ago. (The previous one was doing fine actually, but I gave it to my mom)

I have a 2006 and a 2007 MacBook still in use. They still work, but Apple stopped supporting them with macOS & security updates years ago, understandably... so I installed Windows 10 on both of them. And not only do the machines run Windows 10 quite well, but Microsoft will be providing security updates through at least 2020. That's the point where I started to question how much support Apple provides vs Microsoft.