Every single professional who uses the Surface Studio practically has an orgasm.

If Microsoft keeps support up for it long enough that the CAD program developers are willing to take the plunge on the new features and integrate them into their programs, it will completely displace Apple with the high-end professionals.

The question is whether Microsoft will keep pumping money into the line long enough to get the application developers on board. They've been burned several times.

I see a fundamental shift has taken place at Microsoft under Satya's direction. Open-sourcing the core technologies that act as the foundation for Microsoft is a huge deal. Surface Studio uncompromisingly for pros (a big problem for MS hardware in the past is that they try to hedge their bets- try to jam stuff in there for everyone).

When you think about how quickly this has changed, it looks like Satya has a clear vision for MS, and pros are part of that vision. When's the last time you've seen a 'visionary' Microsoft (that didn't involved delusional thinking)?

Hard pass.

The difference is now Microsoft is providing the crapware, the crapware isn't malicious (like say, Superfish was), and it's not that difficult for power users to disable it or tuck it out of the way.

I love Windows 10 (at least, as much as my love for Windows goes), yes MS made some moves towards treating it a bit like Google and Apple treat their mobile OSes, but not horridly large steps.

I haven't seen it yet, but it's still early days.

You cite some examples, examples that are real, eye-catching, but for me not substantive. The fundamental shift I'm looking for is a true shift in customer focus. Microsoft's big customer is enterprise I/T, who is not the end user for much of the tech. Azure seems designed to help State Farm (to pick an F500 at random) add some of that new cloud stuff to their Windows ecosystem. A good business decision, but in the age of AWS and even google services, it's simply incremental.

I could be unfair in saying "not substantive" to the open source initiatives, simply because it's such a huge philosophical shift (to a small part of their business, at least so far). Otherwise, I'm not seeing it yet.

But it takes a very long time to steer a big ship like Microsoft or Apple.

I do agree though the Surface Studio gets my interest in a way that iMacs haven't since the iMac G4. It seemed like after the G4 they just kept phoning it in with yet another pizza box iMac.

I think it has huge potential outside of CAD. Anything that deals with complex flows of data/material would benefit from such an interface.

VR needs a couple of things, and they aren't going to happen in less than a year. First and most importantly, cheaper and better hardware. Daydream is nice, but at most it is good for 360 video and some cheap games. Get some head tracking in there somehow and then it becomes interesting. Also, it needs something like the oculus touch controllers or vive controllers so you can actually use your hands for things.

Secondly, an actual killer app. Some kind of game that only works in VR. Something that you want to keep coming back to.

Lastly - simplicity. Daydream is simple but too limited. The vive has all the features but setting up lighthouses is a pain unless you can permanently mount them. Also being tethered to your computer sucks (A solution for that is on the way, but it will only add to the cost.) Headsets are still bulky and uncomfortable to wear for long periods.

My point I guess is that Apple's typical timing with things would put them entering the market in 2018 at the earliest. This is like the early Windows Phone/PalmOS days before the iPhone (But I doubt Apple will be the one releasing the "iPhone" of VR.)

As for myself, even without a killer app, VR has gotten me saving memories as photo spheres, in addition to pictures and videos.

Costs will come down, but 2017 won't be the year. I expect VR to grow, but only in the gaming market.

I'm more interested in AR, personally. But it's hard for me to articulate why exactly because honestly I don't have much experience with it yet. It just seems more interesting to me. I'd really like to get a Hololens to start experimenting with, but can't really justify the cost of it right now.

(disclosure: I work for Microsoft, which makes Hololens. Not meaning to promote it, these are my personal opinions)

I work at an AEC firm. We give money and some privilege to 2-3 people at work to experiment with VR. It's interesting to some degree but, beyond being a marketing tool, I don't really see it being useful as a professional tool any time soon.

These things are hard to call though, like anything in future tech (or the future in general). They consider it revolutionary new tech whereas I'm on the side of "shiny new toy" and "wait and see" but the powers that be have no issue spending the money on it while I see some of core competencies and actual training for the future being ignored (transitions to BIM and training in better 3D modeling programs).

Not my company or money though.

I, and I think enough other people, already have a $1k+ PC for the huge amount of non-VR games it gives access to.

But the big catch for me is that there just doesn't seem to be enough content that will work with and (more importantly) be enhanced by a VR experience. I simply don't have the cash-on-hand to justify spending ~$800 to make Elite Dangerous slightly more immersive. But if a good VR headset was more in the $200 range (like the very similarly limited hotas I bought for the same reason) I would probably jump.

It does seem like this year may bring the cost of the devices down low enough that more devs and more audience can get on board and bring it in to the main stream because it is very nearly there already.

* Headset Pricing: Major OEMs will be releasing headsets starting at $300 [0]

* Lowering system specs for VR [1]

* Not just a gaming focus: Windows 10 creators update puts an emphasis on 3D and Mixed-Reality, including a 'holographic' interface [2]

[0] http://1reddrop.com/2017/01/06/microsoft-announces-299-windo... [1] http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2016/12/08/microsoft-unveils... [2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/upcoming-features

It honestly feels like only minor improvements in size/speed/usability will make it massively useful in normal life very soon.

Take theaters for example. They have been looking for a market for years but since people have screens and streaming at home they don't tend to go as much. However they could find a new life by purchasing VR headsets in bulk and selling livestreams of plays/musicals/operas, and possibly sports games as well. These will always be experiences better seen live, but VR would be a significant step above television.

That way someone could enjoy VR at a very low cost, and possibly spur them to buy a headset themselves, when the price is right.

GTX 970 = $155: http://ebay.com/itm/371833128329

GTX 980 = $235: http://ebay.com/itm/291993305929

Gaming PC with GTX 970 = $540: http://ebay.com/itm/112250177638

Gaming PC with GTX 1070 = $690: http://ebay.com/itm/222369412011

And my thoughts are that Apple cannot bring the same Stevie vision of simplicity and use to VR, which is why they will never care about it.

They'll have to stick better graphics cards in their computers, but that's doable.

Probably their biggest challenge would be coming up with a headset that is "Apple-y", given that the design issues involved in creating them right now still create something fundamentally klunky. (VR is starting to take off not because anyone's figured out how to make it not klunky, but because it transitioned from intolerably klunky to tolerably klunky. Along with the latency improvements.)

I'm not saying they're going to do it. But they could.

Cheaper, lower-quality VR headsets will leave a bad impression on consumers. I don't think that's the direction we should be going. I'd rather see HTC and Oculus release higher-res, faster refresh rate HMDs, but I doubt they'd do that with no single GPU able to run those today.

You can further reduce the computational costs by using foveated rendering(http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/johnsny/papers...). You can use low-latency eye-tracking to spend more time rendering the portions of the frame that the user is actively looking at.

I think the combo of falling gpu prices, and clever hardware design means we will probably see headsets with effectively higher and higher resolutions sooner rather than later.

Wonder if that will help or hinder VR. Personally I think the Vive is just about the bare minimum needed for VR to barely be acceptable. If peoples first impression of VR is something less than that I doubt they'll be impressed enough to actually use VR for more than 15 minutes over the first 2 weeks after purchase.

Despite their "this is all about the developer" statements, making Windows Subsystem for Linux unable to co-exist with VMware and other virtualization tools was a deal-breaker for me.

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/04/22/windows-subs...

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/04/22/windows-subs...

Specifically, it's enabling Hyper-V which makes Windows incompatible with VMware. The incompatibility results in more issues than just those with the bash shell. The big one for me is Docker for Windows:

https://forums.docker.com/t/docker-for-windows-w-vmware-inst...

I think I will just try it out and revert back if there's an issue, since I can't find clear documentation about it being incompatible. So I assume I'm wrong.

I can let you know if you like.