Microsoft went out to Adobe and got them to build a touch-optimized version of freaking Photoshop and had them on stage at the unveiling of this thing to announce a new Adobe product as part of their product launch. [1] Then they went ahead and added a new setting to the kickstand in the back of the surface to make it easier to draw on -- actual changes to the physical design of the thing with artists in mind.

Yeah, Microsoft really cares about artists. They absolutely want people creating digital art to be doing so on the Surface.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/7357/20140522/adobe-shows-...

The care is certainly there. It's the execution that is lacking significantly.

The types of issues Gabe describes could have been resolved if they had actual artists test the product before it was released. The drawing hand accidentally brushing against the Windows button and kicking the user out to the desktop? Please. This type of stuff is extremely trivial to discover with proper usability testing during development. (Heck, they didn't even have to release the prototypes to the public. I'm sure they have plenty of in-house people who do their drawing on tablets.)

I've always said that Microsoft is really, really good at engineering, and really, really bad at UX and usability. After reading Gabe's review, I'm disappointed that this is still the case.

Why is the pen and digitizer for "artists?" One of the faults I see with current gen tablets is that its uncomfortable to use them as a clipboard-like device. I want to use a pen, write things, sign things, draw things, etc.

We can certainly do better then the hunt and peck iOS keyboard or the quicker but often guessing wrong swipe-style Android keyboard.

MS is aiming clearly for the business customer here and things like these are more for the warehouse worker or management annotating something in OneNote or Word, than for the digital artist, but they obvious benefit as well. Why can't we have more win-win situations instead of more narrow use case wins that iOS and Android provide?

MS got ahead by appealing to a broad range of needs, users, and by playing ball with as many people as they possibly can. Sure, that got us the kitchen-sink like Win8, but I imagine Win8.3 or Win9 will have solve a lot of those issues. Ironically, MS has become the 'friendly' software vendor. Watching MS on the ropes is kinda fascinating. You can see them try desperate things, fail, regroup, etc. They're dying to make everyone happy, because of the success of iOS and Android have had with more narrow requirements. Why beat Apple and Google at their game when you can win your own game?

I kinda see the success of the tablet right now similiar to the success of the PDA device in the 90s. Everyone had one, we kinda enjoyed them, then someone asked, "Why can't these things be web browers? Why can't they also be phones? Why can't they also have wireless email?" Then the idea of a portable PDA that wasn't a phone died almost overnight with the success of the Blackberry and Windows Mobile. Now we're asking, "Why can't my tablet do all the things my laptop can? Why can't I have a kick-ass pen with this? Why doesn't it recognize my hand-writing? Why can't I just dock it and use it as a computer with no compromises? Why can't it run Photoshop or Office in full?"

Cynicism aside, would it matter? Microsoft is probably extremely happy to make someone with the reach of Gabe happy. For obvious reasons. Thing is, they still have to make him happy.

And really, this is one of the reason's PA has the clout they do. They are rather blunt about the things they do and don't like. And many people trust their judgement. Even agree with it.

Now, if you were worried that they could just bribe him, that would be one thing. But, they are keeping him happy by having a product he likes using. That is huge.

I felt this review of SP3 was far less positive than his Surface Pro 2 review. I'm sure Microsoft also needs him as a conduit for his audience, but on the bright side, they've a dedicated tester for their target audience, a working professional. I don't see the downside

Even an amateur would be annoyed by hitting the capacitive home-button while drawing.

Of course they are managing their PR carefully. Apple does the same. That doesn't mean they designed the product to get a nice Penny Arcade write up. My guess is that their audience (gamers) are already in the MS ecosystem anyway.

How ironic: Apple in boardrooms and Microsoft for artists...

Designers are a market absolutely owned by Apple in spite of the fact that Apple completely fails to cater to them with artist-oriented hardware. These artists/designers were the early-adopters for OSX.

Designers and artists like Apple because it's well-designed and snappy, but not because it has any art-specific features. MS hopes to take this market and get a proven-important early-adopter market for their new tablet/laptop hybrids.

Does it really matter if they care about artists or not in this case? In order for them to get good publicity to the audience of Penny Arcade, they have to cater to artists. (assuming you aren't cynical enough to believe that Gabe is just a shill for Microsoft, which he likely is not) If Surface 4 comes out and they don't fix any of the issues Gabe has mentioned, and they send him one to review, he'll point out that things were not fixed, and they were obviously not listening. I think at that point it would be valid to say they don't care, but the way things are described, it does sound like they're trying to improve the product, at least for the specific niche Gabe occupies.

Remember "I'm a Mac / I'm a PC?" The loyalty that Apple built up among creative professionals has under-girded their entire brand. If you were Microsoft, and you saw a chance to knock some of those people loose, wouldn't you work like hell to make that happen?

This would also be an example of MS improving its touch in terms of attempting to persuade people about Surface. Rather than just repeating over and over about how great [tabletX] is and how a celebrity they've paid to endorse it just loves it (see HP's disastrous TV campaigns for their tablets), they're letting an influential guy use it, review it, and criticize it publicly. The critical bits are what make it more effective as commercial messaging for MS' particular purposes at this moment.

If Gabe were shilling they would pay him directly to shill and it would be marked as an ad (which PA has done many times before for many companies). In this case, that's probably not happening.

He is getting(and keeping) free hardware, I would consider that getting paid. He clearly states he got the item under review for free and once he complained about the performance they said they would ship him a high performance model for free as well. They used to give away any such free loot specifically to avoid the shilling moral hazard.

So take it into account in your evaluation of the product. Every magazine reviewer on the planet gets 'free' items to review.

> Does it really matter if they care about artists or not in this case?

The digitizer on the Surface is one of the undeniable advantages it has over an iPad for some workflows.

I think it's an attempt at a broad grab, They like to be able to show multiple use cases for their devices, art being an interesting niche. The other grab is the obviously large audience that PA has.

If they could capture the teen angst journal/poetry crowd, they might have a gilded pathway into the future.

I think you're being downvoted because of tone. I don't have enough karma to downvote but my feedback is that sometimes extreme cynicism makes HN not so fun to read. Cheer up, it's Friday before Memorial Day weekend!

If they're creating a product that (generally) impresses a professional illustrator as much as it seems they do, I'd say they care.

And Gabe's write-ups always seem very honest to me.

Microsoft care about the money that artists are willing to pay for their product. If that induces them to make a product artists like, great.