Surface 2013: good bye iPad?

[IncarnateX]

Well there is the case for hybrid use. That is you use a keyboard/mouse for tasks that are best suited to that, and touch (which is necessarily less information dense than the traditional GUI and so requires more swapping around) where it makes sense.

Yes but that equals half a touch screen approach to me. if I should run around with an additional keyboard and a mouse to make music on my iPad, portability would be lost and the touch screen would hardly make a point. Why jump back and forward between mouse and screen, when you can do all with a mouse the good old way? Because it feels "smart"? Well not to me, I already have a touch screen computer and the hybrid approach sucks as far as I am concerned.

[IncarnateX]

Not that it couldn't be done, as IgnorantX people will beleive.

I haven't said it couldn't be done, butthead, just that is a pita, why it doesn't make sense and certainly doesn't compare to how things work on a iPad.

[BMoore]

Not that it couldn't be done, as IgnorantX people will beleive.

I haven't said it couldn't be done, butthead, just that is a pita, why it doesn't make sense and certainly doesn't compare to how things work on a iPad.

Of course. Because every music app on the iPad is perfect for touch, eyh?!

[IncarnateX]

Of course. Because every music app on the iPad is perfect for touch, eyh?!

Did I say "every" app , Columbo? And no, some are ported from PC like Rebirth and people complain about that. But otherwise most are just perfect because they are made for the iPad

Besides from you having the most twisted logic ever and being about 40% less intelligent than a piece of plywood, I guess you either really do not own an IPad or do not own any music apps. I have 80+ and they work pretty fine with touch screen compared to windows programs.

[Image-Line]

Well there is the case for hybrid use. That is you use a keyboard/mouse for tasks that are best suited to that, and touch (which is necessarily less information dense than the traditional GUI and so requires more swapping around) where it makes sense.

Yes but that equals half a touch screen approach to me. if I should run around with an additional keyboard and a mouse to make music on my iPad, portability would be lost and the touch screen would hardly make a point. Why jump back and forward between mouse and screen, when you can do all with a mouse the good old way? Because it feels "smart"? Well not to me, I already have a touch screen computer and the hybrid approach sucks as far as I am concerned.

You misunderstand.

While 'running around' you use touch apps, like FL Studio Groove or FL Studio Mobile. While at home you connect to your peripherals and use something like FL Studio (or DAW of choice).

FL Studio Mobile Projects are compatible with FL Studio and FL Studio Groove will be released as a VST so you can load complete projects made with it inside FL Studio. In this case a Windows Tablet is a far more flexible and powerful device than an iPad.

At this point in time, iPads while a lot of fun (including FL Studio Groove) are are great for getting a lot done while you are away from your desk. But they fall over when you need to get serious work done. The screen-size alone makes them frustrating and inefficient to do any detailed large-project activity and that's not even mentioning the whole audio monitoring problem on mobile devices.

This video pretty much sums up the problem ...



The Windows Tablet approach (and Apple OS XI pad if they ever do that) is the best of both worlds. Once there are enough touch-based music apps to suit your needs of course.

Another thing to bear in mind is that, outside of work environments, content creators (that's you), probably account for less than 0.1% of Desktop Computer/Laptop/Tablet/Phone users. It's the mass market (video, games, internet) and work/business users (video editing, word processing, spreadsheets, accounting) that will decide the fate of various hardware/OS formats. Music producers just need to hitch along for the ride (as always).

Regards Scott

[Leslie]

Surface MKII 2 looks good, especially Pro version, but it's just a shame that it still runs on Win 8 instead of iOS 7.
Maybe Surface MK 3 will...

[robogone]

Well back to the the original intent of the post - no, I don't think that Surface has a hope in hell of leading to the demise of the iPad.

[Biscotto]

Well back to the the original intent of the post - no, I don't think that Surface has a hope in hell of leading to the demise of the iPad.

Demise? That's up to Apple to do so.
We said similar things about Android. While the iPhone is still a Classic, its market share has declined considerably.
About the future, Job made a miracle twice, in creating Apple and then resuscitating it.
Job is not longer available. Maybe in the Cloud somewhere. You'll never know

[robogone]

We said similar things about Android. While the iPhone is still a Classic, its market share has declined considerably.

While Apple has lost market share, I don't think it's proportional to the number of units shipped. I think Android has made large gains, but iOS hasn't made catastrophic market losses in anything other than overall share.

Remember that the market is still growing and that Blackberry market share (at one time the market leader) has dropped to almost nothing. So while Android grows at a phenomenal rate, it's not really at the expense of iOS.

[IncarnateX]

point in time, iPads while a lot of fun (including FL Studio Groove) are are great for getting a lot done while you are away from your desk. But they fall over when you need to get serious work done. The screen-size alone makes them frustrating and inefficient to do any detailed large-project activity and that's not even mentioning the whole audio monitoring problem on mobile devices.

Yes if you are about to record the royal philharmonic orchestra. Meanwhile electronic musicians like myself has far enough gear on the iPad to finish everything we want. There are published lots and lots of electronic music made solely on iPad everyday on soundcloud and there is even a label specializing in it. I have not heard any complaints from those artist about the screen size of the iPad. If any of you were active in the 80s and beginning of the 90s you would know that the iPad now offers a lot more than the workstations ( like M1) we used back then and on which whole bestselling albums were produced. I understand your approach, though, after all you have to try to sell both FL Groove , FL Mobile and FL Studio

[IncarnateX]

Another thing to bear in mind is that, outside of work environments, content creators (that's you), probably account for less than 0.1% of Desktop Computer/Laptop/Tablet/Phone users. It's the mass market (video, games, internet) and work/business users (video editing, word processing, spreadsheets, accounting) that will decide the fate of various hardware/OS formats. Music producers just need to hitch along for the ride (as always).

The iPad is hardly going to replace the PC though you can actually play games and do a lot of business work on it too. However that is putting all this upside down because question here is whether any hybrid running traditional software (like FL studio) is going to replace the iPad (see thread title) and not vice versa. So far it doesn't seem so. Surface pro has been out for a while and does not seem to be a threat to the iPad. If there are any, it is due to other tablets.

[Biscotto]

So while Android grows at a phenomenal rate, it's not really at the expense of iOS.

I'm not sure. I have not real data.
Many users keep switching around and the majority I know of left the iOS.
This means nothing of course being my nano point of reference.

The major factor of argument, I see here, are the Apps missing in the Windows market being the top reason for the superiority of the iPad vs the new Surface.

Logically then, if the apps were available equally to both, then Surface, being also a complete operating system on its own, would then have the upper hand unless Apple would match it with a similar beast.

If Apps are not the issue, then I guess, the iOS experience is the winner factor and the case is put to rest.

[Image-Line]

The major factor of argument, I see here, are the Apps missing in the Windows market being the top reason for the superiority of the iPad vs the new Surface.

Good points.

Being a user of Android (Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Sony Xperia Z Tablet), iOS (iPad), Windows (7 desktop & 8 Tablet) and Mac OS (MacBook Pro) I can tell you that:

The iOS vs Android 'consumer' user experience is very similar, in terms of achieving whatever you set out to do smoothly. The quality of apps on both sides range from terrible to fantastic. The halo apps are all there on both platforms and are working just fine. It really doesn't matter which one you use...and for Apple that's not good news.

Except...for music production where iOS has the upper hand due to the low audio latency 20-50 ms vs 80-140 on Android (and in the overall market this pretty much is irrelevant to most users). But musicians are the <1% so don't think we are going to influence how the overall platform wars play out.

I don't think the iPad has much to worry about from Windows tablets (in the near term), just Android ones.

The problem with Windows 8 at the moment, due to the lack of touch-optimized apps, is that you are occasionally unceremoniously dumped back into Windows desktop land, and that sucks when you don't have a mouse and keyboard handy. Or you run into some tech-support issue that requires a keyboard attached, that you don't have. Bad on a tablet, no big deal on a laptop/ultrabook. For 'consumers' this is an experience killer and one of the main reasons 'consumers' are not loving their Windows 8 tablet experience.

Once Microsoft can keep you in tile-land 100% of the time if you want to stay there and let the Desktop users have their Start menu back (Windows 8.1). They will be on a winner.

FWIW: Windows 8 just passed 8% market share, I think you will start to see some more activity in Windows 8 app land. FL Studio Groove (Windows 8/8 RT only) is selling at similar rate to our iOS and Android apps. Some of that may also be due to the (almost) complete lack of competition...we'll take that while it lasts

Regards Scott

[Kalamata Kid]

To get things rolling on the Surface Pro and Windows 8 when used with a touch screen Microsoft should pay the top 20 music app developers to make apps for their tablet. Could this cost maybe $20,000? Perhaps there are other ways to encourage and motivate these app developers to make Surface apps.

Without any music apps musicians will not buy the Surface pro. Left to the natural progression it may take years for app developers to make apps for the Surface Pro.

You realise that as an x86 computer surface pro runs all windows vst and hosts?

I had assumed that the Surface Pro had a 64 bit processor not x86. Oh well!

The point I was trying to make and apparently did not do a good job was that musicians that are looking for a tablet or a touch screen experience now buy the iPad I primarily because it has the most music apps and some simply like Apple products. If there were more apps available for the Windows 7/8 with touch screen, musicians like me would ignore the ipad and go for the more powerful computer that has the option for a much bigger screen and to top it off you can run your Windows DAW and all the VST and VSti's in the same screen like ericj23 said. WOW! That's great! Now if only it had more music apps.

Microsoft should pay the more popular and best develops to port their music Apps to the Windows 7/8 touch screen system. Once the ball starts to roll its own momentum will suffice to bring in more developers. My tow Cents!

[Image-Line]

I had assumed that the Surface Pro had a 64 bit processor not x86. Oh well!

It has an x64 core i5 processor.

BTW why is this thread obsessed with the Surface? There are now lots of i5 & i7 tablets on the market from other manufacturers.

Regards Scott